Claims like this go viral because they're practically unfalsifiable (It isn't in Uber's best interest to make their pricing algorithms public) and generate clicks. But when you take a closer look, it's always some anecdote that can be explained by people selecting different pricing tiers, or by multiple phones looking at the same route implying increased demand (the latter search might display a higher price). A proper experiment would involve dozens of phones under different scenarios making searches in a random order, then trying to correlate the variables with the prices. But for whatever reason, nobody ever does those experiments.
For what it's worth, I checked the price of an Uber with credits in my account against Lyft to the airport just now, and Uber was slightly cheaper.
0. https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/verify/verify-does-uber-ch...