I also drove for Uber in DC for a few months while I was between jobs. I thought it would be a fun and easy way to get a few dollars for beer. My experience mirrors that of the reporter. Towards the end, I would only drive during surge pricing hours, as that was the only way to make a reasonable net hourly wage.
I have no problem hailing an Uber - they are really, really cheap. However, it's a raw deal for drivers. Uber turns a blind eye to driver-contractors driving without commercial vehicle insurance. It has to, as the additional cost (which is pushed onto the driver) would cause the driver's hourly rate to plummet even further. In addition, there is no way to purchase commercial insurance on an hourly basis - therefore part-time drivers would be squeezed out. The flat-rate $1 safe rides fee causes low-distance fares to be even more unprofitable, even when many short trips are already a bad deal due to the overhead involved in each pickup and drop-off.
To fix this, Uber should probably cover drivers with an on-demand commercial policy while they are logged into the app. The flat per-ride fee should go away. And while I doubt this is going to happen, Uber should probably also reduce the commission they take per ride.
So basically you mean than Uber can only make money if most their drivers do not respect the law. Which gives Uber an unfair advantage over the competition (regular taxis that do respect the law ). It's like saying employer X doesn't check if his employees are legal workers, because if he did it would be too expensive to do business. But hey, even startups got to hussle to make a good living.
This is the whole idea behind regulatory arbitrage. Find an industry that has built up "inefficiencies" due the law and then undercut by deliberately breaking the law.
The only thing that amazes me about uber (apart from its current valuation) is that the taxi industry is powerful enough to prevent the issuing of more taxi medallions, but not powerful enough to get the current laws enforced against uber. Assuming uber recognised this in advance (I don't have any evidence that they did) then this was pretty clever.
"Taxi lobby" makes it sound like Uber is disrupting some megacorporate industry who control government in smokey back alleys. Taxi corps are small, many are essentially sole proprietorships. The drivers are essentially all running their own business, but the medallion owners tend not to be huge corporations.
Medallions are required because cities regulate taxis prices and policies. Doing so distorts normal market forces. So medallions are a sort of conciliation prize for taxi drivers having the business model dictated. Govenment limits price, but also lowers competition to ensure they can make a profit.
Uber isn't beating some mustached villinous Taxi lobby. They are beating cities who wanted a regulated car service.
I think Uber is probably better than the status quo, but it's not fighting big business, it is big business.
Uber is nearing $10 billion in bookings, or about 50-100x as much as the largest cab companies. The need of some people to see every tech company is the underdog is ridiculous. By and large the whole point of tech entering these traditional markets is to use capital and technology to achieve scale and efficiency the small businesses playing in those spaces can't hope to match.
Uber is 2-3x the size of the whole taxi industry in SF. Remember, it's not like there is a national taxi regulatory system. It's a bunch of separate municipal systems and Uber is far bigger than any of the other players in all of them.
> Taxi corps are small, many are essentially sole proprietorships. The drivers are essentially all running their own business, but the medallion owners tend not to be huge corporations.
Do you have a source for this? I'm only familiar with Chicago numbers, but a medallion costs $360,000[1] and the top 2% of medallion owners own FORTY ONE percent of the total[2]. 3/4 of medallions are owned by corporations who own more than 2 medallions (i.e. $720,000 in up-front investment or more).
In some markets there are medallions that are owned by individual owners and other that can be owned by corporations. Looking at NYC these are both still worth a lot, but they are falling in value thanks to uber and co [1].
I agree. I was more making the point that regulatory arbitrage only works when you attack an industry without enough clout to shut you down, but enough clout to make the market worth attacking. Good luck trying to run regulatory arbitrage around the pharmaceutical industry. There would be massive profits to be made if you did, but you can expect to spend a long time in jail if you tried.
Some argue big business is big thanks to regulation/government protection keeping competitors out, by preventing them from becoming big or entering the market in the first place.
Isn't it very similar when Uber drivers aren't allowed to compete with the taxi industry, who enjoy a government-sanctioned monopoly?
Forgive me if I sound ignorant of America's laws because I'm not from this country, but I'm really puzzled as to why Uber is able to continue to operating in the country. Why is Uber exempt from all the taxi laws that are currently in place in the states, able to make itself sound like a legitimate business despite breaking regulations everywhere? Feels to me as if you can justify breaking regulations by "satisfying customer demands". I'm really curious.
Uber has "asked forgiveness rather than asking permission" - they've made themselves indispensable in the markets they serve, and it's politically risky to shut them down, because they are serving a very real need in the transportation industry, and people don't want to see them go away. I think that Uber correctly recognized that the taxi market was under regulatory capture, and that they weren't going to be able to break into the market through legal channels, so they took a ballsy risk and decided to give it a shot anyhow.
It seems to be paying off. Massachusetts, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia have all reversed decisions which banned Uber in their jurisdictions.
Uber can only make money if most their drivers do not respect the law is an assumption. Keep in mind that Uber evades the cost of a medallion, which the article says runs $420-460 per week in Philly. That eliminates $1700+ per month of cost that effectively goes to the banks that fund loans on these assets. I don't see much social good in that.
Uber may additionally benefit from regulatory arbitrage, but it is not obvious that their business requires it.
I drove for Uber in Baltimore last spring for a few months during weekends just for fun and I agree this article's assessment is _dead_ on.
I've since stopped using Uber even as a rider. The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous and I don't want to be an enabler to that. Lyft is a bit better because at least I can leave the driver a reasonable tip through the app.
>The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous
I keep hearing this, and it's ... confusing. I mean maybe Uber's really nasty to drivers, I guess, but if it is, then what are all these Uber drivers doing?
It takes all of ... what, like 45 seconds to download Lyft? If Uber is so bad, why don't all the drivers just switch?
I don't know enough about the economics of any particular driver's situation to know how many people it works for or doesn't, but (1) believing that Uber drivers get screwed, (2) believing that, say, Lyft drivers have it much better, AND (3) recognizing that far more people choose to drive for Uber than for these other platforms, requires us to believe some rather surprising things about the subjective mental states of the many, many Uber drivers, right?
