[rick_perez]

We don't need AI to end the middle class.

Services like Uber are replacing what used to be a stable job by fewer drivers with a job now done by many more drivers for peanuts. It's almost a way of taking an industry and redistributing the wealth.

[dragontamer]

> Services like Uber are replacing what used to be a stable job by fewer drivers with a job now done by many more drivers for peanuts.

Right idea, wrong complaint.

GPS is the automated tool that killed the Taxi. There was a time when it took specialized knowledge to know the layout of a city. GPS took away the one edge the Taxi-industry had... experience in driving and roads.

Uber is just the first major company to take advantage of cheap GPS technology. As soon as GPS-systems were so cheap that they are in literally everybody's pockets... the Taxicab industry became an endangered species.

[rick_perez]

"GPS is the automated tool that killed the Taxi."

No, not really. When I travel to a new city, I always use a Taxi to get around. GPS actually helps out the taxi drivers because I don't need to sit there explaining exactly where to go. I can just tell them the address. In a foreign country, it's even better: Just give them a business card or piece of paper with the address on it.

"Uber is just the first major company to take advantage of cheap GPS technology."

Uber is the first major company to avoid all of the taxi unions and the medallion systems and hire any driver off the street for what amounts to some extra beer money for the drivers.

It's really convenient and nice for consumers, but guts the industry of jobs that could actually earn someone a real living.

"the Taxicab industry became an endangered species."

Again, no it didn't. I'm not sure how much traveling you have done but when you need to get somewhere on time, Trains and Subways don't really cut it. You need to take a taxi.

Unless we have an instant form of travel without cars, we will always have a need for taxis.

Uber did, however, show us that when unions are in place and create a monopoly in an industry, they really have no incentive to actually make things better for the consumer.

[dragontamer]

> Uber is the first major company to avoid all of the taxi unions and the medallion systems and hire any driver off the street for what amounts to some extra beer money for the drivers.

Oh come on. As if these Uber drivers would have been able to navigate an unknown neighborhood in the 1980s.

The enabling technology here is the GPS, specifically the free GPS in everybody's smartphone. Without that, the entire Uber model fails because the typical Uber Driver has no navigation skills.

[prodigal_erik]

The driver's GPS made driving more accessible. But the passenger's GPS was even more important, because tourists finally know when they're being ripped off.