As I climb up the Uber Shanghai learning curve, I have a few more insights to offer:

1) My biggest gripe with Uber is that their "minutes away" numbers often jump from 3 to 11 AFTER your request the car... during those extra 8 minutes, it is highly likely that an empty taxi will pass by
-I often cancel in these instances, and Uber is very good about refunding the cancellation fee, but I still dislike the added hassle

2) My second biggest gripe is that drivers often program their GPS devices to take FULL advantage of highways and avenues
-in most cases, this strategy hurts them financially (because the minimum distance is quite generous), but it wastes a LOT of time (e.g. Hongmei Lu to Xujiahui should NOT route via IKEA, and should NOT require 30 minutes... I could almost walk it in less time)
-in short, be prepared to play the "navigator" role

3) Last night, I asked my People's Uber driver (guy with new BMW 5-series and solid day job) why he bothers. His answer was "an extra 20k per month". He went on to say that Uber is catching on like wildfire in these parts (e.g during the course of the past month alone, the customer base has shifted from 80% foreign to 80% Chinese).

4) Nearly all drivers think that using phone calls (to communicate with passengers) instead of Wechat is really stupid on Uber's part (none bother with SMS)

5) If you choose to wait for Uber in a dining establishment, pick one near a major intersection because most drivers suck at finding street addresses (in spite of the fact that SH street addresses are pretty straight forward)