Companies Are Not Your Friends

Even if they say they are, they’re not.

Uber’s decision to drop surge pricing to and from airports amidst nationwide protests during the horrific and messy rollout of the new administration’s Muslim ban caused over 200,000 people to #DeleteUber. Public opinion of Uber started to dip. There was a blog post alleging horrible sexism; later, a horrifying video of CEO Travis Kalanick arguing with a driver over pricing changes surfaced, just after the New York Times published an inside look at the company that revealed a toxic and stressful company culture.

Uber Sounds Like A Bad Place to Work

In light of the recent airing of Uber’s dirty laundry, Lyft, the ride-sharing company with the pink mustaches, has rushed in to capitalize on waning public interest.

How Lyft Is Capitalizing on Uber’s Scandals

In an interview with Time, Lyft CEO Josh Zimmer did his best to position Lyft as Uber’s ideological opposite — the friendlier, jocular cousin to Uber’s slick, corproate VIP. Never mind the fact that the two companies do basically the same thing — Lyft would very much like you to know that they have your best interests in mind.

They’re here for you, baby. Trust them.

“We’re woke. Our community is woke, and the U.S. population is woke,” Lyft President John Zimmer tells TIME, sitting in his five-year-old company’s San Francisco headquarters. “There’s an awakening … Our vote matters, our choice matters, the seat we take matters.”

For a company to enact “woke” policies isn’t a bad thing, though I’m not sure how woke Lyft is and it hurts my brain to think about. If you’re throwing your money at any corporation, it’s a tiny comfort to know that they share your ideals. Spending your money in line with your values can be difficult to do across the board; as a mindful consumer, you have the choice to put your money where your values lie. But it’s important to understand that a company is not a person — they’re a company. They want to make money and as a consumer, you’re the means to that end. It’s for this reason that statements like the following irk me so:

“We’re not the nice guys,” Zimmer says. “We’re a better boyfriend.”

A company doesn’t need to be “a better boyfriend.” Thinking of any company as your boyfriend or your mother your your sister or your best friend is a dangerous folly — even though they seem like they have your best interests in mind, they very likely do not. A company is not a person! A company is not your friend.

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