Do you care if the driver speaks your language?

Recently, I had to help some friends arrange travel itinerary in Taiwan because they don’t speak Chinese. It is rather a common practice when traveling in Asia that you hire a driver to take you to a few touristy spots for a day or two. Since my friends don’t speak the local language, they were contemplating if they should hire a driver that could speak English or just a driver that could communicate through google maps. Before they involved me in the process, they wanted to hire a car service with English-speaking driver that would charge them $600 a day. To me, that sounded insane because it’d only cost $150 to hire any taxi to take you around for a good 8 hours in Taiwan (bur of course, you’d be dealing with non-English speaking drivers). After hearing my comment, they couldn’t decide on whether to use their original car service or just hire a taxi when they get there. I thought it was no brainer to just hire a taxi since the cost difference is quite significant. They agreed, so they went on their trip without booking a car service in advance. The same week they went to Taiwan, I took a weekend trip to Chicago. While in Chicago, I used Uber to get around. To my surprise, all the Uber drivers I met during the trip didn’t speak English. Even though they could take me from point A to point B with direction from google map, I couldn’t help but feeling the annoyance because we couldn’t communicate on anything — like the AC is too cold or the music is too loud type of thing. At that moment, I thought about the friends that are visiting Taiwan and wonder if they eventually hire the car service they found originally. After all, it’s nice to be able to chit chat when you’re traveling (and voice your needs for comfort of course). A good traveling experience isn’t just about getting from point A to point B. The journey is part of the experience as well. What would you do if you were them? Do you care if the driver speaks your language?