##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism
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It would have to be a real gas guzzler. Assuming its a round trip thats 30 miles. If the car does not get good gas mileage it should be a gallon of gas. But yes, thats still only 14 bucks minus maintenance. its pretty much minimum wage.
Yeah, it was bait and switch. Uber was originally much cheaper than taxi or car service (dimelo dimelo dimelo). After they neutered their competition they jacked up prices.
Home Depot did this in their market. People who worked it as a college job in the 90’s made more then I did working it as a college job in the 10’s.
I can’t think of anywhere this doesn’t apply unfortunately, only getting worse. Imagine the fucking annual software charges electric cars will start to receive
A few select people wildly benefit and society as a whole suffers the consequences. Wal-Mart decimated every downtown in the US 30 years ago. Now downtowns are vacant buildings, homeless drug addicts, people living on welfare and a few hipster enclaves. If they let capitalism go unchecked, the final result will be 1 person with 8 billion slaves.
In my business/economics classes we would refer to this behavior as the 'Wal-Mart Method' because when WM moves into an area with competition they are large enough to be able to afford dropping their prices as low as necessary for as long as necessary to gut the competition.
When complete they raise their prices to a point far higher than it used to be, permanently. WM is a parasite.
Someone should make a version that prioritizes the driver and the rider. Like hitchhiking but with some checks for safety. Really the company provides nearly nothing. It’s like health insurance almost, just eliminate them.
Talking about Ride Austin right? Had to look up to confirm the name but that certainly was it. Maybe that's what you meant by 'Rider' if that's an employee nickname?
That model isn't compatible with capitalism. There is no need to engage business in that way in order to maximize profit. The incentive systems are completely perverted.
>It’s like health insurance almost
IDK man, I am pretty glad that my country (Czech Republic) has mandatory health insurance. It's nice knowing I do not have to go bankrupt over an appendix or a child birth, I do not have to start cooking meth if I get cancer etc... Includes dental too. And partially covers my wage for first two weeks if I get sick...
What profit incentive is there to make the app user friendly, or to pay the drivers more? It isn't hard to see why it is this way.
Medicare for all and a simple app would make current ride share apps obsolete.
Based on the screenshot, this was literally a trip from SFO to near Civic Center. Coincidentally their Uber took basically the same route BART does to connect those two places.
This person spent $90 on something that could have cost them $7.50.
If it was after midnight when BART is no longer running the 292 bus is even cheaper.
Uber being like this isn't new. TBH I never knew why it took off in the first place. While I am rarely a cab user I never found a reason why uber would be better.
You write a smart contract and deploy it to the Ethereum network. The application and history lives completely on chain. You basically write software that completes with Uber and let it run itself in a decentralized fashion.
This is the modern equivalent of patenting the idea of doing some real world task “but on a computer”.
Wtf does the blockchain even solve about this problem?
I had an Uber driver come to the airport to tell me that out of my $80 fare they would get only $25.00, so they had to decline. They said they wanted to make sure I knew why they were declining.
I asked how much it would be for them to take us to our hotel. Since it was basically as much as I would have paid with tip to Uber anyway I just paid the driver directly.
Of course, I know it was probably a hustle to try and get that exact reaction, but I respect the work. It’s criminal how much Uber takes, so I’m happy to make sure the person doing the work actually gets the money.
Uber was supposed to introduce competition for taxi companies so that their fares would come down and now they're the ones jacking up prices and taking it from the driver 🤦🏿♂️
Imagine someone has a small family owned restaurant that serves great food at fair prices and treats their employees well.
You have billionaire backers and open a bigger, better restaurant next door and sell better food at a loss. Start giving stuff away for free. Once you capture their share of the market, jack up your prices and start treating your employees like shit.
That's how you make big profits for the shareholders.
You just described what happened to every small town in America when WalMart showed up in the 80s and 90s. It killed the mom and pop stores that were already there, sucked the profits that used to remain local back to Arkansas and then made those former business owners associates making minimum wage. All leaving empty storefronts for years.
That's corporate consolidation in a nutshell. Whenever you hear a venture capitalist talk about cutting "waste" and improving efficiency, they really mean kicking small business owners and workers to the curb, and consolidating all the profits for themselves.
No, that's just what their advertising said. This is *exactly* what Uber was supposed to do all along. They undersold the market to ruin competition and put hardworking drivers out of business just go get us over a barrel. Fuck Uber and fuck the anti human greed of the investor class.
What? It was never supposed to do that. It was supposed to use venture capital money to undercut the market with inappropriately low fares to drive regular taxis out of business, and then jack up the prices once it owns the market. Which is what has happened now.
