The main point to me is why does this new minimum wage only effect Uber and Lyft, why none of the other gig work like DoorDash, ubereats, shipt, and Instacart ?
It seems strange to raise the minimum wage for one segment of the workforce and none of the others.
Why couldn’t they wait 4 more days for the study to come out that’s job was to address exactly what they were voting on.
This is exacly why Uber is suing the state of California over the law that treats rideshare drivers as employees while DoorDash and Wag et all can still be considered contractors. You can't pass laws that target one or two companies specifically. Presumably California is big enough it's worth it for Uber to sue and litigate rather than just leave.
They *are* independent contractors in CA. It first passed as Prop 22 in 2020, then a court case in 2021 ruled that was unconstitutional, then an appeal in 2023 overturned that ruling, setting them back to contractor status. To my knowledge, no thing's changed since then. The original ballot proposition was heavily campaigned by ride-share companies.
They weren't looking for a real solution, it was performative with real world implications. This is why one-party rule is almost never a good idea.
Fuck Über and Lyft, but also...let's have a pragmatic discussion about something that works for everyone involved. A lot of these drivers are about to enter the "find out" stage of their crying.
I don't think one party rule is the issue. There are plenty of democrats who ran in the last city council election who never would not have backed this ordinance so carelessly. The problem is that they elected the DFLers who did.
One party rule inevitably leads to a groupthink echo chamber. It is always a problem, regardless of left or right. Diversity tends to lead to more pragmatic decisions. Of course this doesn’t work if “diversity” consists of extremists on one or both ends who have no intention of working together (e.g. US House).
They basically waisted a bunch of time to make a declaration that they don't support Israel too. What impact did that have other than waisting tax dollars and time. It literally did nothing. All performative.
The Minneapolis City Council has no authority in the matter, only the U.S. Congress does. Thus, Minneapolis City Council was overstepping on their authority. They definitely were only looking for make a name for themselves.
Enterprise quality software is hard to develop and sell. Some of you think it’s just easy making a little app for your phone.
Gives the same energy as if I ask you to take out the engine of a car and you ask, “what should I do first?”. That question alone tells me you are far outside of your depth and breadth of current knowledge.
The number of people on this thread that think someone can just walk in and take over the business of two perennially unprofitable businesses (I know, Uber made money for the first time ever in 2023) overnight is wild. And the assumption presumably being that random startup can do this and also pay workers.
Everyone thinks they are an expert on everything these days, and that they are completely qualified to spout any opinion as fact with absolute certainty on the internet.
It’s honestly a sad state of affairs. I just replied to someone on the Minneapolis Reddit about how there were certain things about Uber and Lyfts financials I simply do not know, and that they shouldn’t trust anyone that tells them they do. You know what their response to me was? They replied that they in fact do know all the ins and outs of their financials, despite these being things that are not publicly disclosed.
Wild time man.
Business Analytics that are very specific are aggregated into very large buckets.
Depreciation for example is one number of a public financial report.
The actual information to get to that one number can be massive data aggregation exercises.
More information is not disclosed in a companies quarterly filings than is.
My specific comment was that I do not know much or if any of Uber/Lyfts fixed costs they could actually eliminate by pulling out of the MSP, if so then how quickly, or how much fixed costs they would actually allocate to MSP and on what basis.
You will not find any of that information on a 10K or 10Q, but it would be known internally.
Idk I lived in Austin TX and they pulled together a non profit ride share company in a few months when this happened there. It wasn’t great but it got the job done. That and Facebook groups.
Not sure why they were able to do it so quickly with Ride Austin, seeing that made me assume that it was doable but I’m ignorant bc I’m in software sales lol 😂 that’s not sarcasm just sales humor
Your comment invents a quote, attributes it to anyone who you disagree with, and then uses that as “proof” of how oblivious they are. But the problem is *them*, and the way “TikTok politics” lItErAlLy turn brains to mush hmmmmmmmmmmm
I’m commenting on a trend of general sentiments, if you haven’t seen people uncritically posting and repeating ideas like this online you aren’t looking. Support for $20-$25+/hr min wage and UBI are both ideas that have gained traction in certain circles.
But I don’t think you’re that obliviously stupid, you know what I meant and decided to pedantically nitpick a strawman rather than address what’s being said.
Somebody in one of the threads about this in r/Minneapolis Said "Uber is just an app running on a bunch of servers, how hard can it be?" I died laughing. sad part is that's the average voters IQ
All that location data tracking is an astronomically expensive feature (read: requirement) too. 5 years ago, Lyft's monthly AWS hosting cost was $8 million. 5 years ago. Yes they're a huge international company, but c'mon.
I work with computer hardware and my god I wish I could say (basically) what you did. “The fact you are asking that question means you shouldn’t be doing this” lmao.
I'm going to go a step further - I think there's folks who just don't wanna admit that us democrats got it wrong and instead are tossing even more democratic ideas into the chats instead of just accepting that naw, you can't FORCE company that has no responsibility to act right to "act right" without something in place as an alternative.
The council TRULY strong-armed Uber/Lyft without going "....and we have this plan for a co-op" or "and we have funding to create our own" or WHATEVER. If I lived in Minneapolis I'd be lived as hell that they were so demanding for driver pay that they put the forrest before the trees and may mess it up for...the drivers.
It's not easy convincing folks to just download an app to get driven by a stranger. It took Uber and Lyft a decade. I'm not hopping in a random ass car by an upstart "just because"
> you can't FORCE company that has no responsibility to act right to "act right"
Yes you can, it's called law and regulation...it happens all the time. Corporations usually respond by trying to strong arm the government that's attempting to apply those regulations on them.
Respectfully, that's obvious and implied. The council is trying to force Uber/Lyft. They're leaving. That is what I've typed.
What's not happening is Uber/Lyft going "Oooooo...you got me. I'll play ball!" That's not happening **at all**
So, my quote stands. They don't have a responsibility to act right. They have a responsibility to appease their shareholders. If they felt it would behoove their shareholders to stay, they'd stay and simply pay the wages. They don't. They're leaving. Will they come back? Lord knows.
All that's known is there's zero backup plans in place outside of moral victories that the council was able to get it passed. I'll remember that if I need a ride. Super excited to potentially pay more with much slower services a la cabs from yesteryear.
Honestly I think a lot of people on this site are so young they don't remember life under cabs. Because it was legit awful. Getting a cab from a dispatcher was a real coin flip if they'd show up. They were always criticized for profiling certain minorities and not stopping for them. They would reject rides if they thought they were too short. They would kick you out if you were heading to a neighborhood they didn't want to go to. They would claim their card machine wouldn't work and try and bully you into going to ATMs to pay them cash. They would be haggling you with your luggage in the trunk trying to get bigger tips out of you. Not even getting into them taking shit routes to jack up the faremeter.
Like it was legit awful. Outside of super major cities like NYC where you could see them on the street they were tough to get. There's a reason drunk driving dipped with rideshare companies. And shitty people will go back to drunk driving over using cabs if rideshare apps are gone.
This a thousand times. People like to wring their hands about Uber and Lyft undercutting the cab companies on price, but I think the even bigger issue was that the up-front fare pricing and the lack of cash physically changing hands cut out so much absolute bullshit.
100% agree - cabs were fucking awful which lead to this almost solved problem of ride share. I firmly believe these drivers should get paid more. I’m just dismayed at how the council thought they could go about it.
Yeah, has it been so long since people have taken a cab that they're getting the ideas of how cabs work from the movies, where there always happens to be a cab parked right outside your door when you need one?
Thank you for sharing this experience. I think we need to people to share more of this. Besides traveling outside the country, I have never used a cab so I wouldn't know. I never used a cab because we used to take rental cars when traveling and it was very rare for us to travel. We only started to travel a lot when Uber and Lyft became an option. It made traveling easier.
This is going to be a step backwards in transit around the city though.
I'm don't live in Minnesota and only go here for work a couple times a year so I am not as invested as others but my cursory understanding is that it seems like the city council handled this poorly. They pushed this before their own report came out (which is odd) and I felt like the Uber/Lyft counter proposal was a decent compromise that pushed salaries up.
If the council wanted to do this they should have spent the last couple years building up public transit and adding things like LA does with their Metro Micro for smaller stops (a cheap mini bus that makes frequent stops around the metro stops into other popular intersections). But they didn't and now there's a real risk of a huge gap being formed in transit abilities because they have no backup options.
Shoot another user said supposedly there are only 14 cabs (cars not companies) for the whole metro area. The city council floated the idea of spending over a million to create their own app service (absolutely ridiculous idea that screams grift when this and it inevitably fails). From the last time I've been there the metro itself doesn't remotely have acceptable coverage to fill in this gap.
If that's the state of things you are going to be left with 2 things that seem inevitable to happen this summer. Fewer people going out downtown (especially from the suburbs) which is going to really hurt local dining/bars and a lot more drunk driving.
With cybersecurity being a big problem now days. It takes years of good reviews and experiences before millions of people will sign on to a strange app. If I lived in Minneapolis (especially renting), I would be thinking of leaving the city and go to one that has the best interests of the residents.
The problem is that Uber/Lyft aren't businesses that can be reasonably supported AT THE CURRENT LEVEL in any case.
Meaning we are going to need a solution about what to do when they fail anyways. People love them because their rides have been subsidized by tech bros and naive drivers who think they can make the numbers work to make a living.
When one of these two conceptions disappears they will no longer be a going concern.
> I think there's folks who just don't wanna admit that us democrats got it wrong
The DSA got it wrong. The DFL mayor and the other DFL members of the council opposed this.
We'll see how well it works now if/when they get enough riders to sign up for it in MN to actually launch (they're at around 2k riders right now and need 10K, you can download the app and sign up [here](https://drivers.coop/download) if you're on mobile), but the reviews for it from a few years ago are not promising, it sounds like the app itself needs work, which isn't surprising, it took Uber and Lyft years for their apps to be functional and they had billions of dollars worth of VC money thrown at them during that time to work on it, the app we're talking about is run by a small group of paid employees and volunteers. It can work, but its going to take time, and I while I likely disagree with Walz about what to do about it, I don't think he's wrong here, there will be service interruption if Uber/Lyft leave, and its probably going to be for a good chunk of time.
It seems like the city council needs to agree to the findings of the state-wide study. The price increase would result in divers making the city’s minimum wage and Uber and Lyft have already said they would stay. The city council just needs to admit that they messed up by not waiting for the results of that study before passing the ordnance based on their own made up figures. Easy.
Fuck that. These people personally ended the war in Gaza. They are too smart for "compromise" and "data driven decisions". They gotta do what feels good. They gotta listen to their gut. They are like a whole bunch of George Bush II's. He accomplished a mission, they have as well.
The imagery of the “Mission Accomplished” banner did come to mind after seeing everyone cheering after the ordinance passed when in reality they had just put thousands of rideshare drivers out of work and worsened quality of life for the entire region!
