The article doesn't call anything ride-sharing. The HN title did, but that broke the site guidelines (unless it was Vox who changed theirs).
I use UberPOOL more often than UberX these days. I think it's fair to call that "ridesharing".
In other news, McDonalds is not a burger shop anymore because I just order the icecream.
That's silly. A more accurate analogy would be: We should stop saying there is no ice cream (no ridesharing) being sold at McDonalds (Uber). I think that's a reasonable assertion.
Uber doesn't describe the service as 'ridesharing'. That's a term the media uses or very occasionally we will use if referring to (for example) "Texas Ride Sharing Bill" where that's the official name of the legislation.
(Source: I'm an Uber employee)
Not totally true. I pretty much only use Uber pool these days unless I'm with more than one companion.
Uber is ride-sharing if and only if taxis are ride-sharing.
Yea, but it's 1000 times easier to organize a ride share with Uber when the app will automatically pair you with someone with similar source and destination locations.
This is where people go wrong! You're not paying to be driven anywhere. You're paying the driver to want to go to the same place where you are, and then he might as well give you a ride there. So it's completely different, and the driver doesn't deserve any of the perks and protections people with real jobs get. Being an Uber driver obviously isn't a job, it's just doing something for money. And there's an app involved, so it's clearly different. It sounds like you're just conversative. Disruption, dude. Have you heard of it?