[srge]

I have met and talked to several Uber drivers and I was surprised that the « slave » narrative was totally unfounded (on that sample at least).

Drivers were generally very happy about their Uber earnings. When I realized it I bought shares and they are now at +60% over the buying price.

Let’s just be careful with pre-digested narratives. I am not saying that every driver is happy. But many are certainly quite happy!

[tomdell]

Some are happy for now because they largely aren't accounting for the deferred costs that are being pushed down the road - once you account for wear & tear on the car and associated maintenance and eventual new car purchases, their earnings are much less than what it seems in the short-term. Uber relies on drivers not running all the numbers before signing up.

[fshbbdssbbgdd]

This argument is demeaning to the drivers. They are grown adults who do their taxes. A reasonable prior would be that people who do something for a living tend to know more about the job than people who don’t. You can surely find examples of unprofitable Uber drivers who are driving in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong car, but that doesn’t make it the norm.

There’s a lot of discussion among the driver community about how to operate to optimize earnings. People are leasing or buying cars specifically to use them to drive for Uber and depreciation, maintenance, and fuel economy are all part of the calculation.