I mean:
Damn, I hate my job, my company treats me terribly, and a substantially identical job is about 4 taps and 2 minutes away, and ... I guess I'll just keep working for The Man.
You can't just download the app and start driving. There is an application process. The issue is they are duopoly as far as smartphone hailed transportation goes and as a driver if one already has you locked into a car loan it's a very limited choice and a bit of a sharecropper like situation. It isn't like being a software engineer where there are dozens of top firms competing to hire a limited pool of talent. How would you feel if your home loan for example was tied to your employer and your salary was adjusted by your employer every 4-6 months based on what they felt was fair.
I don't buy this at all. Whatever the application process, it's much easier to switch between Uber and Lyft than it is to move to a different software (or almost any other kind of traditional) job. The parent's question stands.
I never said I thought Lyft drivers had it much better. I said I don't have a problem using them because I can use the tipping mechanism to make sure that I personally am not taking advantage of them. Lyft's proposition for drivers is substantially similar to Uber.
I've had drivers in a couple of different cities tell me they're on both apps, but there are generally more fares on Uber, since it's a more famous brand.
In some cities, the base fares are notably higher on Lyft, too, making more money for the drivers but driving more customers to Uber. I'm not sure about other apps (Sidecar, etc.).
But basically, the drivers can get a cheap fare fast on Uber, or they can wait longer to get a slightly better fare on Lyft.
requires us to believe some rather surprising things about the subjective mental states of the many, many Uber drivers
Only if you believe that humans are the sort of simplified perfectly-informed stimulus-response mechanoids (and operating in a simplified-rules environment) that game theory requires. There's nothing surprising here; it's actually pretty mundane.
That's a pretty interesting point, and one that could be material. Does anybody have any data on the percentage of Uber drivers that have financed their cars through Uber, or what the "oops, I need to get out of this mess now" terms are in those financings?
I don't have any and am curious - my mind might change depending on what those numbers look like. If it's all a big bait-and-switch and then you're stuck to it because you can't get out of the car you just bought, well, that's a different story than the way I've seen it to date. Anybody with info on this?
So how much does commercial insurance cost? And since you have experience maybe you can answer this: What if you accept the insurance argument that having the app open is commercial, and shut it off to find a parking space after every ride. How long would that take, is it feasible?
A few months ago when I was in Seattle for work, I caught Uber everywhere. I had so many conversations with Uber drivers about why they drove for Uber, how much money they made and why they weren't doing something else.
Needless to say, unless I felt legitimately fearful for my life (which rarely ever happened) I would always rate 5 stars. I realised a lot of these Uber drivers (usually migrants with broken English) probably didn't have many other options to earn money. An almost consistent sentiment amongst those drivers was they were working long hours and support family (not just a wife and children but parents/relatives). My reasoning for this was I am paying like half the cost of what a taxi would cost me, so why not 5 stars?
I think Uber is great for a certain subset of people. While most people who frequent HN on six figure tech salaries would definitely struggle to live on an Uber salary, a lot of people rely on it. In all honesty, I couldn't do it and I have a certain level of respect for those willing to earn so little and work so much to support their families. As a passenger Uber is great, but you can't deny that drivers get absolutely shafted unless they're driving through surge pricing periods and areas. I always rate 5 stars when I get an Uber unless of course the driver is swerving all over the place, speeding or doing dangerous things to endanger my life (which has happened like twice in all of the time I have used Uber).
Aside: Anyone else find the article sporadically refresh? Made it very difficult to read the article.
> Aside: Anyone else find the article sporadically refresh? Made it very difficult to read the article.
Yes. It did for me in Firefox on the desktop, but not on mobile safari. I thought I was crazy when it did it the first time but the second time, I knew it was the citypaper site.
Very strange. For me on mobile safari (iOS 8.whatever's newest) it refreshed six or seven times by the end. Very frustrating. I don't have traffic inspection tools on my iPhone but usually I find weird page refreshes like that are due to advertising.
Came here to the comments to ask the same question about the page refresh. At one point the page even completely blanked out and served me an error message directly from the server. It wasn't anything particularly sensitive, but an information leak none-the-less.
> I realised a lot of these Uber drivers (usually migrants with broken English) probably didn't have many other options to earn money.
This is just such a perfect observation. What we are seeing here is an end-run around the minimum wage. The so-called "1099 economy" is increasing employment of unskilled workers who would otherwise be unemployable at the mandatory minimum.
Where else are people going to find a job they can set their own hours, work 12-hours a day, 80 hours a week, making $5/hour sitting down? If the minimum wage weren't so damn high there might be competitive alternatives.
Keep in mind, the goal isn't to "make" $80k, or even $60k, and then lose over half of it to taxes and phased-out benefits. If you're supporting your wife and two kids, the goal is to make about $32k, which on a 1099 will work out to just about maximize your EITC, food stamps, Medi-Cal, etc. and in the end your net value is equivalent to about $100k fully loaded (the employer's fully loaded cost) of regular W-2 employment.
You're talking about something completely different from the comment you're responding to. You're comparing entirely to historical averages (even the "other measurements" link is all about historical levels relative to other indicators). The parent comment appears to be speaking normatively, as in "much higher than it should reasonably be".
You're right, the article claims OP had 1099 earnings of $9.34/hour assuming expenses of $0.51 per paid mile. But then also goes on to note that other driver's expenses were more like $0.70 per paid mile.
I wonder if she amortized that $100 of tire damage in that $0.51 / mile! Also, what about the unpaid miles getting to a fare in the first place, or getting back home after a fare takes you off the beaten path? I think it's extremely difficult to fully account for all time and expenses in that line of work. Finally, subtract another 7.6% off the top for 1099 vs W2.
She also pointed out that her take-home was lower than that of the other drivers she checked against because she did not take full advantage of surge pricing and other "tricks" of experienced drivers. And she pointed out that some drivers' expenses were less than her $0.51.
