Taxis in the SF bay area have always been a joke. The few times I've called them they often say they have no drivers in the area, or they claim they will send the driver but he never shows up, or they send one and it takes an hour. Hailing one in the street like NYC has never worked for me. There is no penalty to a driver if he picks someone up on the street before he gets to you, so they usually don't get to you. In Uber their rating would drop and eventually they would get fired. Not to mention Uber lets you order the cab without a call detecting your location, watch the car come to you on the map, communicate with the driver the entire time, and handles all the payment. So the innovation over taxis is enormous.
I'm appalled that Uber had to go over the route of breaking laws to essentially have the same kind of service that we got here in Brazil with "taxi apps". They've been around before Uber started I think and have some critical mass now, around 2 years after they started.
It's basically Uber but for cabs, I think that's why I've never been over-the-top thrilled by the Uber concept, it's something that already happened and didn't have to break any laws to get the same convenience while not fucking with the cab drivers (who are people too).
In Manhattan there are taxis everywhere. Sometimes I'm lucky and get the first cab I see, otherwise I may have to wait a few minutes. If you're clever about where you try to hail from, you won't have to wait long.
you clearly live in a privileged location most cities don't have cabs roaming all over the place and you would have to walk numerous blocks through unsafe areas to get a cab on a major through fair.
