If your cab can’t be hailed with an app, tracked to arrival, provide an estimate, pre paid etc - then the problem is that the cab regulators and cab companies in that particular city are bad. It’s certainly not something inherent to taxi, it’s just that in some cities with outdated regulation (for example most US cities it seems) the service sucks and hasn’t improved in years. Where I live there is no difference between taxi and Uber. For example, I could hail my taxis with an app ten years ago (note: before Uber even existed!).