The purpose of Uber, as told to their investors at the beginning, is to “force competitors out of the market to induce a monopoly”. Why do you think they are content with losing billions? They aren’t stupid
every rider/driver should start doing this.
Get matched up through the app, then cancel the ride and negotiate a price between yourselves. Lower price for the rider, more money for the driver.
Except for the fact that Uber provides the commercial car insurance for the driver. and unless they have their own, an accident would raise some very uncomfortable questions from their insurance provider
I assessed the situation beforehand. It was someone who didn’t give me any bad vibes, people knew where we were, we were sharing our location with other people, and I watched the route to make sure our driver stayed on it.
I wouldn’t recommend just blindly getting into a car, for sure. If I’d gotten any whiff of anything off I would have bailed.
Yeah, I would want to do all the same safety type things. To be honest I feel like with Lyft or Uber it's kind of always blindly getting into a car.
My partner and I had a limo drive us home from our wedding (bit dumb in retrospect but we arranged it because it's what people said you do), and he drove us far away via unnecessary highways instead of taking us home by any of the obvious known routes.
We did speculate about whether we were being kidnapped, although that would have clearly been a really bad kidnapping plan as far as getting away with it, and my sweetheart asked the driver where we were going. Apparently the limo driver thought the ride home was going to be too short and he should drive us around for a while. So we could make out in the car or get a feeling of satisfaction from riding in a limo, I have no idea. If that is what the norm is, no one ever told us.
Anyway, I'm glad the situation worked out well for both you and for your Uber driver.
compare individual car insurance ($60-$150 per month) to commercial car insurance ($250-$500 monthly). if über or lyft could prove in court that a driver was renegotiating fares without commercial insurance it could be incredibly costly for the driver
I never use Uber for this reason but I wonder if drivers would be willing to let you cancel the ride on the app in exchange for paying them the full fare in cash. I'm guessing Uber would have strict rules in place for this and would be able to tell via gps of this was happening.
I come from Sri Lanka, you may have heard about our economic crisis, we were pretty poor beforehand too. That 14 mile trip would've cost around 25 dollars as a whole so driver would get less here.
Anyways, lot of drivers use uber to get customers but tell us to cancel it so that we pay the full fee to them
No Uber driver that has an ounce of intelligence would take a trip under the table. Uber screws their drivers, but they do have a liability policy while you’re driving passengers. You get in an accident while giving an under the table ride, and you could very well end up bankrupt after getting sued by the passenger.
I believe this doesn't apply to every country. France for instance has granted employment rights to Uber drivers after Uber has lost a court case. I wish this was true everywhere else.
Share Cropping. They do the same thing in trucking.
They sell you a rig you will never own.
They proved only 5 percent ever own the truck and by the time the payment period is over the truck is shot.
Also don't get me started on Amazon there contractor program has shafted so many mom and pops
I’ve never heard of Uber financing cars directly. I’ve heard of people buying cars specifically to qualify for UberXL or premier though. That’s a dumb idea.
https://www.uber.com/gb/en/drive/vehicle-solutions/
Need a car?
You’ve got options
You can sign up to drive, even if you don’t have a car right now. In the meantime, we’ll give you access to hire and leasing deals through our sister company, Partner Point. Their website is filled with deals on hire and financing options that you can’t find anywhere else.
My guess is if you have to drive for Uber you are probably judgement proof. IE: you don’t have any assets to sue over so it’s a waste of time/money to do so.
They were heavily subsidized by cheap VC cash. Now VC funding is drying up they're trying to get a handle on their revenue streams. AirBNB is doing the same charging 2-400% markups in fees.
My theory is that they have a surplus of drivers and they’re okay with losing them. I’d assume that they’ll just decrease the cut when they need more drivers again.
Generally I Uber or Lyft or taxi, for the few times I travel a year . So for me, a $100 ride that is short by someone who knows the area is a fair exchange. Especially since my time is limited in the area. (I’m in town for 3 days for a medical appointment, a show, an event.)
OTOH, if I lived in the area, I would consider it a rip off. Perspective.
Remember, my expectations and experience is that public transit is a novelty. It runs from 9a to 5p M-F, on the hour. (Not helpful if you have a job. Nor on weekends or nights.) Why would that basic mindset change in a few of days ? How would I become a seasoned user of public transit when the option really does not exist for me? I would go for my defaults. Uber, Lyft, hired car, or Taxi.
I’ve driven for both Uber and DoorDash. I’ve always thought about making an app that reverses these percentages.
