Why the Uber files don't bother me—Or at least, not for the reason they bother you

The recent release of the Uber files by The Guardian has raised questions anew about Uber’s practices and, indeed, capitalism itself. Let me play devil’s advocate. Not to excuse Uber. Rather, to pose some harder questions.

The taxicab business long operated as a closed marketplace, with taxi commissions controlling the number of medallions as well as fares, working hours, drivers’ fees charged by cab companies, routes taken, and more. All of this to stabilize fares and medallions at artificially high prices. In New York City, for example, the Great Depression saw streets flooded with cabs driven by unemployed people desperate for a fare. In 1937, NYC created its medallion system to rein in this excess, price-dampening supply.

Like any monopoly, taxicabs became insular and inefficient. As NYU law professor Katrina Wyman wrote in 2013 in the Yale Journal on Regulation, “New York taxicab licenses are an instance of inefficient private property rights sustained by political decision-making processes subject to pressures from powerful interest groups.” Read between the lines.

Uber showed what it takes—short of a determined political leader (e.g., Carter, Reagan, Thatcher)—to crack open an entrenched, government-sanctioned monopoly. Uber crossed some lines, but cab companies wear no halo. This has been a battle of titans, equally matched in resources, political access, and sharp elbows. Nor has either one been heaven-on-earth for drivers. Cab company drivers are not classified as employees either and they have been treated just as poorly if not more so. The beneficiaries of this price-fixing monopoly were cab company owners not drivers. Not consumers either.

I’ve ridden in many NYC yellow cabs. They were dirty, cramped, foul, shabby, and almost never to be found on rainy afternoons. Now, they’re clean and on-demand through an app. Why? Uber.

There’s plenty to criticize about Uber, but we need a better standard of comparison than the old taxicab monopoly. In fact, if we are honest with ourselves, we know that for low prices and a high quality-of-life we are more than willing to turn a blind eye to big oil playing hardball in the darkest corners of geopolitics, to financial and pharmaceutical firms sometimes skirting the rules, and to the systemic exploitation of laborers in electronics, mining, agriculture, fashion, and manufacturing. Uber is more the norm than the exception, and, frankly, Uber pales in comparison.

Again, not to excuse Uber. Only to say two things. Virtue signaling about Uber misunderstands the relevant context. And the telltale questions to ask are actually about us as consumers not Uber as a business.