> Uber works much better than taxis (once upon a time, people could "call a dispatcher" an hour in advance, wait on hold, etc)

Uber rides ARE taxis.

The innovation of Uber wasn't done by Uber it was done by everyone having a GPS enabled always connected phone and computing device in their hand at all times.

Uber isn't just taxis - if a bunch of taxi companies just got together and developed a taxi ordering app that looks just like Uber, it still won't be Uber.

Uber is a whole bunch of things combined:

- very intuitive taxi ordering UX (for riders) and dispatching UX (for drivers).

- circumventing regulation so there are no more artificial limits on taxi supply in a given city.

- enabling gig economy: because you can use your own personal vehicle, you can work anytime you want for however long you want. You don't need to lease a taxi for an entire week or an entire month. You can choose to work for 4 hours on a weekend only during surge times if you wanted to. So it allows supply to be elastic to meet demand while also offering flexible work arrangements for part-time drivers.