Uber is Walking for Lazy People: On The Five-Dollar Ride

The Six-Dollar Five-Dollar Ride

For an Uber driver, few things are worse than the five-dollar ride. Pukers definitely take the top spot, but they are nowhere near as common as the dreaded short rides.

In San Francisco, Uber charges a base fare of $2.20, twenty-six cents a minute and a buck-thirty each mile. (When I first drafted this post a week ago, the rate was three dollars base, thirty cents each minute and a $1.50 a mile—that’s how quickly the rates are going down). The minimum fare is five dollars (previously six dollars). So anything under a mile is a five-dollar ride.

Of course, we only see 80 percent of that five-dollar fare. And it’s not like we get any tips to make up for the short ride. (Though maybe one day that will change.)

Five-dollar rides are hardly worth the effort. When you factor in gas, the time and effort spent driving to the passenger’s location, waiting for them to saunter outside, get into the car, give you directions and then drive them to their destination, that minimum fare ends up costing the driver more than the passenger.

People who take short rides know they are wasting our time. They often apologize when they get in the car.

“I’m only going a few blocks. Sorry.”

Technology is all about creating convenience. It makes us lazy. Uber is capitalizing on this culture of laziness by making rides so cheap. Why walk a few blocks when you can take an Uber for five bucks? Forget driver-less cars. Uber is now competing with the bus. The SF Muni costs $2.25. And unless you live on a bus line, you’ll still have a little walking to do. The horror! For most new San Franciscans, five dollars is a drop in the bucket. In a town where rent for a one-bedroom is over three thousand dollars, that’s pocket change. Most people make decent money. They can afford a few extra dollars. So why the hell not take an Uber?

Of course, passengers don’t think about the consequences these five-dollar rides have on drivers. We do the short rides and keep our mouths shut, giving off the impression that we’re happy to do it. But convenience comes with a price and the person providing the convenience usually pays that price.

Rideshares are great for the companies and users. But the drivers are fucked!

The whole concept of Uber as some sort of “disruptor” is a farce. All Uber has done is become the very system they were trying to replace, except at a cheaper price and at the expense of drivers.

Low Fares Are Not Fair!

As Uber drivers, we are doing the jobs of cabbies. Plain and simple. But we are paid less, we use our own cars, we are judged by an unfair rating system, we take almost all the risks, and we’re even denied a gratuity, one of the cornerstones of the service industry.

I recently read a post on an Uber Facebook group from a disgruntled driver who suggested we call passengers before we pick them up to find out where they’re going. That way we can decide whether to take the ride or cancel it. Since drivers can face deactivation if they reject or cancel too many rides, the poster even implied that he had a trick for getting passengers to cancel themselves, so it wouldn’t affect our ride acceptance rate.

Not a bad idea. We already see the passengers’ ratings, so we can reject rides based on that. Or the pickup location. Having the freedom to choose rides based on final destination would be a godsend!

Uber could easily install a feature that required passengers to input their destination. Right now it’s only voluntary and when passengers do add the address, the driver can’t see the location until the ride has started. Of course, Uber obviously knows that if drivers were able to see where a passenger is going we’d be more likely to cancel the short rides and wait for the longer, more lucrative ones. This activity dismantles the entire rideshare system. The whole point of Uber and Lyft is the ability to request a car and for it to actually show up.

Before rideshares, cabbies were free to pick and chose a ride based on a passenger’s appearance, their level of sobriety and yes, destination. If they didn’t want to drive to a particular area of the city, they just didn’t let you into the cab. That’s the system these rideshare start-ups are trying to disrupt. Now Uber drivers are figuring out how to beat them at their own game by getting back to the way things were before. Because maybe, just maybe, that system wasn’t so flawed to begin with.

Cabbies know that most people suck. They have to be particular. Uber drivers are beginning to realize the same thing. But we don’t have that luxury.

A passenger once asked me, when I was complaining about short rides, whether rideshare users would take cabs if Uber and Lyft weren’t around. Some would, sure, I said, but most people would probably take public transportation. They’d walk. Or they’d ride a bike.

