The Ethics of Ride-Hailing

The Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David, 1784 (public domain - Wikipedia)

The ride-hailing industry—Uber, Lyft, and their counterparts—is the personification of the current version of the American Dream: cheap convenience.

Traditionally in the service business, the offer to the client goes like this:

Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two.

What's happened with Uber (the poster-child for this movement) goes beyond that. With Uber, you get all three!

And that's unsustainable. At least in the current configuration.

Uber's business model is built on the notion of cheap labor. When Uber went about establishing itself, the goal was to dominate the market — don't forget that uber alles means "above all" — they offered cheap rides to customers and financial incentives to bring drivers on.

“Ethics were not a hallmark of Uber’s first decade.”

—Mike Isaac, Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

There are far too many ethical aspects of Uber to explore in this piece; we'll just focus on their relationship with dri…