My only experiences with normal taxis have all been ones where (a) nobody at the dispatch offices of any of the major taxi companies in my area ever actually pi

My only experiences with normal taxis have all been ones where (a) nobody at the dispatch offices of any of the major taxi companies in my area ever actually picked up, (b) the driver didn't actually speak enough English to be comprehensible, or (c) the driver had no idea where I wanted to go despite referencing local landmarks. Uber and similar services aren't available in my area, but if they were I would use them in a heartbeat, given that their methodology contains reasonably good answers to all three problems.