I pointed out the example of surge pricing. When the prices are low, passengers are happy to request an Uber without a second thought. And the ride requests come in one after another. But anytime the prices are surging, the requests slow down to a trickle. Suddenly taking a stroll through the beautiful streets of San Francisco doesn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

screenshot of Uber phone in driver mode during surge pricing... I drove through all that red for half an hour and never got a single request

It's time to face facts, by continuing to lower their fares, Uber is perpetuating a culture of laziness. And they are benefiting from it with a seventeen billion dollar valuation. Uber is the darling of Silicon Valley. But drivers are paying an even greater price. So... what’s the going rate for self-worth these days?

Disrupt the Disruptors

It's a sticker.

Ten Annoying Questions I Get Asked as a Lyft Driver - The Listicle

I made a listicle on Buzzfeed from an old blog post: the ten most annoying questions I get asked as Lyft driver in San Francisco.

I'm so 21st Century.

Top Ten Questions I Get Asked as a Lyft Driver

UPDATE: I turned this post into a listicle on Buzzfeed.

1. How long have you been driving for Lyft?

2. Do you like driving for Lyft?

3. Is this your full time job?

4. Where are you from?

5. Do you live in the city?

6. What’s Oakland like?

7. What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened while driving for Lyft?

8. Has anybody ever thrown up in your car?

9. What song is this?

10. Where’s your mustache?

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It's Not About The Mustache... Except When It Is

The Pink Mustache

Okay, let’s talk about the pink mustache. First, you have to earn the fucking thing. They don’t just give ‘em away. You gotta give thirty rides before they mail it to you. It’s not hard to give thirty rides—by my third day I’d done almost forty. It took another week to arrive, wrapped in plastic in a fancy cardboard box. They included a phone mount and a charger. I think that’s it. I left it all in the fancy box and threw it in the corner of my living room with all the other boxes. So what’s the big deal? Why don’t I“rock the ‘stache,” as the die-hard Lyfters say in the official Lyft Driver Lounge on Facebook? Or at least place it on the dash, where it looks like what you’d find on the floor after a fluffy convention?

When passengers ask me about it, my answer varies. It depends who’s asking. I’ll say I forgot it at home. Sometimes I say it’s dirty. Or if it had been raining, I say I took it off so it didn’t get wet. Or I just came back from the airport. Once I told these two drunk girls that I’d attached it one day, drove over the Bay Bridge during a wind advisory and never saw it again. After which I pointed out that the mustache came with explicit directions: don’t drive over 40 miles per hour. Which of course is impossible to avoid if you live in a city with a freeway.

The real reason, though, is that the pink mustache, despite its nauseating ugliness, has become the perfect symbol for the backlash against all “ride-share” services, not just Lyft, but Uber and SideCar as well.

The term “ride-share” itself is such a completely and utterly outrageous misnomer that it would be laughable if so many people weren’t buying into it. The entire concept of the shared economy is based on deception so the founders can avoid regulation. Everybody knows it. The companies know it. They call themselves tech companies, not transportation companies. Particularly when the shit hits the fan. The taxi drivers who protest the loss of their monopoly know it. The state legistlature knows it. This whole sharing economy could easily dissipate like a puff of smoke from an e-cigarette with one pen stroke. But instead, they set up what’s called Transportation Network Companies to give them a name more appropriate to the paid service they provide. Venture capital firms, of course, don’t give a shit. They’re just gambling on whether unfavorable laws will be upheld or reversed. Like betting on the ponies, but with politicians and lobbyists. Not to mention that Mayor Lee likes tech. Some of his detractors claim that Big Tech has him in their pocket. He certainly hasn’t done much to reel in the tech companies that have begun to infringe upon the rights of San Franciscans. Mayor Lee has pissed off a lot of people.

A few months ago, I began noticing RECALL MAYOR LEE bumper stickers on cabs. It’s not clear whether they are protesting the surge of ride-share vehicles or just his policies in general, but it’s undeniable that the cab companies and drivers have been hit hardest by the emergence of Uber and Lyft. Cabbies make about 30 grand a year. They lease their vehicles from the cab companies and usually start their shifts 100-150 bucks in the hole. Faced with a major threat to their livelihoods, they have been fighting back. And despite being regarded as less significant than Uber, the Lyft pink mustache is usually on most of the placards waved during protests outside City Hall. Circled and crossed out.

