Find me a private hire firm, operating across the entirety of metropolitan Melbourne (Australia), with a pickup time of under 30 minutes, with a rate that is available to someone you wouldn't describe as "independently wealthy".

I'll wait.

Of course, I've tasked you with an impossibility. You're saying I should use a service that doesn't exist. The only way that services like the one we're talking about work is by having a surfeit of vehicles available, and the only service that has that in Melbourne is uber.

You can call what I was saying a "silly stance", but you're saying that from a position of ignorance.

Perhaps, for a moment, you should consider the outside perspective.

On the other hand, if you do find the service I described, please let me know. I'd like to use it.

It's not ignorance, if there were such a massive opportunity for a taxi firm in Melbourne, without rides being subsidised by Uber's deep coffers, why didn't one spring up?

It's the same taxi drivers driving you today as would be driving you 4 years ago.

There’s a threshold where the service fundamentally changes.

Phoning a cab here is looking for the local cab company number, getting shitty call quality, argue with an operator where you are, wait who knows how long for a cab you don’t how it looks like, explain the driver where you’re supposed to go, do the “fucking let me pay by card” dance.

Even trying one of the national cab company’s app only reduced that shittiness by half. It can be the same drivers at the wheel, the delivered service difference is still night and day.