I suspect $10/hr is a fairly reasonable average. The discussion is interesting enough even without needing to exaggerate that number.
I don't plan on taking uber, but if I did, I got average service I would probably dare the driver 3 stars, because that is what 3 stars mean.... Average. And yet I would unknowingly be hurting the driver. And that is just stupid
I have come across a startup founder who drives Uber in the evenings to help with cashflow.
But he is a unique subset as well. His family lives back in South Africa and this keeps him occupied in the evenings plus he can do a bit of customer validation if occasion presents.
Ouch. That hurts. You have taken such a small part of what I have said and used it to paint me as someone who is taking advantage of the fact that Uber offers cheaper fares than a taxi service. And then to add salt to injury, you throw in that last line. While I agree somewhat with your point, your comment was just plain rude. There are so many other ways you could have said what you wanted to say without launching a borderline personal attack on me and trying to paint me as this horrible person.
Everyone can claim to be ethical, but at the end of the day whether you realise it or not, you're supporting people in not only your own country but other countries through the purchases you make everyday, not necessarily in the best way either. That $5 coffee you might purchase every morning is benefiting people picking coffee in coffee producing areas of the world. Those same people are getting paid horribly, they're also subjected to abusive work conditions bordering on fear tactics used to keep them working. You're helping people support families, but it is a catch-22, you're also not making things better either. So lets not get all self-righteous about this. Taking an Uber is no different than deciding to buy that new TV or pair of shoes.
That iPhone or Android device you probably own was made of components mostly manufactured in China at the lowest possible price to maximise the profits of a large corporation. The same thing, people working in those factories earning a few dollars per day (way below the poverty line) because they have no choice. The MacBook Pro or desktop computer is also made up of components built and assembled by people working in deplorable conditions for cents on the dollar.
At the end of the day Uber is a job. And while I do not agree with how Uber operates as a company or their misleading advertisements to get drivers, no matter if you're choosing to take an Uber or a taxi, you're putting money into someone's pockets. It might not be the best way to help someone, but at the same time there are a lot worse jobs out there in the US and other parts of the world where working conditions are dangerous, the money is even lower and the hours longer. At least with Uber you choose your own hours, how much you work is up to you.
The people making shoes, iPhones, TVs---they don't have to do that. They could do whatever they were doing before that factory came to town. But working in that factory is preferable.
The same thing is true for Uber drivers.
You don't have to feel guilty for any of these purchaes---you should only feel good about them, if anything.
That guy was very rude, but you are just accepting his argument and trying to use it against him. It's not a valid argument.
>>The people making shoes, iPhones, TVs---they don't have to do that. They could do whatever they were doing before that factory came to town.
This isn't always true. There are situations where some big factory shows up, ruins the local economy(usually by wrecking the environment) and now the only way to make a living is to be part of the company... or move far away. Leaving your homeland of generations is technically a choice, but emotionally... not really.
Right, but it's generally true. Do we really need to point out that there can be exceptions? Of course there can be. There are probably even factories in China where people are literally slaves. Is it necessary to say "Of course there ar exceptions" every time I say something that could have exceptions? Because somebody is always going to come back and point out an exception, as if it invalidates the generalization.
> Leaving your homeland of generations is technically a choice, but emotionally... not really.
It's always, truly, a choice. People can make choices regardless of how difficult it is to do so. It's a matter of free will.
First off, I agree. It was rude and when I wrote it I was in a bad mood in general. I think the ensuing discussion is definitely worth my karma hit; I'm a little bit sorry that you had to receive that aggressiveness, but reading your response I have hope it's ok.
What I felt when I read your post, and wrote my response, was not so much about you as about an attitude that I'm fed up with, which is basically "I can see how this system isn't working out, but I'm participating anyway because it treats me pretty good". And as you say, and others in this thread, there is something - an ideology, a rationalization or a truth - which excuses if not condones this.
I don't buy that coffee, I brew my own, and always buy eco and fairtrade. I know and agree that this isn't really working out either, but it's a start, and a "market signal" or whatever. Thing is, I've been to those coffee and cocoa plantations and guess what - things aren't working out for the people working there, either.
When it comes to the electronics, I'm painfully aware of the fact that the rare minerals are often mined by actual slaves, under gunpoint. What is probably the worst war since WWII is basically about minerals for smartphones, it's in The Congo[1] and has claimed millions of lives. All the while some of the world's wealthiest people are laughing and smiling about their billion dollar profits. So I don't get a new phone all the time. I have a Geeksphone Peak, for the record. Still, it needs cobalt and coltan and tin which might well have been mined by children, literally with their hands.
What javert says about choosing to work there just isn't that simple. What branchless says further down the thread is; it's about access to land. And those people working factories in China were removed from their land in agricultural reforms. It's a political thing and it has happened all over the world; see e.g. The Enclosure[2] in Britain.
This isn't simple at all, but since it's a market economy where all decisions are ultimately made by the "consumer", which is us in the context of this discussion, we have to make the right choices. And if we have the information, we can't just disregard that with "hey, at least it's a job". That's what bothers me the most about this; a lot of people just don't have the information to make the right choices. If the people who have the information, and the wealth, to make better choices don't, then we're doomed.
I realize how this will come through all high and mighty, but I think it's worth it to get a clear message across. The idea behind the market economy is that we organize ourselves according to every individual decision. In that case, it's up to everyone to make the best choice, using all available information. You can't have the cake and eat it.
If you don't agree with how Uber operates as a company, don't do business with them.
But Uber isn't forcing their workers at gunpoint, and it wasn't them that created the situation where the workers have no other alternatives.
If people are forced to get a badly paid job at Uber because the alternative is worse, and you remove Uber, guess what happens to the people you're trying to help?
If we want to help the people using Uber, we need to give them access to a better alternative so that they can leave voluntarily - be it giving them land or whatever. I don't claim I have a good solution, but we shouldn't fall into the Politician's Fallacy¹.
