Leaving ads aside - I respect New York taxis. I feel safe riding in yellow cab. The moment i step into yellow cab - I feel that this whole industry is so heavily regulated - there is very little chance to stumble upon some "random weirdo" driver or deviate from intended direction for some shady reason.

I tell my wife to take yellow cab in NYC airports, not Uber-X.

The problem with yellow cabs is that 90% of them look like run down shit. They're no cadillacs. The problem ends here. We get predictable pricing and predictable person and predictable drive. In airports they're just there. No disappointments with trusting Uber's misleading arrival times that typically grossly exaggerated, no shady callbacks from Uber mafia driver trying to figure out where you're going to find excuse not to take you there.

Try to take Uber Black in LA airport. You'll get immediate callback from armenian mafia driver with attitude pulling all kind of BS to judge whether take you or not. 75% of chance he'll insist that you need to cancel the ride (not him of course).