Post 640 - August 16, 2024

When Uber first appeared, I resisted using it. It seemed to me that the start-up app was going to gut the New York City taxi union. I envisioned a future in which Uber’s cheaper rates would drive the yellow cabs out of business and then, without that competition, ride prices would then skyrocket. I didn’t want to help make that happen.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, and tens of thousands of able-bodied workers suddenly found themselves without jobs during the Great Depression, many of the unemployed started driving. They had their own cars and people still needed to move around, so why not?

Within a very short time, the number of cabs on New York City streets ballooned to unsustainable heights. There were now far more taxis than there were passengers. Prices dropped to almost nothing and soon nobody could make a living at it.

In 1937 the government began regulating the industry. New York City created the medallion system. The city sold a fixed number of these medallions to people – no more and no less. You were not allowed to operate a taxi or livery service without one. It might not have been strictly fair, but it allowed some people to make a living at driving rather than none.

Currently, there are about 13,500 officially sanctioned cars in the city. In addition to that, the Taxi and Limousine Commission sets the maximum rates that a medallion cab can charge per mile or per minute. There is no bargaining when you hail a yellow cab. You know what you are going to be charged before the trip starts.

Since 1937, the value of the medallions has fluctuated widely. In 2004 they were going for about $400,000 each. In 2008 when the economy tanked, the cost of them actually rose. By 2010, if you could find one, you would have to pay about $800,000. By 2014, you couldn’t get one for less than a million. The number of medallions doesn’t change, but who owns them does. Individuals can buy and sell them as they please.

The way the system works is that drivers go to a taxi company and lease the medallioned car for about $150 for a ten-to-twelve-hour shift. During that shift, the drivers keep all the money that comes in – fares and tips alike. They are considered independent contractors so all expenses, including fuel, are on them. At the end of the day, with the money they’ve taken in, the drivers earn a livable annual salary. The taxi companies can make well over $50,000 a year for each vehicle they lease out to the drivers.

Then Uber came along, and the system changed. The first thing that happened was that the value of each medallion dropped dramatically. These days, you can buy one for about $160,000 or about 15% of its 2014 value. The regulatory system has been loosened so that now there are many more drivers on the streets.

Yesterday, I was in Amsterdam. The old center of Amsterdam is a maze of narrow cobbled lanes and canals. It is not a city where taxis roam around. I needed to get to the airport and the easiest way was to get an Uber. Sure enough, one arrived in about five minutes.

The driver and I fell into conversation. I couldn’t tell you what his ethnicity was, but he didn’t speak English with a Dutch accent. He looked to me to be about forty years old. He told me that before the pandemic he had been a millionaire. He sold weed to coffee shops.

Marijuana has been legal in the Netherlands for much longer than it has anywhere else in the world. Back in the day, maybe thirty or forty years ago, people would travel to Amsterdam just to get high. There were coffee houses everywhere with a whole menu of different varietals. You’d order the one you liked and sit there and smoke it. It was a huge and very lucrative industry.

The guy driving me, whose name was Adjai, was a kind of middleman between the shops and the growers. He would keep the coffee houses supplied with high-quality product, and, in exchange, he would make a healthy percentage. He was so good at this, so he told me, that he would also get substantial bonuses to keep him loyal to a particular business. There was a constant demand for stuff that was good, and it was not always easy to find. I didn’t ask him how he’d developed those connections.

Adjai didn’t save the money that was coming in, instead, he reinvested it. He and his girlfriend opened and managed three beauty salons. This was in 2019. Of course, we all know what happened the following year. The pandemic struck.

The coffee houses shut down. The salons had to shut down. Adjai was able to keep things going for a while but eventually, his money ran out. When we came out of the pandemic, the business model had changed.

Pot is now legal in many places throughout the world. You don’t need to plan a special trip to Holland to get it legally anymore. There are still coffee houses in the old center of Amsterdam, but not nearly as many. They also aren’t nearly as crowded.

Tourism has also changed the world over. Segments of the population who used to travel don’t anymore. New segments do. Businesses that catered to the old groups have folded while new ones aimed at a different demographic have begun to appear.

Adjai’s weed procurement services are not needed anymore. There’s plenty of product readily available. He and his partner were able to keep one of the salons going, but it is only bringing in enough money to cover its expenses – rent, salaries, and the like. Adjai is at a crossroads. He needs to relearn the system and start again doing something else, but what?

He was very excited when he heard that I was from New York. He’s dreamt of moving there ever since he can remember. So much opportunity. Everything is open all the time. He was devastated to hear that, like Amsterdam, New York has also changed since the pandemic. Nothing operates there the way it once did. Without money, New York is an almost impossible place to live. Not so much with the endless opportunity and not so much for staying open 24/7.