The fact is undeniable: the pink mustache is the ultimate symbol of an unregulated, scofflaw challenger.

Before I drove for Lyft and was just a passenger myself, I got a ride from a guy who had a pink shirt tied up to look like the puffy monstrosity on his dash. He said a taxi driver had ripped his mustache off the grill of his car. Since becoming a driver, I’ve read several posts on the Lyft Facebook group about cabbies yelling at Lyft drivers and taking pictures of their license plates to report them to insurance companies, or so the posters speculate. No matter what the motives of these cabbies are, it’s understandable that they would be upset. And I can hardly blame them. It’s one thing to know that these rideshare companies exist, but the pink mustaches most definitely add insult to injury.

That’s the thing about symbols: they can go either way. They mean one thing to the supporters and another to the opposition. There are a lot of Lyft drivers who happily drink the Kool-Aid and parade around town dressed in pink, waving their pink mustaches in the air as a counter protest to the cabbies. They defend their right to not just drive for Lyft but to promote the Lyft brand by brandishing the mustache at any opportunity. It boggles my mind how grown adults can be so proud of something so ugly. Do they not realize how stupid they look on cars? I’ve spent my entire adult life avoiding the need to wear a uniform and look like a jackass. I see no reason to start now. And the way I see it, I started driving without a mustache, so why not keep going without one? Passengers have a picture of my car and my face prominently on their phone. They know who they’re looking for. I can see them and know who I’m looking for. I greet each person that gets in my car by name. Most passengers do the same. There is no need for a mustache to enter the equation.

In fact, I’d say that 90% of the people I’ve talked to in my car about it say they prefer cars without mustaches. There will always be drunk girls who feel cheated when they get into a car that doesn’t have one, but they are easily distracted by something else shiny or bright.

“If you don’t want to rock the ‘stache, then maybe you’re on the wrong team.”

I’ve seen this comment in the Driver Lounge as a response to queries on whether to use the mustache. These Lyft drivers have no qualms about adhering to a group mentality. Most are also major sports fans, as evident in their profile pics and comments during major sporting events. So it makes sense that they would root-root-root for the home team.

But maybe they’re right. Maybe I should drive for Uber. Their drivers use a subtle neon blue “U” that illuminates oh so elegantly from their windshield. I have to admit, they look classy as fuck. But I’m sure my car would qualify. I’ve heard they have stricter limits on which cars are eligible. My Jetta is four years old. But it’s still in great shape and it’s the California Edition, so it has leatherette seats, a spoiler, 17” alloy rims, an iPod jack build into the dash. There’s a chance I could pass their requirements. But I’m lazy. And I don’t deal well with change. Also, the owner of Uber is supposed to be a real asshole. Maybe if I were to get called out for not using the mustache, or the mustache becomes some requirement—that is, if they are able to program the app to detect one on your grill—then I might switch services. I have absolutely no loyalty to Lyft or any other corporation, regardless of how they want to frame their corporate image.

That’s why I don’t use the mustache. Because I am the mustache.

Your Uber Driver Hates You

YOUR UBER DRIVER HATES YOU... But Your Lyft Driver Thinks You're The Bee's Knees (Unless You Act Like You're in An Uber - Then They Hate You Too)

TOO MUCH TO READ HERE? THEN CHECK OUT THE LISTICLE

Where would the sharing economy be without trust? Nobody in their right mind would give a complete stranger the key to their apartment or get into a random person’s car if they didn’t have faith in the safeguards enforced by the companies that function as intermediaries. Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit and other peer-to-peer platforms use Facebook accounts and/or cell phone numbers to authenticate the identities of their users, but miscreants can always find a way around those barriers. Rideshare services rely on background checks and driving records, which aren’t foolproof either. Then there’s the feedback system that’s supposed to ensure a quality experience for both parties, though it’s just as easily skewed.