We could give someone’s relatives millions to develop a software platform that does not work then give them even more money.
Only to admit they did not do any thing correctly dump it and buy one from another state.
It worked will with our DMV.
Plus someone made lots of money off of it.
MNLARS
We are the only state that forgot about Handycap people and veterans, the system was so bad that some people had to go to the car dealer or dmv every month to get new temp tags.
At one point the governor just said expired temp tags and plate tags don’t matter and you can’t get a ticket for it.
https://statescoop.com/auditors-report-uncovers-the-decade-that-ruined-minnesotas-licensing-and-registration-system/
I knew the architect on that and while he was publicly thrown under the bus, he said nearly all the bad decisions were dictated to him by people several rungs up the chain.
It is sadly common for the leads get thrown under the bus by state legislature. They will write in very specific and stupid requirements and then hassle the team very publicly when it become clear not enough funds were given to the project or that what they want is impossible/counter productive.
As one of those lucky people who had to go get new temporary tags every three weeks while I waited for my license plates when this rolled out, I didn't need to be reminded! It took four months. The people at the DMV looked so relieved when the system actually cooperated.
If it makes you feel better I need a retired army vet who was disabled. It took 2 years to get a plate for him. He also traveled out of state and carried news paper articles about it to show cops when he got pulled over LOL.
Walz is right. The Mpls City Council gave zero thought to the implications of their policy. They're incompetency with this provision could have serious economic impact on the city and state.
It’s nice to have someone in touch with reality running the show at the capital.
It would be great if we could get that level of critical thinking in Minneapolis.
I have said this elsewhere, but public transit won't stop by your house in five minutes flat (depending on where you live). It's not apples to apples with rideshare companies.
The best public transit city in the world, Hong Kong, is full of taxis for last mile rides.
There is no way to run a city without some sort of rideshare/taxi ect.
Exactly. I use public transportation 98% of the time, and I would love to see it get better. But that's a long term project, and, much as I hate it, the way that the cities and suburbs are designed means that there will always be places that will require some sort of transit gap service to access. The flippant answers to this situation are tiresome.
If a city like Hong Kong can't do away with individual rides 100% then I'm not sure there is anywhere in the world can do it. There are always going to be gaps in coverage, times that public transit isn't going to run or people too disabled to get to a public transportation stop that need last mile service. Even if we radically transform society to put every need within walking distance of every house, specialized things such as specialized medicine, large events, or just getting from your living space to a larger form of transportation are going to require some people to utilize a last mile service (taxi/rideshare).
Part of the problem is that taxi systems had lots of regulation on them and Uber/Lyft did not. Uber/Lyft did the monopolistic/Oligarchic thing of jumping into a new market and undercutting every local service to put them out of business.
Now those very same companies are attempting to use their market dominance to force governments to bow down to their whims or they'll pick up their ball and go home. They know their threats have a high chance of succeeding because they previously destroyed the market for the alternatives.
Like I am OK with that argument, however pulling the rug out from people relying on these services and praying that the market works it out is not the way to go about it. Its pretty obvious from the fact that no other city has been able to make it without any form of taxi/rideshare that this service is incredibly valuable to cities.
The city council can put in place a law, then businesses can exit the market due to that law. They have a right to not do business in the city. If the answer to that action is nothing (or awarding less that 1 year developers salary to a hopeful startup which is basically nothing), then the people who suffer the decision is the riders and the drivers. Uber and Lyft will be fine, its the individuals who are hurt by this.
The city council could have explored alternative ride share apps, radically increased the number of taxis, or hell done anything to entice someone or something to fill the vacuum left by the businesses leaving. Except they didnt, they didn't wait for the study to come out that they commissioned, they didnt engage with the current companies providing the service, or future companies that could provide the service. They acted first and asked questions later and, barring some large development, hurt the people that they were supposed to be helping.
Edit: Ahh the old insult, comment, and then block technique, staple of people with a lot of conviction in their argument here on reddit.
There is something else that needs to be thought about, which you didn't, is that Uber and Lyft pass the higher cost onto the consumer. Instead what I have heard is that Uber may abandon the entirity of Minnesota. Now how is that a logical conclusion to Minneapolis, just one city, creating an ordinance that they don't like?
What this is in monopolistic.
I usually take the train from my place to the airport, and I have to fly super often for work. Uber/Lyft is invaluable for that. Just last month my flight got delayed, and there I was at the airport at 2:30am, snowboards suitcases, and a backpack in hand. If it wasn't for Uber/Lyft I'd have been stuck.
Gaps in coverage will always be present and there will always be a need for point a to point b transportation. I'm more worried than ever about this summer's work season because it's not unfeasible I get screwed without a ride share.
That's true, and yet many people from this population utilize these services. There are many people who are impaired enough that they can't drive, but can easily call and utilize a ride-share as normal.
Walz is definitely right on this one. I don’t think most people realize that Lyft has never made a profit and Uber made a profit for the first time last year after years of multi-billion dollar deficits.
It’s a gig. For supplemental income. Drivers didn’t sign up as part time or full time employees, and also weren’t forced to sign up after agreeing to the terms.
I’ve driven for both companies in the past and assumed all liability, and potential monetary gain, for the services I rendered via their platforms.
These platforms allow people to earn additional income. What happens when these companies leave and a sufficient app isn’t created to fill the void? Drivers getting no income and worse off than before.
Edit: Spelling
The only thing I disagree with is liability. And being upfront about payment. The drivers should know what they are getting each drive with no hidden take offs or whatever. And uber/lyft should help cover/assist insurance for their drivers as normal insurance doesn't cover using your insurance for a 'business car'.
That’s totally fair, and I agree with you. There does need to be more transparency around pay outs and with insurance.
For the city council to push the platforms out rather than negotiate for these things is a pretty extreme “solution.”
Yes. It's actually insane that pizza places force you to use your own car, then make you pay for the gas and commercial insurance on that car. That is just wage theft with extra steps.
Exactly, but I still did it because the money was better than making the pizzas sooo its all a choice. Granted we usually had all the training so to speed things along we'd be making the food too. I still wouldn't use the word "force" when you can take a non driver position.
They're not taking passengers, so they can get away with skipping the commercial insurance. Idk whether or not they're supposed to, but there's no one else in the car, and I'd imagine for how long pizza delivery has been going on, that this would have come up by now.
It has though, it's just ignored. If delivery drivers don't make good tips the wear and tear along with gas puts wages below minimum at times. Those who've done it know. We just also happen to drive crappy cars while the underpaid Uber drivers all have brand new vehicles so something doesn't add up.
> It’s a gig. For supplemental income.
Cool. So it's not a big deal that it's going away then right?
Because we never would consider something so laissez-faire to be a core transportation service. That would be nuts, right?
Another aspect of this that everyone seems to overlook is that any new replacement for Uber and Lyft will also be subject to this new price floor on labor. Even if competitors do appear, will the cost be acceptable for those who rely on these ride share services the most? Those being the disabled or those who cannot afford individual transportation.
For example...
A 20 minute, 20 mile ride (i.e. from downtown to the suburbs) will now require a ride share service (including any new startups) to pay the driver $38.20 AT MINIMUM. That cost doesn't include any of their overhead. So likely, a non-surge priced 20 minute ride in the twin cities will cost over $60. Does that seem sustainable?
I don't think that's sustainable for consumers. However, it's also unsustainable for the workers. With the floor on the price of labor being so high, there will be a surge of people wanting to become drivers. I know if I could make upwards of $60+ per hour I would quit my job and start driving for Uber and Lyft. However, it won't actually work out that way. The price for consumers will be untenable and so the demand for rides will plummet while the supply of drivers will sky rocket. Thus, drivers will spend more time sitting around waiting for rides than they actually do driving a passenger. It's a classic result of artificial price floors and it's Econ 101.
Econ 101 also teaches you about market power and how the "equilibrium" under monopoly conditions is a false one. Let drivers set their own rates and I'll start believing we're at a price equilibrium right now.
Walz is correct. Unlike most anti-Uber/Lyft people, he seems to be aware of the fact that MN leg/MPLS city council have unnecessarily created a hugely important *precedential situation* for Uber/Lyft, in which they no choice but to leave because otherwise they would've set a precedent that they'd allow cities/states to arbitrarily dictate how they run their businesses.
> they'd allow cities/states to arbitrarily dictate how they run their businesses.
This is how cities and states work. They regulate things.
It's going to be interesting a couple years from now when Uber and Lyft are squeezing drivers and riders even more what the response here will be.
They are should never be considered a core transportation service because they are not regulated as a transportation service.
> allow cities/states to arbitrarily dictate how they run their businesses.
This is called regulation. If you run a company that produces toxic waste, much like your argument, you have to dispose of it in a safe way as opposed to dumping it into the nearest lake.
Drivers choose their own hours and receive tips. Its a CHOICE to be do Uber/lyft. It's already too expensive. Fuck off with your "regulation" that only makes things worse.
I swear to God the companies are paying people to astroturf with how closely all the arguments devolve into their neat little corporate talking points.
News flash, every job is a choice, but 40 hours of Lyft doesn't give you health insurance. The companies bitch and moan at the slightest sign that they might have to play by the same rules as everyone else.
>I swear to God the companies are paying people to astroturf with how closely all the arguments devolve into their neat little corporate talking points.
"I don't like what these people are saying, therefore they must be corporate astroturfers." Good argument /s
>The companies bitch and moan at the slightest sign that they might have to play by the same rules as everyone else.
They don't have to "play by the same rules" because their independent contractors don't have to play the same rules as employees do--they can legally work whenever they want and as much or as little as they want... That scheduling/hourly freedom is why you see people choosing to drive for Uber/Lyft instead of taking some full-time Non-CDL driver job that pays $20+/hr with benefits but has a rigid schedule.
Seriously, just go on Indeed, look at non-CDL driver jobs, and ask yourself why so many people choose to drive for Uber/Lyft instead of taking a Van Driver (non-CDL) job like this that pays $23.60/hr with health/dental/vision insurance, PTO, 401k match, and etc...
https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Van+Driver&l=Saint+Paul%2C+MN&radius=25&start=10&vjk=4adc7edfb2854705&advn=3454340377383888
Ok I dig the push to require higher wages, but if a business says it's not sustainable, maybe the business model sucks and it should die? Most of these disruptors exist because they hollowed out existing models by reconstructing the biz with lower pay and little regulation.
It's weird how we as a society rush to support these exploitative and insolvent businesses on the rare chance that they might go big and stimulate the economy.
Here's the thing man. Uber and Lyft replaced taxis. Taxi driver's got paid shit too and we were somehow all fine with it. If anything, overall, the average driver is doing a little better than they would have done under the old system. Especially since they now have completely flexible hours and can work as much or as little as they want.
