Uber, I tried resisting you. But I failed!
Everyone knows about Uber, isn’t it? Business-oriented minds like me also know that Uber’s business model is not sustainable (spending way more than it earns? eh!). The direct repercussion of an unsustainable business model is increasing the price. Nowadays, surge pricing in Uber is more often than you can think.
In spite of knowing these facts (especially that we’re paying more per ride), how often do we opt for alternate transportation?
I recently moved to Los Angeles to join work full-time. Yesterday, I planned to meet a good friend of mine who lives in DTLA. Be it the cheaper rent, or the homely feeling of being within an Indian community, I opted to stay in Torrance. Downtown Los Angeles is ~20 miles away from where my “home” is.
Although I’m an avid Uber user, I wanted to see if I can really shut the app for just this one time. I looked at Google Maps (yeah I know, technology doesn’t leave us!) and found that there’s a direct Metro bus from my place to downtown that takes at an average 1 hour 50 minutes to reach !!
I checked Uber and found that I can reach downtown in 35 minutes in spite of that traffic. That’s the trade-off — I’ll be losing 1 hour 15 minutes and saving $19 (Metro costs a mere $1.75 while even Uber Express Pool was close to $20, thanks to the surge). To be honest, the Metro commute wasn’t new to me. When I lived in Mumbai for close to 4 years, my round trip commute to work was close to 3 hours. So I chose the “exhilarating” metro ride.
First 40 minutes, Spotify: The initial 40 minutes were a breeze, thanks to Spotify. I plugged my earphones on and binged through the playlist. The occasional new songs that I discovered while scrolling through the home page added to the fun.
Next 20 minutes, chat with neighbor: Once I had binged through my playlist, I started interacting with my neighbor — a thorough gentleman who told me how he enjoyed working in a garage since the last 10 years, that he lived in Alaska for 5 years, and that life in Los Angeles is fun but expensive. I told him how I moved from India to the US, the extraordinary education I received, and that I can’t wait to join work.
The conversation was gaining momentum when his stop arrived. I still had 50 more minutes.
The next 10 minutes, feeling a bit restless: Within the next 10 minutes, I had checked my Google Maps multiple times, trying to guesstimate the arrival time, communicating the “guessed” time to my friend who was supposed to wait near the Grand Central Market, and occasionally, checking the speedometer within Google Maps and thinking how much faster can the bus travel.
Next 30 minutes, back to the grip of social media: These were the most painful 30 minutes. I’m not a Facebook fan anymore. My most frequented social media is LinkedIn, but given that I have the habit of checking most of the updates when I wake up in the morning, there was not much left to do on LinkedIn. I turned to Facebook and browsed through the news feed, occasionally discovering interesting stories but mostly the boring ones.
During these 30 minutes, I had finally opened the Uber app and tried to justify an Uber ride to myself that I can get down now and pay “lesser than what I would have” had I taken the ride from Torrance.
The final 10 minutes, I gave up: The Metro ride was painfully slow to me at this point. What started as an exhilarating ride started getting on my nerves. With five minutes and a mile left for the destination, I finally got down from the bus. I preferred walking through the streets than sitting any longer on the bus. I walked for 20 minutes (and ultimately took longer to reach) and finally reached the spot to meet my friend.
When I reflected upon this entire journey and tried to think what made a journey so painstaking although I was quite used to it just 3 years ago, I discovered that I have become extremely impatient in this digital era. I have started getting things the moment I need it. So much so, that waiting for the Metro bus at the station for 10 minutes started bothering me.
There are no more uncertainties in life (or to be technically correct, much lesser than it used to). We know how long it’ll take for me to reach office even before I start the journey, I know how long it’ll take for my food to come. Heck, I can even track who’s delivering it. I know who visited my website, how long they browsed through, and whether they came back. I know whether my flight is going to be late even before I leave for the airport.
The only uncertainty with the bus ride was that it “might not” reach at the time I calculated (or rather, Google Maps helped me calculate). It’s still a public transport and Google, although shows accurate predictions, has no say on its schedule. That slight uncertainty made me drop the journey before it was completed.
This was one of many experiences that made me believe that businesses such as Uber, although running at a loss with an unsustainable business model, have achieved their objective of getting us “hooked”.
Goes without saying that I took an Uber back home!
Photo Courtesy: Google Images