Traditional laws and regulations require transportation companies to serve the entire community regardless of pick up location, whether you pay with cash vs. a credit card, ownership of a “smart phone”, ADA requirements or other socioeconomic conditions. In fact, the underlying reason for regulations is to ensure EVERYONE receives service.
Uber requires customers to own a smartphone and a credit card. Others “need not apply”. Remember, Uber only wants to serve who they want, and not be required to serve an entire community. They want a highly regulated taxi environment, but an entirely unregulated environment when it comes to “their business”.
According to the PEW Research and widely reported on major news outlets:
- Only 56% of American adults own a smart phone;
- If you are 65 years or older, that number drops to 18%;
- Only 38% of those making less than $38,000 a year own a smart phone;
- And only 36% of those people with a high school education or less have a smart phone.
As it pertains to credit cards, research conducted in 2012 shows:
- 26% of Americans over 18 years old did not own a credit card;
- Approximately 34 percent of survey respondents age 18 to 49 said they had no credit cards compared to 16 percent of those age 50 and over;
- Education: high school or less 66 percent vs. post-graduate school 98 percent;
- Income: under $25,000, 48 percent vs. over $100,000 96 percent;
- Net worth: under $50,000 59 percent vs. over $500,000 92 percent;
In other words, the higher your educational achievements, the higher your income, the higher your net worth, the more likely you are to use credit cards.
Race also evidently plays a part in influencing credit card use. Here’s the Federal reserve’s data for card usage by race:
- Asian: 100 percent
- White: 83 percent
- Latino: 82 percent
- American Indian: 69 percent
- Other: 55 percent
- Black: 50 percent
So, after reading these stats, who do you think Uber wants to serve? And who do you think they don’t want to serve? Why? Because they only want to serve the easiest customers without any government interference and leave the rest of the customers to the highly regulated taxi industry.
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