To be fair, prices fluctuate a lot based on time of day. Just checked the price of a 2.7 mile ride to a restaurant I like in Brooklyn and an UberX is $17.90.
Mentioning Brooklyn is also a good segue into the ambiguity of a ride "in New York City"; I suspect that even at the same time the price of a ride will vary by borough (or even neighborhood within a borough). The price of a ride from lower to upper Manhattan will presumably be different than the same distance in Brooklyn or the Bronx or Queens (although we can all probably agree that no reasonable person would interpret the question as being about Staten Island...)
Yes, I agree with this completely. Depending on the time and day, a price could be wildly off even compared to the exact same route a month earlier.
Yea, but that's their system. If you can't predict the price of a ride because it changes minute by minute, then that's not exactly great.