I dont see how Lyft gets off calling this fraudulent. Seems to me it's the system working as intended, and as it should.
Drivers dont want to drive for under a certain value, so they simply inform the app who adjusts the value to fulfill demand. Seems like its what you want to happen.
I don't know if I would call it fraud, but I can see where they are coming form. Drivers aren't individually deciding to turn off the app, but they are doing it collectively to manipulate the app into surge pricing.
> I dont see how Lyft gets off calling this fraudulent.
The workers are "defrauding" Capital out of greater-than-substance wages. It's bullshit, and they'll try to re-frame in in terms of customers, but that's essentially their view.
This seems like it could also torpedo their Contractor vs. Employee argument.
Contractors get to set rates, employees don't. So you can't say they're contractors AND accuse them of committing fraud when they try to set their own rates.
Now if only someone would develop an app that does this for entire cities. The app could be their version of a union.
Under the theory that Uber/Lyft employees are contractors and allowed to set prices, wouldn't coordinating ("conspiring") to do so en masse be considered price fixing?
Personally I think they should be considered employees, but a pro-management federal prosecutor could make some trouble for them.
This is basically the contractor setting his rate... through an interface that the app designers did not specifically design for.
If a driver wants to work for $20, and the offered rate is currently $10, what’s the difference between them a) typing $20 into a text field and hitting a “request” button vs. b) turning a switch off and waiting for the app to increment the rate little by little up to $20?
Contractors get to set rates, employees don't. So you can't say they're contractors AND accuse them of committing fraud when they try to set their own rates.
This isn't how it works? Rates of pay are mutually agreed upon between an employer and employee regardless of classification.
News flash: if you go out of your way to classify your entire workforce as contractors, you don't get to decide when they work or not. It turns out this has consequences on both sides.
If Lyft wants to decide when their drivers are working, there's a process for this:
They are contractors because they do not have any set obligation for time. Rate of pay or overall pay has nothing at all to do with that. According to the IRS they do not have a set schedule and they are contractors (that is 1099, not W2).
So they are contractors. What does that have to do with pay? Absolutely nothing. You want x and are willing to pay y. Maybe there’s an opportunity for me to negotiate for z, maybe not. Either way none of that has anything to do with the actual form of employment. Even if I were a salaried employee working 40 hours a week the company has a budget of $40,000 a year and that’s all they will pay. If I demand $45,000 they’ll just tell me no - they simply don’t have the money.
In this case Uber offered you $x. You agreed to $x. You have no schedule, which is the perk of the job vs driving a cab, where you will have a schedule. Need to take the kids to school or a doctor’s appointment? Well, work that around your work schedule.
And as for your third point... Uber already charges me for both time and mileage. I don’t see any problem with them paying their drivers based on both... but from the drivers I’ve talked to they already do. I can’t speak for any other service at all.
This is really curious, in that it appears to be a normal strike for higher wages, except it's being coordinated on an hourly basis for just a few minutes until the company agrees to pay more!
Contractors can decide when and how they want to work, and therefore determine the price at which to sell their labor at, so to me it seems they are simply exercising their rights here. Like others have mentioned, if most drivers don't choose to participate, then this "scheme" wouldn't function.
Not 100% sure I'd call it a strike but its just the free market working quickly.
I have a feeling though this will spread around the world and be adapted by drivers in many other countries.
I've traveled a bit in South America and Uber drivers there really do earn barely anything - I dont know how they afford the gas - e.g. 1/2 hour trip for $3-$4.
One is that the workers are getting paid more per the algorithm that these companies designed to charge customers - that is, they are getting the company to facilitate higher payments but the company itself isn't being charged more! So in that case, the drivers are simply arguing that uber/lyft are artificially undervaluing their time because clearly these passengers are willing to pay 15% more to them to get home...
--
It is telling to me how often Lyft/Uber/et all emphasize that their philosophy is that these gig economy jobs are just something you do a tiny bit extra to get some extra cash in your pocket. That is they are designed to be a small supplement to the job that provides you with most of your income, so hey, we don't really have to worry about working conditions, etc.
But I'm not sure I believe their stats. Over the past few years it is nearly 100% of the drivers I get that are doing it full-time, and many/most of the "teacher moonlighting for extra vacation money" type drivers have given way to lots of former actual taxi drivers who quit their taxi company and now work both uber/lyft.