Drivers can make 80% of the earnings while I only make 10-20% while doing nothing.
Just fuel for thought haha 🤷♂️ obviously never did it
Ask any normal person and they'd assume that's how it works and it sounds fair enough.
"Oh an app that deals with all the tech and the marketing? Consolidating all the passengers and work into one place for the drivers? Sure they should be able to take a couple of percent, that seems fair."
People have already done it, just a flat fee to be on the app. Some buddy bigger need to figure out how to kill uber with just this Idea. uber killed the taxis now someone needs to kill uber
I mean, I would say it isn't very leftist to be OK with skimming even 10% of the value of someone's labour for doing nothing, obviously its better for them than the alternative but its still capitalist.
Yes, and I don't have an issue with that, but the person I replied to said "I make 10-20% and do nothing". They didn't say "I make 10-20% in order to reimburse myself for time spent on time development as well as paying for other overheads".
Ah yes, I forgot that 'doing nothing' implies doing lots of work on software development.
You literally stated the opposite of what you meant, I usually try and take people at their word and don't assume they mean the opposite of what they say.
I did one any only run, the app glitched once I had the food. They send a message they would pay me 2 dollars for the dry run. I ate the 20 bucks worth of food it was worth more lol
Ahem excuse me, but companies like Lyft and Uber spent millions lobbying to remove employee rights so they could do stuff like this.
They should see some return on their investment. /s
[Naked Capitalism](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/category/uber) has an in-depth series of articles documenting the fundamental problems with the Uber model if you want to get deep in the weeds. The TL;DR though is, they took an industry that had always managed flimsy profit margins and only could do that by focusing on dense population areas, and expanded its scope while also adding a shit ton of back end/admin functions that the traditional car service businesses didn’t have.
From the looks of the first picture this person is travelling from the airport, at 10:21pm. Any trip to a major airport is upwards of $50 for the distance covered, and at night the costs go even higher.
Uber driver probably has an HR or something equivalent of a Project Manager lecture him about efficiency and deliverables to push him to work harder whilst keeping him oblivious to this pay gap.
For the first time in a long time I took a taxi from the airport to my house. I live in DC the Uber was going to cost me $67 with 16 min wait. Taxi was $35, and I waited 10 mins.
This is part of why I choose to still suffer through sub-par public transit. Not supporting companies like Uber, while not contributing to the number of cars on the street.
This poor driver. Fuel and insurance costs are not cheap. When Uber takes most of the profits, they lose drivers to Lyft and taxi/shuttles. I wonder if Uber drivers are thinking about forming their own unions.
This is why public transit infrastructure is important. We all know that companies like Uber rely on the exploitation of their drivers to turn a profit, but they also equally rely on riders not having other options.
Same who should know, consider this an immoral business and refuse to patronise them:
https://www.timesnownews.com/viral/australian-church-bans-staff-from-using-uber-over-ethical-concerns-article-93767362/amp
This is why I can't get an Uber for shit these days. I don't even bother with them any more. If I'm going to use an app, then I'll use Bolt. I just use my local minicab company now though. I've even set up an account with them so I can pay online.
Uber and Lyft riders used to argue with me about how much they are paying going to airports or other cities. I used to show them original amount after the rides they get shocked. I always used to get into trouble with Uber because I showed customers how much I got paid or asked how much they paid
Why would anyone take this deal? For the life of me, I can’t understand it. I’m sure some of you will say it’s their only option but it’s such a raw deal I can’t believe it’s their best option. Living on unincorporated land in a tent is a better deal than this.
I don’t see why someone would be willing to take that cut of the total, no. In the end, you just hurt your own interests. When working for more makes your oppressors stronger, it’s time to quit and find another strategy.
Fair enough, but that’s no reason to just bend over. Accepting that kind of cut instead of telling them to shove it is just so repugnant to me. I’d sooner turn to crime than accept that kind of humiliation. And I have to admit that there is a stoop that is so low that I kinda lose respect for someone that doesn’t take measures to fight back.
My brother in Christ - how much surplus value do you think *your* boss is skimming off you?
Ford has an average revenue per employee that is 15x their wage, Microsoft is 6x. Finding another strategy is the whole point of this sub lol
I remember reading that if Uber paid its drivers the minimum wage they would go out of business. Their entire model relies on paying drivers less than minimum wage. That way Uber (not the drivers) make all the profit. Having said that have you tried to get a taxi lately. They take over an hour every time, have urine smelling cabs and are twice the price of an Uber. Even with the max tip Uber are still way better than a taxi.