¹ "We must do something, this is something, we must do this"
I'm not talking about removing Uber. I'm not, and I don't get the idea DigitalSea is, in a position to "remove Uber". I'm not talking about any overarching ideology or abstract reasoning. I'm not "trying to help" people, either. I mean, it is what it is, right? What I take issue with is the reasoning that you and I almost have a moral imperative to go with the cheapest option, even though we are intelligent and well-informed, and can see that it's just not working out.
I'm talking about individual choice.
I also don't agree with your language, by the way. Uber's drivers are not using Uber; Uber are using them.
If you know that the alternative costs twice as much, and you doubt that the driver offering a ride for cheap can actually support his family, you have a choice.
If you are worried someone else might take a chunk of the expensive ride, or if you prefer the cheap ride anyway, you could always tip. US is the land of tipping, right? But then again, that might feel weird since the payment is centralized... Funny, that.
I can heartily recommend a Fairphone to anyone bothered about the plight of workers in war-torn Congo. They have a new on coming out next year which I'm hoping will be Lollipop. (Current version is stuck on 4.2, which is a shame, but still totally workable.)
Also I think Intel is getting is stuff conflict-free.
Yeap, I think that's the right attitude. I only got a Fairphone after my previous phone died in a freak punting accident†.
Fairphone did have a recent announcement that was suggestive of new OSes... but personally I think them supporting Android is important, so it can be an off-the-shelf replacement for another phone, rather than a bizarro thing for beardy-weirdy yoghurt knitters.
You're being overly rude about this but I agree on the point you're trying to get across. Most of the taxis I've been in were also drove by people trying to support their family. They probably have a better salary and maybe even compensations. Uber is certainly not disruptor in the worker rights zone.
Taxi drivers got a terrible salary, with a huge amount of the income (as much as 45%, according to the Taxi Commission) going to the taxi companies which own the garages and medallions.
In many cases, they had to pay to work, by dropping $50-$100 on the start of the shift to lease the medallion, before even knowing they would get enough rides to pay for it.
The entire economic system is built around people trying to get the best deal possible for themselves. You can try and paint that as inhumane and abusive if you're commited to emotionalising economic dynamics, but it really doesn't make any sense. At the end of the day as long as the transactions are consensual, there's no need for this rhetoric of abuse. Uber drivers know the deal and they can take it or leave it. No one's holding a gun to their heads. Likewise, it's not Uber or anyone else's job or responsibility to guarantee anyone or anybody a certain standard of living.
You might as well vilify people for choosing the potatoes which are 10c/kg cheaper at the supermarket, isn't that a case of those wealthy enough to buy potatoes victimising helpless potato farmers?
> At the end of the day as long as the transactions are consensual, there's no need for this rhetoric of abuse.
That's one of the biggest singular pieces of bullshit I see regurgitated in the discussions about market economy.
For most of the people on this planet, a lot of Uber drivers included, there's little choice. They either have a job, or go hungry and homeless. The power asymmetry between an employer and employee is so big that you may as well enforce that "consent" at gunpoint. There's little practical difference.
What we need is an equitable distribution of wealth starting with equal access to land. These guys can't make a living for themselves because they don't have any land.
That was why they called the USA the land of opportunity. In the expansionary phase people could get land near others and generate wealth from it. Now people must exist in the service economy waiting for trickle-down that isn't going to come, spending most of their wages on rent.
You're missing the point. You're absolutely right that "consent" is only _technically_ present when the alternative is something terrible, but the flaw is in blaming the less-bad alternative.
To use your example, if I force you out of your house at gunpoint and you're forced to live under a freeway, the problem isn't "this overpass isn't a very nice place to live", the problem is _the guy holding you at gunpoint_. (That example is trivially modifiable to describe homelessness: the real problem is the lack of adequate housing provided to those who can't afford it).
In the case of Uber, the problem is not that Uber is provided an alternative means of employment that's suboptimal, it's that people are forced into taking what they can get because our social safety net is such garbage.
What's the idealized world you're comparing this to?
An agrarian economy? Guess what, you either farm and build a shelter, or you go hungry and homeless.
Sure, maybe an agrarian economy is too market-based for you.
Try living on a commune and being the guy who specializes in "doing fuckall". I'm not sure how long you'll be welcome.
I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make, but life isn't free or fair, and it never has been and never will be.
That's not a reason to not even try to make things better, but the tone of the "regurgitated bullshit" comment implies that it's being used to fight against some other, better system.
I'm not comparing it to any idealized world; my point is that the "voluntary trade" card is being played as justification for all types of abuse in the economy. Because it's not abuse if both participants consented, right? It's also used to support the viewpoint that if only we could further deregulate things, "remove the barriers to voluntary trade", things would be better.
Except that the ideal voluntary trade seldom exists in practice, especially when you're lower or middle class. There is so much power and information imbalance that the employee or customer rarely has any choice but to participate in the trade. Companies like Uber know this and exploit it on purpose.
> The entire economic system is built around people trying to get the best deal possible for themselves ...
Getting the best deal possible is one factor, but it's not the only one, it's not dogma, and it doesn't justify bad behavior.
I think your post is a simplified approach to a complex world. For example, it assumes that the marketplace is free and fair, which it clearly is not. The powerful often use their power to prevent competition, or even to write the rules (via influence in government) of the 'free' competition. Also, profiting from others' suffering is wrong.
Finally, our economic system, while good relative to most in human history, could be greatly improved. Let's not allow a dogmatic idea that it is ideal stop us from getting better. For one thing, it could be made more free and more fair.
> it's not Uber or anyone else's job or responsibility to guarantee anyone or anybody a certain standard of living.
I strongly disagree. We all have responsibilities to our communities and society; if people didn't meet those responsibilities, the communities and society would fall apart. Those who don't do their part are parasites on those who do, in my humble opinion.
