> instead of waving down a taxi in the street. That has never existed in any of the 3 countries I have lived in. Taxis were always ordered by phone. At least s

> instead of waving down a taxi in the street. That has never existed in any of the 3 countries I have lived in. Taxis were always ordered by phone. At least since the 1960s drivers were offered trips via radio by the taxi switchboard, in 2000s the available trips appeared on a screen on the dashboard. Well, it might depend also on the density, but at least outside of massive city centers some kind of booking has always been required. > None of that requires either Uber specifically or a ruthless gig-worker model Exactly. > a clear argument for why app-powered taxis in general should be able to bring taxi prices down We are on HN, so I assume few would resist to use IT to optimize a problem. However, my expectations of how much such systems really save costs in the end would be rather moderate. Don't underestimate human optimization if experienced drivers pick their rides from a list. As mentioned, technology for that has existed since the 1960s. Does Uber really offer anything better for the driver?