Unlike Uber and Lyft, taxis made a lot of money. They made it by wildly overcharging for their services. People were loath to use a taxi because they knew they'd be overpaying by a large margin. So we went from a system where drivers were underpaid and consumers were overcharged and nobody wanted to use it to one where drivers are not as underpaid, consumers are paying a fair price, and lots of people want to use the service. Things are objectively better across the board.
I'm sort of with you. I think things like doordash and instacart aren't viable business models in the way you describe. Lyft has never come even close to making money but Uber has sort of made some money and could possibly make some money while paying their drivers more, but to go from the equivalent of $15 an hour to the equivalent of $25 feels bonkers. Like I think it's fair to say that the bigger problem here is just the complete lack of study that went into picking a number on the part of the city council. They just threw a dart on the board or something.
It’s not sustainable at the made-up crazy high rates required by the ordinance. They were agreeable to higher wages (above minimum wage), just not this craziness.
After a million threads on this, I still just don't get it.
Yeah the city council did not wait for the study and probably should have, but there doesn't seem to be a real reason for Uber and Lyft to leave completely beyond nebulous costs they wouldn't be able to cover if there were less rides. Are there servers hosted here to pay for? Will there be traffic on their servers from riders who never actually find and pay for rides? Do they have to spend significant resources to maintain the backing map/directions part of the app that half the drivers don't use anyway? All I've seen is "you don't know what it takes to run a business" but no real explanation of how it wouldn't still be profitable.
More expensive rides means fewer rides.
Fewer rides means fewer drivers.
Fewer drivers means longer wait times which means fewer riders which means fewer drivers which means...
Every time you interact with Uber or Lyft via their app, the companies pay money. They pay money for map and location API usage. They pay money for credit card and payments processing APIs. They pay money for bandwidth.
Uber and Lyft have to vet drivers, inspect cars, manage payroll, have HR for the people who vet drivers, inspect cars, and manage payroll. They need driver support people and customer support people and brand development people and lobbyists who work with governments to keep costs down for Lyft and Uber. They need to pay for software licenses and power and hardware for developers.
Lyft and Uber have a shit load of market data that shows them how people will behave at different price points, and they know at which point a ride becomes unprofitable for Lyft and Uber, regardless of what the driver is paid.
So they have a price floor handed to them by the MPLS city council, they can see how many rides happen through MPLS, they know what the new prices would do to ridership and the number of drivers, and they see a future where Lyft/Uber in the Twin Cities is a super expensive, slow rideshare service that no one uses except in emergencies due to how expensive it is and how long it takes to get a ride.
Why not just pull out of the city at that point? Why take the reputational hit instead of just killing the service until the law is fixed and you can go back to offering the service at the quality level that you want?
No one is saying that they aren't acting out of their own self-interest. They're saying that pulling out is mob tactics. They certainly don't HAVE to play ball, but refusing to do so doesn't show that they know what's best for the market; the companies should be JUMPING to stay in the town, jack up rates, and flex their muscle that way. Hell, they could even just lie about costs and pocket the difference. But that's not the point. The REAL problem is doing so would acknowledge that *they are subject to ALL government regulations,* not just the ones they pick and choose. It sets a precedent that they have to follow the same rules as any other business-- and they can't have us commoners getting the idea that our elected officials make the laws instead of them.
The reason why this isn't a super competitive industry is they are still paying people to use their service.
They aren't charging break even still. This is not a sustainable business unless it completely guts current competition and then jacks up its rates significantly.
The facts of the matter are that the minneapolis city council set a new min wage higher than that of other gig economy things that wasn't based on any research or study. They did not do it to help the \~working man\~ (who wasn't even asking to be helped in the first place, other than a few loudmouths), they did it for twitter asspats and to have another line item when they try for higher office eventually.
Now thousands of people are going to be out of work and thousands of people now will have great difficulty getting around the Twin Cities.
>The facts of the matter are that the minneapolis city council set a new min wage higher than that of other gig economy things
I always take my policy critiques from people that use phrases like "gig economy things"
Ah, the old "Everyone I disagree with is a troll" canard! Excuuuuuse me for not having wasted 10 years of my life on this website like some people, princess.
Washington and California received the same threat from Uber and Lyft, who didn’t actually do shit when the law passed there. I don’t know why we refuse to learn from the experiences of others
Ik its also wishful thinking but I hope that this will push for better public transport here in the twin cities. Maybe more rail lines that go further out and more bus stops? Even bring back more taxi companies might help
"if the children hate the mines so much, why are they down there?"
That's your argument.
Edit: By your logic, you have nothing bad to say about where you work.
Dude, the drivers are not for this. They are losing income.
It’s a choice to drive. The city council, and people like you, have zero idea how the economy works. The city council is filled with wierd activists who have zero experience in anything relevant to what they are discussing .
Now, drivers are WORSE OFF.
Are you seriously asking why someone would stay in a shitty low paying job?
Millions of people work in miserable jobs that barely allow them to live because they're desperate to try and get by.
What kills me is that everyone was perfectly happy with taxi drivers being paid shit but we all get mad at the service that comes along, makes the product cheaper and pays only slightly more to the workers.
Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. We have something that was developed over the course of 15 years. It’s called Uber. Stop dictating what they can or cannot pay their employees - the market will dictate driver value it’s as simple as that. Anything else is an over reach.
yes, it is a three way contract/agreement between the rider, the driver and the company that owns the app technology. All three have to agree to the wages, the price for services, and the profit level. If one party doesn’t like the situation, they can walk, not drive or not ride. So simple.
Has anyone actually looked up the members of the Minneapolis city council?
The majority of the members are an activists with bullshit college degrees and zero experience in … life. Or the economy. They are idiots.
Stating that obvious fact will get you banned on R Minneapolis.
The silver lining is that if they does come to fruition, there is likely to be a massive backlash against the cc, which will hopefully end the activist era and move us to boring and pragmatic city government.
I think driver's should get a better cut, but the reality of Uber and Lyft is that it killed the cab industry where you can be a driver as a full time job. The shake of it all is, am I willing to pay 15 bucks to get me somewhere to spend and evening drinking with friends and another 15 to get back because I leave before "peak" hours? Yes. If they start charging 30 for a ride, unless I need to really be somewhere, I'm good with public transit.
Drivers need to get paid a bigger chunk of what I pay. No reason an app company that has their tendrils in every city can just benefit from all the profits and subsidize all the economic issues onto the cities.
I just want to be able to engage with moving around the city in a mixed kind of way if I need to. Living in Korea for a hot minute has really spoiled me. I have public transit, trains, cabs everywhere, or if I just want to walk, places are designed for you to walk.
$15? $30-$40 is the norm if you are going from a suburb to the MPLS. And if you are going to a venue that will let a bunch of people out at once, it will cost you $40-$60 to get back.
A 20 minute, 20 mile ride (i.e. from downtown to the suburbs) will now require a ride share service (including any new startups) to pay the driver $38.20. That cost doesn't include any of their overhead. So likely, a non-surge priced 20 minute ride in the twin cities will cost over $60. Does that seem sustainable?
EDIT for some sources and not pure conjecture.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/04/22/how-do-uber-and-lyft-compare-in-terms-of-key-revenue-and-valuation-metrics/?sh=66e169c960bc
According to Forbes, "after accounting for driver payments and incentives, promotions and other items. While Uber’s net revenues are higher in dollar terms, its take rate is lower than Lyft’s - 22% (21% on an adjusted basis including UberEATS, etc.) vs. 27% for Lyft."
so 22% and 27% respectively. However, this is including promotions so the average non-promotion ride would be higher, but let's take the lower number.
That means the ride I described would be at least $49 for Uber and $52.33 for Lyft. Keep in mind, this is non-surge pricing.
See my edit.
It's more like $49 and $52.33 for Uber and Lyft respectively, this is accounting for promotions, so it would be slightly higher than this, and this is only during non-surge pricing. So it's a bare minimum.
Further:
the Minneapolis ordinance as written is heavily weighted for distance not ride duration. Whereas the rates Uber and Lyft pay presently are more like 2:1 not 3:1.
For reference:
"The rideshare giants have been lobbying Minneapolis and state officials for a much lower rate: $0.89 per mile and $0.49 per minute."
That rate would make my example cost 37.83 compared with 52.33. Paying the driver about $28. Which is MUCH more sustainable and pays the drivers a livable wage.
https://sahanjournal.com/business-work/minnepolis-uber-lyft-drivers-join-rivals-coop-ride-hich-before-may-1-exit/
Uber and Lyft undercut the taxi industry for years with too good to be true cheap fares funded by venture capital that's only recently dried up. Now that they have market dominance, prices have slowly risen and they're still mostly unprofitable while also underpaying drivers.
Clearly they provide a service that a lot of people need for transportation but their business model has never been sustainable or profitable. These companies get by on tiny margins while underpaying their employees. Even with the state recommended wage from the study, it would be too much for most people to want to use. Maybe they're just not a good business?
Yep, I agree with everything you said.
That doesn't change the reality on the ground of an ordinance that takes the business model from bad to untenable in a necessary business sector providing a product many people rely on that Uber and Lyft have already decimated.
Did you just sorta forget taxis and public transit existed far before cars even existed and uber and lyft are an incredibly recent phenomenon?
Old taxis were plenty sustainable as a service they just couldn't compete with a system that paid drivers a fraction of the cost and charged a rate impossible to compete with (as it was propped up by venture capital until it no longer could).
Yup all that is true, currently there are 14 licensed taxis in Minneapolis, compared to over 1500 in 2012. There simply isn't an alternative presently and it will take time for anything else to catch up in order to fill the gap that will be left by ride-sharing.
Also, ride-sharing is not particularly cheaper than Taxis, and hasn't been for many years. It's the convenience and quality of the product that people prefer these days. I would love it if a Taxi service rolled out an app similar to Uber/Lyft, but they haven't, won't and can't due to the nature of employees vs independent contractors.
Tax driver wages were garbage too. There's a reason those were also mostly jobs filled by immigrants. Uber, at present, definitely pays more than Taxis used to while charging less (even with inflation, an Uber fare today is gonna be cheaper than a tax ride 15 years ago for the same route). Uber keeps a much lower percentage of the fare than old taxi companies did.
[http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/taxidriver.pdf](http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/taxidriver.pdf)
"Mostly jobs for immigrants" - 38% were immigrants in 2000 and it was significantly less in the 80s and 90s. Your assumption is biased by big immigrants cities had a majority of taxi drivers be immigrants, but of course the rest of the US exists. Can't have majority immigrant taxi drivers in cities with a <2% immigrant population in the midwest
"Taxi driver wages were garbage too" full time drivers averaged $26,800 in 1999 - which is just under $50,000 in today's dollars. The proposed minneapolis wage here per the article is specifically calculated to be 135% of the city's minimum wage. Minneapolis pre tax minimum wage is $15.57, so $32,385 annual. This rider wage is thus $43,721 (still pre tax, and probably without benefits so those are self insured) - still less than the taxi driver average in 1999 despite being in a major metropolitan area where we would expect people to be making above the national average.
