Can we collectively agree that the reason why people are reporting very different experiences with cabs before uber, is because cab-rides in different locations were very different experiences?

In London, the chance that calling a cab (or even the less regulated minicab services) would result in a no-show seemed remote. In San Francisco, it was a regular occurrence. In the rural UK, calling a cab would have been a rare, expensive event, and would require finding an unoccupied local driver among a very small subset.

I'm sure there is even a wider variety of taxi implementations worldwide.