in my experience, taxi quality varies wildly depending on where you are
in bay area, it absolutely makes sense to invent uber, because the taxis were awful. and in vancouver (canada), they're also awful, and deserve the disruption: they would often tell you it'd be a 40 minute wait, and then just not show up
taxis in new york were and continue to be totally fine. you just stand outside and get in ~20 seconds later, with no hassles or apps. i've been in an uber/lyft a handful of times in nyc, but they're just worse (possibly cheaper, but the subway also gives them stiff competition, and i don't care that much if i'm in enough of a hurry to take a cab)
Vancouver was a great example of the corruption inherent in monopolies. Vancouver had neither Lyft nor Uber until 2020. I heard (internally, when I used to work for Uber) that the reason is that some politicians there had a personal stake in the taxis, so they got a $50 minimum fare passed for all booked rides.
The thing that Uber and Lyft really provided was a surveillance economy to keep both the drivers and riders somewhat in-line. Without it, every ride is an almost anonymous one-shot transaction with almost no recourse on one side, so the game theory suggests that service only has to be good enough that the police aren't called.
in bay area, it absolutely makes sense to invent uber, because the taxis were awful. and in vancouver (canada), they're also awful, and deserve the disruption: they would often tell you it'd be a 40 minute wait, and then just not show up
taxis in new york were and continue to be totally fine. you just stand outside and get in ~20 seconds later, with no hassles or apps. i've been in an uber/lyft a handful of times in nyc, but they're just worse (possibly cheaper, but the subway also gives them stiff competition, and i don't care that much if i'm in enough of a hurry to take a cab)