- Messages
- 10,831
- Location
- vancouver, canada
I imagine it might be different in a big city but in the smaller centres (under 100K residents) where we use Uber all the drivers we have used love driving for Uber. They use the model largely as a side gig or love the flexibility it offers. To a person they loved the gig.In the Before Times I shopped much as you do -- I often dropped the lovely missus downtown and swung into a supermarket (a couple of them are right on the route back home) and picked up what I needed for that night's dinner. But she's been working from home for 14 months as of yesterday and has been quite clear in her view that I take as few opportunities to be exposed to the virus as reasonably possible. This was of more concern when cases were spiking and vaccines were not yet available. (I got my second Moderna on April 6.)
As to Uber et al ...
Yeah, it's easy to object to the model from a "labor" perspective, but it's really no more exploitative of the workers than the taxicab industry has been in most American locales for many decades now. I'm highly sympathetic to the immigrant fellow who paid some hundreds of thousands for a taxicab medallion a few years ago that's worth a very small fraction of that today. For him, that really sucks. Uber and Lyft were operating in clear violation of many cities' ordinances, but there was little political will to enforce because the riding public clearly preferred the service over the taxicab operations. Better vehicles, more timely service, and generally less expensive (a lot less, in most cases). It's much more efficient.
When I worked in larger cities I would take taxis. The last cabbie I spoke with in a larger Canadian city said his business slumped a bit when Uber first arrived but it soon returned to normal levels. His take is they have expanded the market and more people are using car hire services rather than cutting into a finite pie. They also help out during peak times like the end of hockey games when there are just not enough cabs to meet the episodic demand. Uber drivers come out of the wood work and pick up the slack.