Uber Services in Dhaka City: Empowerment or Entrapment?

Abstract

Proliferations of internet and affordable smart phones have created
avenues for internet based innovative ridesharing services in Bangladesh.
Particular conditions of existing public transportation, increasing demand for
comfortable transport services, and a consumer-friendly market have been the
underlying reasons for different ridesharing services offering companies to
operate in Bangladesh, particularly in the capital. Uber joined in the market
and became an inseparable part mostly due to its brand strength driven
acceptance. However, this acceptance is found not to implicate consistent
customer satisfaction and in some cases fair business practices pursued by Uber
in Bangladesh. This qualitative research concludes that mostly a group of car
owners1 (instead of all the Uber drivers) and mostly the affluent passengers
(instead of all the passengers) are the major beneficiaries of Uber in Dhaka. It
also shows that inception of Uber in Dhaka city has incurred some social costs
for some drivers and some marginalized people particularly the child labor
involved in automobile workshops. However, the particular modality of Uber in
the city has also created commercial opportunities for some institutions such as
banks and mobile network operators. Nonetheless, majority of the value chain
actors in the demand side of Uber value chain in Bangladesh conceive its
services being more of exploitative than satisfying. The findings implicate that
some of the underlying algorithms and strategies Uber uses are not context
sensitive, and adaptive, rather inflicting.