I wouldn't be so convinced that passengers are willing to pay these surge prices to go home. Sure, the first time a passenger encounters this artificial surge, they're already planning on taking uber/lyft home so they'll pay it because they probably don't have another option immediately available. But the next time a passenger arrives at DCA (could be a month or two), they might remember uber/lyft is expensive when they land so they would have arranged a different option to leave the airport. Consumer reaction to prices changes may not always be immediate. These drivers are operating in their own interest in the short term but who knows if they are in the long term.
"On average, Lyft drivers earn over $20 per hour."
I wonder if this figure takes into account all the waiting time, or just driving time on the app. If it is the latter, then that's a pretty scummy thing to say, considering that most drivers spend less than a third of the time actually driving people to their destination, putting the actual number closer to 7.00 an hour.
I feel like that's like the truck driver like stories where they'd talk about driver shortages and trouble finding new drivers and then quote average pay that is for someone with 10 or 15 years experience and pay you only get at the top shippers or working direct for a big company.
I've had rides that cost me $15 and took 45 minutes, the math does not add up at all.
In fact, I commute with Lyft nearly every day and my average 40 minute ride costs somewhere around $20. Even with another ride directly like mine it's unlikely there's enough earnings within an hour to cover Lyft's fees and pay the driver $20...
The hourly rated is based on the time that the app is active. So that hourly rated would include wasted time waiting for customer, driving to pick them up, etc.
When low paid workers coordinate their efforts to increase their pay it's called an "artificial price surge" and allegations of fraud are thrown around.
When highly paid executives, investors, and board members coordinate their efforts to increase their pay what does the media call it?
Indeed. I never understood how coordinated bargaining is "artificial" but the decisions about how much profit goes towards the workers versus executives is somehow... "natural"?
As much as I would be displeased if my fare were manipulated, I can only blame Uber and Lyft for this. They created an incentive for drivers to act as a unit, and groups of drivers are figuring it out. Really makes you long for the transparent, posted pricing of municipal taxis
Uber/Lyft prices are totally transparent: they show you the fixed price before the ride.
Meanwhile, municipal taxis may not have been able to charge more per minute and/or unit of distance, but they could control how many of those units the ride took.
I can think of a ton of technical ways Uber and Lyft can combat this. And they probably will. And they'll be short term happy and long term foolish. Because they're treating the symptoms, not the cause.
Their hands may be a bit tied on addressing this issue, because if they start rejecting drivers based on when they choose to work, it's hard to call them contractors.
I assume you're proposing that the cause is 'low' wages. So let's say drivers earned an average of $50/hour. This would put them in an income bracket such that they earn more than 95% of Americans. Do you think that people would not then exploit a legal angle to bump their earn up to let's say $70/hour, if they found out a way to do so?
I'm not a lawyer, nor do I agree with what I'm about to say, but the drivers need to be careful, because they might run afoul of collusion.
Since they are all independent contractors, they are "rivals" in the same industry, so with all of them cooperating to increase fares for their benefit (and based on my understanding of the law), they are technically colluding.
They should just form a union. Contractors can form one - they don't get all the privileges (for example, the employer isn't legally required to bargain with them, and can retaliate against strikes) but it'd probably permit this sort of short-term work stoppage.
But are they allowed to set a price? If the app doesn't allow them to do it then maybe it is slightly different story. Maybe it is Uber of Lyft who manipulates the prices by punishing those who doesn't want to accept low-cost rides.
Is that illegal? They can always claim it's not collusion because anyone can join uber and set another price - They are not stopping anyone from doing that. (also it seems almost trivial to fix this with a change in algorithm)
That's an interesting take. Someone else in the thread likened it to a strike for higher wages, happening multiple times in a night. I wonder where the line is between that and collusion?
I have no issue with them not being available and having rates go up. that is what they system should do. I know uber/lyft drivers that turn off the app after drops off in areas they like being so that they don't get prompted to take a nearby fare.
I do find it annoying that these drivers are upset at the fees. Look, before then all you could do is work for a taxi service and they make uber and lyft look like saints for the most part. you are free to work for whomever you want and you got into the deal knowing what it was.
> You are free to ride with whomever you want, and you got into the deal knowing what it was.
