Well, in France, I've been cheated more than once (often in Paris), had very rude service, I often end up having taxis that fail to show even though I booked an

Well, in France, I've been cheated more than once (often in Paris), had very rude service, I often end up having taxis that fail to show even though I booked and as I mentioned taxis are not at the taxi stand from the Train station or the airport despite saying they would be there when I called the central. They also refuse passengers sharing a taxi (which shouldn't be something they're allowed to refuse). In Lisbon, in Portugal, I've taken taxis and Uber often enough to compare. Very often taxis refuse to use the GPS (even if they have one) and take much longer routes than they should (and pretend not to understand my Portuguese when I correct the route they're taking). I agree that in certain countries, Taxis usually provide good service (Japan for example and China to a lesser extent) but for now Uber does introduce much needed competition in some countries that really need them. Also, unless I'm mistaken, Berlin has competition, Uber is available there. In Paris, the taxis only started having an App after Uber came. So, at least, in Paris, it definitely contributed to improvements (I'm not sure in Berlin if the app came before or after).