In theory, the rating system used by Uber and Lyft allows riders to anonymously inform future passengers what to expect from their driver. As a driver, unless you’ve only given one ride that day, you never know which passengers rate you what. Like internet comments, this anonymity gives riders complete freedom to rate and comment without fear of reprisal. And they take full advantage of this liberty, which is reflected in most drivers’ low ratings. It’s almost impossible for a driver to have a 5 star rating for more than a day or two, unless they are in line to be sainted by Jesus Christ himself.

The rating system is supposed to convey trust, but an unintended side effect seems to be taking hold. Uber and Lyft drivers are using the same rating system to secretly warn other drivers about problematic riders. And they are just as unforgiving as their passengers.

Surprise, surprise

As a passenger, you know your driver’s rating. It pops up when they accept your ride request along with their picture and car details. But you never see your own rating. If you did, you might be surprised to discover how the people who drive you around town actually feel about you. While Lyft drivers tend to get along well with their passengers, Uber drivers, for the most part, think their riders are assholes.

A Rideshare to Perdition

Uber and Lyft distinguish themselves by how passengers interact with their drivers. Lyft’s “friend with a car” vibe encourages passengers to sit up front and chat with the driver during the ride. Uber, on the other hand, wants their passengers to feel like they have a personal driver, so they sit in the back and rarely say much besides hello and their destination. Who converses with their servants anyway? Would you chat with your server at a restaurant? Of course not!

Many rideshare customers, especially in San Francisco, use both platforms depending on price surging, availability or what kind of experience they’re in the mood for. I’ve had numerous passengers tell me that when they’re going to work, or in work mode, they take Uber so they don’t have to deal with any annoying conversations. But on the weekends, or if they’re going out, they take Lyft because it’s more fun.

Price wars are also a factor.

As a driver for both Uber and Lyft, you can easily tell which passengers use Lyft regularly and which passengers prefer Uber. And not just by where they sit or whether they talk to you, but through their ratings.

Most Lyft users have 5 stars with the occasional 4.9. Those with a 4.8 rating are generally the ones who sit in back and stare at their phones. These are your Uber passengers, reluctantly slumming it with Lyft. They get in your car and immediately say, “I’m not going to do the fist bump, so don’t try it.” They express contempt for the pink mustache and seem relieved I don’t have one. They make it clear that they are only using Lyft out of necessity. I find this attitude amusing, though based on their rating, Lyft drivers have no doubt rated them low in the past for not playing along with the Lyft modus operandi.

Since the main difference between the Uber and Lyft experience is the talking, and the passengers with less than 5 stars on Lyft tend to be incommunicado during the ride, it’s not much a stretch to conclude that drivers hate being treated like a “personal driver” and they rate passengers lower for being unsocial. Regardless of which platform they are on.

Now, you might be thinking, aren’t Uber drivers supposed to just get you where you’re going and keep their trap shut?

Sure, but they’re still humans with feelings. So while you sit in the back seat, browsing Facebook to keep you distracted, your driver is seething with animosity at your entitled and unfriendly attitude. The only recourse he or she has is to use the feedback system to rate you accordingly, and that’s a 4 at best.

Very few Uber passengers have 5 stars. In fact, the percentages are completely reversed with Uber. From what I’ve seen so far, 95 percent of Uber passengers have 4.9 or lower. Those users with 5 stars have all started conversations with me, which makes it clear how they got their elusive 5 stars. In fact, after carting around a bunch of people for Uber who barely say hello and thanks, getting a talkative passenger is like finding a fellow countryman in a foreign land.

Face it, Uber users, when it comes to being a passenger, you suck!

Rideshare Drivers are People Too

Recently, somebody figured out how to hack the Uber site to get passenger ratings. Twitter lit up with people posting the link and their ratings. Only a few had 5 stars. Some thought it was funny how low their ratings were, though most were chagrined by what they found. 

Uber quickly put the kibosh on the leak, but I couldn’t help but wonder if that brief window into the reality of passenger ratings might finally alert passengers that they’re not immune to criticism just because they take advantage of a frictionless payment system.

Bidirectional ratings are just that: they go both ways.