Great, so you're concerned about some people being more competitive than others in the free market. So what's your response? A monopolistic ostenisbly communally-controlled central power to oversee and address alleged abuses? Excellent, you just created a superbly manipulable tool of power for society's most capable individuals to wield. You just made problems of fundamental unfairness much worse, not better.
Uber has enough market power that it's often a monopsony, and thus has the power to depress wages more than would happen in a market that didn't have the winner take all dynamics of most app-based businesses.
You can paint it as "natural" for a monopsony buyer to squeeze every possible penny for themselves, but most humans have an emotional reaction to interactions which are perceived as unfair. This isn't irrational or dumb. It's natural and it's part of being a human.
Because we decided as a society that it is. That's why say, the concept of minimum wage exists, and plenty other labor laws. The remaining question, legally, is whether Uber is offering drivers a "job", as opposed to a software platform that they can use to be self-employed as drivers (which is Uber's argument).
If Uber is offering jobs to drivers, then certain standards must be met to avoid illegal employment practices. Then the next question is whether or not Uber actually violates those standards. The answer might be that it doesn't, life can be pretty thought for people in many professions that we have actually deemed 'fair enough' work. But if the answer is that it does, then Uber needs to change.
If 'the sharing economy' is not actually creating employer-employee relations, then it might still need to be regulated (perhaps under different regulations than labor laws), depending what society thinks of the mechanism as a whole. For example, if drivers are self-employed contractors rather than employees, then what gives Uber the rights to fix their wages? Is there such a thing as minimum wage for independent contractors? Who is responsible for things like health insurance for Uber drivers? We have plenty of answers for these questions for the kind of independent contractor that makes $50 an hour, not for the kind that makes $17 a ride. But again, it might well be that the deal as it is can be actually considered fair, compared with for example being a street market vendor or a temp worker at a convenience store. I certainly have met plenty of part-time/retired drivers in the South Bay that consider the deal a fair enough source of extra cash. The point is that we haven't figured out whether or not it is exploitative and that is the sort of question modern developed societies can afford to ask themselves and weight against the benefit of 'it creates some value for some people and pays the bills for some others'.
Edit: I'll add that I use ride-sharing services often, want them to continue to exist in some useful form and am firm believer of 'default allow' as it comes to new business models. But that doesn't mean nobody is allowed to look into whether some new business practices are exploitative or not or that there can be no harm in allowing any voluntary economic transaction.
The entire economic system is built around people trying to get the best deal possible for themselves. You can try and paint that as inhumane and abusive...
Wow -- you're so damn close to the moment of insight, and yet so far.
And the irony is that people like yourself, chasing phantoms of unfairness in the free market, support the extension and entrenchment of coercive governments, an institution which is and always will be eminently corruptible, an institution whose history is a litany of abuse and overreach.
You sound like someone who's never actually gotten involved in politics.
Try getting in at the local level--volunteer for a state representative's campaign, or a local city/county commissioner. Get to know people, talk to them, see what it's really like.
What you're characterizing as "eminently corruptible" and full of "abuse and overreach" actually makes a lot more sense when you step out from behind the keyboard (and its steady supply of anti-government, libertarian websites) and get involved.
Just like workers in sweatshops and factories in countries like Indonesia and China have a choice to not work for a few dollars per day in dangerous conditions producing textiles for your $200 sneakers and smartphone components for your $1000 iPhone or Android device? The people working in those deplorable conditions are doing so voluntarily, right? Just like the homeless guy digging through the trash on Market St in San Francisco has the choice to not be homeless even though his area is being gentrified and even people on six figure salaries cannot afford to live in a lot of areas of San Francisco. I cannot get on-board with the view that everyone has a choice.
> The people working in those deplorable conditions are doing so voluntarily, right?
They actually are, and if you ask them then can explain why they chose it. These factory jobs are usually very sought after, and has lifted millions from extreme poverty. I suspect you have little idea how harsh third world poverty actually is.
> Just like the homeless guy digging through the trash on Market St in San Francisco has the choice to not be homeless
That's very different. He can choose whether to dig for trash, but not directly whether to be homeless. You can choose your actions, but not end results.
He is also fairly likely to be mentally incapable to make rational decisions. Meanwhile, the Asian factory workers you mention are quite capable and responsible adults. As are the vast majority of American Uber drivers.
It includes quite a bit about the lives of people working in the garment factories in Bangladesh. Sweatshops are a major step up from the alternatives - especially for women.
The frying pan/fire metaphor implies choosing between equally awful options, but the factory work is substantially better than the alternatives.
Of course, to rich westerners like you and me they are both unfathomably awful, but to the people concerned going from living on the streets to a modest bed indoors can be a huge life changing event.
I disagree. Uber employs extremely deceptive advertising to recruit drivers and encourages them to do things like buy new cars then turns around and cuts the amount drivers get paid. This has the effect of totally screwing them over. It's a pretty exploitative situation for people who actually rely on it for income to pay their living expenses.
I think people need to ask themselves - if it's half the price of a regular cab how can this be?
Either tax drivers are being exploited by their employers who are pocketing most of the wealth generated, or uber drivers are underpaid. Or taxi firms are insanely inefficient and uber has undercut them with their web 3.0 brilliance.
Most people have no business training, and don't know about how to look for hidden costs. It's easy enough to think that taxis are that expensive solely due to the overpriced medallion system, which crops up in newspapers every now and again. Most people wouldn't understand that Uber's profit largely comes from shifting the risk from themselves to the drivers.
The idea of "choice" is significantly more complex than you present it to be, particularly within the context of people providing for themselves and their families, and the information asymmetry Uber leverages in order to convince people to work for them.
So what, some people have urgent needs, different parties in economic transactions have access to different information. Welcome to the free market. They're still choosing to work for Uber. No one is forcing them. Uber isn't forcing them. Uber is just offering an opportunity that they are deciding to accept.
It's not really voluntary if you can either accept a crappy, abusive job or starve to death. People purposefully creating such conditions are doing something incredibly evil to other human beings. Having to "choose" at a gunpoint would probably be more humane.
