[999900000999]

Hotels were just fine.

Taxis were discriminatory and "uncool" to the point were Uber has saved thousands by preventing drunk driving.

Now if you go out with the boys and get drunk, it's a 30 second casual call to get an Uber and get home.

Live in a neighborhood Taxis are afraid to service，you can either make some extra income working for Uber or use it yourself. When Ubers used as its intended purpose, to basically make a quick buck, it's a lifeline to many low income people .

Say your rents it's going to be late, you can pick up 20 or 30 hours of Uber this month to make it happen. It's not really a career though...

[Marsymars]

> Say your rents it's going to be late, you can pick up 20 or 30 hours of Uber this month to make it happen.

Maybe... I really don't get how the economics work out here though. If you look at the numbers, it mostly just seems like you're converting car equity into cash via depreciation.

But also, I'd guess that for a big chunk of people who are going to have trouble paying rent with any regularity, they'd have to overpay for their car in the first place to get something that's Uber-appropriate. My car's a couple years too old for Uber now, but is still perfectly functional, and there's just no way the math would work for me to buy a newer car so that I can convert its capital cost into cash via Uber.

[4ggr0]

> Say your rents it's going to be late, you can pick up 20 or 30 hours of Uber this month to make it happen

that sounds so incredibly dystopian, not sure if that was the intention :(

[verall]

It's super dystopian and it creates bad incentives (the harder the underclass is squeezed the better a product it is for the middle class), but I have to agree that gig work is often a lifeline for poor people.

I consider it similar to access to unsecured credit that way - it's easy to feel like "wow this industry is scamming these people it should be illegal" but people without any other backstop will probably need access to unsecured credit sometime and it's better than losing their house/car/job/pet/family etc..

[gardnr]

maintaining a precarious class benefits those in power

[999900000999]

I forgot to mention, Jitney cabs( unlicensed cabs primarily serving minority neighborhoods)came long before Ubers. They're more of less gone now though.

What's better. Taking out a 300% APR payday loan, getting evicted or working an extra 20, 30 hours of Uber.

[BrandonM]

Maybe to you, but I was broke during and shortly after college. If I could have picked up some gig work when I needed it, that would have been a huge help.