It could even help with getting in and out of orbit; you get a craft up to the right altitude and the sideways velocity can be supplied by the hooks, and then returned to them to deorbit.
I believe there was a startup that was developing one, but I have no idea if that's still ongoing.
I highly doubt space elevators for Earth are decades away, more like centuries if they are even possible at all. Even if technically possible (which is a big if), they also need to be environmentally, politically, culturally and economically possible.
It's a cool concept, but it ain't going to happen on Earth. Maybe on the Moon or some other place perhaps.
Isn't 'skyhook' a concept used in one of the Batman movies, based on an old military concept? He releases a ballon on a tether which gets snagged amd reeled in by a passing aircraft to extract him from a dangerous area.
/edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery_system
Fun fact this tech was used to snatch gliders carrying plane crash victims and paratroopers and one very drunk journalist out of the Papua New Guinea jungle during WW2.
I learned about this from MGS5 and initially thought it was just some fever dream Kojima thought of. Turns out, it was a fever dream some American army engineer came up with and actually exists.
now imagine that but instead of lifting batman into the sky it lifts him into space ...