5 Very Good Reasons Why I'm Not On Board With Uber

It's common practice in the tech world to rush your product to market, picking up the pieces as you go. This works fine when you're in the business of selling ideas, or soft-serve ice cream delivery (somebody do this, please), or artisanal organic laundry service. Get it out there, apologize in advance that nothing's perfect, do better next time. No harm done.

Then there's a product like Uber. Uber, if you're just joining the conversation, is supposed to change the way city dwellers think about transportation. It's supposed to put taxis -- evil, evil monopolizing taxis with their beady-eyed drivers who want to steal your soul and drag you into their dirty, filthy webs of corruption, at least to hear Uber CEO Travis Kalanick tell it -- out of business, or at least make them change their wicked ways.

Look, that's fine. I've been riding cabs in New York City for years. Mostly it's not a big deal. Rarely is the experience pleasant.

And let's face it, cabbies in some cities are crooks. Even a few of them in New York. Lots of them in Athens.

A little healthy competition? Sign me up.

But not like this. Let's be clear: Uber has made a really slick little app. But when you fire it up and summon a driver, you're putting your life in their hands. Is that driver insured properly? Does he have liability insurance? Is it current or did it expire last week? Who's checking? What's the company's liability if you're injured in a crash? What are the local laws? What protections are there in your market?

Ask Uber these things and they'll smother you with smooth talk. That's fine. Uber is a corporation, just like any other, caring most about protecting itself. But don't we have a right to know if we're protected, too? Should a company that thinks it's perfectly fine to operate illegally be supported?

You'll pardon me if I stick to cabs for now -- here are, what I feel, five very good reasons you should do the same.

#1 Uber not only flaunts regulation, it thinks it has the right to go unregulated.

On one hand, I admire Uber's strategy -- become popular enough with users, rules of the market be dammed, then enlist users to bully local officials into letting you operate there. Most of the time, it seems to work -- some city officials have even publicly stated that banning Uber would be bad for business. What city can afford to say no to one of the hottest new toys of the tech-savvy crowd? Other times, they get cease-and-desist letters (as happened in Houston), because the tech-savvy crowd, at Uber's behest, won't stop harassing City Hall. Uber and competitor Lyft are currently doing business - illegally - in the city. Again - it's all well and good to disrupt the marketplace, but this is a car service. Safety is a huge issue. I don't see how it's wrong to expect a corporation to think it's okay to break safety and licensing rules, just to get their product rolled out in a few new markets faster.

#2 When things go bad, Uber plays that always-annoying "what, who, us?" game.

There have been too many instances of this, but one really sticks out: A young girl crossing the street with her mother in San Francisco back in December was killed by a motorist who told cops he was working for Uber. Uber immediately released a statement saying he was not working for Uber, then released another statement clarifying that he was indeed logged on to the Uber app but not doing business for Uber at the time -- in other words, he was between passengers, which, according to Uber, meant they bore no responsibility. After all, you see, Uber isn't a transportation company, as they'll delight in telling you. They're a technology company. Drivers download the app and passengers hope for the best. If anything goes wrong? Uber has a bad habit of washing their hands. A wrongful-death lawsuit has been filed against the company.

#3 Uber doesn't screen its drivers adequately.

A driver in San Francisco that attacked a passenger physically and verbally was later found to have passed Uber's "zero-tolerance" background check with flying colors, despite a colorful criminal history. Another in Los Angeles bragged to NBC that she had a "three-page rap sheet." A test of drivers in Chicago revealed that many of them had almost zero knowledge of the city, which at the very least, is a disservice to passengers.

#4 Cabbies may not be angels, but neither are Uber drivers.

Where to start -- the Los Angeles driver who held a woman's phone hostage for a $500 ransom, after she left in in her car? Uber apologized, deactivated the driver's account and essentially told the passenger to cross her fingers and hope for the best. Back in Chicago, another driver sexually assaulted his female passenger, landing the company in legal hot water. Give them credit, I guess -- this time, they actually acknowledged the complaint, as opposed to playing the "she's lying" card. (Always a classy move.)

#5 The company's response to the growing chorus of negativity? Slap a surcharge on their customers.

Oh, wait, so you want a safe ride with a driver who doesn't know how to make toilet wine in his or her prison cell? Fine, says Uber: Please note our new $1 "Safe Rides Fee." That's right -- users of their ride-sharing network, called UberX, now pay this fee every single time they ride, in order to "support the increased costs associated with our continued efforts to ensure the safest platform for Uber riders and drivers." So what they're saying is, fine everyone -- you want deeper background checks, more driver safety education and better insurance? Pay for it yourself. That kind of tells me everything I need to know about the way Uber thinks. Later for that.

And I also am fascinated by Uber's terms of service where it says:

THE COMPANY MAY INTRODUCE YOU TO THIRD PARTY TRANSPORTATION PROVIDERS FOR THE PURPOSES OF PROVIDING TRANSPORTATION. WE WILL NOT ASSESS THE SUITABILITY, LEGALITY OR ABILITY OF ANY THIRD PARTY TRANSPORTATION PROVIDERS AND YOU EXPRESSLY WAIVE AND RELEASE THE COMPANY FROM ANY AND ALL ANY LIABILITY, CLAIMS OR DAMAGES ARISING FROM OR IN ANY WAY RELATED TO THE THIRD PARTY TRANSPORTATION PROVIDER.

And especially:

THE QUALITY OF THE TRANSPORTATION SERVICES SCHEDULED THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICE OR APPLICATION IS ENTIRELY THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE THIRD PARTY PROVIDER WHO ULTIMATELY PROVIDES SUCH TRANSPORTATION SERVICES TO YOU. YOU UNDERSTAND, THEREFORE, THAT BY USING THE APPLICATION AND THE SERVICE, YOU MAY BE EXPOSED TO TRANSPORTATION THAT IS POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS, OFFENSIVE, HARMFUL TO MINORS, UNSAFE OR OTHERWISE OBJECTIONABLE, AND THAT YOU USE THE APPLICATION AND THE SERVICE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Anyway, Uber's days are numbered (sorry, all you VCs). As are those of taxi companies. Enter automated Google cars. Perhaps in a decade, not much longer than that, you'll use an app to summon an automated Google taxi, sans driver. It will take you to your destination by the shortest route every time. And it will be safer than any human driver. And no tipping required. And for that, I am definitely on board.