It’s become a “thing” for left-thinking “progressives” to exclaim, with suitably “passionate” outrage, “Did you know that Uber and Lyft drivers receive only 25% of price of a trip?”
Well, I do now, of course, but here’s the good news for the righteously enraged: You can do something about that all by yourself! Yes, yes, you can, by simply leaving a 25% tip! Problem solved!
I’m guessing that few of the vocally righteous are 80 years old, as I am, or dwell in a big city, as I do. Because here’s the thing—Uber/Lyft is a godsend to geezers! And city folk!
Us geezers really shouldn’t be driving in the first place. Uber/Lyft makes that possible. Uber/Lyft are better than owning a car, particularly in the city. You don’t have to park! If you’re a geezer, one of the places you’re going to be going to a lot is a hospital. Ever been to a suburban hospital, O young and virtuous ones? It’s a three-block hike from the parking lot to wherever you’re going! But not with Uber/Lyft. Wherever you’re going, you’re delivered to the door. End of story.
For us city folks, there’s no renting a parking space, for, you know, $250 a month! Or buying one for $25,000! And if you’re not renting, no trooping four or five blocks to wherever you parked on the street, and no cruising for half an hour or more to find a space when you’re returning home. There are no monthly payments, no insurance payments, no taxes, no gas, no trips to the repair shop, no estimates, no loaners, no forgetting where you parked, none of the hassle that comes with owning a car.
None of the many Uber/Lyft drivers I’ve had looked undernourished or oppressed. They typically come from countries like Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cameroon, Columbia, etc.—places where, I suspect, the prospect of being paid not a great deal of money to spend the day riding around in a comfortable, late model, air conditioned car, listening to digital stereo or talking to your friends on the phone might sound like, you know, a pretty good deal!
Recently, I got a ride from a 75-year-old black guy who was, unusually, not a foreigner, who clearly had an alternate source of income—Social Security, probably, or perhaps a government pension—who drove for Uber as a supplement. “Drive when you like,” he told me. “It’s freedom!”
Freedom! Yeah! Freedom for him and freedom for me!
*Perhaps 20 years ago a young research associate in my then office told me that when her middle school “banned” both “retard” and “retarded” from acceptable speech, the more politically incorrect among them popularized the derisive use of “leotard” as a substitute—though I don’t know if anyone went for “leotarded”.
