Disruption, is good.
And any disruption which brings about the complete and total disintermediation of a manufactured, and artificially maintained monopoly, really warms my cockles.
Uber should have done that.
Slight correction: Uber did that. Initially.
For the incredible public benefit they have done in exposing, and almost driving to extinction the various taxi commissions around the country and indeed, in other countries, which merely exist to artificially limit the numbers of registered/certified taxi cabs that ply the motorways.
However, within a few months of Uber becoming ‘a thing’, they completely lost me.
At first I thought it was because I was not in their target demo.
Confession: I have never used Uber. I also don’t intend to use them. Ever. I enjoy the privilege of having alternative transportation provided ad hoc. For which I am, of course, grateful.
However, in conversations with those infinitely smarter folks than myself that agree to come down and engage with me, it dawned on me that my reasons from my growing distaste for Uber stemmed directly from the increasing number of revelations about the underhanded way Uber conducts business.
This year, the year of Our Lord 2017 Anno Domini, the former trickle of bad news has become a deluge.
In fact, there have been so many crazily insane stories about Uber that I have dubbed 2017, as “Uber’s #YearOfLivingDangerously”, hashtag mine.
This past weekend, I was away with mi famiglia, and since I actually traveled without a PC, I read the various fishwraps provided by the hotel. And lo and behold, in the New York Times, I read the pretty damning story, “Uber’s CEO Plays with Fire”.
Unbelievable!
It is a completely unflattering look at a company that embodies, celebrates, and festers a culture of deceit, a blatant disregard for regulations, and corporately completely disregards those laws that they don’t like.
Now, more than ever, I know why I don’t like them.
Please, go ahead: read that story.
© 2002 – 2017, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited
Follow @johnobeto