Interesting - I've only been using Uber for ~2 years now but I came across it from the opposite direction. I couldn't afford them until UberX came out. I took an UberX last night and the driver didn't know the cross street in Harlem I told him to go to. He insisted on me finding the street address and putting it in the app so that GPS could guide him. Then he asked for five stars before I left. His car had random water bottles in the back seat.

But none of that bothered me.

I want to get to point B from point A - that 15 minute user experience isn't really important to me. So all I care about is cost and, atleast here in NYC, UberX can sometimes be cheaper than a yellow cab.

Different strokes for different folks I suppose.