In some cities, they did, even before Uber existed.
But they still had to pay their drivers a living wage. Uber didn't, and people went with the cheaper fares.
Then there were no more taxis, and all the taxi drivers were making a third the money driving for Uber.
The situation is a complete mess here :/
Then they sold to a UK company, who sold to a German company, who recently sold to Lyft, each step along the way the new owner finding ways to make the service worse.
Well, now we're stuck at the airport waiting for a mob of cars to fight each other to transport us each as least efficiently as humans have figured out how to do. But at least we can stare at our phone while we wait to get fucked.
And this doesn't even touch the horror of the driving side
Meanwhile, my city is suing a local cooperative for "safety reasons" or some bullshit. I don't expect anything to ever improve at this point.
In lieu of that, you can just look at the back of any taxi. They'll have the number on it. It's usually like 8888888, because the personal injury lawyers always have 7777777.