I am being pedantic and never worked for Uber but I always assumed it was sidecar, I vividly remember them all over the city with their side mirror covers--don't ever recall seeing Wingz, though I am sure the existed.
I would argue it was not even so much that they were doing "things the right way", they were optimizing black car service and pivoted because it was not as lucrative.
What they pivoted to wasn’t lucrative either. I ubered all the time when it came out because pricing was like $4-7 for most trips that would be $30ish or more now. It was fueled on vc money to prime a generation of people going to bars to use uber and it worked perfectly. Now people just reflexively call that uber even when its surging to $60.
I would argue it was not even so much that they were doing "things the right way", they were optimizing black car service and pivoted because it was not as lucrative.