You had no issue this time. If the driver cancelled you'd still be standing outside and you'd miss your flight. Unlike public transportation, there isn't another arriving in 30 minutes.
Are you sure about that? I remember taxis being notoriously unreliable before Uber was around.
It seems like that's a major reason Uber took off - passengers could actually see the car was coming, rather than placing a call and just praying the driver didn't pull a no-show.
Anyways, I don't think either of us have anything beyond anecdotal evidence so it's hard to say.
Uber hasn't done nearly so well in the UK as in the US. Outside of London, you can't find an Uber anywhere and the same local taxi firms from before Uber are still competing, largely based on their local reputation. (Plus now they all have whitelabel apps which have all Uber's features)
Where do you live?
Where I live, this kind of thing happened so frequently that the reputation of the entire taxi industry was ruined; people simply had no alternative. Now that they do - I have not witnessed or heard anyone talking about calling a traditional cab at all in the years since Uber came along. I wonder what the actual market figures look like.
From a cab driver perspective it makes sense, why travel somewhere empty for a pickup when you can grab a fare on the street?