GoCatch seemed to me to be a response to pretty terrible taxi dispatch.
Slowly, at least where I live, the dispatches for companies are being merged and centralised, often to places far away.
One of the cab companies here has moved away from the Windows Mobile (?) based terminal to just issuing a phone/tablet with an app that looks like it's from about 2001, but the drivers seem to like it.
My take? Uber and Lyft themselves are a response to pretty terrible taxi dispatch. (And, in certain parts of the US, to policies like medallions that impose a supply cap on taxicabs.) Most places I know of that have a free-ish market for cab rides (Israel, Australia, etc.) have local cab-hailing apps with similar interfaces to Uber that have outcompeted it in the local market.
Slowly, at least where I live, the dispatches for companies are being merged and centralised, often to places far away.
One of the cab companies here has moved away from the Windows Mobile (?) based terminal to just issuing a phone/tablet with an app that looks like it's from about 2001, but the drivers seem to like it.