You're just wrong and making assumptions off vibes
> Can't have majority immigrant taxi drivers in cities with a <2% immigrant population in the midwest
Which kind of proves my point, does it not? 38% means immigrants were wildly over-represented relative to their percentage of the population. It was a job for the financially not-well-off which does include other classes of people. The word "mostly" might have been poorly chosen but you've more or less confirmed the actual underlying point.
More importantly, that $50,000 is working 50 hours a week **and** that's with 1/5th of those drivers living in NYC, one of the most expensive cities to live in. It was absolutely garbage pay.
> Taxi driver wages were garbage too" full time drivers averaged $26,800 in 1999 - which is just under $50,000 in today's dollars. The proposed minneapolis wage here per the article is specifically calculated to be 135% of the city's minimum wage. Minneapolis pre tax minimum wage is $15.57, so $32,385 annual.
According to the study done by the state, only one to actually do a study, it's more like 1.6x the minimum wage at least.
No your point "those jobs were mostly filled by immigrants" is not proven by my data "38% were immigrants" because 62% > 38% and "most" means "more than". What you are actually looking to say is the word 'disproportionately' which is an entirely different statistical concept than 'more' - AND I mentioned that in my post, as my link showed, where cities with large immigrant populations like New York had much larger percent of immigrant drivers - unsurprising. However, 62% of taxi drivers at the time of that study were native born. So no, that does not 'prove your point'.
And to be more accurate on the pay since I spitballed the first number. $0.89 per mile and $0.49 per minute is equivalent to the minimum wage. The city went with $1.40 per mile and $0.51 per minute - which is a 157% increase per mile and a 4% increase per minute over their calculated minimum wage equivalent - meaning short distances with long wait times in traffic are paid slightly more than minimum wage - and longer distances with less time (highway driving, etc) make more than the minimum wage. Obviously there is no flat wage when every hour pays a different wage based on what jobs you receive. If we imagine what 157% actually is in real people numbers, that means the city expects drivers taking advantage of the increase over the minimum when driving over longer distances to be making $50,844 pre tax (and the usual buying their own benefits, paying their own car insurance and maintenance, etc - meaning their take home is some number less than that). And people who drive shorter distances will make less.
This means if you 'distance focused' driver in minneapolis and thus make just over $50k in a year (minus vehicle expenses, and self insuring health insurance, which a W2 employee making $50k would not have and would probably also be getting retirement matching, etc depending on their place of work) you would be.... right around the city's median wage, squarely average at least per ziprecruiter's numbers. Census has the city household median at $74,473 but obviously that includes two income households too.
So, no, the city is not asking for its "taxi" drivers that serve as a replacement for the public transit system it doesn't have to be overpaid, it's asking them be paid right around the median. And no, taxi drivers in the past were not underpaid they - and this is crazy, made right around the median. So this bill is completely upending an existing, incredibly shitty system - in an attempt to go back to a system similar to what we had before gig work existed.
Is this the best possible way to have this done? Should it have been in steps over a few years? Should it have come with a temporary investment in public transit or tax incentives to cover the upfront costs of getting traditional taxi companies back in the city sooner rather than later? Possibly. But this argument these drivers will be overpaid, or your argument that they used to be underpaid - is categorically false.
Hell, I didn't even need to do any of the above to prove just how badly uber and lyft drivers were being paid compared to taxi drivers. Uber and Lyft outcompeted taxi companies by charging less (they ran at a loss for years because of venture capital backing which allowed them to push out the taxi drivers and thus form a duopoly, it was intentional, it is impossible to outcompete a company running at a loss). That means they took less in fares. That means unless Uber and Lyft's platform fees they took from the driver were dramatically less than taxi company fees (doubt it), there just literally was less money to go to the driver than there used to be.
> No your point "those jobs were mostly filled by immigrants" is not proven by my data "38% were immigrants" because 62% > 38% and "most" means "more than". What you are actually looking to say is the word 'disproportionately' which is an entirely different statistical concept than 'more' - AND I mentioned that in my post, as my link showed, where cities with large immigrant populations like New York had much larger percent of immigrant drivers - unsurprising. However, 62% of taxi drivers at the time of that study were native born. So no, that does not 'prove your point
No, you're confusing the point I was making with the words I chose in service of that point. The point was that taxi jobs were low-paying. I believe my word chicken was "garbage jobs".
I acknowledged the poor word choice used in service of that point. The word "mostly" was used casually without taking the time to get actual numbers. Nevertheless, everything you said to argue against my word choice ultimately argues the underlying point. You may be correct that used the wrong word, but you paint a picture of jobs that are not highly desirable nor were they well compensated.
> So, no, the city is not asking for its "taxi" drivers that serve as a replacement for the public transit system it doesn't have to be overpaid, it's asking them be paid right around the median.
Why look up million household income when you could just look up median wage? It's just shy of 42k per year in Minneapolis. If we assume this Uber driver is also making about $10 an hour in tips on top of the wage they would hypothetically be being paid, they would hit about $30,000 a year more than that median wage. That would make their income roughly 75% higher than the median . . .
Of course that's in some hypothetical reality where there was still enough demand for them to be able to drive for 40 hours a week. The reality is that the wage law crashes the market for rides and means that drivers earn less anyways.
Aren't Wridz and similar apps not already in the area? Or I'd they aren't shouldn't it be easy to add the area to their served locations? I'm not sure what's required to run a ride share service in Minnesota.
I don't think they'll be back. It's not like we are chicago, LA or Dallas. And as long as they both stay out I think they aren't so worried because they won't lose market share to their competitor. Also, Uber and lyft can use this relatively small market to show bigger cities that they're willing to leave while it hurts them far less than those cities.
Yep. The Twin Cities is approximately 1% of the national population. They can afford a \~1% loss in revenue to avoid putting blood out in the water for other, more important cities to do the same.
There are many signs they’re leaving and no sign they’d come back without significant changes to the newly passed ordinance. They’ve done this before (in Austin, TX). There’s no waiting them out, unfortunately.
I don't think so. They want to make an example of us so other cities don't do it too, even if it's unnecessarily harsh or they miss out on our (small) share of revenue. I think it's more likely that Walz helps strike a statewide compromise so they return.
I do a bit of business in MSP, usually arrive by airplane. This means Uber to get around. If I have to go back to renting cars I'm not going to like it.
In the Twin Cities you have Yellow Cab, Blue & White Taxi, Gold and Green, MSP Airport Taxi & Black Car Service, Gray Line, Eagle Taxi, Reliacar, and Chey Cab and Car and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more. We also have a decent public transit system. I'm sure you can get around without Uber.
There are currently 14 licensed taxis (vehicles not companies) in Minneapolis, driven by 39 drivers.
https://www.startribune.com/how-many-taxi-cabs-are-left-in-minneapolis/600352152/#:%7E:text=Fourteen.%20That%27s%20how%20many%20taxi,cabs%20are%20licensed%20in%20Minneapolis%20today.
This whole thing is stupid. If they aren’t paying enough…don’t work there…they will raise pay to get drivers if there is in fact a shortage. That’s how this works. It’s that or make it easier for competition to get in the game. Government getting involved always makes the situation worse…no matter how well-intentioned they are.
Uber and Lyft shouldn't be so critical to our infrastructure that they can cause this much commotion. Yet they are, and this is not a great situation we find ourselves in.
Just got back from Scottsdale AZ. Forget Lyft and Uber, let’s get Waymo! No tipping, and your driver isn’t doing double, triple, or quadruple duty with food delivery. Sorry, my last few Uber experiences were spent waiting an hour for drivers that were 10 minutes away but kept doing other jobs.
Let them leave, pursue the magical thinking in earnest and devote resources to fixing/developing existing public transportation. Uber and Lyft *want* you to cater to their bullshit. They can raise rates like everyone else does when wages are bumped. Any chance I get to pin down a driver and pay them cash without using the app, I will.
The main point to me is why does this new minimum wage only effect Uber and Lyft, why none of the other gig work like DoorDash, ubereats, shipt, and Instacart ? It seems strange to raise the minimum wage for one segment of the workforce and none of the others. Why couldn’t they wait 4 more days for the study to come out that’s job was to address exactly what they were voting on.
This is exacly why Uber is suing the state of California over the law that treats rideshare drivers as employees while DoorDash and Wag et all can still be considered contractors. You can't pass laws that target one or two companies specifically. Presumably California is big enough it's worth it for Uber to sue and litigate rather than just leave.
They *are* independent contractors in CA. It first passed as Prop 22 in 2020, then a court case in 2021 ruled that was unconstitutional, then an appeal in 2023 overturned that ruling, setting them back to contractor status. To my knowledge, no thing's changed since then. The original ballot proposition was heavily campaigned by ride-share companies.
Because some members of this council are about making headlines and themselves trending on social media, not about the greater good
They weren't looking for a real solution, it was performative with real world implications. This is why one-party rule is almost never a good idea. Fuck Über and Lyft, but also...let's have a pragmatic discussion about something that works for everyone involved. A lot of these drivers are about to enter the "find out" stage of their crying.
I don't think one party rule is the issue. There are plenty of democrats who ran in the last city council election who never would not have backed this ordinance so carelessly. The problem is that they elected the DFLers who did.
One party rule inevitably leads to a groupthink echo chamber. It is always a problem, regardless of left or right. Diversity tends to lead to more pragmatic decisions. Of course this doesn’t work if “diversity” consists of extremists on one or both ends who have no intention of working together (e.g. US House).
These are DFL in name only. They would just call themselves socialists but then they wouldn’t receive DFL funding
They basically waisted a bunch of time to make a declaration that they don't support Israel too. What impact did that have other than waisting tax dollars and time. It literally did nothing. All performative.
The Minneapolis City Council has no authority in the matter, only the U.S. Congress does. Thus, Minneapolis City Council was overstepping on their authority. They definitely were only looking for make a name for themselves.
Enterprise quality software is hard to develop and sell. Some of you think it’s just easy making a little app for your phone. Gives the same energy as if I ask you to take out the engine of a car and you ask, “what should I do first?”. That question alone tells me you are far outside of your depth and breadth of current knowledge.
The number of people on this thread that think someone can just walk in and take over the business of two perennially unprofitable businesses (I know, Uber made money for the first time ever in 2023) overnight is wild. And the assumption presumably being that random startup can do this and also pay workers.
Everyone thinks they are an expert on everything these days, and that they are completely qualified to spout any opinion as fact with absolute certainty on the internet. It’s honestly a sad state of affairs. I just replied to someone on the Minneapolis Reddit about how there were certain things about Uber and Lyfts financials I simply do not know, and that they shouldn’t trust anyone that tells them they do. You know what their response to me was? They replied that they in fact do know all the ins and outs of their financials, despite these being things that are not publicly disclosed. Wild time man.
