Lyft picked up first at 9:51 p.m., followed by Yellow Cab at 9:53 p.m., and this time it’s our Uber couple who stood in the cold waiting for Uber X to arrive at 10:01 p.m.

During a taxi ride late one night a few years ago, a cabbie started berating me for asking him to drive the 25 minutes from downtown D.C. to my home in Maryland. At the time, I thought to myself ...