> Much of the US like Huston and Miami is extremely lacking in public transit, and will likely never build the infrastructure.

I am not trying to be a contrarian here, but I fail to see how that is an answer. I feel like what you say boils down to "since we are not solving the problem at hand in a good way, we decided to solve it in a worse way".

> ~50% of your fare goes to the driver.

Yet these ride-hailing companies who receive whatever is remaining after the meager pay of the rider and other costs only recently started to make actual profits. And even though it feels like the prices for customers increased a lot over the years, these companies are not exactly printing money.