This cuts both ways, though. Taxis still exist! If you don't want to take Uber or Lyft, you are free to take a normal taxi, use public transportation, arrange your own ride, etc.
“Over 75% drive less than 10 hours a week to supplement existing jobs. On average, Lyft drivers earn over $20 per hour.”
These statistics could be very misleading. For example let’s say one driver works 4 hours, another 6 hours, another 10 hours with all three making making $25/hr and the final one works 80 hours making $10/hour. In this scenario 75% of drivers are driving 10 or less hours a week and the mean driver hourly rate is over $20. However 80% of the hours driven are by one driver making $10/hour. This one driver is clearly the workhorse of the ride-sharing company making the bulk of the profit.
Oh man these guys think this is fraudulent? They should come to China. When rebates were all the rage, where the ride hailing companies would pay drivers subsidies, they developed software that could fake the GPS address on the phone and pick up fake rides without actually driving and get massive rebates
I don't like the word "manipulating". It is like a trade union negotiating better terms. If they do it voluntarily without intimidating the drivers then I don't see any problem. They should not feel guilty.
Also, in a Lyft's statement:
> Over 75% drive less than 10 hours a week to supplement existing jobs.
I wonder, are those 75% working part-time or full-time? It must be tiring driving 2 more hours after 9-hour working day.
I’ve always been fascinated by the way Uber has implemented their market dynamics using surge pricing. Uber isn’t a market for rides in the way that, say, a stock exchange is a market for stocks. There aren’t drivers setting their asking price and riders making bids, nor is there an order book where matches are made at a clearing price, and understandably so - I can’t imagine how to build a comprehensible UX around a “true” bid-ask marketplace.
Instead, Uber presumably has historic estimates of the supply and demand curves at different locations, different times of the week, different passenger / rider populations (business travelers or tourists?) and then uses the measured “true” supply and demand to find a clearing price, and therefore decide whether or not a market is going to surge.
The UX of surge is important too - the raison d’être of surge pricing is to bring more drivers to an undersupplied market. That means that when you detect a supply or demand shock that would lead to surge pricing, you want to increase the surge as quickly as possible to send out the “we need more drivers” signal, because there’s a latency in getting more supply (drivers have to relocate). Conversely, Uber doesn’t want to drop the surge price too quickly - they want downward movement to be sticky - because you don’t want to tell drivers “there’s more money to be made over here” just to renege on that promise before the supply can even get there.
So if surge is sticky on the way down, these drivers may have found a way to exploit the pricing algorithm - simulate a price shock then reap the rewards. If surge were not sticky on the way down, this strategy might be much less effective - a few drivers would get better fares, but the market would return to equilibrium faster.
None of this is to say that you can’t have cartel behavior in a “bid-ask”-style market too, but I suspect this is a “hack” of Uber’s pricing UX as much as anything else.
This seems like a logical outcome considering the company and contractors have an increasingly disconnected and at times adversarial relationship.
The entire gig economy is based on shifting risk onto the contractor (demand changes, benefits, protections regarding injury / illness)... and to some extent onto the consumer too.
Both companies claim that drivers are independent contractors who can drive when and where they want, so how can they say that these drivers are in violation of anything?
Uber/Lyft probably knew this was going on already, but since it increases revenue, probably was looking the other way. It’s going to be hard to ignore this now that it’s getting media attention.
The only economic model that make Uber and Lyft make sense is if drivers are willing to take low pay (considering all their other costs). If they make more money than cab drivers, the whole model falls apart, because then cabs will be cheaper and the service won't be competitive. (Granted, the lack of having to pay for medallions saves them a bunch of money)
I think the only long-term business plan that makes sense for them is black cars, or people who don't want the hassle of Taxis.
Keep in mind that uber was successful early on not because of price, but because it was significantly more reliable then a cab. I was willing to pay a bit more then a cab to get to the airport because I knew I could count on that uber to arrive at my house on time.
Uber and Lyft are not trying to be cost competitive with cabs; they are trying to be cost competitive with public transit.
I've definitely experienced this at DCA, and it's worth nothing as well that it sometimes take hours to get out of the airport due to the insane traffic jams right around the terminals and in the parking garages. DCA has gone from my favorite airport to literally my least favorite over the last year or so. I've been using Dulles instead even though it's way less convenient.