That's interesting, because I have had the opposite experience. The one time I used Uber instead of Lyft in NYC, I got a driver who was most probably a rapist. Whenever we passed a bar or any drunk girls, he would start telling me how he wanted to take advantage of them. Then he started insulting me for some reason.
It was a strange experience, but clearly, the Uber driver pool is merging with the taxi driver pool. And it's bringing the bad elements you'd expect from a typical cabbie.
This was the common sense amongst all working people for most of the 20th century. Samuel Gompers, maybe the most conservative labor leader of his time, said "You cannot weigh the human soul on the same scales as piece of pork." And working people, along with the management class for the most part, understood this to be an undeniable truth. In fact, this piece of common sense was enshrined into US law with the Clayton Act of 1914, which stated "The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce." But in the last 20 years, as capital has gained the firm upper hand, the common sense understanding has shifted towards the idea that labor is in fact a commodity.
The ideas behind the so-called "on-demand workforce" further solidify the notion that labor is a commodity. After all, you can order an uber ride just as easily as you can order vitamins online.
It's so pervasive that even I, someone born into a union family and a firm believer in the idea of worker solidarity, have to force myself to believe that labor is not a commodity. Why? The business class treated labor as expendable in 1915, just as they do in 2015. Why did working people understand this truth in 1915 but not today? I don't know.
I read a recently released sociology book earlier this year (going crazy looking for the title/author, can't find it), that posits millennials are far more likely than any recent generation to blame themselves for the problems they face. It's part of the reason that the self-help industry is bigger business than it's ever been. It's not always your fault. Our modern economy is built on rotten ideas like labor = commodity. If we want to do something about inequality, it's time that we subject fundamentally unjust ideas like these to a serious critique.
That labor is a commodity is not an "idea", but in the case of Uber drivers and the Foxconn workers who assemble iPhones, a fact. It is a fact because that's how those jobs and service/production processes have been designed. The work has been broken down into their smallest parts, so that it will require no special skill or intelligence to perform them. As anyone can do those jobs, they have been de facto commoditized.
For someone who cares for the wellbeing of people at the bottom of the enterprise pyramids, the goal should be to design new organizations, with jobs that have latitude for learning and development, that is multi-disciplinary and creative. And many of the worst jobs today should be automated because they are not fit for human beings.
In that regard, it's been a fact since the division of labor was first outlined (and then fetishized) in the late 18th century. In terms of breaking down the tasks needed to build the final product, early Ford factories were just as efficient as modern Foxconn assembly plants.
I'm not arguing whether it's a fact or not. Culturally, in 2015 America it's a fact. In 1915 America, the same "fact" would have been handily rejected, even by conservative minds. Most people only read the first chapter of Wealth of Nations where Adam Smith extolls the virtues of the division of labor. The second half of the book, where he warns that the division of labor taken to the extreme could result in unfathomable social ills, and we ought not ever travel down that path, is usually conveniently ignored.
I'm all for automating jobs that technology deems unnecessary. The solution isn't to push everyone into some multi-disciplinary creative class. Many people would be very happy as uber drivers, or any other menial job, if they were treated with respect by their employer. I'd say the solution begins with treating workers with dignity and respect.
>I'm all for automating jobs that technology deems unnecessary. The solution isn't to push everyone into some multi-disciplinary creative class. Many people would be very happy as uber drivers, or any other menial job, if they were treated with respect by their employer. I'd say the solution begins with treating workers with dignity and respect.
I agree, but the problem is not a moral problem but a business problem. How do you design a product, and then the process of making that product, so that you can afford to treat employees well in a competitive, global market? I'd even put it like this: How can you turn paying employees more into a competitive advantage?
>The solution isn't to push everyone into some multi-disciplinary creative class. Many people would be very happy as uber drivers, or any other menial job, if they were treated with respect by their employer.
I'm not going to use Uber if they are paying the driver $40/hr as a real employee (which translates to closer to $80/hr cost) simply because it will cost more than a cab at that point.
> Why did working people understand this truth in 1915 but not today? I don't know.
Because of Ayn Rand. You think I'm joking, but she's the only intellectually serious defender of capitalism in the 20th century, and her influence is snowballing. When Rand was alive, members of her circle would rejoice at the extremely occasional mention of her name in print. Now, you can't turn on the TV or go anywhere online without hearing about her.
As a side note, human labor is not a commodity. However, "capital" (as you call it---you use a lot of Marxist terms in your post that do not reflect the reality of society) does not have an obligation to hire you on your terms, either. Labor is about a voluntarily trade.
the neoliberal project as organized by the various branches that sprouted from the mont pelerin society have had much more concrete impact on policy for the last 30 years than rand's acolytes alone. they're from the same tradition as many of rand's beliefs but they're the apparatus that engineered the neoliberal order.
The only reason Ayn Rand ever comes up is because she has vague name recognition and the Democrats use her to take easy cheap-shots. They do the same thing with Koch Industries. In reality, Koch Industries' alleged influence is greatly exaggerated. The economists listed above are all academic giants compared to Rand.
In most parts of Latin America, the names Friedman and Hayek are far more likely to be recognized than Rand. And rightfully so. Unlike Rand, they advised governments. Brutal dictatorships mostly.
No, the reason Democrats take shots at Ayn Rand is because Democrats have the moral high ground in the public's view, and have for decades, and there has only been a single person to challenge that: Ayn Rand. She really is a threat. If the Democrats lose the moral high ground, it's over for them.
Contrast this with Republicans: They are generally quibbling compromisers who say they are opposed to government expansion, but actually agree with it on a moral level, so all they accomplish is barely slowing down the rate of government expansion. The Bush presidency is a case in point, but you can see this "quibbling compromise" in practically all major Republican politicians.
lol dude i think you might want to take a step back and look at election results (on all levels) 'for decades' if you think democrats have any perceptible 'high ground' among the american public
I didn't say they have the high ground. I said they have the moral high ground. That is why they keep getting elected despite not actually being appealing to the middle class.