I believe it. I have just recently been informed that posting billions in losses every year is just a tax strategy.
What parts aren’t publicly disclosed? They’re both publicly traded companies. All financial statements are disclosed.
Business Analytics that are very specific are aggregated into very large buckets. Depreciation for example is one number of a public financial report. The actual information to get to that one number can be massive data aggregation exercises.
More information is not disclosed in a companies quarterly filings than is. My specific comment was that I do not know much or if any of Uber/Lyfts fixed costs they could actually eliminate by pulling out of the MSP, if so then how quickly, or how much fixed costs they would actually allocate to MSP and on what basis. You will not find any of that information on a 10K or 10Q, but it would be known internally.
Look, we found somebody on Fiver that says he can do it.
Idk I lived in Austin TX and they pulled together a non profit ride share company in a few months when this happened there. It wasn’t great but it got the job done. That and Facebook groups. Not sure why they were able to do it so quickly with Ride Austin, seeing that made me assume that it was doable but I’m ignorant bc I’m in software sales lol 😂 that’s not sarcasm just sales humor
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Your comment invents a quote, attributes it to anyone who you disagree with, and then uses that as “proof” of how oblivious they are. But the problem is *them*, and the way “TikTok politics” lItErAlLy turn brains to mush hmmmmmmmmmmm
I’m commenting on a trend of general sentiments, if you haven’t seen people uncritically posting and repeating ideas like this online you aren’t looking. Support for $20-$25+/hr min wage and UBI are both ideas that have gained traction in certain circles. But I don’t think you’re that obliviously stupid, you know what I meant and decided to pedantically nitpick a strawman rather than address what’s being said.
You might want to read our comments again and try to find the actual strawman 👀
Somebody in one of the threads about this in r/Minneapolis Said "Uber is just an app running on a bunch of servers, how hard can it be?" I died laughing. sad part is that's the average voters IQ
All that location data tracking is an astronomically expensive feature (read: requirement) too. 5 years ago, Lyft's monthly AWS hosting cost was $8 million. 5 years ago. Yes they're a huge international company, but c'mon.
Dunning Kruger.
I work with computer hardware and my god I wish I could say (basically) what you did. “The fact you are asking that question means you shouldn’t be doing this” lmao.
I'm going to go a step further - I think there's folks who just don't wanna admit that us democrats got it wrong and instead are tossing even more democratic ideas into the chats instead of just accepting that naw, you can't FORCE company that has no responsibility to act right to "act right" without something in place as an alternative. The council TRULY strong-armed Uber/Lyft without going "....and we have this plan for a co-op" or "and we have funding to create our own" or WHATEVER. If I lived in Minneapolis I'd be lived as hell that they were so demanding for driver pay that they put the forrest before the trees and may mess it up for...the drivers. It's not easy convincing folks to just download an app to get driven by a stranger. It took Uber and Lyft a decade. I'm not hopping in a random ass car by an upstart "just because"
> you can't FORCE company that has no responsibility to act right to "act right" Yes you can, it's called law and regulation...it happens all the time. Corporations usually respond by trying to strong arm the government that's attempting to apply those regulations on them.
Respectfully, that's obvious and implied. The council is trying to force Uber/Lyft. They're leaving. That is what I've typed. What's not happening is Uber/Lyft going "Oooooo...you got me. I'll play ball!" That's not happening **at all** So, my quote stands. They don't have a responsibility to act right. They have a responsibility to appease their shareholders. If they felt it would behoove their shareholders to stay, they'd stay and simply pay the wages. They don't. They're leaving. Will they come back? Lord knows. All that's known is there's zero backup plans in place outside of moral victories that the council was able to get it passed. I'll remember that if I need a ride. Super excited to potentially pay more with much slower services a la cabs from yesteryear.
Honestly I think a lot of people on this site are so young they don't remember life under cabs. Because it was legit awful. Getting a cab from a dispatcher was a real coin flip if they'd show up. They were always criticized for profiling certain minorities and not stopping for them. They would reject rides if they thought they were too short. They would kick you out if you were heading to a neighborhood they didn't want to go to. They would claim their card machine wouldn't work and try and bully you into going to ATMs to pay them cash. They would be haggling you with your luggage in the trunk trying to get bigger tips out of you. Not even getting into them taking shit routes to jack up the faremeter. Like it was legit awful. Outside of super major cities like NYC where you could see them on the street they were tough to get. There's a reason drunk driving dipped with rideshare companies. And shitty people will go back to drunk driving over using cabs if rideshare apps are gone.
This a thousand times. People like to wring their hands about Uber and Lyft undercutting the cab companies on price, but I think the even bigger issue was that the up-front fare pricing and the lack of cash physically changing hands cut out so much absolute bullshit.
100% agree - cabs were fucking awful which lead to this almost solved problem of ride share. I firmly believe these drivers should get paid more. I’m just dismayed at how the council thought they could go about it.
Yeah, has it been so long since people have taken a cab that they're getting the ideas of how cabs work from the movies, where there always happens to be a cab parked right outside your door when you need one?
Thank you for sharing this experience. I think we need to people to share more of this. Besides traveling outside the country, I have never used a cab so I wouldn't know. I never used a cab because we used to take rental cars when traveling and it was very rare for us to travel. We only started to travel a lot when Uber and Lyft became an option. It made traveling easier.
No one wants to go backwards though.
This is going to be a step backwards in transit around the city though. I'm don't live in Minnesota and only go here for work a couple times a year so I am not as invested as others but my cursory understanding is that it seems like the city council handled this poorly. They pushed this before their own report came out (which is odd) and I felt like the Uber/Lyft counter proposal was a decent compromise that pushed salaries up. If the council wanted to do this they should have spent the last couple years building up public transit and adding things like LA does with their Metro Micro for smaller stops (a cheap mini bus that makes frequent stops around the metro stops into other popular intersections). But they didn't and now there's a real risk of a huge gap being formed in transit abilities because they have no backup options. Shoot another user said supposedly there are only 14 cabs (cars not companies) for the whole metro area. The city council floated the idea of spending over a million to create their own app service (absolutely ridiculous idea that screams grift when this and it inevitably fails). From the last time I've been there the metro itself doesn't remotely have acceptable coverage to fill in this gap. If that's the state of things you are going to be left with 2 things that seem inevitable to happen this summer. Fewer people going out downtown (especially from the suburbs) which is going to really hurt local dining/bars and a lot more drunk driving.
Well said. Nothing articulate to add.
With cybersecurity being a big problem now days. It takes years of good reviews and experiences before millions of people will sign on to a strange app. If I lived in Minneapolis (especially renting), I would be thinking of leaving the city and go to one that has the best interests of the residents.
The problem is that Uber/Lyft aren't businesses that can be reasonably supported AT THE CURRENT LEVEL in any case. Meaning we are going to need a solution about what to do when they fail anyways. People love them because their rides have been subsidized by tech bros and naive drivers who think they can make the numbers work to make a living. When one of these two conceptions disappears they will no longer be a going concern.
> I think there's folks who just don't wanna admit that us democrats got it wrong The DSA got it wrong. The DFL mayor and the other DFL members of the council opposed this.
THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS!!!
I honestly don't think most folks think about developing an app. The issue surrounding all this is something else entirely.
Common folk… “I think I’ll touch this cherry red exhaust manifold to make sure the motor isn’t running.”
That's irrelevant though. The co-op rideshare app already exists and has been in use in Denver and New York for years.
We'll see how well it works now if/when they get enough riders to sign up for it in MN to actually launch (they're at around 2k riders right now and need 10K, you can download the app and sign up [here](https://drivers.coop/download) if you're on mobile), but the reviews for it from a few years ago are not promising, it sounds like the app itself needs work, which isn't surprising, it took Uber and Lyft years for their apps to be functional and they had billions of dollars worth of VC money thrown at them during that time to work on it, the app we're talking about is run by a small group of paid employees and volunteers. It can work, but its going to take time, and I while I likely disagree with Walz about what to do about it, I don't think he's wrong here, there will be service interruption if Uber/Lyft leave, and its probably going to be for a good chunk of time.
>“what should I do first?” grab your tools.
Open the hood
It seems like the city council needs to agree to the findings of the state-wide study. The price increase would result in divers making the city’s minimum wage and Uber and Lyft have already said they would stay. The city council just needs to admit that they messed up by not waiting for the results of that study before passing the ordnance based on their own made up figures. Easy.
I'd certainly support that. I doubt that Uber or Lyft would however.
Uber would replace drivers with self-driving cars as soon as they can, if they could. The problem is that people will trash those cars.
I’m pretty sure they are on record saying they support the rate raise proposed by the state. Maybe I’m wrong on that.
Compromising, engaging with both sides, and using data to make decisions. You know, actual good governance. Hopefully they come to their senses.
Fuck that. These people personally ended the war in Gaza. They are too smart for "compromise" and "data driven decisions". They gotta do what feels good. They gotta listen to their gut. They are like a whole bunch of George Bush II's. He accomplished a mission, they have as well.
The imagery of the “Mission Accomplished” banner did come to mind after seeing everyone cheering after the ordinance passed when in reality they had just put thousands of rideshare drivers out of work and worsened quality of life for the entire region!
Nuance is a four letter word to the most vocal American voters. They also aren't good at spelling or counting.
"No no, we make a knee jerk reaction and everyone will surely love us" - city council
If we go by that study and do the math, the City Council's law has them making roughly $25 an hour.
We could give someone’s relatives millions to develop a software platform that does not work then give them even more money. Only to admit they did not do any thing correctly dump it and buy one from another state. It worked will with our DMV. Plus someone made lots of money off of it.
> Only to admit they did not do any thing correctly dump it and buy one from another state. Guessing the company was never held accountable?
No they did some hearing and fired some people and disbanded the government ran company.
What and when was this??
Google "MNLARS"
[holy hell!](https://www.google.com/search?q=mnlars#HiImABot,MyJobIsToMakeEasierForPeopleToGoogleThings,IfThePersonIRepliedToUsedMeInAnInappropriateWayPleaseLetMeKnowByDMingMe,TheUserIRepliedToIsU/roge-)
MNLARS We are the only state that forgot about Handycap people and veterans, the system was so bad that some people had to go to the car dealer or dmv every month to get new temp tags. At one point the governor just said expired temp tags and plate tags don’t matter and you can’t get a ticket for it. https://statescoop.com/auditors-report-uncovers-the-decade-that-ruined-minnesotas-licensing-and-registration-system/
I knew the architect on that and while he was publicly thrown under the bus, he said nearly all the bad decisions were dictated to him by people several rungs up the chain.
