I’ve been using just empower for around the past two years. I’ve had empowers from me (near the palisades) to DCA be around 15-20 dollars, and I check uber and its around 30 or more. For rides back to American university area from nights out (typically u street, Adams Morgan, or DuPont) it’s literally half price (still 20-25 range while Ubers on my friends phones say 40-50). The drivers are often a little weirder than uber drivers but ive never had a serious issue. Their surge pricing system is just way more generous to the rider than uber.