That may well be the case, so I voted you up as I'm not sure why you were greyed out for pointing this out. But taxis are heavily regulated partly because the taxi lobby itself demanded these sorts of barriers and taxi lobbys have been notoriously effective at shutting Uber down. They appear to have a lot of political power, and convincing politicians to let taxi firms use new technology should be the easiest lobbying gig in the world.
Reality is, even in parts of the world where taxis are not heavily regulated, no taxi firms got even close to Uber's competence and sophistication. They simply don't have access to the right people or technical knowledge to produce the same experience (evidence: my local taxi apps that are trying to compete with Uber are all buggy incompetent messes).
The taxi “cartels” can’t “compete” with Uber or “improve their services” to match Uber. Some of the key things that make Uber attractive to customers is low rates and the ease of booking through an app. Taxi companies are *legally prohibited” from competing on rates. Rates are set by the government, and surge pricing (which allows Uber to offer cheaper rates to more cost sensitive customers by charging more to less cost sensitive customers) is illegal for taxis. Likewise, the government usually regulates metering and payment processing for cabs. It’d be illegal for most cab companies to do GPS based metering and smart phone billing like Uber.