DCA is also one of the easiest airports in the US to access the metro(public transit) out of the terminal. Is there a reason you just don't hop on the yellow line and get off at a less congested stop closer to your final destination?
You forgot the kicker to the definition of a cartel: "restricting competition".
The events in the article do not indicate that they are somehow prohibiting other drivers from accessing the platform. While it's certainly possible they're strong arming the drivers at the airport, overall they're not restricting someone from signing up to become a Lyft or Uber driver.
I'm not sure if the number is accurate but I do know how amazingly stubborn humans can be in finding a new job. I've had people refuse to quit a job that they groan about every day when I've offered them almost double the salary to work elsewhere with far better terms.
Humans are risk averse and those who live paycheck to paycheck are especially so. It defies logic until you consider that their fear of the unknown + small chance they end up with no job has a massive adjustment weight applied to it in their minds.
Some people actually do not want to be at home (I once had a taxi driver who drove us from Manhattan to Brooklyn, then waited for us to go home, hours later, all the while texting his family that he had to keep working).
Also, leaving the car turned off and waiting in a lucrative parking lot saves gas, wear and tear on the car, and drastically decreases the opportunities to get into an accident. All in all, it is not a bad plan. Taxi drivers have done this for years (which is, ironically, probably one of reasons Uber got started in the first place -- in SF it was almost impossible to get a cab, because so many cabbies just wanted to get airport fares).
That's what happens at airports. The drivers are there anyway. While they wait, they coordinate to increase pricing just before an airplane drops off a bunch of passengers.
https://callaride.com is launching next month (local to the Tampa Bay, FL area only for now), and one of their key differentiators is giving drivers the ability to set their rate. There will be minimums and maximums in-place, but they will have more control than with Uber or Lyft.
Note: I am a third-party PM working with the web and mobile application teams.
I think many people are missing some facts from the article. They aren’t so much going on “strike” as they are just turning off their apps on masse 5 minutes before plane lands to trigger surge pricing, and then turning back on to catch the passengers at surge pricing. Obviously customers are still choosing to accept such fares, but may not know that the real price (if they wait a bit) would be much lower.
The whole point of surge pricing is to get more drivers on the street. If they decrease it that quickly, then there is zero incentive for a driver to leave their house and get in their car and get out on the street, because by the time they do that, the prices are back down.
That's really all they (and, to be honest, most "marketplace" tech companies) need to say. They have the customers; here are our terms. It kinda really sucks, because the quality incentive goes out the window.
> The technology cost for a 4 mile ride is the same for a 50 mile ride.
Technically no, the real-time tracking requires constant data streaming to and from their servers, proportional to the duration of the ride.
But a more likely answer is that a fixed amount per ride makes short rides prohibitive or at least less appealing.
And if you think about it, much of the costs are probably fixed (across all rides), so you could say they should charge $millions to the first ride, then just charge marginal costs for the others. Dilution of costs across purchases is an indispensable part of doing business.
They can just counteract this by refusing to turn on surge pricing if they detect a large number of drivers disappearing if they predict that they'll come back shortly. Should be easy to predict that pattern and counteract it, unless the drivers are willing to skip work for an extended period of time.
I’ve heard about this tactic from people working at Uber years ago. I think they’re aware that it happens. The way it was described to me is the Ubers are in a line at the airport and each car signs off except the very first. That way rides keep coming and the first person in line gets surge pricing
This seems easy to fix on Uber/Lyft's side --- to recognize that they don't need to maintain book depth. At the airport, since passengers are effectively queued up.
Don't Uber and Lyft lose on every ride? I wonder if the increased fair caused by this cooperation makes the average ride profitable. Perhaps the price of a ride is more elastic than Uber and Lyft think? Especially at airports.
This is hilarious. Props to the drivers. Capitalism at it's finest: assumption of information imbalance.
If uber and lyft do nothing, this behavior will autocorrect itself: expect a few drivers to rebel/revolt after the news of the behavior spreads. Keeping the secret will get harder and harder.
But it doesn't have to be secret, ad defectors only hurt themselves by accepting lower pay for the same fare. That seems like a strong incentive to play along.
All this discussion about employee/contractor situation or possible collusion won't matter after Uber/Lyft close this loophole and this can be done easily. It makes no sense that the drivers would allow the reporter to publicize this trick.