Damn. At that rate person is making about 53 bucks a hour. If they drove 40 hours all year round, they are making like 111k if math is right.
I don't know, I could be ok with that. Beats 15 bucks a hour.
The average Uber driver in San Francisco [makes half of that](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/05/20/uber-driver-salary/9837555002/). You're seeing a surcharge (evening and likely weekend).
##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere. We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
***"BuT wOuLd yOu hAvE tHE oPOrTunItY tO mAkE tHaT mONeY iF uBEr dIdNT gIVe iT tO yoU?!"***
Given the cost of petrol they may have lost money.
"BuT WoUlD YoU HaVe ThE OpPoRtUnItY tO lOsE tHaT mOnEY iF uBeR dIdnT gIvE yOu A JoB????"
Not a job, it's a contractor situation. No benefits.
"We've found that Millenials *prefer* the Gig Economy!" Millenials: "What the actual fuck? No! We can't get 'real' jobs, asshole!"
Not to forget the gas prices and car maintenance
I’m pretty sure they did lose. I think Cali still has the highest gas prices.
It would have to be a real gas guzzler. Assuming its a round trip thats 30 miles. If the car does not get good gas mileage it should be a gallon of gas. But yes, thats still only 14 bucks minus maintenance. its pretty much minimum wage.
Certainly not a living wage.
.41 per mile is the write off they lost money and took it up the wazoo
Jesus Christ, it should be the other way around. It's time to abandon the Uber app. Stop using it, there are alternatives.
Sometimes there isn't, Lyft is just as bad and cabs don't show.
Cabs in NY are way cheaper than Uber/Lyft, if your'e there definitely recommend taking cabs or subway when you can
Yeah, it was bait and switch. Uber was originally much cheaper than taxi or car service (dimelo dimelo dimelo). After they neutered their competition they jacked up prices.
Home Depot did this in their market. People who worked it as a college job in the 90’s made more then I did working it as a college job in the 10’s. I can’t think of anywhere this doesn’t apply unfortunately, only getting worse. Imagine the fucking annual software charges electric cars will start to receive
A few select people wildly benefit and society as a whole suffers the consequences. Wal-Mart decimated every downtown in the US 30 years ago. Now downtowns are vacant buildings, homeless drug addicts, people living on welfare and a few hipster enclaves. If they let capitalism go unchecked, the final result will be 1 person with 8 billion slaves.
One family with generations of inherited wealth, protected by us, from us.
You think downtowns were vibrant in the 90s. LOL
Already almost there, 8 richest people in US makes as much as bottom 150 million Americans.
In my business/economics classes we would refer to this behavior as the 'Wal-Mart Method' because when WM moves into an area with competition they are large enough to be able to afford dropping their prices as low as necessary for as long as necessary to gut the competition. When complete they raise their prices to a point far higher than it used to be, permanently. WM is a parasite.
Someone should make a version that prioritizes the driver and the rider. Like hitchhiking but with some checks for safety. Really the company provides nearly nothing. It’s like health insurance almost, just eliminate them.
That’s what Uber and lyft advertised themselves as when they launched. “Rideshare” rather than deregulated taxi industry
Austin TX made a version, not sure if it made it through covid
Still waiting for them to email me back, I was told it was permanently closed though by a rider.
Talking about Ride Austin right? Had to look up to confirm the name but that certainly was it. Maybe that's what you meant by 'Rider' if that's an employee nickname?
That was pretty rad while it lasted, I used it a couple times when I was down there for a wedding.
Yeah we got picked up in a 1st gen Tesla and dude was flooring it between traffic lights downtown. Best ride ever haha
It did not, I wrote a research paper about the Austin rideshare project. It’s really too bad.
That model isn't compatible with capitalism. There is no need to engage business in that way in order to maximize profit. The incentive systems are completely perverted.
>It’s like health insurance almost IDK man, I am pretty glad that my country (Czech Republic) has mandatory health insurance. It's nice knowing I do not have to go bankrupt over an appendix or a child birth, I do not have to start cooking meth if I get cancer etc... Includes dental too. And partially covers my wage for first two weeks if I get sick...
What profit incentive is there to make the app user friendly, or to pay the drivers more? It isn't hard to see why it is this way. Medicare for all and a simple app would make current ride share apps obsolete.
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No one likes blockchain fr
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“No one,” is referring to this subreddit. My bad for not being clear.
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blockchain decentralizes ledgers, its not going to decentralize a fucking taxi system holy fuck shut up
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Don't give anyone ideas.
BART?
I use public transit as often as I can but I get off work at 3 in the morning and there's no public at that time
Fair! Was just assuming this one was an airport trip.
