As far as privacy goes, I agree. However, I think the context in a country like South Africa is different. Apart from Uber in big cities, we don't have any rel

As far as privacy goes, I agree. However, I think the context in a country like South Africa is different. Apart from Uber in big cities, we don't have any reliable taxis (minibus, shuttle or car). Our taxis are notoriously unroadworthy and cause many accidents and they take part in violent taxi wars. Our car taxis at places like the airport are known to exploit unaware customers. Minibus taxis are a standard way of getting to work for many poor people, but I don't see any plans Uber has to compete with them yet. In South Africa, Uber drivers (seemingly) earn quite a bit more money than they would be able to otherwise and they are generally very entrepreneurial people, in stark contrast to the taxi gangs. Finally, I should point out that in many places in SA there simply were not any traditional taxi services (in the US sense), we generally only have minibus taxis. So Uber is performing a very convenient and otherwise unavailable service. Cape Town is perhaps a partial exception, and some other central city areas. But they are nowhere near Uber's efficiency.