Nobody likes negative ratings. Drivers complain about their ratings all the time. It’s not easy making people happy. Even when a ride has gone perfectly, there is never a guarantee that the passenger will be satisfied.

While I always rate passengers 5 stars, even when I’ve had to deal with some real stinkers, my passengers haven’t been as generous with me. After six months of driving for Lyft, my rating is a paltry 4.85. My Uber rating is better: 4.93. But I’ve only been driving for Uber regularly a few weeks. I’m sure it’ll sink lower as I deal with more passengers.

Like other drivers, I’m always shocked when my rating goes down. Lyft considers a 4.8 rating “awesome,” but it still hurts to think that I’ve failed to do my simple task of driving a car, something I’ve been doing in cities across the country going on twenty-five years now. When I get my weekly summaries from Uber and Lyft, I wrack my brain thinking of how I might have messed up or disappointed the passengers who rated me lower than 5 stars. It usually happens after a good night too. Nobody ever gives any indication they are dissatisfied with my driving. Which is why I’m convinced the passengers who converse with me must think I’m some kind of freak for talking about art, literature, architecture, geography, the history of San Francisco and the way the city spreads out across the sky from the top of Potrero Hill. And they hate my music: that dreadful rock and roll nobody listens to anymore.

For every person who finds me entertaining or interesting or feels a kindred spirit with me, there are those who rate me less on my ability to get them from point A to point B and more on an inscrutable formula that only makes sense to them. And while I can usually navigate the city from memory, avoiding traffic jams and unpleasant streets, and maintain a relatively intelligent conversation along the way, in the new San Francisco, that’s only worth three stars. Four at best.

The More You Know…

Maybe if passengers knew what their ratings were, they might want to protect them as much as drivers do. Perhaps it would make them a little less demanding as well. So I missed a turn. Big deal. So I went in a direction that had too many stop signs. Whatever. So I want to tell you how my cousin’s girlfriend has the same name as you when you’re in the middle of reading an email. Get over it! After all, it’s easy to be judgmental when you’re the one with the gavel. Flip that shit around and it’s not as much fun.

The recent Uber ratings leak also raises the question: why don’t rideshare companies show passengers their ratings in the app? Don’t they want passengers to improve? 

The fact of the matter is Uber and Lyft don’t want customers to know their ratings because they mean nothing. The only real consequence is that some drivers won't pick up passengers with low ratings. Otherwise, what’s the likelihood that a paying customer will be kicked off the platform for having a low rating? Not bloody likely! 

The rating system is there to keep drivers in check. You drive with the constant fear that if your rating slips too low you’ll be deactivated. Thus, it’s no wonder drivers have begun using that same system to strike back at what they don’t like about their own experiences. Even if the passengers never find out.

So the next time you take an Uber or a Lyft, why not ask your driver what your rating is. You might just be surprised how big of an asshole you really are.

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(Please note: screen grabs of passenger profiles have been modified and do not represent actual passengers. Obviously. An even more obvious fact is that the opinions expressed herein are my own. I do not profess to speak for any other Lyft or Uber driver.)

The Cult of Lyft: Inside the Pacific Driver Lounge

(This was originally posted on my Medium page, but I'm adding it here so it's easier to access from the follow up posts.)

Lyft sees itself differently from other car services because the passenger rides up front. Like a friend. Drivers are supposed to greet passengers with a fist bump. Like they would, conceivably, with a friend. Drivers play music and engage the passenger in conversation. Since that’s what friends do.

I knew this much from taking Lyft cars in the past. But when I signed up to be a driver, I was enrolled in a Facebook group for Lyft drivers called the Pacific Driver Lounge. It was in the Lounge that I learned there was more to the Lyft Experience than just pink mustaches and fist bumps. Lyft wants to cultivate a community between drivers and passengers. But only the drivers seem to be interested in participating in that community, creating what’s best described as the Cult of Lyft.

