Well perhaps it is because Uber pays their drivers poverty wages. I can imagine a driver taking advantage of a passenger because they need food or shelter for themselves or their family.
Obviously it’s cruel to do this to a blind passenger, but I think the fundamental moral problem is really with the decision makers at Uber not with the driver.
But the monetary aspect exists, there’s no way to ignore how little Uber drivers are paid. Full time drivers earn about $30k/year without any benefits in San Francisco. That’s less than half of the poverty line for an individual and less than a third for a family of four. A person earning that little money in SF is likely to be in a really really desperate financial situation - possibly homeless.
Yes, doing that to someone is wrong. It’s absolutely wrong. But I just can’t ignore the people who put the driver in that situation and the culpability they have here.
Yes this is the natural end to "individual responsibility" morality.
Put tremendous immiserating conditions on as many people as possible and then you can blame them for the harms they cause to each other to survive it.
You can even use the evidence of those harms as propaganda about why poor people are inferior in some way, or to blame for their own conditions! It's a very efficient system.
Uber lost $8.5 billion in 2019, $6.77 billion in 2020, and recently reported a $968 million loss in Q1 2021. As a company, Uber has lost around $35 billion total.
Which really begs the question of... who the heck is making money here, how, and why?