I live between NYC and Bangalore, India. I have used Uber and its closest competitors (Lyft and Ola respectively), in both cities.
I have a mental questionnaire I go through with 90% of the drivers and here is what I have learnt:
Uber vs Lyft: Drivers make more money with Uber, but rules of engagement are more relaxed in Lyft.
Uber & Ola (not vs): The drivers in India hone in on these three points:
1. They make 3-4 times the money they would if they were employed as a driver in a upper-middle class household (very common in India).
2. They feel respected and think of themselves as "Business owners" now. It is heartening to see how much the "feeling respected" theme repeats itself.
3. They know the good times won't last.
Unlike US, in India, Uber and Ola are do not take a cut from the ride. In fact it is the opposite - They keep the per kilometre cost to the end consumer lower than Auto Rickshaws and compensate the drivers the difference. In fact Uber has taken a "not-for-profit" model in India (and in Beijing).
I was just in Guangzhou where this is also the case; they have a non-profit/subsidized tier called "People's Uber". A 20 minute ride would come out to the equivalent of $3. The weird thing to me was that there were 5 tiers of service and while there were different cars available for UberX and People's Uber, I couldn't tell the difference in the service. Not sure why anyone would choose UberX when the VC-subsidized version was available.
The offending code that reloads the page every 3 minutes [0]. Terrible. The author told me on twitter [1] it's because of traffic, but... no. it's the js code. Ironically, the forced reload is making the traffic problem worse.
You can add a "function contentRefresh(){}" in your devtools js console to get rid of this. It was the only way I could finish the article.
var timer = setTimeout("contentRefresh()", 1000 * 60 * 5);function contentRefresh(){self.location.reload(true)}
But yes, this is astonishingly aggravating. Why would you do this on a site, or at least a page, that is attempting long-form journalism? Don't they want people to, you know, read it?
Only a guess but I'd place money on "because that's the best way they can think of to increase advert impressions". I've known publishers do that for this reason, at least. Depressingly.
And yet I have adblock on, so the only thing they're accomplishing is making me not read the whole article. There's enough irony in that to cure every case of anemia worldwide.
I'm just using AdBlock Plus on this particular browser (Conkeror; Firefox-like). Haven't bothered to try with Firefox (which doesn't have Ghostery, but has a more stringent ad-blocking policy and some other privacy-ish addons that I can't recall at the moment).
It happened to me without any adblockers or other add-ons (Chrome, in its default form.) The refreshes were partly obnoxious due to not always scrolling back to the same place on the page.
Well yeah, it's definitely the site; one of the replies to my original comment managed to identify the piece of JS that's doing it. Using a JS-blocker (or inserting a bit of JS into your developer tools to blank-out the offending function) would do the trick.
While I like the improvements to regular taxi service that the competition has brought, I don't like Uber. They're just shady all around.
The "We're not a taxi service, we just sell software" is a load of crap.
How many apps take a piece of the gross? Purchase a license? Ok. A monthly fee for ongoing service? Sure. A chunk of all the money made from using it? I don't think so.
Kind of disappointed that the author neglected to discuss how the $9.34/hr she earned as an Uber driver compares to her salary as a "senior staff writer".
I found it interesting that many customers were complaining about drivers with accents. I wonder if, would Uber implement per-driver pricing, those people would really pay a premium for drivers with no accent.
Driving people from A to B individually would be a "perfect competition" kind of situation without regulation. Some of the motivation behind regulating this market was that some taxi drivers just started robbing their customers.
Now Uber is doing away with the regulation, and it's "perfect competition" again, the state of affairs when prices have to be so low that there is almost no profit for the suppliers. Uber will always make the most overall profit with their drivers just on the edge of survival.
Uber may actually set the fares just below the profitability point, because new drivers or those "driving for fun" actually put money on the table rather than being paid.
> Uber reassures drivers that they've got them covered, but their vaunted $1 million policy is secondary for collision — that is, drivers must try to get their own insurance companies to pay the claims first. If the claim is rejected because the insurer figures out it's Uber-related, then Uber's policy kicks in — but the driver's almost certainly going to have his personal insurance policy cancelled, and in some cases be investigated for fraud.
What? Has this ever happened before? Surely by now there would be specific examples of this taking place, if it were indeed a real thing.
> CP: Yeah, not really — when they take UberX into a new market like Philly, they start off by paying drivers a lot. So in the beginning, you get a lot of drivers who look like the drivers in Uber ads, like, suits and bottled water and no accents. And everyone gets the idea that Uber drivers have suits and make a ton of money. Then after a while, usually when a competitor comes in — you know Lyft just started up a couple weeks ago, right?
(CP is the person who wrote the article, not anyone being interviewed) -- How impressively unprofessional. The entire section that quote comes from is just the person writing the article yelling at someone she's ferrying around as an UberX driver. A more obvious hit piece could not have been written.
Also, the site keeps refreshing on me, losing my place in the article. I think it's related to the graphs, but I can't be sure. They randomly go into "loading..." mode when this happens.
Go check the forums at uberpeople.net to hear firsthand the numerous stories of drivers having their personal insurance policies canceled after an accident. The media doesn't care enough to cover these stories.
It's not a myth, it is actually right in the agreement with your insurer, that your vehicle will not be used for commercial purposes.
Also, the $1 "Safe Ride" fee only covers excess liability, not collision. So if you're driving for Uber or Lyft, and the accident is your fault, everyone else is covered. Your passengers, the other driver(s), their vehicle(s). You have a totaled car with no insurance and have to pay your own medical bills.
FYI- My page kept refreshing as well. Really annoying. I can't imagine it is on purpose to drive up pageview counts... but... I've seen shadier tactics.