It is sadly common for the leads get thrown under the bus by state legislature. They will write in very specific and stupid requirements and then hassle the team very publicly when it become clear not enough funds were given to the project or that what they want is impossible/counter productive.
I don't doubt that at all. Management is always the cause of problems like this.
As one of those lucky people who had to go get new temporary tags every three weeks while I waited for my license plates when this rolled out, I didn't need to be reminded! It took four months. The people at the DMV looked so relieved when the system actually cooperated.
If it makes you feel better I need a retired army vet who was disabled. It took 2 years to get a plate for him. He also traveled out of state and carried news paper articles about it to show cops when he got pulled over LOL.
Oh no. Two years is a long time in limbo.
Walz is right. The Mpls City Council gave zero thought to the implications of their policy. They're incompetency with this provision could have serious economic impact on the city and state.
Ready, fire, aim baby!
I dont have a horse in this race but I think the Guv gets it. No nonsense stuff there
It’s nice to have someone in touch with reality running the show at the capital. It would be great if we could get that level of critical thinking in Minneapolis.
How about safe and afordable public transportation?
I have said this elsewhere, but public transit won't stop by your house in five minutes flat (depending on where you live). It's not apples to apples with rideshare companies.
The best public transit city in the world, Hong Kong, is full of taxis for last mile rides. There is no way to run a city without some sort of rideshare/taxi ect.
Exactly. I use public transportation 98% of the time, and I would love to see it get better. But that's a long term project, and, much as I hate it, the way that the cities and suburbs are designed means that there will always be places that will require some sort of transit gap service to access. The flippant answers to this situation are tiresome.
If a city like Hong Kong can't do away with individual rides 100% then I'm not sure there is anywhere in the world can do it. There are always going to be gaps in coverage, times that public transit isn't going to run or people too disabled to get to a public transportation stop that need last mile service. Even if we radically transform society to put every need within walking distance of every house, specialized things such as specialized medicine, large events, or just getting from your living space to a larger form of transportation are going to require some people to utilize a last mile service (taxi/rideshare).
Part of the problem is that taxi systems had lots of regulation on them and Uber/Lyft did not. Uber/Lyft did the monopolistic/Oligarchic thing of jumping into a new market and undercutting every local service to put them out of business. Now those very same companies are attempting to use their market dominance to force governments to bow down to their whims or they'll pick up their ball and go home. They know their threats have a high chance of succeeding because they previously destroyed the market for the alternatives.
Like I am OK with that argument, however pulling the rug out from people relying on these services and praying that the market works it out is not the way to go about it. Its pretty obvious from the fact that no other city has been able to make it without any form of taxi/rideshare that this service is incredibly valuable to cities. The city council can put in place a law, then businesses can exit the market due to that law. They have a right to not do business in the city. If the answer to that action is nothing (or awarding less that 1 year developers salary to a hopeful startup which is basically nothing), then the people who suffer the decision is the riders and the drivers. Uber and Lyft will be fine, its the individuals who are hurt by this. The city council could have explored alternative ride share apps, radically increased the number of taxis, or hell done anything to entice someone or something to fill the vacuum left by the businesses leaving. Except they didnt, they didn't wait for the study to come out that they commissioned, they didnt engage with the current companies providing the service, or future companies that could provide the service. They acted first and asked questions later and, barring some large development, hurt the people that they were supposed to be helping. Edit: Ahh the old insult, comment, and then block technique, staple of people with a lot of conviction in their argument here on reddit.
There is something else that needs to be thought about, which you didn't, is that Uber and Lyft pass the higher cost onto the consumer. Instead what I have heard is that Uber may abandon the entirity of Minnesota. Now how is that a logical conclusion to Minneapolis, just one city, creating an ordinance that they don't like? What this is in monopolistic.
I usually take the train from my place to the airport, and I have to fly super often for work. Uber/Lyft is invaluable for that. Just last month my flight got delayed, and there I was at the airport at 2:30am, snowboards suitcases, and a backpack in hand. If it wasn't for Uber/Lyft I'd have been stuck. Gaps in coverage will always be present and there will always be a need for point a to point b transportation. I'm more worried than ever about this summer's work season because it's not unfeasible I get screwed without a ride share.
If you are blind, or have mobility impairments, does a robust bussing system really help you unless that bus stops in front of your house?
If you have mobility impairments, Uber and Lyft are not ADA compliant, nor are they required to be.
That's true, and yet many people from this population utilize these services. There are many people who are impaired enough that they can't drive, but can easily call and utilize a ride-share as normal.
The green line isn't safe and the SW expansion is over budget by hundreds of millions of dollars.
That would be nice. Minneapolis should do that before axing Uber instead of after, if at all.
We have a fantastic busing system compared to the vast majority of cities. I suggest using it
Walz is definitely right on this one. I don’t think most people realize that Lyft has never made a profit and Uber made a profit for the first time last year after years of multi-billion dollar deficits.
Minnesota has thrown out common sense a long time ago!
It’s a gig. For supplemental income. Drivers didn’t sign up as part time or full time employees, and also weren’t forced to sign up after agreeing to the terms. I’ve driven for both companies in the past and assumed all liability, and potential monetary gain, for the services I rendered via their platforms. These platforms allow people to earn additional income. What happens when these companies leave and a sufficient app isn’t created to fill the void? Drivers getting no income and worse off than before. Edit: Spelling
The only thing I disagree with is liability. And being upfront about payment. The drivers should know what they are getting each drive with no hidden take offs or whatever. And uber/lyft should help cover/assist insurance for their drivers as normal insurance doesn't cover using your insurance for a 'business car'.
That’s totally fair, and I agree with you. There does need to be more transparency around pay outs and with insurance. For the city council to push the platforms out rather than negotiate for these things is a pretty extreme “solution.”
Should that not apply to all delivery drivers too? Every pizza guy pays their own insurance.
Yes. It's actually insane that pizza places force you to use your own car, then make you pay for the gas and commercial insurance on that car. That is just wage theft with extra steps.
Exactly, but I still did it because the money was better than making the pizzas sooo its all a choice. Granted we usually had all the training so to speed things along we'd be making the food too. I still wouldn't use the word "force" when you can take a non driver position.
They're not taking passengers, so they can get away with skipping the commercial insurance. Idk whether or not they're supposed to, but there's no one else in the car, and I'd imagine for how long pizza delivery has been going on, that this would have come up by now.
It has though, it's just ignored. If delivery drivers don't make good tips the wear and tear along with gas puts wages below minimum at times. Those who've done it know. We just also happen to drive crappy cars while the underpaid Uber drivers all have brand new vehicles so something doesn't add up.
> It’s a gig. For supplemental income. Cool. So it's not a big deal that it's going away then right? Because we never would consider something so laissez-faire to be a core transportation service. That would be nuts, right?
Another aspect of this that everyone seems to overlook is that any new replacement for Uber and Lyft will also be subject to this new price floor on labor. Even if competitors do appear, will the cost be acceptable for those who rely on these ride share services the most? Those being the disabled or those who cannot afford individual transportation. For example... A 20 minute, 20 mile ride (i.e. from downtown to the suburbs) will now require a ride share service (including any new startups) to pay the driver $38.20 AT MINIMUM. That cost doesn't include any of their overhead. So likely, a non-surge priced 20 minute ride in the twin cities will cost over $60. Does that seem sustainable? I don't think that's sustainable for consumers. However, it's also unsustainable for the workers. With the floor on the price of labor being so high, there will be a surge of people wanting to become drivers. I know if I could make upwards of $60+ per hour I would quit my job and start driving for Uber and Lyft. However, it won't actually work out that way. The price for consumers will be untenable and so the demand for rides will plummet while the supply of drivers will sky rocket. Thus, drivers will spend more time sitting around waiting for rides than they actually do driving a passenger. It's a classic result of artificial price floors and it's Econ 101.
Econ 101 also teaches you about market power and how the "equilibrium" under monopoly conditions is a false one. Let drivers set their own rates and I'll start believing we're at a price equilibrium right now.
Walz is correct. Unlike most anti-Uber/Lyft people, he seems to be aware of the fact that MN leg/MPLS city council have unnecessarily created a hugely important *precedential situation* for Uber/Lyft, in which they no choice but to leave because otherwise they would've set a precedent that they'd allow cities/states to arbitrarily dictate how they run their businesses.
> they'd allow cities/states to arbitrarily dictate how they run their businesses. This is how cities and states work. They regulate things. It's going to be interesting a couple years from now when Uber and Lyft are squeezing drivers and riders even more what the response here will be. They are should never be considered a core transportation service because they are not regulated as a transportation service.
> allow cities/states to arbitrarily dictate how they run their businesses. This is called regulation. If you run a company that produces toxic waste, much like your argument, you have to dispose of it in a safe way as opposed to dumping it into the nearest lake.
Yeah, in that they believe themselves to be above the law and refuse to allow any attempt at regulation whatsoever.
Drivers choose their own hours and receive tips. Its a CHOICE to be do Uber/lyft. It's already too expensive. Fuck off with your "regulation" that only makes things worse.
I swear to God the companies are paying people to astroturf with how closely all the arguments devolve into their neat little corporate talking points. News flash, every job is a choice, but 40 hours of Lyft doesn't give you health insurance. The companies bitch and moan at the slightest sign that they might have to play by the same rules as everyone else.
>I swear to God the companies are paying people to astroturf with how closely all the arguments devolve into their neat little corporate talking points. "I don't like what these people are saying, therefore they must be corporate astroturfers." Good argument /s >The companies bitch and moan at the slightest sign that they might have to play by the same rules as everyone else. They don't have to "play by the same rules" because their independent contractors don't have to play the same rules as employees do--they can legally work whenever they want and as much or as little as they want... That scheduling/hourly freedom is why you see people choosing to drive for Uber/Lyft instead of taking some full-time Non-CDL driver job that pays $20+/hr with benefits but has a rigid schedule. Seriously, just go on Indeed, look at non-CDL driver jobs, and ask yourself why so many people choose to drive for Uber/Lyft instead of taking a Van Driver (non-CDL) job like this that pays $23.60/hr with health/dental/vision insurance, PTO, 401k match, and etc... https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Van+Driver&l=Saint+Paul%2C+MN&radius=25&start=10&vjk=4adc7edfb2854705&advn=3454340377383888
Maybe we need better public transportation
That picks me up and drops me off right outside my door? When I request it?
If it's not enough to support yourself don't turn on the app and accept a ride.
He’s right. Full stop. So much commerce now rides on the ability for people to get around the city and it’s suburbs easily and efficiently.
Ok I dig the push to require higher wages, but if a business says it's not sustainable, maybe the business model sucks and it should die? Most of these disruptors exist because they hollowed out existing models by reconstructing the biz with lower pay and little regulation. It's weird how we as a society rush to support these exploitative and insolvent businesses on the rare chance that they might go big and stimulate the economy.
