Is it though? Cabs have apps now. What makes them different? If the answer is the price, well, that price is unsustainable and denies thousands of people a living wage.
The answer isn't price (IMHO). It's the quality of service. I'm mostly talking about better cars, friendlier drivers, and rides that show up when they say they will.
I haven't used a cab app. Are the taxi apps similar to Uber and Lyft's where it identifies the car and driver and you can track the location of that car on a map? Do drivers and passengers rate each other?
Answer: it depends. When I lived in Malmö they had Taxa97 which was basically the same as Uber/Lyft. You can schedule rides, rate drivers, map view, and see the price of the ride before you take it. same with the taxi apps in Denmark. Other places have not as nice taxi apps. But in general taxis having to compete has generally brought them in line with U/L, at least in most of Europe.
The only major difference with the taxi apps is that the drivers are first party instead of third party so the companies have a perverse incentive to trust their drivers more than the riders. Of course, the more competition you have the less of this behavior you see.
Uber offers a single app that works in most major cities in the world, which is fantastic as a regular traveler.
Versus having to find, download, and set up a new app for every new city... maybe on roaming data or dodgy airport WiFi... when you've just flown in...