The other place he is considering moving to is Thailand. Two years ago, Thailand was the first Asian country to legalize cannabis. For Adjai, that means opportunity. The cost of living there is very low. Getting in on the ground floor would mean that he could expand and grow with very little completion.

I did a brief research dive into the pot situation in Thailand just now. In the two years since it’s become legal, small dispensaries have sprung up everywhere. Bangkok is apparently a blinding sea of neon signs advertising the stuff. Since it was legalized a more conservative government has taken over and they are now trying to get cannabis reclassified as an illegal narcotic and put an end to all the new commerce. Adjai, I fear, has missed his window.

A friend of mine’s brother tried to get in on the ground floor of Canada’s marijuana industry right after it became legal there a few years ago. What he eventually found was that big corporations had gained control of the industry and were pushing the smaller mom-and-pop shops out of business. They could control the marketing and distribution of the pot far more efficiently and cost-effectively than he could. There wasn’t a place for him in the new order.

As much as it might look like we have returned to a semblance of normality following the end of the pandemic’s shutdown, that is not the case.  We all joked about the idea of the “new normal” but that is exactly what we are living in these days. The world does not work the way it did five years ago.

I knew how to navigate through my theatrical work in pre-pandemic times, and I was very good at it. I had learned how the business operated, and I had carved out a comfortable niche for myself. The path I was able to forge back then would not be possible to do today. The way everything functions is so different, and, in fact, it is still morphing. Were I to keep working, I would need to relearn it all.

That I was skillful navigating through the last incarnation is no guarantee that I would be able to get through the “new normal” with the same level of success.

There is no denying that, from a consumer point of view, Uber is in some ways a better value than the medallion taxis. The app is as efficient as it gets. You always know where your car is and when it’s going to arrive. Money need never change hands, it’s all automatic. You arrive, and that’s it. You get out and go about your business.

I have friends who make their livings driving their cars for Uber. They can set their own hours. They don’t need to invest in a medallion. It all seems like a plus. I, of course, look at it and wonder how these people are going to be able to retire? Do they get health insurance?

Of course, unlike an official cab whose rates are set, Uber prices fluctuate. You may find yourself having to pay a small fortune to get home late at night in the rain when there are no other options. Uber also has a history of doing whatever it likes when it expands into a new territory regardless of existing local laws. From its beginnings as a scrappy outsider app, it is now a massive corporation, itself.

Part of what growing up is, is learning how to make your way through the world. School is a chance to decide what we want to do in life. We all must face our fears of failure – some give into them and choose safe roads, and some forge blithely ahead into the unknown. We figure out how to play the game - what the rules are and where the pitfalls are.

It turns out, I have found, that there are no safe roads. They are all subject to forces beyond our control. What seems like a clear path turns out to be anything but. Politics, economics, and a good global pandemic can throw a wrench into the works without any warning.

In the 1980s someone I knew went to graduate school for Russian studies. The Cold War had created ample opportunities for careers in diplomacy, trade, and cultural exchange. After he spent several years in a very expensive grad school, however, the Soviet Union collapsed, and all that specialized training became worthless.

For everyone who feels a bit lost these days, it isn’t because you are any different. It’s because the entire landscape has changed. Familiar landmarks have vanished. Well-marked trails have become overgrown and impassable.

You can resist the change and keep trying to move forward the way you used to, but you are going to be stopped. You standing up to these powerful forces on your own is not going to stop the change. By all means, refuse to buy anything from Amazon and insist on going to your local store. Your local store, though, unfortunately, is probably not long for this world. They can’t stock the variety that Amazon can, nor can they match their prices. And greedy landlords keep jacking up their rents.

My not taking Uber is not going to stop the spread of Uber. It’s done. It’s spread. Perhaps it is better to take the energy I am putting into resisting everything changing and use it instead to learn the new rules. The change is going to come regardless so isn’t it better to be prepared?

Adjai is not necessarily going to find any more opportunities in New York or Bangkok than he will in Amsterdam. He knows the place. That said, Holland is a very small and very rigid place, maybe he should go somewhere else. There isn’t that much room for growth, there. Adjai figured out the system once, he now must start again and learn the new one.

Unless you have a very clear idea of the place you think will make your climb easier, there’s no sense in just picking up and going there. Adjai thinks New York is still the city that never sleeps. It isn’t. Not by a long shot. Try finding a place to get a bite to eat at 10:00pm. They are few and very far between. He has an imaginary place in his mind that sadly doesn’t exist.

I think he’s still in shock by how drastically his world has changed. Well, Adjai, welcome to the club. It’s changed for us all and we are all still in shock.

The people who made typewriters, rotary phones, 8-track tapes, camera film, and CDs all had to find other paths forward. So do we.

I just looked up who first said the famous quote, “The only constant is change.” It turns out that it was the Greek philosopher Heraclitus over 2500 years ago.

See? Nothing has changed.