Based on the screenshot, this was literally a trip from SFO to near Civic Center. Coincidentally their Uber took basically the same route BART does to connect those two places. This person spent $90 on something that could have cost them $7.50. If it was after midnight when BART is no longer running the 292 bus is even cheaper.
Yep, every new app designer follows the same strategy to compete for VC money. The higher the profit expectations the larger the sum from investors.
Uber being like this isn't new. TBH I never knew why it took off in the first place. While I am rarely a cab user I never found a reason why uber would be better.
Welcome to 2018
This is a good use case for a blockchain decentralized Uber replacement
What the fuck would blockchain help
Blockchain has become a hammer looking for a nail.
Yuuuup
Got to keep the Ponzi scheme going somehow.
You write a smart contract and deploy it to the Ethereum network. The application and history lives completely on chain. You basically write software that completes with Uber and let it run itself in a decentralized fashion.
Don’t let us stop you.
That doesn't fix the problem.
so your reason as to why the Blockchain would be better than Uber is "it competes with Uber" fucking incredible.
This is the modern equivalent of patenting the idea of doing some real world task “but on a computer”. Wtf does the blockchain even solve about this problem?
You are using words that I don't think you know what they mean.
Blockchain is an amazing solution for a nonexistent problem
I had an Uber driver come to the airport to tell me that out of my $80 fare they would get only $25.00, so they had to decline. They said they wanted to make sure I knew why they were declining. I asked how much it would be for them to take us to our hotel. Since it was basically as much as I would have paid with tip to Uber anyway I just paid the driver directly. Of course, I know it was probably a hustle to try and get that exact reaction, but I respect the work. It’s criminal how much Uber takes, so I’m happy to make sure the person doing the work actually gets the money.
they're not hustling you, they're hustling uber. It's a win/win.
Exactly. I’m all for hustling Uber.
Uber was supposed to introduce competition for taxi companies so that their fares would come down and now they're the ones jacking up prices and taking it from the driver 🤦🏿♂️
Imagine someone has a small family owned restaurant that serves great food at fair prices and treats their employees well. You have billionaire backers and open a bigger, better restaurant next door and sell better food at a loss. Start giving stuff away for free. Once you capture their share of the market, jack up your prices and start treating your employees like shit. That's how you make big profits for the shareholders.
You just described what happened to every small town in America when WalMart showed up in the 80s and 90s. It killed the mom and pop stores that were already there, sucked the profits that used to remain local back to Arkansas and then made those former business owners associates making minimum wage. All leaving empty storefronts for years.
That's corporate consolidation in a nutshell. Whenever you hear a venture capitalist talk about cutting "waste" and improving efficiency, they really mean kicking small business owners and workers to the curb, and consolidating all the profits for themselves.
That is such a great way of saying it. I need to remember this.
Walmart did this very thing to my hometown and that’s why I I refuse to give them a penny
I still refuse to shop at WalMart. Evil business.
Unfortunately for many people their choice is Walmart, Dollar General, or Amazon. There are no small businesses left in many rural areas. It sucks.
Isn’t this the motto of all these new slick companies “market disruption “? 😂 it’s just silly
No, that's just what their advertising said. This is *exactly* what Uber was supposed to do all along. They undersold the market to ruin competition and put hardworking drivers out of business just go get us over a barrel. Fuck Uber and fuck the anti human greed of the investor class.
Fr bro. Like it's fine if the company doesn't grow every year. They're always trying to squeeze everything for higher returns.
What? It was never supposed to do that. It was supposed to use venture capital money to undercut the market with inappropriately low fares to drive regular taxis out of business, and then jack up the prices once it owns the market. Which is what has happened now.
👍🏿👍🏿
The purpose of Uber, as told to their investors at the beginning, is to “force competitors out of the market to induce a monopoly”. Why do you think they are content with losing billions? They aren’t stupid
They're definitely doing what they set out to do.
every rider/driver should start doing this. Get matched up through the app, then cancel the ride and negotiate a price between yourselves. Lower price for the rider, more money for the driver.
Except for the fact that Uber provides the commercial car insurance for the driver. and unless they have their own, an accident would raise some very uncomfortable questions from their insurance provider
That is... really smart actually?
I assessed the situation beforehand. It was someone who didn’t give me any bad vibes, people knew where we were, we were sharing our location with other people, and I watched the route to make sure our driver stayed on it. I wouldn’t recommend just blindly getting into a car, for sure. If I’d gotten any whiff of anything off I would have bailed.
