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Call a cab and wait and pray. Get a call 30 minutes later asking if you still want a cab. Wait 20 more minutes for a cab to actually show up.

This is in a major metro. Calling for a cab sucked if you weren't in a busy area, in which case you could just walk to a major street and hail one.

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They said the app was innovative, it was not to me because I already had something similar, and what you're describing has nothing to do with the app. You're just describing a not terrible taxi company, which has existed in many places far before Uber.

It seems the main thing they did was be big enough to ignore the rules that kept taxis in some parts of the US so terrible.

Not at all, their main innovation was combining pricing theory in a way that worked. They got drivers on the streets during major storms to keep wait time down. Fascinating

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