Oral East Africa>Nairobi APP WARS 2; Uber drivers in Kenya try to organize protests on Zello At the hut of the story

Price on a coke bottle

Like many things, I had not yet comprehended the concept he was referring to but it had become common. The taxi drivers would let you hail a cab and once inside would complain about the business and ask you to pay more.

Kenya has a habit of changing prices so that the recommended retail price by companies is usually seen as a marketing joke rather than a reflection of pricing. This arbitrariness will see you pay anything from Kes20 to Kes300 for the same brand of bottle of water depending on whether you bought it at a hotel or tuck shop.

Taxi-hailing apps were supposed to change this, which attracted the middle class as it offered price discovery by comparing drivers within an app and across different platforms for the cheapest ride.

This was the success that made this application popular in Nairobi. Outside the capital it was different ball game, in Mombasa and Kisumu where I am from it is not uncommon to get Uber drivers haggling with you for a favorable price, and disregarding the estimation of a trip. This in turn has meant that usage has remained low.

But now the City drivers want to copy the village failure.

Group-think

According to an account by one of the drivers, the Zello application has also been used to coordinate a boycott of customers. Once you order an Uber and refuse to negotiate on a price, they would report the case on Zello and you would have a mark on your back, avoided like a plague.

While this method has proven effective in frustrating customers, it has been resulting in losing them.

Once when I hailed a taxi it took too long to come. When he came, the first thing he asked me was if I was willing to pay to use the expressway.

It was an odd request but I soon found out he was measuring the flexibility of my wallet which, was thin. I however wanted to catch up with a few people and had to be in a rush, which is impossible to do in Nairobi traffic so I accepted.

He told me he only took the trip because of my name, was I from Ingo? He questioned. I was being marinated. I confirmed the affirmative but we quickly found out he was no relation and the name was simply coincidental.

But the filial appeal had opened a door for him to ask for more money. He went on the practiced tirade, of how the evil apps were making them slave for nothing, and the only way to make something was to negotiate with customers.

“We do not force people, we just try to talk to them, that is what we have agreed on the radio, Zello. If a customer refuses, we just accept but we have to try and tell them to top up something for us,” he said.

He claimed that the Zello app has not only brought them together, it has brought them a social network of support. They mobilize in case they are stranded and have moved even a step further to create an investment arm and put their money in Cytonn. I nearly choked.

Delusion

The driver said that the group was also being used to moderate and discipline them, he claimed that errant drivers are deducted 500 shares and can be removed from the group.

If you listen to him you would imagine the group has absolute control and thus its ability to call a strike should automatically succeed.

Another taxi driver I took in a small smelly little car, that I could barely fit in was also very proud of belonging to the online group. He believed the taxi-hailing business had it wrong because the driver was the most important part of the business.

My friends in the city laughed at this delusion. They told me this new trend has worked appallingly against the digital taxis since it almost always degenerated into quarrels with a tendency for harassment and had scared off many women clients from the service.

The taxi services also served a very price-sensitive market that opted out immediately after prices fluctuated. This partly explained the long queues at matatu stages. These are the typical middle class who would have taken Ubers but have now returned to public transport rather than pay more for trips.

I was told the taxis are also losing out to motorcycles which are becoming more cost effective with electric technology and logistical advantage over traffic.

Divisions

All the time I was listening to the Zello app, what I heard blasting from the radio, was the usual disagreements on how to move forward, how to treat snitches, and whether or not to declare the strike and when to do it.

There are also divisions as it turns out there are two digital groups, one with about 10,000 and the other with about 18,000 according to the different drivers that I spoke to.

When I pointed out to the drivers of this Achilles heel, they were quick to assure me that the leadership is working in tandem. But they had already failed to agree on a strike date and had to postpone it for a week.

One of the drivers I met said he had quit the group because of the inertia that set in after it was formed. He said that from his experience, even if a strike is declared, there will still be those who will have to come on the road.

“People have loans, people need to eat. And besides those groups, people just talk. If we could agree to switch off those international apps and just remain with the ones in Kenya, then we would make a difference,” he said.

I asked him what would happen to an Ivorian, who lands at JKIA and has only installed the international apps.

“Enyewe,” He said as an afterthought.