To Hell with The Doormen!
Doormen in SF were notorious for extorting money from cabbies, and limo drivers too. There were large hotels in the city that I, and many other taxi drivers, avoided because we refused to pay the required bribe to the doormen for rides to the airport. As I alluded to as Driver 8, should we be concerned about doormen getting tips for hailing taxis — something any hotel guest could do for themselves? Should we not celebrate the fact that doormen no longer have the ability to extort money from working-class cab drivers?
As for the good ol’ days of taxis, don’t forget that a taxi company’s revenue is generated by leasing taxis to drivers. So there is no distinction between a “good” and a “bad” taxi driver, as long as they continue to pay their lease, or gate fee. In the old monopoly system in San Francisco, the need for customer retention was non-existent. Had customers been adequately served by this system, there would have been no demand for the rideshares to exploit.