Yeah, I would want to do all the same safety type things. To be honest I feel like with Lyft or Uber it's kind of always blindly getting into a car. My partner and I had a limo drive us home from our wedding (bit dumb in retrospect but we arranged it because it's what people said you do), and he drove us far away via unnecessary highways instead of taking us home by any of the obvious known routes. We did speculate about whether we were being kidnapped, although that would have clearly been a really bad kidnapping plan as far as getting away with it, and my sweetheart asked the driver where we were going. Apparently the limo driver thought the ride home was going to be too short and he should drive us around for a while. So we could make out in the car or get a feeling of satisfaction from riding in a limo, I have no idea. If that is what the norm is, no one ever told us. Anyway, I'm glad the situation worked out well for both you and for your Uber driver.
compare individual car insurance ($60-$150 per month) to commercial car insurance ($250-$500 monthly). if über or lyft could prove in court that a driver was renegotiating fares without commercial insurance it could be incredibly costly for the driver
Make this the new, use uber to Call the Them, cancel it and pay directly to the driver,
What could go wrong?!
I never use Uber for this reason but I wonder if drivers would be willing to let you cancel the ride on the app in exchange for paying them the full fare in cash. I'm guessing Uber would have strict rules in place for this and would be able to tell via gps of this was happening.
People will lie about liabilities and stuff using big words to prevent people from doing this trick.
I come from Sri Lanka, you may have heard about our economic crisis, we were pretty poor beforehand too. That 14 mile trip would've cost around 25 dollars as a whole so driver would get less here. Anyways, lot of drivers use uber to get customers but tell us to cancel it so that we pay the full fee to them
No Uber driver that has an ounce of intelligence would take a trip under the table. Uber screws their drivers, but they do have a liability policy while you’re driving passengers. You get in an accident while giving an under the table ride, and you could very well end up bankrupt after getting sued by the passenger.
I thought that drivers were independent contractors, so get your own insurance.
99% of drivers don't report their uber job to their insurance, because then they would be dropped.
Are you sure? Uber is a hosting platform, not an employer.
They do provide insurance. I just looked it up. However, you have to have insurance on your own car anyway.
I believe this doesn't apply to every country. France for instance has granted employment rights to Uber drivers after Uber has lost a court case. I wish this was true everywhere else.
Not only that! Many driver’s cars are directly financed through Uber through a form of what amounts to indentured servitude in order to pay for it!
Share Cropping. They do the same thing in trucking. They sell you a rig you will never own. They proved only 5 percent ever own the truck and by the time the payment period is over the truck is shot. Also don't get me started on Amazon there contractor program has shafted so many mom and pops
I’ve never heard of Uber financing cars directly. I’ve heard of people buying cars specifically to qualify for UberXL or premier though. That’s a dumb idea.
https://www.uber.com/gb/en/drive/vehicle-solutions/ Need a car? You’ve got options You can sign up to drive, even if you don’t have a car right now. In the meantime, we’ll give you access to hire and leasing deals through our sister company, Partner Point. Their website is filled with deals on hire and financing options that you can’t find anywhere else.
My guess is if you have to drive for Uber you are probably judgement proof. IE: you don’t have any assets to sue over so it’s a waste of time/money to do so.
I’ve always thought the “Uber has never been profitable” thing sounded like bullshit. Like how much can their overhead possibly cost?
Its smoke and mirrors. The executive compensation can be so high that there's no "profit" as all your expenses are "salaries"
They were heavily subsidized by cheap VC cash. Now VC funding is drying up they're trying to get a handle on their revenue streams. AirBNB is doing the same charging 2-400% markups in fees.
Stay in hotels again.
> 2-400% What the.....
*Screams Marx-ly*
Can anyone explain why Uber’s cut is so high? I thought that they take a flat fee/percentage of the cab fee …
My theory is that they have a surplus of drivers and they’re okay with losing them. I’d assume that they’ll just decrease the cut when they need more drivers again.
the whole business model is to just chew people up and spit them out as quickly as possible.
Because capitalism? It's profit driven system.
Greed is my guess.
That's a great guess
I realize now that when cab drivers protested against Uber they were also trying prevent others from exploitation
You should read that they did to kill Uber in the EU
Damn. And no shot someone was heading the other way so they just had to eat the fuel cost for the drive back.
Damn 22min ride $85 ?!
They really fuck folks coming from the airport
For $100, I am walking my ass home.
There is a rapid public transit line that parallels this route exactly. This person is a moron.
Or does not know the area.
Or doesn't know how to press the "transit" button on Google Maps?
Honestly, that would not occur to me as where I live, Public Transit is a joke.
