> It is also completely their choice to drive at the time when people are leaving bars.

I browse a lot of driver subreddits (r/uberdrivers, r/doordash, r/doordash_drivers, etc) and it's surprisingly common to see people complain about things like this. Imo this is extra weird when you consider this is a major selling point of these apps - "You can work your own schedule and you won't have a boss to worry about" is part of the allure and is often even how the apps are advertised. I would be interested to know why this is such a common theme but people don't usually comment on the why on reddit

I can imagine you get a bit fed up with it after some guy pukes in your cab every night though.

But he didn't mention this in the article at all so apparently that's not his complaint. What he does complain about is indeed what a taxi service is for. I wouldn't call Uber a "rideshare" anymore, this is how it started but all Uber drivers are pros now. It's just a "taxi license (and worker rights) avoiding taxi service" now :P

The idea of ridesharing was that you'd take a trip to place X and people could chip in and join you for the trip. But literally nobody uses Uber for that anymore.

It's also a "filters out awful drivers" and "avoids price gouging and dishonest practices" service. I hope gig drivers get their rights better protected, but I hope we also never go back to the days of awful taxi drivers. As a plus it also eliminates dumb rent seeking from taxi medallion systems

Taxi drivers here aren't bad at all but perhaps that depends on the city. Here in Europe I've only experienced this in Bucharest, Romania and there it's a known problem that has its origins in more general societal developments.

The license systems were indeed pretty bad, the scarcity made them artificially expensive which was pretty ridiculous. The problem was the investment that taxi drivers had made, it made it pretty much impossible to abandon the system.

Still I don't think Uber really helps the drivers. Now they have to share their already-low wage with a megacorporation.

Plus--I think he took creative license on the conversations.

"Hold her down, and I'll keep her mouth busy". And of course they ask him why he isn't laughing.

It just sounds made up for article dramitism.

Do people drink more because of cheap ride share--yes.

The problem is ride share is not cheap anymore.