HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE
RECENTLY I DOWNLOADED AN APP THAT WAS SUPPOSED to help me find people to carpool with. I’m not someone who relishes the idea of coordinating with strangers for my commute but, still, I wanted to give it a shot. For two weeks, I asked drivers—many of whom, the app indicated, had signed up but never actually accepted any carpool requests—for rides between my home in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood and my office South of Market. When that failed, I tried to use the app to get to Silicon Valley. Nope. Then within Silicon Valley. Crickets. Finally, one morning I got a notification that someone named Krishna was offering to give me a ride. By the time I navigated into the app, Krishna’s request had disappeared. This unfortunate performance wouldn’t have been…
