> It also kinda hurts that the isolation of people is seen as financially viable. I would argue, but with very little to back me up, that there is an intangible (and perhaps a tangible) benefit from closeness to those we associate or do business with, that we are losing.

As an introvert, I appreciate that there are services that isolate me from unnecessary contact with people.

Where I live, taxi drivers often try to strike up conversation and get "friendly." Not only that's awkward and uncomfortable for me, here it's also generally not very safe to indulge in chitchat with strangers (you can get marked for scams, muggings or worse.)

I'm an introvert as well...plenty are...but I don't think avoiding "unnecessary contact" is really healthy. Introversion is a weakness as I see it honestly...a negative feedback loop of underdeveloped social skills yielding yet more fear, insecurity around social contact. It's not a binary condition like I'm a Leo or a diabetic. Just saying, it's probably better to view as personal challenge than a condition that needs to be accommodated outright.

Social anxiety and introversion are not the same thing. I am an introvert, and need a lot of alone time to feel properly refreshed. People, even ones I love, wear me out.

But I have no problem whatsoever interacting, and have zero social anxiety. Need me to talk in front of a group? Sure! Meet new folks? Great! And I genuinely enjoy doing these things. But it burns a lot of mental energy to do so. I need quiet alone time, too, and a lot of it.

I say this not to make anyone feel bad about social anxiety, but rather to try and make people not feel like introversion is a defect. It is not, in any way, shape or form. So seriously, don't beat yourself up about feeling introverted, if that is how you are. Anxiety is a different beast, and working on that will help. And if you get it under control, and still enjoy an introverted lifestyle, that is 100% OK, normal, and healthy.

> An (ex?)uber driver I know in a semi rural area now just connects directly with locals and runs a charter to and from the nearby city, as those were most of his fares.

Either he's driving without commercial insurance (very risky) or most of his savings from Uber fees are going towards the same.

Probably the former based on conversations I've had with various drivers. It's a bit more common than people first let on. From the drivers I spoke to that have cut out Uber/Lyft as middlemen, typically they started out on the platform and established a rapport with a customer (almost always a business traveler who has regularly scheduled trips). Customer and rider exchange info and then it's a regularly scheduled under-the-table operation where the circumstances of the ride are incredibly easy to conceal from insurance and even the tax-man.

I've long thought the endgame of Uber is open-source software that continually automatically adjusts how much of the transaction it skims off so that it always has just enough to pay its own AWS bills.

Who would do dispute resolution, driver verification, and background checks? Who would get sued when a driver assaulted a passenger or vice versa?

Just thinking aloud: Uber doesn't actually run driver verification and background checks, they hire other companies for that. In a more decentralized world, drivers would pay for that service themselves and get a digitally-signed certificate that they could upload to the software. Same for being sued: the driver would have to get insurance or escrow a certain lump sum (and upload proof too), so that if someone sued and won, the money could be used to pay for that.