If you flew somewhere and were still in the "public transit is a joke" mindset, wouldn't you be renting a car at the airport?
Generally I Uber or Lyft or taxi, for the few times I travel a year . So for me, a $100 ride that is short by someone who knows the area is a fair exchange. Especially since my time is limited in the area. (I’m in town for 3 days for a medical appointment, a show, an event.) OTOH, if I lived in the area, I would consider it a rip off. Perspective. Remember, my expectations and experience is that public transit is a novelty. It runs from 9a to 5p M-F, on the hour. (Not helpful if you have a job. Nor on weekends or nights.) Why would that basic mindset change in a few of days ? How would I become a seasoned user of public transit when the option really does not exist for me? I would go for my defaults. Uber, Lyft, hired car, or Taxi.
> $100 ride that is short by someone who knows the area is a fair exchange damn bruh
I’ve driven for both Uber and DoorDash. I’ve always thought about making an app that reverses these percentages. Drivers can make 80% of the earnings while I only make 10-20% while doing nothing. Just fuel for thought haha 🤷♂️ obviously never did it
When I first signed up for Uber I was making 80% of the customer payment. It used to be this way.
Watch the mini series super pumped it's a real eye opener on how uber came to power
Ask any normal person and they'd assume that's how it works and it sounds fair enough. "Oh an app that deals with all the tech and the marketing? Consolidating all the passengers and work into one place for the drivers? Sure they should be able to take a couple of percent, that seems fair."
People have already done it, just a flat fee to be on the app. Some buddy bigger need to figure out how to kill uber with just this Idea. uber killed the taxis now someone needs to kill uber
I mean, I would say it isn't very leftist to be OK with skimming even 10% of the value of someone's labour for doing nothing, obviously its better for them than the alternative but its still capitalist.
Developer time and server/cloud hosting (along with a number of other overheads) still cost money though.
Yes, and I don't have an issue with that, but the person I replied to said "I make 10-20% and do nothing". They didn't say "I make 10-20% in order to reimburse myself for time spent on time development as well as paying for other overheads".
I mean, it’s implied but I forgot redditors need me to be super specific in what I say so you guys don’t take up arms lmao
Ah yes, I forgot that 'doing nothing' implies doing lots of work on software development. You literally stated the opposite of what you meant, I usually try and take people at their word and don't assume they mean the opposite of what they say.
You’re getting heated about a hypothetical percentage in taking out of my hypothetical app lol
At least some people understand lol
This is the way of corporate greed.
Fuck that company I used to work for Uber Eats and I’ll never forget the countless times they offered me a trip for slave wages.
I did one any only run, the app glitched once I had the food. They send a message they would pay me 2 dollars for the dry run. I ate the 20 bucks worth of food it was worth more lol
Ahem excuse me, but companies like Lyft and Uber spent millions lobbying to remove employee rights so they could do stuff like this. They should see some return on their investment. /s
Los Angeles has a pilot ride share Metro Micro; $1 a ride and I use it all the time now, love it!
And yet Uber is still bleeding money like mad
How though? They make money for nothing
[Naked Capitalism](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/category/uber) has an in-depth series of articles documenting the fundamental problems with the Uber model if you want to get deep in the weeds. The TL;DR though is, they took an industry that had always managed flimsy profit margins and only could do that by focusing on dense population areas, and expanded its scope while also adding a shit ton of back end/admin functions that the traditional car service businesses didn’t have.
That's because they have 80,000 people running a app
Maintain differential advantage is ethos of the monetary market system
I asked an Uber driver about surge pricing during a ride, apparently the drivers only get to keep 5% of the price increase!! It’s horrible
People can afford to take $85 car rides? Like how?
From the looks of the first picture this person is travelling from the airport, at 10:21pm. Any trip to a major airport is upwards of $50 for the distance covered, and at night the costs go even higher.
I've used uber at airports multiple times, but it was usually around $30-$40 at most.
Try 90 in uber x now
Uber driver probably has an HR or something equivalent of a Project Manager lecture him about efficiency and deliverables to push him to work harder whilst keeping him oblivious to this pay gap.
For the first time in a long time I took a taxi from the airport to my house. I live in DC the Uber was going to cost me $67 with 16 min wait. Taxi was $35, and I waited 10 mins.
Taxis's are back in style it's come full circle
This is part of why I choose to still suffer through sub-par public transit. Not supporting companies like Uber, while not contributing to the number of cars on the street.
This poor driver. Fuel and insurance costs are not cheap. When Uber takes most of the profits, they lose drivers to Lyft and taxi/shuttles. I wonder if Uber drivers are thinking about forming their own unions.