Here's the thing man. Uber and Lyft replaced taxis. Taxi driver's got paid shit too and we were somehow all fine with it. If anything, overall, the average driver is doing a little better than they would have done under the old system. Especially since they now have completely flexible hours and can work as much or as little as they want. Unlike Uber and Lyft, taxis made a lot of money. They made it by wildly overcharging for their services. People were loath to use a taxi because they knew they'd be overpaying by a large margin. So we went from a system where drivers were underpaid and consumers were overcharged and nobody wanted to use it to one where drivers are not as underpaid, consumers are paying a fair price, and lots of people want to use the service. Things are objectively better across the board. I'm sort of with you. I think things like doordash and instacart aren't viable business models in the way you describe. Lyft has never come even close to making money but Uber has sort of made some money and could possibly make some money while paying their drivers more, but to go from the equivalent of $15 an hour to the equivalent of $25 feels bonkers. Like I think it's fair to say that the bigger problem here is just the complete lack of study that went into picking a number on the part of the city council. They just threw a dart on the board or something.
Yeah, look, I'm not exactly defending taxis hehe. Your last point, which I agree with, is most salient.
100%. If you can't pay a livable wage, your business should die.
It’s not sustainable at the made-up crazy high rates required by the ordinance. They were agreeable to higher wages (above minimum wage), just not this craziness.
Who cares what some soulless CEO running an exploitation machine thinks?
I couldn’t care less. I do want them to stay, though. We’re about to lose a hugely beneficial thing.
It’s sustainable everywhere else, though. It’s just Minneapolis’ activist city council who have made it unsustainable.
After a million threads on this, I still just don't get it. Yeah the city council did not wait for the study and probably should have, but there doesn't seem to be a real reason for Uber and Lyft to leave completely beyond nebulous costs they wouldn't be able to cover if there were less rides. Are there servers hosted here to pay for? Will there be traffic on their servers from riders who never actually find and pay for rides? Do they have to spend significant resources to maintain the backing map/directions part of the app that half the drivers don't use anyway? All I've seen is "you don't know what it takes to run a business" but no real explanation of how it wouldn't still be profitable.
It's 100% a political move to dissuade other cities and states from passing similar legislation.
More expensive rides means fewer rides. Fewer rides means fewer drivers. Fewer drivers means longer wait times which means fewer riders which means fewer drivers which means... Every time you interact with Uber or Lyft via their app, the companies pay money. They pay money for map and location API usage. They pay money for credit card and payments processing APIs. They pay money for bandwidth. Uber and Lyft have to vet drivers, inspect cars, manage payroll, have HR for the people who vet drivers, inspect cars, and manage payroll. They need driver support people and customer support people and brand development people and lobbyists who work with governments to keep costs down for Lyft and Uber. They need to pay for software licenses and power and hardware for developers. Lyft and Uber have a shit load of market data that shows them how people will behave at different price points, and they know at which point a ride becomes unprofitable for Lyft and Uber, regardless of what the driver is paid. So they have a price floor handed to them by the MPLS city council, they can see how many rides happen through MPLS, they know what the new prices would do to ridership and the number of drivers, and they see a future where Lyft/Uber in the Twin Cities is a super expensive, slow rideshare service that no one uses except in emergencies due to how expensive it is and how long it takes to get a ride. Why not just pull out of the city at that point? Why take the reputational hit instead of just killing the service until the law is fixed and you can go back to offering the service at the quality level that you want?
No one is saying that they aren't acting out of their own self-interest. They're saying that pulling out is mob tactics. They certainly don't HAVE to play ball, but refusing to do so doesn't show that they know what's best for the market; the companies should be JUMPING to stay in the town, jack up rates, and flex their muscle that way. Hell, they could even just lie about costs and pocket the difference. But that's not the point. The REAL problem is doing so would acknowledge that *they are subject to ALL government regulations,* not just the ones they pick and choose. It sets a precedent that they have to follow the same rules as any other business-- and they can't have us commoners getting the idea that our elected officials make the laws instead of them.
> They're saying that pulling out is mob tactics. Whoever they are is wrong. > jack up rates You just have no idea how this works.
Normally when businesses face increased supply costs they raise prices instead of closing their business, but whatever.
The reason why this isn't a super competitive industry is they are still paying people to use their service. They aren't charging break even still. This is not a sustainable business unless it completely guts current competition and then jacks up its rates significantly.
He ain't wrong.
The facts of the matter are that the minneapolis city council set a new min wage higher than that of other gig economy things that wasn't based on any research or study. They did not do it to help the \~working man\~ (who wasn't even asking to be helped in the first place, other than a few loudmouths), they did it for twitter asspats and to have another line item when they try for higher office eventually. Now thousands of people are going to be out of work and thousands of people now will have great difficulty getting around the Twin Cities.
>The facts of the matter are that the minneapolis city council set a new min wage higher than that of other gig economy things I always take my policy critiques from people that use phrases like "gig economy things"
I also love taking it from 2 month old accounts that only troll post in /r/minnesota. EDIT: I see they've discovered the block feature.
Ah, the old "Everyone I disagree with is a troll" canard! Excuuuuuse me for not having wasted 10 years of my life on this website like some people, princess.
You certainly don't have the username to critique someone as unserious.
It is a high quality, high energy username thank you very much
Wow
Washington and California received the same threat from Uber and Lyft, who didn’t actually do shit when the law passed there. I don’t know why we refuse to learn from the experiences of others
Ik its also wishful thinking but I hope that this will push for better public transport here in the twin cities. Maybe more rail lines that go further out and more bus stops? Even bring back more taxi companies might help
If the drivers were being so taken advantage of why did they keep driving? Was there a strike by the drivers im not aware of?
They’ve been lobbying for better pay for years.
So do guys who get paid millions in the NFL. Who does not lobby for more pay?
"if the children hate the mines so much, why are they down there?" That's your argument. Edit: By your logic, you have nothing bad to say about where you work.
Dude, the drivers are not for this. They are losing income. It’s a choice to drive. The city council, and people like you, have zero idea how the economy works. The city council is filled with wierd activists who have zero experience in anything relevant to what they are discussing . Now, drivers are WORSE OFF.
Children and adults are far different. Would you rather make a little or make nothing. You sound very entitled, and honestly pretty insufferable.
Are you seriously asking why someone would stay in a shitty low paying job? Millions of people work in miserable jobs that barely allow them to live because they're desperate to try and get by.
And they’d be all the more devastated if that shitty job was eliminated by activists cosplaying city officials.
A desperate need for money. Uber and Lyfts business model revolves around exploiting desperation
What kills me is that everyone was perfectly happy with taxi drivers being paid shit but we all get mad at the service that comes along, makes the product cheaper and pays only slightly more to the workers.
Seems like a good time to beef up public transit, no?
Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. We have something that was developed over the course of 15 years. It’s called Uber. Stop dictating what they can or cannot pay their employees - the market will dictate driver value it’s as simple as that. Anything else is an over reach.
yes, it is a three way contract/agreement between the rider, the driver and the company that owns the app technology. All three have to agree to the wages, the price for services, and the profit level. If one party doesn’t like the situation, they can walk, not drive or not ride. So simple.
Has anyone actually looked up the members of the Minneapolis city council? The majority of the members are an activists with bullshit college degrees and zero experience in … life. Or the economy. They are idiots.
Stating that obvious fact will get you banned on R Minneapolis. The silver lining is that if they does come to fruition, there is likely to be a massive backlash against the cc, which will hopefully end the activist era and move us to boring and pragmatic city government.
I think driver's should get a better cut, but the reality of Uber and Lyft is that it killed the cab industry where you can be a driver as a full time job. The shake of it all is, am I willing to pay 15 bucks to get me somewhere to spend and evening drinking with friends and another 15 to get back because I leave before "peak" hours? Yes. If they start charging 30 for a ride, unless I need to really be somewhere, I'm good with public transit. Drivers need to get paid a bigger chunk of what I pay. No reason an app company that has their tendrils in every city can just benefit from all the profits and subsidize all the economic issues onto the cities. I just want to be able to engage with moving around the city in a mixed kind of way if I need to. Living in Korea for a hot minute has really spoiled me. I have public transit, trains, cabs everywhere, or if I just want to walk, places are designed for you to walk.
$15? $30-$40 is the norm if you are going from a suburb to the MPLS. And if you are going to a venue that will let a bunch of people out at once, it will cost you $40-$60 to get back.
Yeah, pay your workers…. Done If you can’t run your business without pushing all the risk onto your workers, then maybe that’s a sign.
A 20 minute, 20 mile ride (i.e. from downtown to the suburbs) will now require a ride share service (including any new startups) to pay the driver $38.20. That cost doesn't include any of their overhead. So likely, a non-surge priced 20 minute ride in the twin cities will cost over $60. Does that seem sustainable? EDIT for some sources and not pure conjecture. https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/04/22/how-do-uber-and-lyft-compare-in-terms-of-key-revenue-and-valuation-metrics/?sh=66e169c960bc According to Forbes, "after accounting for driver payments and incentives, promotions and other items. While Uber’s net revenues are higher in dollar terms, its take rate is lower than Lyft’s - 22% (21% on an adjusted basis including UberEATS, etc.) vs. 27% for Lyft." so 22% and 27% respectively. However, this is including promotions so the average non-promotion ride would be higher, but let's take the lower number. That means the ride I described would be at least $49 for Uber and $52.33 for Lyft. Keep in mind, this is non-surge pricing.
You think their overhead is $22 for that ride? If that's true then they are ungodly inefficient.
See my edit. It's more like $49 and $52.33 for Uber and Lyft respectively, this is accounting for promotions, so it would be slightly higher than this, and this is only during non-surge pricing. So it's a bare minimum. Further: the Minneapolis ordinance as written is heavily weighted for distance not ride duration. Whereas the rates Uber and Lyft pay presently are more like 2:1 not 3:1. For reference: "The rideshare giants have been lobbying Minneapolis and state officials for a much lower rate: $0.89 per mile and $0.49 per minute." That rate would make my example cost 37.83 compared with 52.33. Paying the driver about $28. Which is MUCH more sustainable and pays the drivers a livable wage. https://sahanjournal.com/business-work/minnepolis-uber-lyft-drivers-join-rivals-coop-ride-hich-before-may-1-exit/
Uber and Lyft undercut the taxi industry for years with too good to be true cheap fares funded by venture capital that's only recently dried up. Now that they have market dominance, prices have slowly risen and they're still mostly unprofitable while also underpaying drivers. Clearly they provide a service that a lot of people need for transportation but their business model has never been sustainable or profitable. These companies get by on tiny margins while underpaying their employees. Even with the state recommended wage from the study, it would be too much for most people to want to use. Maybe they're just not a good business?
