For what it's worth, my last Uber was with a former cabbie who was very clearly a first generation American. I asked him which he preferred. He said he vastly preferred Uber. He said he actually got to pick his hours (meaning he could spend time with his family) and the generally well-behaved customers.A multi-billion dollar tech company pushing into town illegally and undercutting working class immigrants that are subject to strict regulation really really bothers me. It should bother anyone who even feigns concern for the plight of the disadvantaged.
I've never understood why carrying cash is such a big deal. One slim card in my wallet and a weekly trip to one of hundreds of ATMs in the city keeps my wallet well stocked. Paying for $3 purchases with plastic really cuts into small businesses' bottom lines.
I worry about the plight of the disadvantaged (a significant chunk of my work experience specifically in the nonprofit world working with said communities), but to say that reinventing a frankly inefficient and annoying system of getting from point A to point B is not caring about the poor is disingenuous. Are cabbies really any worse off using one flawed system over a new system in town? Should we be bothered by people who use Amazon instead of buying their goods at the downtown Target (a store that as a former employee I can attest to being overwhelmingly staffed by first-generation immigrants and generally poor/disadvantaged people)?
I would go to ATMs more often if we had a system similar to the UK, where every ATM is fee free for other UK bank users. But it's not. And I hate carrying around a bunch of change (a huge pet peeve I had about the time I spent in the UK...a very bulky wallet). My father is a small business owner so I certainly know that fees can cut into the bottom line of a business. At the same time, the fee is generally built in to the price of goods, plus it's not like handling cash is some fee-free system. It has to be stored, counted, brought to the bank (which is time and transportation costs), etc. There's always loss from miscounting, dollars getting misplaced, or--in the past--less than honorable employees. Sure, he pays a fee for goods paid by card, but it automatically gets safely deposited into the business's bank account every day. Guaranteed.