On Facebook this morning, I was shown an ad from a page called "Uber Assault", which was about a (potential) lawsuit over riders being assaulted, and there were

On Facebook this morning, I was shown an ad from a page called "Uber Assault", which was about a (potential) lawsuit over riders being assaulted, and there were a bunch of people chiming in that they didn't feel safe being Lyft/Uber drivers so they quit. It seems that perhaps drivers are more at risk than riders because even though the approval process for becoming a rideshare driver is very weak, it's much weaker for becoming a rider. Either way, people who had a bad experience were likely to avoid using it. I don't think Uber/Lyft is going to replace car ownership anytime soon, maybe for the six foot tall man like me but not for everybody. Another problem is waiting for a car. I got robbed once while waiting for an Uber. One solution might be to wait for the Uber driver to arrive and then go outside. I tried this once the other day, not for safety but so I could hang out with friends. The Uber left less than a minute after I got messaged, and I got charged the $5 fee, so that isn't practical. It feels safer to be walking to a bus or rail stop, or to be waiting at a stop, than it does to be standing on a corner waiting for a car. The idea that Uber/Lyft is going to replace private car ownership for everyone because it's replaced it for some is ludicrous. Public transit has done more to replace it for me (car-free by choice for 5 years) than Uber/Lyft. I usually only use Uber/Lyft when I'm in a hurry, and the cost Uber/Lyft rides just about cancels out the time savings. Self driving cars might one day replace it, but I don't think that Lyft or Uber is going to be at the forefront of it. If they are it will make me more frustrated with how the tech industry operates, because it will show that the value of investment and brand far outweighs expertise. Uber/Lyft contain a tiny fraction of the deep learning, automotive, and transportation expertise that will be needed to pull off such a thing. Finally the term "major cities" brings up the "no true scotsman" fallacy a lot. "Rent is high in major cities." Oh yeah? Dallas isn't a major city? If I don't live in a high rise downtown I'm not really living in Dallas? Eventually every major city will be eliminated in an argument and it will turn out that for the sake of the argument, there aren't any major cities in the world.