I agree that it was a dog whistle, less sure about the “just regular guys” part of Uber and Lyft. One of the reasons I used the services when they came out was

I agree that it was a dog whistle, less sure about the “just regular guys” part of Uber and Lyft. One of the reasons I used the services when they came out was that my driver was likely to be a local who generally knew where things were, but I wouldn’t have to suffer the abuse of regular taxis (try going to Oakland or the sunset at night). As the demographics changed most drivers are more often than not immigrants coming from as far away as Tracy and Sacramento with less local knowledge and potentially a bit of a language barrier, and they’ll often refuse rides just like the pre ride share taxis. I don’t care at all about the national origin of my driver, but it does get frustrating having a driver with little sense of where they’re going and a limited ability to communicate the best route. Taxis at least tended to know their way around if they didn’t refuse to drive me.