Every hour driving my own car is an hour I'd be paying a human to do the same task I can do myself in a situation where there is little else for me to do. Can you see how cost-inefficient this is on a labor basis until the need for labor is removed? Taxi drivers are up there with gas station attendants and toll collectors in terms of "jobs where the person who is being serviced could perform the same task easily for free." These types of jobs are extremely at risk to automation (see FaskTrak and self-service gas pumps) since if the person being serviced can perform their job, likely a computer can too.
The reason Uber works in cities is not because it's somehow cheaper to take taxis on a per-hour basis than owning cars there, but because the need to do so is less frequent so the overall net cost per year is less than owning a vehicle where parking space is at a premium. As soon as you get into a situation where you need to use your car regularly for (relatively) long periods of time, like living outside of the city in America, the labor costs of the driver go through the roof and the "illusion of freedom" is a very real one.
The reason Uber works in cities is not because it's somehow cheaper to take taxis on a per-hour basis than owning cars there, but because the need to do so is less frequent so the overall net cost per year is less than owning a vehicle where parking space is at a premium. As soon as you get into a situation where you need to use your car regularly for (relatively) long periods of time, like living outside of the city in America, the labor costs of the driver go through the roof and the "illusion of freedom" is a very real one.