Befofe Uber, unless you were at one of the few cabs stands, waiting 1 hour for a cab, that may or may not even show up was not uncommon.
Uber and Lyft have changed people's lives in most places they operate.
How long you had to wait for a cab has nothing to do with driving a cab being a good income.
I've been in cabs pre-Uber all across the US. In places like Buffalo, Albany (any college town, really), all over Long Island, DC, LA, etc., I've talked to loads of cab drivers pre-Uber and they were making okay money.
I used to take 20-minute cab trips in Long Island that cost $100. The zone and per passenger system in Albany made fares very expensive. I knew a student cabbie in Buffalo who paid his tuition and then some ferrying drunks between the campus' and the bars.
Cabs suck ass in most areas of the country because of government regulations granted them exclusive rights at the expense of the consumer. Turns out the consumer will use Uber or Lyft instead of cabs if given a choice. Nothing is stopping cabs from competing.
Also, see Cable TV/broadband Companies.
My comments were purely based on the parent commenter saying that "driving a cab was never a decent living, ask any cabbie", which is false.
This is a derail. Does raise an interesting discussion of whether consumer convenience should always be optimized for though.
If you look at clothing, it's convenient and cheap because of an exploitative labor market built on appalling wages and child labor. Maybe I don't want the pilot of my plane or driver of my car working under those conditions though...
Lol, nope.
My (single) mother drove a NYC taxi cab from 1978 through 1992 (after previous careers playing in orchestras, selling commercial real estate and being a corporate comptroller). The money she earned doing that raised two sons; she was able to invest in 6 medallions (though she was ripped off by her business partner, that's another story) and eventually helped her go back to nursing school.
Many, many cab drivers used to be able raise families on their income. In the 1980s it was a pretty decent, albeit dangerous, way to make a living. There were even whole city blocks, in Midtown, where all/virtually-all of the businesses were related to taxi service and repair (38th street on 10th avenue and another in the mid-60s on I think 3rd or 1st).
In the 90s, for whatever reason that started to become untenable and a rapid exodus of Sikh cab drivers began where they moved their families to New Jersey and started doing black car elsewhere.