Ten years ago, hailing a cab was a very different affair.
However, a 2018 report by Schaller Consulting found that for-hire vehicles drive an average of 2.1 miles without passengers, between fares.
Also, most New York cabs are now Toyota Camry's which the city estimates to have an environmental rating of 25 miles per gallon.
Uber has decimated the value of taxi medallions.
After the expansion of Uber in New York, the value of taxi medallions — limited amounts of which are sold at auction by the city — has plummeted by nearly 75%. And, of course, street-hailing is vital for those without smartphones or a credit/debit card.
The 'NetJets of car services'
This, in a nutshell, was — and still is — Uber's value proposition. NetJets, a company that allows you to buy fractional ownership in a private jet — has been owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway since 1998.
Uber originally wanted to screen its customers.
Today, anyone with a credit or debit card and a smartphone can be instantly connected with a driver. GPS (and photos) make finding your driver much easier — something that hasn't changed today.
It's not just luxury Mercedes sedans these days, either.
According to the original pitch, Uber cars would be luxury Mercedes sedans. Today the most popular cars are Toyota Prius, Honda Civic, and Toyota Camry.
"Profitable by design"
Uber has yet to turn a profit. In its most recent self-reported quarterly financials, the company said its growth had slowed while losses were continuing to increase.
GPS
GPS is obviously still a main tenet of the app. SMS summoning, on the other hand, seems to have gone by the wayside.
Saving destinations with specific labels would have been much more important for text-hailing.
Still, saving addresses into the app for easy selection is a big time saver.
Not all of Uber's eco-friendly potential benefits have played out.
The same 2018 consulting report found that an average of only 63% of fore-hire miles driven are with passengers.
The fleet looks very different today than originally planned.
Today, a majority of the Uber fleet consists of Toyota Prius's and Camry's, Honda Accord, and Ford Fusion as well as the luxury models it mentioned in 2008.
The origins of surge pricing
Though traditional surge pricing is now largely gone, Uber had long foreseen its ability to use trip data to forecast demand and incentivize drivers in areas of increased trip requests.
Knowing where riders and drivers are — and what areas will be popular in the future— is still one of Uber's most valuable products.
It all comes down to data.
Uber could be worth $120 billion on public markets — a far cry from the $4.2 market estimate it had ten years ago.
Airport trips still make up a large chunk of Uber rides
In many cases, Uber rides have become so popular at airports that some cities have altered their pick-up and drop-off lanes to better facilitate ride-hailing. Cab lines, astonishingly, are still a thing though.
And the company easily hit its best-case scenario.
In the third quarter of 2018, Uber brought in $2.95 billion in revenue.
The market breakdown of smartphones in 2008 is another great example of just how ephemeral tech can be
Today, Samsung makes up the largest smartphone market segment, with Nokia's market share just a fraction of what it was then.
Uber had its eyes on medical or governmental transportation, but its exploration ended up going in other directions
Healthcare is still around, though. Uber Health was announced in March 2018 as a way to provide " reliable, comfortable transportation for patients." It could be a big area for both Uber and its competitor Lyft, which recently announced the hire of a VP for healthcare.
The rest is history.
Uber launched an Android version of its app two years later, in 2010, when it began to rebrand from UberCab to Uber.