Note that drivers wouldn't cancel profitable rides, only rides that don't make them or cause them to lose money. I'm not sure why anyone has a problem with this.
If you wanted a cab to Brooklyn from Manhattan 20+ years ago, you had to get in the back of the car before telling the driver where you wanted to go. Otherwise the driver would just drive off without you. The ride was definitely profitable, but they knew they'd pick up another Manhattan ride on the next block and so on - a more profitable option that to risk not having a fare back from Brooklyn. Many drivers wised up and wouldn't let you into the cab until you told them where you were going. It was a major PitA.
There must be reason that this condition has been put into place.
It is about passenger safety. The article itself mentions that people are stranded late night and one driver after another refusing to pickup the rider. Think women, emergency,.. etc.
You’re probably right. Not even a decade ago in New York I had to call cabs for my Ivy-league educated, well-dressed black roommate because they would curiously blow past him.
They’d ask you, “where you going?”, before you got in the cab and drive off if they didn’t like the destination. Experienced riders would ignore the cabbie, enter the cab, and then explain the destination. Then when the cabbie argues with you, you’d cuss them out and tell them to drive before you call the taxi commission to get their medallion revoked.
While many of us do miss the fun of those arguments, not having to deal with that is one big plus that Uber blessed the world.
It's because it's a democracy. That's the reason. And the majority of people don't like the idea of potentially being stranded in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Now, I can appreciate that reason. And I totally understand it myself. And I also understand that drivers can be shit.
But as a former Uber driver myself (not in India, but in California), please try understand it from my perspective as well. Uber doesn't pay for elevation changes. If your car gets damaged on a windy rocky dirt road, or on a road with no lighting whatsoever (Santa Cruz hills, I'm talking to you). Uber won't pay for damages or loss of income. Or if Uber calls you to a neighborhood where drivers get carjacked and pistol-whipped, as a driver, you're the one who has to bear most of those consequences, not Uber (we're not cops, we don't get paid leave, workers comp, or even medical benefits). The same goes if you get called to an area notorious for handing out traffic tickets or parking tickets. Uber pays for none of that, but it will penalize you for refusing the ride (and in San Francisco, it took them almost 10 years from finally blacklisting Market St for pickups, the part that's downtown).
And people can be shit. They'll call you just for getting down a windy dirt road that they don't want to walk down themselves because it's too steep. Or they'll call you just to dump their semi-conscious intoxicated friend into your car. I could tell you a thousand stories.
But my point is, the situation is more nuanced than you think.
Then you go back to the taxi problem of there being no rides from or to predominantly black neighbourhoods.