A TIME magazine cover story last year spoke
of the "sharing economy" that is disrupting industries and transforming
the way we live as the likes of Uber and Airbnb drive new approaches to
transport and accommodation.
Uber has certainly shaken up SA’s
metered taxi industry in a major way, bringing fierce competition to a
service that was overpriced and often unreliable.
Affluent and middle-class South Africans who were happy to hail taxis overseas, but had never used taxis in SA were suddenly "ubering".
The advent of Uber has done a fair bit to reduce drunk driving among the middle classes, with folk of all ages increasingly using the service to and from parties and drinking holes, whereas previously they might, hazardously, have driven themselves.
Uber is being used in SA for everything from doing the school run to providing some freedom for elderly folk who can no longer drive.
It has been a transformative technology in the South African context in which the mass market had long relied on unmetered minibus taxis — but the metered ones were not that much more desirable.
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| The Uber logo is seen on a vehicle near Union Square in San Francisco, California. Picture: REUTERS/ROBERT GALBRAITH |
Affluent and middle-class South Africans who were happy to hail taxis overseas, but had never used taxis in SA were suddenly "ubering".
The advent of Uber has done a fair bit to reduce drunk driving among the middle classes, with folk of all ages increasingly using the service to and from parties and drinking holes, whereas previously they might, hazardously, have driven themselves.
Uber is being used in SA for everything from doing the school run to providing some freedom for elderly folk who can no longer drive.
It has been a transformative technology in the South African context in which the mass market had long relied on unmetered minibus taxis — but the metered ones were not that much more desirable.