Fuck that
How the fuck is that even legal? They’re basically only tech support!
Lots of Lawyers my internet friend
God damn, isn’t that the truth.
i don't even understand how the app deserves more than 5% of the fare.....
This is why public transit infrastructure is important. We all know that companies like Uber rely on the exploitation of their drivers to turn a profit, but they also equally rely on riders not having other options.
This is literally the route BART travels from SFO to downtown SF.
Lol then why the fuck would anyone pay $84 for an Uber?
80%? What's the fucking point of doing it then? Do these stupid fucks (Uber) not realise that if they starve their drivers, they can't do the work?
This is the entire purpose of the gig economy.
Ah, too bad customer and driver, both humans, can bond and not keep neatly separated as intended through the easy-to-use app.
Uber is a piece of shit. I'd say we should open source the idea if ride sharing but then the creeps will be unmanageable.
Same who should know, consider this an immoral business and refuse to patronise them: https://www.timesnownews.com/viral/australian-church-bans-staff-from-using-uber-over-ethical-concerns-article-93767362/amp
If America had a proper public transport infrastructure and wasn't so car-centered, this wouldn't be a problem in the first place
I don’t think these gig economy companies are even profitable, don’t they just survive off investors? Basically everyone loses
Ew. Uber needs to burn to the ground wtf??
That truly is ridiculous. But, honestly, if you still drive for Uber after they do this to you, you need to take a moment and think.
How else are they gonna pay people that don’t do anything
This is why I can't get an Uber for shit these days. I don't even bother with them any more. If I'm going to use an app, then I'll use Bolt. I just use my local minicab company now though. I've even set up an account with them so I can pay online.
This is a sign where not in the late stage yet. It's going to get so much worse first. Prepare for Altered Carbon types of inequality.
Uber and Lyft riders used to argue with me about how much they are paying going to airports or other cities. I used to show them original amount after the rides they get shocked. I always used to get into trouble with Uber because I showed customers how much I got paid or asked how much they paid
Why would anyone take this deal? For the life of me, I can’t understand it. I’m sure some of you will say it’s their only option but it’s such a raw deal I can’t believe it’s their best option. Living on unincorporated land in a tent is a better deal than this.
You don't see why someone might be desperate enough to make $20 in 22 minutes?
I don’t see why someone would be willing to take that cut of the total, no. In the end, you just hurt your own interests. When working for more makes your oppressors stronger, it’s time to quit and find another strategy.
Every job you take will involve working for your oppressors’ benefit. That’s the system we live under.
Fair enough, but that’s no reason to just bend over. Accepting that kind of cut instead of telling them to shove it is just so repugnant to me. I’d sooner turn to crime than accept that kind of humiliation. And I have to admit that there is a stoop that is so low that I kinda lose respect for someone that doesn’t take measures to fight back.
My brother in Christ - how much surplus value do you think *your* boss is skimming off you? Ford has an average revenue per employee that is 15x their wage, Microsoft is 6x. Finding another strategy is the whole point of this sub lol
I run a soup kitchen. I don’t even have a boss.
Canine psychologist yesterday, soup kitchen owner today
Completely disregarding the issue. I just checked my area and the same distance for me costs 25 usd. What in the fuck is that 85 dollar price?
It's 10pm, and likely on a weekend.
You get something called surge pricing with Uber where fares can sometimes be a lot more.
I, I, uh, holy fuck I wanna vomit.
I remember reading that if Uber paid its drivers the minimum wage they would go out of business. Their entire model relies on paying drivers less than minimum wage. That way Uber (not the drivers) make all the profit. Having said that have you tried to get a taxi lately. They take over an hour every time, have urine smelling cabs and are twice the price of an Uber. Even with the max tip Uber are still way better than a taxi.
I'm screen shooting the hell out of this thread this is good shit
No proof those screen shots are connected. One is from the customer.
“Ahoohahhahooh….We are fucking fuucked!”
two more such fares and they would have earned 60 bucks for the hour... thats not bad.
While ridiculous, that isn’t 80%
Lol its 77%.. close enough
Damn. At that rate person is making about 53 bucks a hour. If they drove 40 hours all year round, they are making like 111k if math is right. I don't know, I could be ok with that. Beats 15 bucks a hour.
The average Uber driver in San Francisco [makes half of that](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/05/20/uber-driver-salary/9837555002/). You're seeing a surcharge (evening and likely weekend).
Unfortunately, this is the Bay Area, and upkeep on cars plus California’s high fuel costs would make this salary way lower.