I live on the west coast and generally try to use Lyft first when I need a cab because they seem to be the marginally more ethical company, but I still often find that I can get a car from Uber faster and more affordably than Lyft. I've also found the UX of the Uber app to be a little more mature than that of Lyft. Like I can effortlessly send a cab to someone else with Uber while with Lyft it's awkward.
> but I still often find that I can get a car from Uber faster and more affordably than Lyft.
Lyft surge prices are much higher IME. At a particularly bad time, a surge Uber trip downtown where I live might be $25, Lyft will charge me $60 for the same ride. I wonder how much of that the driver sees.
I've had the opposite experience - It was 1:45am
At SJC, and Uber surge pricing for the ride home from the airport was $210.00 (this exceeded the cost of the airfare to fly 3,000 miles).
Ultimately I feel I've had both experiences depending on which locale I'm in. Depending on whether 1, the other or both ave a critical mass of vehicles in an area on any given night, I've seen either be cheaper/faster (although I find overall anecdotally that Lyft does better in places I frequent on the West Coast, Cleveland and Dallas. Everywhere else it's seemingly totally up for grabs), but neither service seems canonically "better" except that Lyft seems as mentioned previously, slightly less ethically challenged than Uber (a threshold that isn't hard to beat frankly).
