Comment by nradov

Taxis lost at least partly because the workers were assholes. Refusing to take credit card payments (the card reader is "broken") or not picking up members of certain ethnic groups or not driving to certain areas. Sure some cabbies were nice, honest people with good customer service skills but those were the exception in many cities.

There was nothing stopping taxi companies from raising investor capital to build better apps and back end technology infrastructure. They were just lazy and incompetent.