Uber Drivers Don’t Want to Hear Your Terrible Music

​ Uber, which ​has slashed driver wages to the point where it makes no economical sense to take a regular taxi anymore, has just become even more driver-unfriendly: It's partnered with Spotify to allow backseat deejaying to its passengers.

If I were a driver (I'm not), this would be devastating news. Drivers have already had their pay rates cut, regularly have to deal with drunk and/or puking passengers, are urged to take on predatory loans, and have to figure out what to do when people try to shotgun beers in the backseats of their cars. And now, they presumably have to listen to "Turn Down for What" or "Doses & Mimosas" multiple times a night in cars that will inevitably have one or two passengers too many.

I know this, because I have been a 20-something living in multiple cities, have spent time flitting in and out of different social groups, and have learned one universal truth: When the youngs get all liquored up they like to listen to bad music, loudly.

Uber drivers know this. /r/uberdrivers, a subreddit that certainly isn't representative of the overall Uber driver population but is nonetheless a good place to start when gauging driver sentiment, absolutely hates the development. In a thread discussing the news, anyone who suggested that letting passengers select their own music is anything less than terrible was downvoted to the bottom of the thread.

"There's just no way I would let Uber allow passengers to hijack the speaker system. It's a violation of the black car service understanding," one former driver wrote. "If the passenger really wants to hear something through the speaker system, he asks. It gives the driver the opportunity to decline, and explain why. When I did drive, I kept my phone on an aux cable, and when customers asked, I let them use it. I almost always regretted it, because they would blast the most obnoxious noise possible."

"Nope, my car, my rules," another wrote.

"Yep, I'll be answering no to that question," a driver in Richmond wrote. "Every time someone wants to play something, it's absolute shit music."

Another was a little more blunt: "Fuuuuuucccckkkk yooouuuuuuuu Uber."