It used to be that you'd have to google the number of the local taxi companies (if you're lucky enough that they have a web presence (pre internet you'd ask the hotel concierge, or check the yellow pages, and many of them never updated past that model)) then call the dispatcher, who would grunt something at you and hang up, and if you were super perceptive you might be able to tell whether they said a cab is coming or not. If you were leaving the airport or a really busy hotel then you'd just walk into the next cab to pull up with no dispatch, though.

There were pre-Uber attempts at app dispatches for cab companies, but different cab companies would use different ones, they were all shit, and most of them didn't do it.

So the cab companies did fuck this up and Uber did a better job, and Uber replaced them, and everything "improved" exactly how it's supposed to under capitalism. But cab companies and Uber aren't people; the actual people (drivers) all got fucked over.