The nature of work is changing. Taxi drivers were the first to sound the alarm

Move fast and break things. We hear it time and again – Silicon Valley’s mantra of disruption. Adapt or die. But what we almost never hear about is the human cost of this technological Darwinism. The lives broken in the process.

And now that cycle is coming full circle. Tech workers themselves are being automated out of their jobs - AI models replacing coders and designers with little to no protections. We’re watching the same playbook: profit framed as progress, workers told to “reskill,” and policymakers standing by.

One of the first groups to live through this process was taxi drivers, right here in San Francisco – the city where Uber, Lyft, and now Waymo were born. Drivers were forced into debt, discarded by companies and politicians, written off as collateral damage in the name of innovation.

We thought it would be interesting to speak to a cab driver – to almost go back in time – to see the impacts on real people’s lives. We got in touch with Marcelo Fonseca, a cab driver of more than thirty years, to talk about what happened, where companies and policymakers went wrong, and why people working in tech today should pay close attention to his story.

Marcelo, 65, is a cancer survivor who still holds his taxi medallion – the city-issued permit required to operate a taxi in San Francisco. For generations, a medallion was a driver’s golden ticket: proof of legitimacy, protection against fly-by-night competition, and, eventually, a retirement plan.

“I’m very proud of my career,” Marcelo told me. “But I’m disappointed with the situation my industry finds itself in.”

The Medallion Sales Program was supposed to stabilize the industry. Traditionally, drivers waited years – even decades – for their chance. Marcelo signed up in 1994 and waited fifteen and a half years to get his permit. But in 2010, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency shifted models away from the traditional waitlist and began selling transferable medallions for $250,000 apiece. The idea was simple: drivers would have a stable, appreciable asset, something they could sell or pass on like a house. The city, in turn, would get a badly needed infusion of cash.

But almost immediately, the ground shifted. At the very same moment the city was selling medallions, Uber and Lyft were flooding the streets with what were, in effect, unlicensed taxis. A series of pro-tech mayors looked the other way.

By 2016, the program collapsed. Forty-two percent of the medallions sold went into foreclosure. The cab fleet itself shrank by half.

Marcelo didn’t buy into the sales program – he got his medallion under the old rules so he didn’t have to pay for it – but he’s watched friends buckle under the weight of loans. “Too many of my friends are dying behind the wheel, trying to pay for medallions that are totally devalued,” he said. “People lost their health, their credit. It’s a human tragedy.”

What makes him angriest is the double standard. “The app doesn’t change the nature of the service,” he told me. “It’s still taking a passenger from point A to point B. But we had to pay to do this job, and they didn’t. Why is the taxi industry still paying to do business in this city when Uber, Lyft, and Waymo don’t pay a dime?”

I don’t think many people are aware of this: There are still cab drivers in San Francisco who are forced to pay for medallions that are now almost worthless. Marcelo insists he and his colleagues aren’t anti-technology. He’s testified at meetings of the California Public Utilities Commission – the body now tasked with regulating autonomous vehicles – not to block innovation but to demand fairness. “We’re not here opposing tech,” he said. “We’re here to oppose Uber, Lyft, and Waymo not paying into the licensing system cab drivers have to. We don’t oppose the model. We oppose the unfairness of it.”

It’s a point worth sitting with as AI and automation spread through the economy. Tech leaders insist these are brand-new industries, different from anything that came before. Uber and Lyft did, too.

Marcelo’s written to Mayor Daniel Lurie. No response. He appealed to Governor Gavin Newsom, whose administration introduced the medallion sales program. Nothing. If the elected officials don’t want a taxi industry, fine,” he said. “But let us leave the industry with dignity. Why destroy the lives of the medallion holders in the process?”

His frustration with the elected officials who left cab drivers hanging out to dry inspired him to create and co-produce a documentary film portraying the clash of the Medallion Sales Program with the unregulated rise of Uber, Lyft, and now Waymo. The film, TAKEN FOR A RIDE - How San Francisco Backstabbed a Generation of Cab Drivers, was accepted by the New York Workers Unite Film Festival and will be screened this month on October 22nd.

Meanwhile, closed-door negotiations are happening between the San Francisco Federal Credit Union – the lender for most medallion loans – and the city’s transit agency. Drivers aren’t in the room. Rumors swirl about partial relief, maybe a buyback for those still paying, but years have passed and so far nothing is in writing. “We’ve been wondering what’s in the settlement for medallion owners,” Marcelo said. “We just don’t know. And city officials have said publicly that buyback is not an option.”

There’s still some 400 medallion holders working long hours behind the wheel to pay back six-figure loans on an asset that’s now almost worthless. The silence is striking in a city that prides itself on being progressive.

In New York, drivers facing the same collapse fought back – and won. When the debt crisis there pushed medallion owners to the brink, members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance launched a hunger strike in 2021. Then-Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani joined them, refusing food for fifteen days. The pressure worked. New York negotiated a $450 million relief package, slashing debts and capping monthly payments. Mamdani took a risk, and today he’s the city’s Democratic nominee for mayor.

Taxi drivers were the canary in the coal mine. They lived through the cycle of disruption, deregulation, and debt that tech workers are beginning to feel now. What happened wasn’t just about new apps – it was a financial model that shifted risk onto workers while investors reaped the upside.

That model hasn’t gone away. AI companies are running the same play, reframing labor as disposable “inputs,” externalizing costs onto individuals and the public, and claiming regulatory exemptions as innovation. The story of medallions – once treated as durable assets, then rendered worthless overnight – looks a lot like the fragile equity packages, contractor gigs, and reskilling promises tech workers are holding today.

New York showed another outcome is possible. Debt relief there wasn’t charity; it was a politically-forced market correction after years of regulatory arbitrage. The question is whether anyone – in San Francisco or the US – will demand the same as automation moves deeper into the economy. Because if we’ve learned anything from the taxi industry, it’s that disruption doesn’t just move fast and break things. It leaves people broken unless someone intervenes.