You walked to a busy street and hailed one. I remember trying to phone in a cab from Nob Hill pre-lyft, they said one would be there in 45 min and we should be

You walked to a busy street and hailed one. I remember trying to phone in a cab from Nob Hill pre-lyft, they said one would be there in 45 min and we should be waiting outside because they will not call you. Also when uber first implemented the uber-taxi option before uber-x, I tried it and would regularly have multiple cabs cancel en-route to me because they just picked up a closer fare.