It did function "somehow", but not as well as it functions now. Hailing a cab (or an unlicensed one) when it's cold or rains was a struggle. No food delivery. No bus notifications and maps routing.
Heck, it worked somehow before the Metro was dug by Stalin in the 1930s, but not as well as now.
So you're correct if you don't mind the quality of life.
I really don't get the food delivery thing. It's expensive as hell, slow, and mostly delivers a bunch of highly processed food you'd be better off not eating anyway, unless you're really starving. I've got far better things to do with my money than pay too much for bad, cold food.
Even during the entire 2020 Covid lockdown craziness (which was quite properly never really taken seriously here in Texas - even Austin!), we ordered food delivered exactly twice. All other food was either bought at the grocery store and cooked at home, or from restaurants (I actually miss being able to walk into any restaurant that was open and be instantly seated and served!)
> It's expensive as hell, slow, and mostly delivers a bunch of highly processed food you'd be better off not eating anyway
This depends on where you are! In Moscow, food delivery can be a 25 minute affair delivering you something from your favourite (vetted by you!) restaurant.
In Stockholm for example (at least when I used to live there), the number of restaurants that sign up for delivery is very low and you mostly just get shitty "Swedish pizza" (curry banana shrimp pizza, anyone?)
London is somewhere in between. Maybe it's just a function of city size, something something economies of scale.
I’m kidding of course, but those systems that kept the city running are probably obsolete and forgotten about in the 2020s.