From what I understand and vaguely remember from visits as a kid was that it wasn't uncommon to pay for a ride for someone on their way to or from work. The economy was so bad that cab drivers were frequently from all kinds of background, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, etc but all needed and appreciated the ability to make some extra untaxed income.

Which is yet another case of capitalism replacing what was a common courtesy with a business transaction. I have very conflicting feelings about this.

A courtesy, yes. But a common one?

(I'm actually genuinely interested - was this common at some point in history?)

The idea is that by picking up people, you can drive in the HOV lanes.

The challenge with the free/common courtesy model is that casual carpools are just not getting enough cars off the road. Lyft is solving the two biggest challenges I see in carpooling 1) convenience of having the app route you to people who are close enough to your route and can be dropped off without adding too much time and 2) making you feel more comfortable picking up strangers. Adding money to the equation to encourage more drivers is fine with me as it reduces car traffic and pollution.

To be clear, I'm not saying it's a bad thing - it's just that my alarm bells go off every time I see a business creeping into what used to be a money-free zone, so I thought I'd raise that concern.