Why I don’t miss the loss of human eccentricities and peculiarities of dealing with taxis in traveling to different places because of converting to Uber

I was in Houston recently. Had to go to the convention center from Sam Houston hotel. Fantastic hotel and they were insistent on calling me a cab. I use Uber all the time including as recently as the previous night coming from the Houston airport to the hotel with a great Uber driver named Jennie. All the convenience of Uber kicked in. Jennie was courteous. Arrived in a couple of minutes. Got me to the hotel. Some small talk and that is it. I walk away with fare and feedback about the driver to Uber. Everything was running on autopilot. Nothing to worry. The app was enveloping human beings and shielding us from each other with its interface. Showed me a picture of Jennie and mine to her before the start so I felt I had known her forever. It was the app in charge, not humans.

Back to the nice people at the hotel. I reluctantly agreed to taking a taxi ride from The Sam to the convention center. The first thing yellow taxi driver says as I am about to enter, "I have no change.. " naturally I ask, "oh you don't take credit cards?" "No". He replies. I know I don't have a dime of cash in my wallet. So I quickly double back to the hotel front desk, find an atm machine, ask the front desk to break into smaller bills and then I come back out with. I was gleaming with pride that now I had real dollars and exact change in my pocket to take on this grumpy taxi driver. Fortunately he was still waiting for me which was great. When the trip ended, I gave him the fare he asked and added the tip. Oh by the way his meter was not working. Asked him for a receipt and he handed me an empty piece of paper that I'd have to fill out with all the details for my accounting department. Just reminded me of the older days when this was normal. It was the thrill of traveling and catching taxi in a newplace. You got to know and be subject to human eccentricities. You were dependent on the peculiarities of how the taxi driver was the master and set the rules of how you would go from place a to place b. How you experienced the raw interface of a local.

I have to admit I like being cocooned in the app. I am not very keen on going back to the eccentricity and peculiarities of the not so good old days of taxi rides.