> The benefits are diffuse and deferred: the driver was, for many of us on many days, the last stranger we were obliged to encounter. The last person from outside our bubble – professionally, politically, socially – with whom we had an unchosen conversation. The last reliable source of a view we did not ask for.

This is a very strange take, to me.

I have conversations with cashiers, bartenders, servers, baristas, the random person in line in front of me or behind me, the person next to me on my flight (if they seem open to it), barbers, you name it.

I've had a handful of interesting conversations with cab drivers, but it's a tiny proportion of all my conversations with people "outside my bubble".

So I'm not really worried about this. The idea that cab drivers are somehow the last vestige of someone outside of your bubble is... bizarre to me.