Drive for Lyft & Be More than a Number in 8 Easy Steps

The Onboarding Process

Lyft prides itself on creating a community between drivers and passengers. In the rideshare war, Lyft is the conscientious, friendly contender, while its main competitor, Uber, doesn’t seem to give two shits about who ferries their paying customers around town. It’s almost impossible to separate Uber and its founder, Travis Kalanick. In promotional videos and interviews with media, Kalanick comes across as an anti-social, libertarian scumbag who’d stab his own mother in the back to get ahead. Even the name, Uber, implies Kalanick’s ambitions, not a rideshare company.

During Lyft’s latest recruiting blitz, they emphasized this distinction by hanging banners outside the Uber offices in Potrero Hill, employing a sign twirler on the corner and a billboard truck circling the block, all declaring in bold type the mantra, “Be More Than A Number.” 

Everybody wants to feel appreciated. But what’s so special about driving for Lyft? Well, if you’re over twenty-one, own a car that’s less than fourteen years old and have a clean record, there are only a few simple steps standing between you and a promising career in ridesharing.

A Better Lyft Rating System

Lyft’s rating system is flawed at best, bordering on draconian. Constantly feeling threatened with being deactivated is a horrible feeling. By focusing on only one aspect of a driver’s performance, i.e., passenger satisfaction, you don’t get an accurate reflection of the driver’s ability to do their job. If the rating incorporated not just passenger feedback but also the acceptance rate and the number of rides given, it would provide a better overall sense of the driver. 

What's Gentrification Anyway?

From Behind the Wheel: A Lyft Driver's Log

After getting coffee at Philz, I go into driver mode. I cruise through the Mission waiting for a ride request. I’ve found that when I circle the neighborhood east of Van Ness, I’m more likely to get a passenger than if I were on Valencia, where the other drivers congregate with the taxis and towncars. I can see my fellow Lyfters in the app: little black avatars that disappear when they accept rides or go offline.

BULLET POINTS FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN SAN FRANCISCO

A very condensed and generalized take on the current economic situation in the Bay Area by an outsider who spends too much time reading online news articles…

• There is a class war going on in San Francisco. 

• Hyper-gentrification caused by the recent Tech boom is pushing out the middle class. 

• There just aren’t enough apartments and houses in San Francisco to accommodate the influx of Tech workers, who make more than $100,000 a year on average, without displacing regular working class citizens like teachers, firemen and city workers, as well as senior citizens and the disabled. 

• The lack of housing, affordable or otherwise, is due to the San Francisco city council prohibiting new construction in the city over the past few decades. This created a static housing market. And now, with the latest tech boom, basic supply and demand has caused rents to skyrocket and led to widespread evictions. 

• The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in SF is $3500. Even finding a room for $1000 is increasingly difficult. These insane prices encourage landlords to take advantage of the Ellis Act, a state law that allows landlords who want to “get out of the rental market” to evict tenants. Of course, most landlords aren’t getting out of the market. They are selling their properties for outrageous prices to speculators who renovate and flip the properties to new owners who can charge whatever rents the market will bear. 

• In the past year, there has been a 115 percent increase in total evictions. 

• Ellis Act evictions have increased by 175 percent in 2013.

• From 1997 to 2013, there have been over 11,000 no-fault evictions. 

• The population of San Francisco in 2010 was 805,235. The population in 2013 was 837,442. That’s a 4 percent increase, higher than both Los Angeles and New York. 

• With the population increase, the income inequality in San Francisco is growing faster than in any other US city. 

• Due to the mass evictions, the influx of well-paid young tech workers, the income disparity and the loss of the general atmosphere of San Francisco, there is rampant animosity among those who are being displaced. Most of this anger is directed at real estate brokers and developers, who take advantage of the situation, the city government, which isn’t doing enough to resolve the crisis, and the tech companies who do very little for the city while their employees reap the benefits of living and playing San Francisco. 

• In reaction, people are protesting in the streets, marching on city hall and attacking “Google buses.” 

• Rather than helping improve public transportation (Muni), which would benefit all San Francisco residents, tech companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. hire private shuttles that offer luxurious seating and free Wi-Fi to transport workers to and from Silicon Valley, using Muni stops to pick up and drop off their passengers, even if that means blocking the city buses. 

• While many tech companies use shuttles, the white Google buses have become the most visible symbol of this income disparity and the forced migration of San Franciscans out of their homes and neighborhoods. 

