The irrationality of the anti-Uberites

My first encounter with Uber was in December 2012. It was a bone-chilling winter’s night in New York City and I was on my way to dinner. Stepping out of a warm lobby onto the ice encrusted sidewalk of 41st Street I decided that my initial plan of walking downtown was not wise. While hailing a yellow cab seemed like a sensible option, getting one was, as is so often the case, a problem. After waiting for a long 10 minutes without success, I remembered the Uber app I had curiously downloaded a few days before. Reluctantly removing my gloves, I opened the app, selected the car I wanted, and pressed the button entitled ‘request’. In less than a minute a vehicle was pulling up by my side.

I have been using Uber ever since. I used it all across the US, in Europe, in London, and even on a trip to Tokyo, where it proved to be an invaluable way of navigating the sprawling metropolis. Safe to say I am a regular customer and a fan. That, however, is where my link with Uber ends: I am not a spokesman for the company; I am not paid by them; I do not get special perks; I do not have shares or any financial interest in them; and I have no relationship with those who own or operate the company.

Such disclaimers are important for, as I learnt yesterday, any defence of Uber on social media is met with a barrage of reactionary comment from those who oppose it. For daring to mention that Transport for London’s latest proposals represented an effective ban on Uber I was bombarded with comments from London black cab drivers and their defenders, all screeching that I was nothing more than a paid Uber hack whose ignorant and ill-informed comments should be dismissed and ignored.

As a lover of debate I am always deeply suspicious of those who try to forestall it. Claiming that someone has an affiliation or vested interest and therefore that their points are automatically false and should be dismissed, is a classic case of this; indeed, it even has a name: it is a logical fallacy known as argumentum ergo decedo. That I actually don’t have an interest in Uber adds blatant dishonesty to the charge.

Then, of course, come the insults. You happen to have a different point of view so you’re a ‘liar’, a 'sleaze-bag’ and a 'denier of human rights’. Louise Cooper, the astute city commentator who defended Uber on a radio show earlier this year, was subjected to even viler vitriol for daring to express her opinion. Again, such touchy responses are interesting: those with facts on their side rarely need to resort to such ad hominem tactics; those without them who are running scared usually do.

So what, exactly, are these individuals running scared of? It’s very simple: they hate the fact that Uber is taking business away from them and they want to defend their trade. Such a position is perfectly logical and entirely respectable; every employee and business owner worries about loss of livelihood and will do what they can to protect themselves. However, there is a right and a wrong way to react and respond; a positive and a negative way.

Fortunately, positive reaction is the route for which most opt. It involves understanding demand and then analyzing how to meet it in a way that is superior to the competition. This is exactly what Uber did: they came up with an innovative way of meeting people’s transport needs. It is this course of action that every pioneering company from Microsoft to Apple to General Electric to Ford to Marks & Spencer, and now to new firms like Airbnb, have always taken: they’ve innovated and in so doing have helped to improve the lives of those they serve.

Admittedly innovation can be painful. It displaces old industries, disrupts working patterns, and changes established orders. But this is the price we pay for the myriad of new opportunities it also brings. Is there anyone who would now credibly claim that protecting the livelihoods of blacksmiths should have been prioritized over the development of motor cars?

But what of those who do not want to compete or to accept that their way of doing things may be threatened? They, of course, opt for the negative response. This route always follows a similar pattern: not able to convince the consumer of the benefits of their service or product they seek to use some form of coercion to force people to use it, or at least to deny success to their competitors. Sometimes this force is physical but in today’s modern age it more often than not takes the form of government intervention: the granting of some favor, privilege or license to which only they are entitled, or the encumbrance through regulation or legislation of the efforts of their competitors.

Such responses are dishonest and disreputable, not least because they deny consumers what they actually want. They are also lazy as they involve very little thinking or innovative effort. As such, they are the antithesis of advancement: they hold society back in order to protect the vested interest of the few. In this post 1980s world, blatant protectionism is generally seen for what it is and is broadly unpalatable. As such those that wish to pursue it need to give it a veneer of respectability and often justify it on the grounds of public safety, the public interest, or some other vague and elastic bromide.

It is here that black cabbies – who have lived in the protective bubble of the state for far too long – have become highly inventive in their bid to bolster and maintain that protection. According to them, Uber is guilty of seemingly every crime under the sun; indeed, to read their list of complaints you’d think it was a firm run by the devil incarnate, which is probably what some of their more radical members actually do believe. However, as vociferously as they present them, many of their claims lack even rudimentary logic.

Some of the charges are completely contradictory. Uber undercharges and undercuts better services, they claim; yet in the next breath they gleefully regale stories of how Uber drivers have ripped off consumers, charging ludicrously high fares for even short journeys. Uber drivers are underpaid they opine; then they proceed to post an image of an Uber earnings notification to expose the long hours worked which indicates a payout equating to ￡21 an hour.

Other charges reek of hypocrisy, including the allegation that Uber is causing congestion in London. Not only does this conveniently ignore the fact that anyone who pays the appropriate charges and taxes has a right to use public roads, but also sidesteps the various blockades black cabbies have caused on those same public roads over the past couple of years. Black cab drivers blocking Fleet Street to 'protect' their livelihoods is somehow an acceptable form of congestion; an Uber diver picking up fares on the streets of London to make their living is not. The lack of logic is puerile.

Then there are the more serious allegations, namely that Uber causes rapes, facilitates attacks and causes accidents. Here black cab drivers are convinced of their cause; they have clipped every article, copied every tweet, and logged every negative mention in cyberspace to prove their point.

The ‘evidence’ they have gathered is of variable quality. Some of the social media posts are far from objective: based only on the word of the individual concerned, it is impossible to assess their veracity. Other claims, especially those in the media, are real and are of legitimate concern. However, what none of the claims do is provide a comprehensive and clear picture that Uber is a danger to the public. Certainly, some Uber drivers are criminals, some have been guilty of causing accidents, and some have attacked verbally and physically, but then so have some black cab drivers including the recently convicted David Perry and the infamous ‘Black Cab Rapist’ John Worboys. All this serves to demonstrate is that in any organization or large body of people some will act in criminal ways, some will be negligent, and accidents will happen. It hardly proves that Uber is an exceptional danger.

The ultimate deceit is that if Uber was as terrible, incompetent and dangerous as black cab drivers and their defenders claim then it would be absolutely no threat whatsoever; the public would simply shun the service. That this isn’t happening, and that Uber continues to grow rapidly, suggests that the reality on the ground is somewhat different than the cabbies would have us believe. This is precisely as it should be: the settled view of millions of consumer decisions is a far better arbiter of what deserves to succeed or fail than the biased interpretation of any one segment of the community.

The shame of all this is that if the black cabbies devoted less time to attacking and moaning and more time to innovating, they may well find ways to win back custom fairly and squarely. As it is, their attempts to deny me and others like me our choices, and to insult the choices we do make, means we will do everything we can to shun them. In today’s cutthroat market that is the last possible outcome they should be aiming for.