I haven't seen many people defending the cab industry, which is clearly broken in many markets, including mine. I get that you hate cab companies. I do, too.

However, I'm just not sure that I like Uber any better. Most of the issues you describe with taxi drivers apply to Uber drivers as well.

As for your happiness metric, I'm not so sure about what you call facts. Asking your driver isn't going to provide useful data.

One type of dysfunctional business just got replaced with another.