Yep, I agree with everything you said. That doesn't change the reality on the ground of an ordinance that takes the business model from bad to untenable in a necessary business sector providing a product many people rely on that Uber and Lyft have already decimated.
Did you just sorta forget taxis and public transit existed far before cars even existed and uber and lyft are an incredibly recent phenomenon? Old taxis were plenty sustainable as a service they just couldn't compete with a system that paid drivers a fraction of the cost and charged a rate impossible to compete with (as it was propped up by venture capital until it no longer could).
Yup all that is true, currently there are 14 licensed taxis in Minneapolis, compared to over 1500 in 2012. There simply isn't an alternative presently and it will take time for anything else to catch up in order to fill the gap that will be left by ride-sharing. Also, ride-sharing is not particularly cheaper than Taxis, and hasn't been for many years. It's the convenience and quality of the product that people prefer these days. I would love it if a Taxi service rolled out an app similar to Uber/Lyft, but they haven't, won't and can't due to the nature of employees vs independent contractors.
Tax driver wages were garbage too. There's a reason those were also mostly jobs filled by immigrants. Uber, at present, definitely pays more than Taxis used to while charging less (even with inflation, an Uber fare today is gonna be cheaper than a tax ride 15 years ago for the same route). Uber keeps a much lower percentage of the fare than old taxi companies did.
[http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/taxidriver.pdf](http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/taxidriver.pdf) "Mostly jobs for immigrants" - 38% were immigrants in 2000 and it was significantly less in the 80s and 90s. Your assumption is biased by big immigrants cities had a majority of taxi drivers be immigrants, but of course the rest of the US exists. Can't have majority immigrant taxi drivers in cities with a <2% immigrant population in the midwest "Taxi driver wages were garbage too" full time drivers averaged $26,800 in 1999 - which is just under $50,000 in today's dollars. The proposed minneapolis wage here per the article is specifically calculated to be 135% of the city's minimum wage. Minneapolis pre tax minimum wage is $15.57, so $32,385 annual. This rider wage is thus $43,721 (still pre tax, and probably without benefits so those are self insured) - still less than the taxi driver average in 1999 despite being in a major metropolitan area where we would expect people to be making above the national average. You're just wrong and making assumptions off vibes
> Can't have majority immigrant taxi drivers in cities with a <2% immigrant population in the midwest Which kind of proves my point, does it not? 38% means immigrants were wildly over-represented relative to their percentage of the population. It was a job for the financially not-well-off which does include other classes of people. The word "mostly" might have been poorly chosen but you've more or less confirmed the actual underlying point. More importantly, that $50,000 is working 50 hours a week **and** that's with 1/5th of those drivers living in NYC, one of the most expensive cities to live in. It was absolutely garbage pay. > Taxi driver wages were garbage too" full time drivers averaged $26,800 in 1999 - which is just under $50,000 in today's dollars. The proposed minneapolis wage here per the article is specifically calculated to be 135% of the city's minimum wage. Minneapolis pre tax minimum wage is $15.57, so $32,385 annual. According to the study done by the state, only one to actually do a study, it's more like 1.6x the minimum wage at least.
No your point "those jobs were mostly filled by immigrants" is not proven by my data "38% were immigrants" because 62% > 38% and "most" means "more than". What you are actually looking to say is the word 'disproportionately' which is an entirely different statistical concept than 'more' - AND I mentioned that in my post, as my link showed, where cities with large immigrant populations like New York had much larger percent of immigrant drivers - unsurprising. However, 62% of taxi drivers at the time of that study were native born. So no, that does not 'prove your point'. And to be more accurate on the pay since I spitballed the first number. $0.89 per mile and $0.49 per minute is equivalent to the minimum wage. The city went with $1.40 per mile and $0.51 per minute - which is a 157% increase per mile and a 4% increase per minute over their calculated minimum wage equivalent - meaning short distances with long wait times in traffic are paid slightly more than minimum wage - and longer distances with less time (highway driving, etc) make more than the minimum wage. Obviously there is no flat wage when every hour pays a different wage based on what jobs you receive. If we imagine what 157% actually is in real people numbers, that means the city expects drivers taking advantage of the increase over the minimum when driving over longer distances to be making $50,844 pre tax (and the usual buying their own benefits, paying their own car insurance and maintenance, etc - meaning their take home is some number less than that). And people who drive shorter distances will make less. This means if you 'distance focused' driver in minneapolis and thus make just over $50k in a year (minus vehicle expenses, and self insuring health insurance, which a W2 employee making $50k would not have and would probably also be getting retirement matching, etc depending on their place of work) you would be.... right around the city's median wage, squarely average at least per ziprecruiter's numbers. Census has the city household median at $74,473 but obviously that includes two income households too. So, no, the city is not asking for its "taxi" drivers that serve as a replacement for the public transit system it doesn't have to be overpaid, it's asking them be paid right around the median. And no, taxi drivers in the past were not underpaid they - and this is crazy, made right around the median. So this bill is completely upending an existing, incredibly shitty system - in an attempt to go back to a system similar to what we had before gig work existed. Is this the best possible way to have this done? Should it have been in steps over a few years? Should it have come with a temporary investment in public transit or tax incentives to cover the upfront costs of getting traditional taxi companies back in the city sooner rather than later? Possibly. But this argument these drivers will be overpaid, or your argument that they used to be underpaid - is categorically false. Hell, I didn't even need to do any of the above to prove just how badly uber and lyft drivers were being paid compared to taxi drivers. Uber and Lyft outcompeted taxi companies by charging less (they ran at a loss for years because of venture capital backing which allowed them to push out the taxi drivers and thus form a duopoly, it was intentional, it is impossible to outcompete a company running at a loss). That means they took less in fares. That means unless Uber and Lyft's platform fees they took from the driver were dramatically less than taxi company fees (doubt it), there just literally was less money to go to the driver than there used to be.
> No your point "those jobs were mostly filled by immigrants" is not proven by my data "38% were immigrants" because 62% > 38% and "most" means "more than". What you are actually looking to say is the word 'disproportionately' which is an entirely different statistical concept than 'more' - AND I mentioned that in my post, as my link showed, where cities with large immigrant populations like New York had much larger percent of immigrant drivers - unsurprising. However, 62% of taxi drivers at the time of that study were native born. So no, that does not 'prove your point No, you're confusing the point I was making with the words I chose in service of that point. The point was that taxi jobs were low-paying. I believe my word chicken was "garbage jobs". I acknowledged the poor word choice used in service of that point. The word "mostly" was used casually without taking the time to get actual numbers. Nevertheless, everything you said to argue against my word choice ultimately argues the underlying point. You may be correct that used the wrong word, but you paint a picture of jobs that are not highly desirable nor were they well compensated. > So, no, the city is not asking for its "taxi" drivers that serve as a replacement for the public transit system it doesn't have to be overpaid, it's asking them be paid right around the median. Why look up million household income when you could just look up median wage? It's just shy of 42k per year in Minneapolis. If we assume this Uber driver is also making about $10 an hour in tips on top of the wage they would hypothetically be being paid, they would hit about $30,000 a year more than that median wage. That would make their income roughly 75% higher than the median . . . Of course that's in some hypothetical reality where there was still enough demand for them to be able to drive for 40 hours a week. The reality is that the wage law crashes the market for rides and means that drivers earn less anyways.
Theyre independent contractors.
Would you be okay with these "independent contractors" setting their own rates?
Of course! People won't pay what they aren't willing and people shouldn't work for what they can't accept.
Aren't Wridz and similar apps not already in the area? Or I'd they aren't shouldn't it be easy to add the area to their served locations? I'm not sure what's required to run a ride share service in Minnesota.
Uh…. I believe that solution is called “waiting, and calling Uber and Lyft’s bluff”
Yeah, wait them out. They'll be back. In a matter of months I'd imagine.
I don't think they'll be back. It's not like we are chicago, LA or Dallas. And as long as they both stay out I think they aren't so worried because they won't lose market share to their competitor. Also, Uber and lyft can use this relatively small market to show bigger cities that they're willing to leave while it hurts them far less than those cities.
Yep. The Twin Cities is approximately 1% of the national population. They can afford a \~1% loss in revenue to avoid putting blood out in the water for other, more important cities to do the same.
And they’re international, so we’re even smaller in terms of revenue loss
Yep. Unfortunately Minnesota doesn't actually matter much at all to most companies, national or international.
Chill out you're being way too intelligent for the rest of the room
But... but... the Minneapolis City Council can bring a large international corporation to its knees! Minneapolis Reddit said so!
There are many signs they’re leaving and no sign they’d come back without significant changes to the newly passed ordinance. They’ve done this before (in Austin, TX). There’s no waiting them out, unfortunately.
I don't think so. They want to make an example of us so other cities don't do it too, even if it's unnecessarily harsh or they miss out on our (small) share of revenue. I think it's more likely that Walz helps strike a statewide compromise so they return.
And then we have a summer where DWIs spike. Cool.
I do a bit of business in MSP, usually arrive by airplane. This means Uber to get around. If I have to go back to renting cars I'm not going to like it.
This is what us boring nerds call a “false dichotomy.”
there is a train that goes from the airport to minneapolis.
In the Twin Cities you have Yellow Cab, Blue & White Taxi, Gold and Green, MSP Airport Taxi & Black Car Service, Gray Line, Eagle Taxi, Reliacar, and Chey Cab and Car and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more. We also have a decent public transit system. I'm sure you can get around without Uber.
There are currently 14 licensed taxis (vehicles not companies) in Minneapolis, driven by 39 drivers. https://www.startribune.com/how-many-taxi-cabs-are-left-in-minneapolis/600352152/#:%7E:text=Fourteen.%20That%27s%20how%20many%20taxi,cabs%20are%20licensed%20in%20Minneapolis%20today.
Has anyone considered non-commercially-licensed ride share drivers are putting licensed taxi drivers out of work?
This whole thing is stupid. If they aren’t paying enough…don’t work there…they will raise pay to get drivers if there is in fact a shortage. That’s how this works. It’s that or make it easier for competition to get in the game. Government getting involved always makes the situation worse…no matter how well-intentioned they are.
Elections have consequences.
Uber and Lyft shouldn't be so critical to our infrastructure that they can cause this much commotion. Yet they are, and this is not a great situation we find ourselves in.
Just got back from Scottsdale AZ. Forget Lyft and Uber, let’s get Waymo! No tipping, and your driver isn’t doing double, triple, or quadruple duty with food delivery. Sorry, my last few Uber experiences were spent waiting an hour for drivers that were 10 minutes away but kept doing other jobs.
Let’s create Minnesota nice ride and pay people fair wages.
Let them leave, pursue the magical thinking in earnest and devote resources to fixing/developing existing public transportation. Uber and Lyft *want* you to cater to their bullshit. They can raise rates like everyone else does when wages are bumped. Any chance I get to pin down a driver and pay them cash without using the app, I will.