There have been quite a few stories regarding the insurance policy, though more about the ambiguity/controversy in general than specific incidents...which isn't surprising...when do car accidents make it into the national news? Rarely, unless a whole bunch of people die. For an Uber-related accident and subsequent legal fight to make national news, one of the parties has to pitch that angle to the media...though with the way things are, media outlets generally have little problem jumping on an Uber (or Airbnb) mishap when they hear about it.
> As you might imagine, the front of the Dodge was badly damaged. The driver is now suing the driver of the Town Car, a vehicle with livery plates operated under the company SF Limo Car Service. The pedestrian, who broke her leg and injured her back, is suing both drivers. She is also suing – and this is what makes this crash particularly interesting – the transportation-tech company Uber.
> The don’t-ask-don’t-tell strategy usually works until there’s a crash. Ian, a Bay Area Uber driver, was off duty when his car was hit by another car in October. While he was filing a claim with Geico, they asked him if he ever worked for Uber or Lyft. “I panicked,” he said. “They put me on the spot. So I just answered honestly and said yes, but that I wasn’t working when this happened.”
> Uber posted a “Statement On New Year’s Eve Accident” on its blog, offering condolences to the victim and her family, but also distancing itself from any cuplability.
> After initially being told by an Uber representative in Chicago that he had to pay a $1,000 deductible, this was later recanted. Since he was not at fault, his personal car insurance fronted the entire bill. But because he lacks commercial coverage, questions arise as to who would be responsible if he had been responsible for the collision.
I see people buying 2008 plus four door vechicles(that Uber approves of--on the ever changing list) and not making money and stuck with a four door car. Four door cars are harder to sell than two door cars.(I can't point to a link to prove this, but I used to sell cars, and four door cars were a tough sell.)
My problem with Uber is the requirement for a 2008 or newer car, and Uber decides if it's cool enough to represent their company. This is not an independent contractor Uber?
Let the driver use any registered vechicle? Your brilliant app will let the consumer look at the vechicle before before the hire? If you are worried about safety--just because a person has an older car doesn't mean it's less safe. Bring every vechicle in for a safety check if worried?
Maybe then, when the Uber driver finds out it's not the opportunity your company claims; they aren't stuck with a car they can't sell, or take a huge loss when selling your "acceptable" vehicle, or worse claim bankruptcy?
People are desperate for jobs--don't exploit them! I liked your company in the beginning(before I looked into the requirements of Uber).
The "Sidecar" app may be more appropriate for drivers who want to take customers for a ride in their go karts/tractor trailers/dune buggies/mopeds/cat busses/... :)
"remember - UberBLACK and UberSUV vehicles MUST be black on black.
Please note: all vehicles must be 2010 or newer. The TLC is no longer renewing diamonds for vehicles that are older than 2011, so if your diamond is up for renewal, the TLC will not allow you to continue driving a 2010 vehicle. If you don't have TLC plates yet, you must get a 2011 or newer vehicle, as the TLC requires black cars to be under 5 years old."
But wait if you have one of these Uber approved automobiles you will "make $500 per trip, no risk, no strings attached"
> "remember - UberBLACK and UberSUV vehicles MUST be black
> on black.
Colour? If so, that's not true in practice in Bangkok. All the cars here seem to be Toyota Camry's (or SUVs), and I've had a fair number of white ones.
Besides the Moped--they aren't quite street legal? What is the point of the App if you can't see the vechicle? Do you happen to work in a climate controlled Uber office--with stock shares?
My point is don't claim Independent Contractor status when you're obviously not. This link makes fun reading. Maybe you can explain automotive aesthetics to me, Honda, Chevrolet, or Volkswagen?
The list is amazingly odd. I get that a BMW 3 series is acceptable but an M3 is not -- perhaps they don't want customers being given rides by those who fancy themselves "performance drivers".
But the Subaru Impreza WRX but not the Subaru WRX? They're the same car! Impreza not acceptable, but WRX is? That turns the "performance vehicle" thing on it's head.
Many small luxury vehicles (Audi A3, etc) are not acceptable. Okay, fine. But the Prius is! But the Lexus Ct200h (which is a Prius with a fancier badge) is not acceptable.
The BMW 3 series is acceptable, as is the 4 series coupe, but the 4 series Gran Coupe (a Sedan version of the 4 series coupe, which is a coupe version of the 3 series sedan.. yeah, don't ask) is NOT acceptable?
Passenger can see the vehicle when choosing a ride in Sidecar. What the original comment was implying is that Sidecar is less picky on its vehicle requirements.
Uber offers a certain deal to potential drivers, they either like it enough to accept it or they think they can get a better match for their skills and circumstances and they keep looking. Uber has no responsibility to try and offer a deal which matches your sense of fairness. No one is being coerced and no one is being exploited.
You're neglecting to consider that other employment opportunities for someone in a given set of circumstances may offer a similarly raw deal, which results in effective exploitation, even if Uber is not solely responsible.
Worse than that, Uber externalizes the cost of commercial vehicle insurance onto the driver. A part-time driver is likely to not carry commercial insurance, due to the expense and to hyperbolic discounting: I'd rather have $X more in my pocket now than protection from a possible lawsuit later. This results in cheap fares at increased personal risk to the driver, who often doesn't fully understand that risk.
Also, these drivers have no ability to negotiate as a group, so they are at a disadvantage against a well-funded corporation that is quickly gaining market power and sets all of these terms.
I have no problem hailing an Uber - they are really, really cheap. However, it's a raw deal for drivers. Uber turns a blind eye to driver-contractors driving without commercial vehicle insurance. It has to, as the additional cost (which is pushed onto the driver) would cause the driver's hourly rate to plummet even further. In addition, there is no way to purchase commercial insurance on an hourly basis - therefore part-time drivers would be squeezed out. The flat-rate $1 safe rides fee causes low-distance fares to be even more unprofitable, even when many short trips are already a bad deal due to the overhead involved in each pickup and drop-off.
To fix this, Uber should probably cover drivers with an on-demand commercial policy while they are logged into the app. The flat per-ride fee should go away. And while I doubt this is going to happen, Uber should probably also reduce the commission they take per ride.