> I'm sure you could call a black cab on the phone and ask them for an estimate....?

You could but sometimes the driver is end up 30 minutes late and you have no way of knowing where they are.

Sometimes the driver shows up, sees your ethnicity and drives off.

Sometimes the driver takes inefficient routes to make more money off you.

Sometimes the driver checks your destination, says its too far and goes away.

There were many problems with the "call a cab and cross your fingers" service in many counties that Uber helped solve

That's basically saying that anything that's not a 100% original idea can not be considered a great idea. There are plenty of things that are built on existing ideas but the execution is part of it.

An idea is useless without good execution and there's no real reason to credit people on ideas, lots of people have good ideas but almost none execute well on it. For example there were plenty of online mapping companies available, but when Google Maps came out they completely dominated because their execution was so good. It's crazy to just reduce that down and say it wasn't a good idea just good execution.

The core of the idea is "make it frictionless for people to hire cars without having to talk on the phone to Danny Devito." I think the idea is actually meaningfully different and if I'm going to take a black car, it's going to be via an app, not a phone call.

They also executed well.

OTOH, when I take a limo to and from the airport (well, normally), I call their office and do the scheduling. I know there are people here with an aversion to telephones but this works well for me. Much better than rideshare for this purpose as pickups are often zero-dark-thirty in an area without a lot of drivers. (And, yes, it's relatively pricey but this is usually business.)