Others have gotten the main points, but I'll add one more.

Before Uber, there was no guarantee that your taxi would ever come.

You had to tell the dispatcher both your location and the destination, it would be relayed, and then the drivers would decide if it was worth the effort.

Often short suburban trips outside weekends would not be as profitable to drivers and so they wouldn't pick you up and there was no way to tell except repeatedly calling up.

So, imagine 11 year old me, standing outside alone in 40 degree summer heat for 90 min waiting for a driver that never came. This happened several times.

Uber really did make things better for awhile.