I'm not afraid of it - I'm just at a disadvantage in terms of information. When I fly into some random city where I don't know anything about what a normal taxi fare is I can't negotiate can I?
It's also just something I don't want to do - I don't want to have a stand-up argument with someone about money, thanks. I also don't want to unblock a toilet but that doesn't mean I'm somehow afraid of it.
But some people are afraid of a negotiation, yes. A vulnerable person, stuck somewhere alone in the dark getting into a belligerent argument with a taxi driver could be an extremely frightening experience.
Taxis also requires you to carry physical cash, which again makes you vulnerable - to robbery. And again that probably is much more of a concern to people more vulnerable than you.
> To me uber is just an extension of the habit of calling your parents to pick you up after soccer practise.
Good? That was a great system when I was a child. It was safe, friendly and didn't involve any cash. If we can replicate the same great system for independent adults that's fantastic.
Ostensibly, almost all taxis in America take cards also - the problem isn't a failure to install readers. (It is true that Uber introduces credit card support in countries where taxis commonly lack it, or where a tourist's plastic is incompatible with directly paying on local systems.)
In the US, though, the problem isn't a shortage of readers. It's partly that instead of drivers swiping cards, there are often car-installed readers in the passenger area, which are a pain to fix when drunk or angry riders break them. But it's largely a tax/overhead scheme, where drivers say their reader is broken so that they can get cash and underreport fares.
In many places they're required to inform passengers in advance when they can't take plastic, but that doesn't mean they actually do so - and the problem was even worse before ubiquitous cell phones enabled "I'll stay here and we'll call the cops". Even with most taxi companies launching their own ride-hail apps, a significant selling point of Uber is avoiding common issues like drivers demanding cash or inflating costs with longer routes.
> I don't want to have a stand-up argument with someone about money, thanks.
Why not? It's not so bad. I prefer to negotiate my own contracts. To rely on some third party to do so is infantilizing.
If I got into the habit of avoiding stuff like that, I wouldn't be able to travel and live like a local. You know when I travel it's sans apps. I use paper maps road signs and no GPS, I take local cabs, even collective cabs. It's never been a problem, and asking people for help has led to much better travel experiences.
I guess you could say I prefer full contact travel.
> Good? That was a great system when I was a child. It was safe, friendly and didn't involve any cash. If we can replicate the same great system for independent adults that's fantastic.
Except that now the 'parent' isn't a benevolent person with your best interests at heart, it's uber. Why hand all that power over to an unelected, unethical company?
And like i said above, such a system is inherently paternalistic, and infantilizes everyone.
(I'm not attacking you personally of course, it's just that your post perfectly exemplifies an attitude that I have a
passionate counterargument for.)
I'm just advocating for the full contact approach to living which I think is being subtly eroded by disney, cruises, resorts, cashless restaurants and uber and so on.
I don't know if you read travel writing, but imagine trying to read a good travel writer like Paul Theroux, except by first transposing everything into the mediated realm.
Instead of taking a cab and then staying at a small local hotel and eating at a market stall what if the writer took an uber then stayed in a resort and ate at the buffet?
I understand your point of view, but an argument about a taxi fare, and paying a restaurant bill with cash instead of a card just don't seem like high quality life experiences worth cherishing to me.
> I take local cabs, even collective cabs. It's never been a problem
This may be a significant part of why other people are disagreeing with you.
Pre-Uber, I had bad experiences with cabs perhaps 20% of the time. Mostly it was just unreasonable fare demands made after promising something else, but it did escalate to some light stalking and threats of physical violence. (And for whatever it matters, I'm a largish guy and still had that experience.) The vast majority of those experiences were with licensed taxis (or in the worst case, a fake licensed taxi) in America.
I'm not at all upset by bartering, asking for help, or struggling with language gaps. I actually agree with you that we've lost something due to Yelp reviews, online bookings, and the larger move to impersonal and intermediated travel. I've had friends be genuinely surprised when I suggested that we skip Yelp while traveling and just wander until someplace looks interesting.
But taxis? At best, the mechanical experience is arriving where I'm going. At worst it's a conflict far worse than I can even imagine having in a restaurant or shop. The only personal touch is talking to the driver (or a fellow passenger), and ironically I've actually had more engaging conversations with Uber drivers than with drivers in traditional taxis.
I am not afraid. But I don't enjoy it either and I'd rather not do it. The same way you tell others "time to grow up" I can tell you "time to get civilized".
Personal transactions, based on reputation and persuasion and goods-on-hand, predate agriculture and settled habitation. In fact, they predate humanity by quite a bit. Definitions of civilization vary, but all of them that I know involve sedentary agriculture, written communication, and social stratification or organized government. Pretty much all of that represents a move away from face-to-face dealing by equals.
I can certainly believe that civilization effectively sacrifices positive human interactions and free association in the name of reliability and (sometimes) efficiency. And I'm very open to the idea that a society full of Homeowner's Associations and impossible-to-override checklists is abandoning normal human interaction for no real benefit.
But I think that's hard to address without conceding that this is part of the same process as calling the cops instead of starting a fistfight; civilization is in large part the process of adding more intermediaries to our interactions.
I don't know where you live; around here, taxis have had regulated prices for decades, so you don't negotiate either. The only real difference is that you can ask one to come to you rather than aimlessly walk around looking for one.
* An argument against the disneyfication of everyday life where all the risk is taken out of face to face interactions with other people. To me this reduces us all to the level of automatons in a machine controlled by large companies.
* An argument that a cashless society will remove all anonymity in financial transactions.
Ok there are no doubt people who value those things. There are an equal or greater number of consumers who value the opposite position:
1) "My time is more important to me than haggling over a price with a shopkeeper." Or, "I don't find the process of bargaining interesting, and I'd rather save that time and energy for other creative or human-connection type activities."
2) "Avoiding the time/inconvenience overhead of dealing with cash and change holds more utility to me than the promise of anonymity, and the credit card rewards are a plus."
I'm not going to argue for a cashless society. (Which I agree would be bad even though I primarily use credit cards for the convenience.)
I actually don't use taxis/Uber/Lyft all that much when I travel. If there are good transit options, I usually do that. Or I just walk around a city. However, when I do need to, making the ride higher friction, requiring me to have local currency, potentially being overcharged, etc. are not really a source of exciting travel experiences for me.
I'm somewhat with you on disneyfication and I don't do cruises, rarely go to a resort, and haven't been to a Disney theme park in many decades. But taxi rides seem an odd hill to die on with respect to this question.
> But taxi rides seem an odd hill to die on with respect to this question.
You could say that insisting that you have the source code to all the software you use also seems like and 'odd hill to die on' but I think now the general public is just starting to realise that RMS may have been on to something.
>where all the risk is taken out of face to face interactions with other people
All of the risk is not in taxi fare negotiation, nor is that the source of all face-to-face interactions with other people. Seems like you're trying to argue a mountain out of a mole hill.
You guys are so funny! Afraid of negotiating a price? Really?
Perhaps it's time we became grown ups?
To me uber is just an extension of the habit of calling your parents to pick you up after soccer practise.
Also soon there won't be any cash at all, and so no anonymity in any financial transaction, thanks for promoting that!