I've never used uber or lyft, but I used sidecar yesterday for the first time, and given this was my first experience with this kind of service I have to say this is so much better than having to hail a taxi. It sucks that you have to have a smartphone, (what do you when battery is out) but otherwise it's easy to see how transformational this kind of new service is. You can pick your driver, your driver can accept or reject based on your destination, you can see how much they will charge up front, and you can tip right from your phone making the thing entirely cashless. It's pretty amazing.