Uber is officially a cab firm, says European court
I take a bunch of ubers, by which I mean I take maybe 4 or 5 ubers a week. Before I took ubers, I didn&#x27;t take cabs, I took the train. I walked five minutes to get on a tram to the train station, I switched to a train, and then I walked ten minutes home.<p>I never, really, took cabs. I can explain the multitude of reasons: Cab drivers with shitty attitudes, refusing to unlock the doors and just cracking open the window to ask how far it was you were planning to go: Too short? Don&#x27;t want to take you, fare is too small. Too long? Don&#x27;t want to take you, won&#x27;t get a fare back. I mean, y&#x27;know, cab drivers are legally obliged to take you on any distance journey but the lack of accountability meant that they wouldn&#x27;t. Sometimes there were no choices: Cab home or you won&#x27;t get there. In those cases, I&#x27;d take cabs. The cab driver would be rubbing his eyes, swerving all over the road, tired after working a 16 hour shift, while talking on the phone to, I guess, whoever would listen. Doing anything they could not to pay attention to driving, apparently.<p>And now I take ubers instead. It&#x27;s not because I like uber. It&#x27;s not because I think that the laws around the cab drivers should be ignored and uber should be allowed to flaunt that however they like. It&#x27;s because I think that, at least right now, uber works better than laws. At least right now.<p>Is the contractor thing a little bit on the suspicious side? Definitely. Should they pay their &quot;driver partners&quot; more? Definitely. Do I think that this problem is uber&#x27;s fault? Most definitely not.<p>I don&#x27;t have lyft available to me. If I did, I&#x27;d probably use lyft. I&#x27;m happy with being slightly conscientious and paying a bit more, knowing that I&#x27;m not ripping off some guy who can&#x27;t do any better. Anecdotally, most of my friends think the same thing.<p>But what I won&#x27;t do is support the existing cab industry.