Nothing says luxury like quiet servitude.
It’s not the talking that bothers me, it’s an Uber that smells like smoke. I get this maybe 1/10 times. It’s disgusting. The smell stays with you. The talking is solved with a pair of headphones.
This is nothing more and nothing less than a preposterously stupid and preposterously tone-deaf roll-out. Back in the days of taxis we also had towncars. Look on Google for "towncar near me" and you'll discover they're still available. A "car service" is a big black Lincoln instead of a Toyota and it may or may not have a partition between you and the driver. Either way, the driver is probably wearing a suit, and won't talk to you unless you talk first. You pay a little more for this than you do with a cab. The principle difference between a taxi and a towncar is you reserve a towncar. Uber has had Uber Black for a long time but they didn't take it all the way to having town cars. If they had, they would have had customers with an expectation of not being talked to for spending more money. Instead, they've got people going "whoa holy shit they're telling me to shut up to earn more money".