• Statistics show that evictions around the vicinity of these shuttle stops have increased. 

• Due to these protests, the city eventually forced the Tech companies to pay a measly $1 per stop. Though it’s just a pilot program and may not be permanent.

• The fare to ride the Muni is $2. 

• Many people wonder why these tech workers don’t live in Silicon Valley. There have been studies to show that these workers would most likely move closer to work or use their own cars if the Tech companies didn’t offer the shuttles as a job perk. But unfortunately, there isn’t even enough housing in Santa Clara County, home to many of the tech campuses. The city leaders there want the jobs be there so they can reap the tax benefits, but they don’t want these companies to build housing because they don’t want the crowds and they want to protect their environment. So the major burden of housing the tech workers lies on San Francisco.

• It’s obvious that city hall, at least under the direction of Mayor Lee, isn’t going to curb the tech companies. Instead the city is offering them tax breaks to move into the previously, and still very much, impoverished Mid-Market and SoMa neighborhoods. This is where most of the homeless people in SF sleep and spend their days (though there are numerous encampments under the raised freeways along the edges of the Mission, Potrero Hill and Mission Bay). Twitter, Airbnb, Yelp, and countless other startups are now located in these areas of the city. Former warehouses have been converted into live/work loft spaces. New high-end boutiques and restaurants, clubs and bars have sprung up to accommodate the burgeoning youth culture. 

• And yet the street people are still very much present, a constant reminder of the massive disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Very little is done to help the homeless. In fact, it seems more likely that those in powers would be more than happy to get rid of the SROs and other affordable housing that exists in SoMa and the Tenderloin. Fortunately, HUD funds many of these properties. And powerful special-interest groups with their own teams of lawyers preserve the rights of the impoverished. So it’s unlikely that the Tenderloin will change any time soon, no matter how many apartment listings refer to it as “Tender-Nob,” trying to affiliate with the affluent Nob Hill neighborhood that borders it. 

• People of color are increasingly forced out of the city. In 1970, African-Americans made up 13.4 percent of the population. Today, they make up only 6 percent. (The majority of the population is 48 percent white and 33 percent Asian.) The rich Latino culture of the Mission is being threatened almost daily, but the street protests and marches have done much to publicize their plight. 

• Of course, San Francisco has always been a relatively expensive place to live. The city is only 47 square miles, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bay. The density is mind-boggling. Even in the outer neighborhoods, such as the Richmond and Sunset districts to the west, and Ingleside and Sunnyside to the South, homes and apartment buildings are pushed up against each other, without even a strip of concrete between them to designate property lines. There is only one direction left to build, and that is up. And that’s what the previous city government had tried to prevent. Building apartment towers along the waterfront will forever alter the city’s skyline. It will bring even more people into what is already a congested city. But the real problem is that these units will cater mostly to the wealthy. The city always tries to include some affordable housing in these new developments, but there is never enough to satisfy the need. As with any business, the rich come first. 

• It’s not just the poor and the middle-class who are no longer welcome in San Francisco: artists, musicians, writers and other creative types are being pushed out as well. Soon, San Francisco will be a playground for the rich. Everybody else, the service workers, teachers, firemen, city employees and any other person who can’t afford to own property will have to live outside the city, relying on what’s left of the Muni system to get to their jobs catering to their tech overlords. 

• There doesn’t seem to be anyway to stop these changes. San Francisco is doomed. This recent tech boom is not going to burst anytime soon. And if it did, the results would be disastrous for not only the Bay Area’s economy but the nation’s as well. We are all dependent on tech. Tech has us by the balls. Yet, it’s still the responsibility of government to regulate tech’s development. Tech companies shouldn’t be allowed to run roughshod over the rights of everyday citizens. Regulate them like any other business. Just because they claim to mean no harm, and regardless of how much we may want the shiny gadgets they manufacture, tech companies are just like any other corporation. They exist to make money. Pure and simple. And right now, as everybody knows, tech is big business. It’s the wave of the future. But a reasonable government should protect its citizens from the machinations of capitalism run amok.