With the drivers classified as independent contractors rather than employees would cooperation between drivers to manipulate prices run afoul of antitrust law?
I personally believe that driver's compensation is a valid discussion, but defrauding the system is not the way to do it. Uber/Lyft should just carefully identify and ban the cheaters and the lesson should spread as efficiently as the planning to cheat.
They're not cheating. They're on-demand service providers providing services on-demand to on-demand consumers and they're acting according to the spirit of their agreement with Lyft and Uber--"I don't want to drive for less than $X, so I won't, and I'll wait for you to offer the money I do want."
So, with that more correct understanding of the world, your post amounts to this: "I believe that driver's compensation is a valid discussion, but only on the terms of the people holding capital and the majority of the power."
gdhbcc|6 years ago
Drivers dont want to drive for under a certain value, so they simply inform the app who adjusts the value to fulfill demand. Seems like its what you want to happen.
i_am_proteus|6 years ago
mikeash|6 years ago
dnautics|6 years ago
ma2rten|6 years ago
ardy42|6 years ago
The workers are "defrauding" Capital out of greater-than-substance wages. It's bullshit, and they'll try to re-frame in in terms of customers, but that's essentially their view.
NotPaidToPost|6 years ago
Edit:
Fraudulent: "intended to deceive someone in order to get money or property".
The collusion is intended to deceive Lyft (and in the end customers) for financial gains.
radcon|6 years ago
Contractors get to set rates, employees don't. So you can't say they're contractors AND accuse them of committing fraud when they try to set their own rates.
Now if only someone would develop an app that does this for entire cities. The app could be their version of a union.
leereeves|6 years ago
Personally I think they should be considered employees, but a pro-management federal prosecutor could make some trouble for them.
ryandrake|6 years ago
If a driver wants to work for $20, and the offered rate is currently $10, what’s the difference between them a) typing $20 into a text field and hitting a “request” button vs. b) turning a switch off and waiting for the app to increment the rate little by little up to $20?
mikeryan|6 years ago
This isn't how it works? Rates of pay are mutually agreed upon between an employer and employee regardless of classification.
wlesieutre|6 years ago
If Lyft wants to decide when their drivers are working, there's a process for this:
1) Hire employees
2) Give them a schedule
3) Pay them hourly plus mileage
chrismeller|6 years ago
They are contractors because they do not have any set obligation for time. Rate of pay or overall pay has nothing at all to do with that. According to the IRS they do not have a set schedule and they are contractors (that is 1099, not W2).
So they are contractors. What does that have to do with pay? Absolutely nothing. You want x and are willing to pay y. Maybe there’s an opportunity for me to negotiate for z, maybe not. Either way none of that has anything to do with the actual form of employment. Even if I were a salaried employee working 40 hours a week the company has a budget of $40,000 a year and that’s all they will pay. If I demand $45,000 they’ll just tell me no - they simply don’t have the money.
In this case Uber offered you $x. You agreed to $x. You have no schedule, which is the perk of the job vs driving a cab, where you will have a schedule. Need to take the kids to school or a doctor’s appointment? Well, work that around your work schedule.
And as for your third point... Uber already charges me for both time and mileage. I don’t see any problem with them paying their drivers based on both... but from the drivers I’ve talked to they already do. I can’t speak for any other service at all.
lexs|6 years ago
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
cypherpunks01|6 years ago
Contractors can decide when and how they want to work, and therefore determine the price at which to sell their labor at, so to me it seems they are simply exercising their rights here. Like others have mentioned, if most drivers don't choose to participate, then this "scheme" wouldn't function.
rosege|6 years ago
llamataboot|6 years ago
One is that the workers are getting paid more per the algorithm that these companies designed to charge customers - that is, they are getting the company to facilitate higher payments but the company itself isn't being charged more! So in that case, the drivers are simply arguing that uber/lyft are artificially undervaluing their time because clearly these passengers are willing to pay 15% more to them to get home...
--
It is telling to me how often Lyft/Uber/et all emphasize that their philosophy is that these gig economy jobs are just something you do a tiny bit extra to get some extra cash in your pocket. That is they are designed to be a small supplement to the job that provides you with most of your income, so hey, we don't really have to worry about working conditions, etc.
