On a recent ride in a New York City taxi, I asked the driver how he was doing.
“Not great,” he admitted. “Business has been slow. Uber is killing us.”
He then detailed all the ways the rideshare giant has made his job more difficult, his taxi medallion less valuable.
The troubles stretch far beyond Uber’s cut-rate prices, he explained. The allure of easy fares has flooded the streets with competing drivers — many of whom have a poor grip on New York geography and get lost constantly as a result.
Some of these confused Uber drivers ferry people around as a side hustle; others drive after getting fired from their day jobs. Either way, the result is the same. More traffic congestion, more accidents and more headaches for those who have decades of experience driving the street in the familiar yellow sedans.
When I mentioned that city leaders could take action against this new wave of rideshare drivers, the cab driver told me they already tried to.
“Uber won the court case,” he said. “They’re here to stay.”
My mind took me back home to Dallas for a moment. I thought about the new logo I’ve seen plastered on the back of most taxis there recently.
The logo is for the Curb app, which allows customers to hail a cab from their smartphone. It’s a neat innovation, but in the Ridesharing Era, it’s a day late and a dollar short. A solution that doesn’t fully account for the problem.
You see, Uber didn’t take off by perfecting the taxi experience. By making it cheaper or more efficient.
No, it took off because it reinvented the entire way we approach travel. Just like Airbnb reinvented the entire way we approach hospitality, or Apple reinvented the way we use our mobile phones.
This is what disruption is all about. It’s why it works time and again.
The Curb app shows just how blind disrupted industries are to the siege outside their windows. It underscores why we actively seek out the next disruption. Why we antagonize The Way It Is in favor of The Way It Could Be.
Yet, we must be careful with this approach. Because much gets sacrificed in the crossfire.
No one is shedding a tear for the demise of payphones or CDs. These items were bulky and inconvenient. Using them required an annoying amount of planning and effort. Their disruptor — smartphones with streaming capabilities — proved to be far superior.
Yet, we should be more cautious when evaluating the impact of the Rideshare Era. Yes, catching an Uber can be more enjoyable or affordable than taking a cab. But by riding the wave of disruption, we leave many cab drivers in the dust.
These drivers have worked tirelessly to make a living for themselves, and made huge sacrifices just to get that opportunity. They’ve proven their worth — only to see the rug pulled out from under them by an upstart who will accept nearly anyone as a driver.
There are no fairy tale endings in this story. For as we rush to dismantle the structures of old, good people get sucked into the maelstrom. And there’s no life preserver to rescue them.
This is the cost of disruption. It’s real and it’s raw. And we are directly responsible for causing it, through complicity alone.
This is a discomforting reality to face. But face it, we must.
So, what can we do to fill this void? To reconcile our participation in the modern-day Torch and Pitchfork Mobs?
We can start by being more conscientious. By looking wholeheartedly at the toll our seemingly altruistic ambitions bring. And by doing what we can to ease the burden placed upon those we displace, such as venerable cab drivers.
This approach will get us out of our comfort zone. But it will also ensure that no one is left behind.
And that’s the type of disruption that can truly change the world for the better.