By its original definition that i stated in my first post? As in, someone that will go from point A to point B anyway, not because they're paid for it, and takes passengers that have the same need?
You must be an outlier, everyone I know including me just uses it like a taxi where you don't have to explain on the phone where you want to be picked up from and where you want to go (and where you know how much you'll pay when ordering).
The fact that they don't want to label themselves as taxis doesn't make them any less taxis.
There's another app that still hasn't been flooded by commercial transportation using it as an advert platform: BlaBlaCar.
In my experience in Ukraine and Poland over the years there's been only a few times when it was a company offering transportation. For the most part it's a private person travelling anyway and picking up people to cover the fuel cost.
In my eyes it's the 21st century hitchhiking, as you get the safety of knowing passengers ahead of time (and some degree of screening by the app itself), but still just go wherever you were going.
It's a fair complaint. At least in the USA, "ride sharing" meant some form of carpooling for a long time, and, in some jurisdictions, that definition is even baked into laws or regulations. Services like Uber do offer a ride sharing option, but using it to describe all Uber riding is a bit of a misnomer, and does have the effect of undercutting or even co-opting an existing conversation that was about congestion and environmental impact reduction rather than personal convenience.
That said, the cows are already out of the barn and have been for years now. We probably can't get this new understanding of the term out of the vernacular anymore, so I guess we'll have to make do with an important conversation topic now being permanently confusing.
From my experience using Uber and similar services outside of the US: not at all. Here in Europe at least they all work as taxis, more specifically here in Sweden almost every Uber I've ever got was a normal taxi using Uber as well.
The same in Berlin, Oslo and Barcelona, at least that has been my experience with Uber since 2017 in numerous cities around here.
Uber tried launching "ride-sharing", also called the UberPOP service in Sweden in 2015 completely flouting the laws. Many of the drivers were quickly convicted for illegal taxi services and Uber had $2M in unpaid taxes and social security from the short period of time they operated which they paid without question .
Since anyone is free to run a taxi business in anywhere Sweden as long as they fulfill the base requirements the whole "ride-sharing" angle to get around medallion systems and what not does not apply here. For now Bolt has completely eaten Ubers cake and is the largest taxi app in Sweden.
It wasn't when I was there last time in September/October 2020, I could still call cabs through the app and pay. I believe they only connect to licensed taxis, at least the app worked for hailing one.
