I reject Uber completely: not primarily because it pays drivers too little – which may now change temporarily in the UK (Report, 29 October), until Uber fires them all – but because of its injustice to passengers themselves. One basic injustice is that Uber requires riders to run a proprietary app. A proprietary program is controlled by a company and gives the company power over whoever runs it. This is wrong in itself, and often tempts the company to design the program to snoop on users or otherwise mistreat them (see http://gnu.org/proprietary/).

The other basic injustice of Uber is that it makes customers identify themselves – and records where they go. If Uber or similar services replace today’s taxis, we will all suffer a loss of freedom. The data Uber collects is easily available to the state (see http://gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.html).

If we don’t want a society of total surveillance, in which democracy becomes impossible, we must be wise enough not to give up an essential liberty for a little temporary convenience.

Dr Richard Stallman

President, Free Software Foundation

• Your correspondent (Why Uber deserves to be hailed not hated, Letters, 1 November) should perhaps move from the metropolis to the wilds of Essex. We have two local taxi companies, both of whom send a cab minutes after a phone call and send text messages to let me know its progress and arrival. They usually arrive earlier than promised and I have never had a no-show.

The drivers she speaks to seem to think that working more hours and driving more miles for a lower per-mile rate is a good thing!

I don’t know her circumstances but would be interested to know whether, like most of my acquaintances who support and use Uber, she herself is in permanent, well-paid employment with maternity, holiday and sickness rights and possibly private medical insurance too.

Charles Moore

Wickford, Essex

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