Pre-uber it was common at McCarren Airport (Las Vegas) that taxis would intentially take you the wrong way to spike their fare. Those who knew would have to demand the driver to not take the tunnel, and even then they would argue with you. There is no reason not to think that this was common everywhere.

Why do you think TNC drivers don't do this, especially when the company is incentivized to ignore it? Pro tip: if the driver's phone isn't visible from the rear passenger seat, pull up the route on your phone and watch them like a hawk.

The uber/lyft driver subreddits and web forums used to be full of stories of drivers bragging about intentionally taking the 'long way'. Drivers bragged about how the often strange and dynamic routing used by Waze and Google Maps made it very easy to take a random turn that adds miles to the trip (or lots of traffic, preferable if the driver has a hybrid) and how they could just dismiss the customer's questions with "oh, I don't know, I'm just following the app" (except for the purposeful wrong/missed turn.)

I used to take Uber/Lyft occasionally and I'd always pull up the route on my own phone because I'd frequently catch my driver starting to make an unexplainable turn, or intentionally choose a very high-congestion route instead of a faster arterial road.

If you don't know the city well, it's easy to miss the driver purposefully making one accidental wrong turn that ends up adding significantly to the fare.

The difference in my city is that if your taxi driver did this, you could complain to the police unit overseeing taxis.

Now? You complain to Uber and they give you a discount or correction if you're lucky and haven't been too much of a squeaky wheel.

In some places (I don't think it's everywhere) Uber charges/pays the estimated fare from before the trip regardless of the route actually taken, I believe. In theory that makes it harder to do the thing being described, but it also obviously means a driver who gets stuck in traffic on the route uber says they should take is gonna get screwed.

There is plenty of reason - while I heard rumors of it, I never experienced it. Also, in most locales taxis make a significant bonus from the 'flag drop', the start of a ride. Prolonging rides isn't as profitable as finding new ones.

I’ve been taken on much longer rides than necessary in multiple cities. Las Vegas and Chicago are the first that come to mind. It’s also nearly impossible to know how much a taxi ride will cost in advance. The app and “quote” are the game changer with Uber and Lyft. If the Taxi companies (especially in Vegas) would build a similar app and pre-quote my trips, I’d probably still use them, even if they are a little more expensive, because Uber stops are typically much farther away. But Taxi companies don’t seem to want to.

As a POC and for many of my POC friends in NYC Uber was a god send. The discrimination is real.

Also a POC and never had an issue with NYC taxis.

That's great! I'm glad you never had to experience it.