Checking the iOS App Store reviews on the local taxi app I am currently using they go back to 2011, and that's not the oldest one. It has also been available on Android since March 2012. All prior to the dates Uber started operating here.

Maybe the fact that they were the most regulated services around was exactly why they were atrocious. Regulation often erects barriers to competition. It's impossible for a regulatory body to spell out every way in which a company can be exploitive and disallow it. The only thing that prevents bad behavior is meaningful competition.

It was this regulatory body that limited the number of cabs that could be on the road at any given time and set "fair" meter pricing. What resulted was that if you lived in a poor isolated neighborhood, there would be no cabs willing to take you there or driving around to pick you up. Uber solved this pretty much overnight.

This assumes that “most regulated” correlates with less atrocious. Or that the intentions behind regulations are always good. Regulations can indeed makes things less atrocious, but other regulations can just as easily make things more atrocious. I’d argue that many taxi regulations were more the latter than the former. (I.e arbitrary limit on total number of taxi vehicles, while allowing an unlimited number of non-taxi vehicles)

As in most rules on the books, not in actually enforced rules I presume?