(Before Uber came to the country—it currently operates in Jeddah and Dammam, in addition to Riyadh—women relied on private drivers (if they could afford them) or [limo companies]
If Saudi is anything like other Middle Eastern countries I have visited, taxis and motor rickshaws are very common.
Of course the elephant in the room is that neither Uber, nor taxis are a real solution to the driving prohibition. So I wouldn't go overboard patting Uber on the back.
Saudi is not like other Middle Eastern countries. Taxis may exist, but the limitations placed on women are far more extreme in Saudi. The rest of the Middle East are varying levels of liberal around women, with the UAE not having any legal restrictions on them, Oman having only social regulations (somewhat strict, but only for natives) on women's outfit and segregation from men in public, etc.
This got me thinking... I wonder how hard it would be to create a service that scours the web and detects the influence of PR (versus organic) for a given brand. If you somehow measured the "sentiment" of each article towards a brand, perhaps by scanning for words, weighing each one and compiling a score for a given article, you might able to chart the total score for that brand over time. For instance, too many positive articles that get published "out of the blue" (unprompted by events) would strongly hint at a PR team at work.
mentions an important point for the popularity of the taxi-hailing apps:
"And she didn’t want to deal with the negative comments she would face if she tried to hail a cab in the conservative kingdom, a woman using public transportation on her own is often seen as lacking morals."
...
"... no one can tell she isn’t using a private car."
Another interesting point :
"There is no law prohibiting women from driving in Saudi Arabia, but there are fatwas, or religious edicts issued by conservative Muslim clerics. As a result, the government won’t grant women licenses."
Is this a good thing? I'm usually the one defending Uber here, but I'm not hugely a fan of them operating in Saudi Arabia.
Greasing one of the stickiest wheels in a tar-covered regime is hardly what I call a humanitarian effort. Saudi Arabia's oft-brutal [1] maltreatment of women has nasty secondary effects on their society, and this is lifting one.
Sure, this is lifting the effects of Saudi Arabia's awful gender relations on their society... by making out substantially better for the actual people disadvantaged by that system. I find it very hard to see any downside that compares.
It's definitely interesting to see how a driving service company alters behaviors. In Brazil, almost not a day goes by that Uber isn't in the news where it's common to read about taxi drivers threatening physical assault of Uber drivers, forcing passengers get out of an Uber and into a taxi, and most recently, kidnapping an Uber driver. In another instance, Rio taxis even went on 24h strike (obviously not too well thought out).
"We're connecting expats with existing limo companies so that they can come on the Uber platform"
Is it just me or does that sound pretty awful? Considering what I've read about the terrible conditions of migrant workers in the middle east... (job seekers paying huge placement fees, employers taking workers passports, workers living in awful conditions, withheld pay, etc.)
I'm not familiar with the way Uber operates there but if they mediate the worker-company relation and sponsor the drivers into the country they might actually be helping here, at least with the placement & passport issues. The worst offenders are probably not going to work with Uber anyway.
I'm generally not a fan of the way Uber operates but I don't think they actually can make migrant worker's treatment in the middle east any worse than it already is.
This would only help the wealthy ones though right?
I know Saudi gives it's citizens a lot of cash to splash but supply of Taxis would still be limited and expensive i guess?
In the long term wont this just act as release valve? There will be less pressure for change as people with clout can simply choose not to be affected by the unjust law.
If Saudi is anything like other Middle Eastern countries I have visited, taxis and motor rickshaws are very common.
Of course the elephant in the room is that neither Uber, nor taxis are a real solution to the driving prohibition. So I wouldn't go overboard patting Uber on the back.