But I'm not sure I believe their stats. Over the past few years it is nearly 100% of the drivers I get that are doing it full-time, and many/most of the "teacher moonlighting for extra vacation money" type drivers have given way to lots of former actual taxi drivers who quit their taxi company and now work both uber/lyft.
nabergh|6 years ago
Konnstann|6 years ago
I wonder if this figure takes into account all the waiting time, or just driving time on the app. If it is the latter, then that's a pretty scummy thing to say, considering that most drivers spend less than a third of the time actually driving people to their destination, putting the actual number closer to 7.00 an hour.
duxup|6 years ago
lexs|6 years ago
kubatyszko|6 years ago
rjf72|6 years ago
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
CPLX|6 years ago
When highly paid executives, investors, and board members coordinate their efforts to increase their pay what does the media call it?
6gvONxR4sf7o|6 years ago
zentiggr|6 years ago
kevinmgranger|6 years ago
iscrewyou|6 years ago
klyrs|6 years ago
hawaiian|6 years ago
_Microft|6 years ago
giaour|6 years ago
icebraining|6 years ago
Meanwhile, municipal taxis may not have been able to charge more per minute and/or unit of distance, but they could control how many of those units the ride took.
klausjensen|6 years ago
...Absolutely not.
I live in Malta, where Uber does not exist, but similar services do + local regulated taxis.
It is extremely clear who gets a rating and who does not give a f### about reputation and repeat business.
The only ones who use the real taxis here are tourists. I don't know anybody local (expat or native), who would use the "real" taxi company.
mikeash|6 years ago
umeshunni|6 years ago
Did I miss a sarcasm tag?
Waterluvian|6 years ago
lallysingh|6 years ago
metalliqaz|6 years ago
rjf72|6 years ago
jermaustin1|6 years ago
Since they are all independent contractors, they are "rivals" in the same industry, so with all of them cooperating to increase fares for their benefit (and based on my understanding of the law), they are technically colluding.
ceejayoz|6 years ago
codedokode|6 years ago
return1|6 years ago
jakelazaroff|6 years ago
Shivetya|6 years ago
I do find it annoying that these drivers are upset at the fees. Look, before then all you could do is work for a taxi service and they make uber and lyft look like saints for the most part. you are free to work for whomever you want and you got into the deal knowing what it was.
jakelazaroff|6 years ago
This cuts both ways, though. Taxis still exist! If you don't want to take Uber or Lyft, you are free to take a normal taxi, use public transportation, arrange your own ride, etc.
smadge|6 years ago
These statistics could be very misleading. For example let’s say one driver works 4 hours, another 6 hours, another 10 hours with all three making making $25/hr and the final one works 80 hours making $10/hour. In this scenario 75% of drivers are driving 10 or less hours a week and the mean driver hourly rate is over $20. However 80% of the hours driven are by one driver making $10/hour. This one driver is clearly the workhorse of the ride-sharing company making the bulk of the profit.
ackbar03|6 years ago
codedokode|6 years ago
Also, in a Lyft's statement:
> Over 75% drive less than 10 hours a week to supplement existing jobs.
I wonder, are those 75% working part-time or full-time? It must be tiring driving 2 more hours after 9-hour working day.
bradleybuda|6 years ago
Instead, Uber presumably has historic estimates of the supply and demand curves at different locations, different times of the week, different passenger / rider populations (business travelers or tourists?) and then uses the measured “true” supply and demand to find a clearing price, and therefore decide whether or not a market is going to surge.
The UX of surge is important too - the raison d’être of surge pricing is to bring more drivers to an undersupplied market. That means that when you detect a supply or demand shock that would lead to surge pricing, you want to increase the surge as quickly as possible to send out the “we need more drivers” signal, because there’s a latency in getting more supply (drivers have to relocate). Conversely, Uber doesn’t want to drop the surge price too quickly - they want downward movement to be sticky - because you don’t want to tell drivers “there’s more money to be made over here” just to renege on that promise before the supply can even get there.
So if surge is sticky on the way down, these drivers may have found a way to exploit the pricing algorithm - simulate a price shock then reap the rewards. If surge were not sticky on the way down, this strategy might be much less effective - a few drivers would get better fares, but the market would return to equilibrium faster.
None of this is to say that you can’t have cartel behavior in a “bid-ask”-style market too, but I suspect this is a “hack” of Uber’s pricing UX as much as anything else.
hn_throwaway_99|6 years ago
duxup|6 years ago
The entire gig economy is based on shifting risk onto the contractor (demand changes, benefits, protections regarding injury / illness)... and to some extent onto the consumer too.
mimixco|6 years ago
sixQuarks|6 years ago
peterwwillis|6 years ago
I think the only long-term business plan that makes sense for them is black cars, or people who don't want the hassle of Taxis.
sundaeofshock|6 years ago
Uber and Lyft are not trying to be cost competitive with cabs; they are trying to be cost competitive with public transit.
dmbaggett|6 years ago
momokoko|6 years ago
Terretta|6 years ago
francisofascii|6 years ago
ianhawes|6 years ago
The events in the article do not indicate that they are somehow prohibiting other drivers from accessing the platform. While it's certainly possible they're strong arming the drivers at the airport, overall they're not restricting someone from signing up to become a Lyft or Uber driver.
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
deweller|6 years ago
Are they really getting paid $4 to give someone a ride? That seems so low that drivers would be incentivized to find another job.
Waterluvian|6 years ago
Humans are risk averse and those who live paycheck to paycheck are especially so. It defies logic until you consider that their fear of the unknown + small chance they end up with no job has a massive adjustment weight applied to it in their minds.
mikeash|6 years ago
blakesterz|6 years ago
"The lot fills with 120 to 150 drivers sometimes for hours, waiting for the busy evening rush. "
Are they saying drivers site and wait for hours to do this?
lr|6 years ago
Also, leaving the car turned off and waiting in a lucrative parking lot saves gas, wear and tear on the car, and drastically decreases the opportunities to get into an accident. All in all, it is not a bad plan. Taxi drivers have done this for years (which is, ironically, probably one of reasons Uber got started in the first place -- in SF it was almost impossible to get a cab, because so many cabbies just wanted to get airport fares).
metalliqaz|6 years ago
rrival|6 years ago
traeregan|6 years ago
Note: I am a third-party PM working with the web and mobile application teams.
chrischen|6 years ago
Causality1|6 years ago
lr|6 years ago
diydsp|6 years ago
Uber/Lyft make more money this way. The passengers are getting screwed.
kdot|6 years ago
Donald|6 years ago
Also keep in mind that even at these fee levels, Uber and Lyft are somehow not profitable.
eropple|6 years ago
That's really all they (and, to be honest, most "marketplace" tech companies) need to say. They have the customers; here are our terms. It kinda really sucks, because the quality incentive goes out the window.
icebraining|6 years ago
Technically no, the real-time tracking requires constant data streaming to and from their servers, proportional to the duration of the ride.
But a more likely answer is that a fixed amount per ride makes short rides prohibitive or at least less appealing.
And if you think about it, much of the costs are probably fixed (across all rides), so you could say they should charge $millions to the first ride, then just charge marginal costs for the others. Dilution of costs across purchases is an indispensable part of doing business.
Jommi|6 years ago
ikeboy|6 years ago
freeflight|6 years ago
Both Uber and Lyft also profit from this because in the end it's the customers who pay the difference.
So I don't really see either of these companies wasting time and effort on fixing this "problem".
awake|6 years ago
papln|6 years ago
calvinbhai|6 years ago
They did this since the early days of Surge Pricing.
40acres|6 years ago
rmrfrmrf|6 years ago
exabrial|6 years ago
If uber and lyft do nothing, this behavior will autocorrect itself: expect a few drivers to rebel/revolt after the news of the behavior spreads. Keeping the secret will get harder and harder.
zentiggr|6 years ago
sfifs|6 years ago
unknown|6 years ago
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zone411|6 years ago
sharadov|6 years ago
asdffdsa|6 years ago
colejohnson66|6 years ago
frgtpsswrdlame|6 years ago
shereadsthenews|6 years ago
im_new_here|6 years ago
[deleted]
tzs|6 years ago
With the drivers classified as independent contractors rather than employees would cooperation between drivers to manipulate prices run afoul of antitrust law?
codedokode|6 years ago
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
htk|6 years ago
eropple|6 years ago
So, with that more correct understanding of the world, your post amounts to this: "I believe that driver's compensation is a valid discussion, but only on the terms of the people holding capital and the majority of the power."
It's not a good take, dude.
mikeash|6 years ago