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Does anyone else consider 20% (soon 25%) cut excessive? Personally i think driving for Uber is nearly pointless - the costs of operating a vehicle make this oc

Does anyone else consider 20% (soon 25%) cut excessive? Personally i think driving for Uber is nearly pointless - the costs of operating a vehicle make this occupation very unattractive. But i think the 20% rent makes it even worse. Many of legal problems Uber faces could be avoided if they simply charged drivers a fixed subscription fee to be "listed" with the service. 100$/month? 10$/day? I don't know, but i can't shake the feeling that this service is crap work and it has a lot to do with greed.

zacharycohn 11y ago
It's not excessive compared to how much most taxi drivers have to pay, every day, to lease their cars...
- VincentEvans 11y ago
  Ah, relative good deed! "The other guys are even worse" value offering :) Like the mob "protection" racket.
- celticninja 11y ago
  it is if you look at the UK market, in the UK most drivers own their own cars and they hire a radio from the taxi company at a daily rate. They then keep the fares themselves. As with UBER you have to provide your own vehicle, there is no radio so you have to provide your own smartphone too. And as their pricing indicates they will take a greater cut from new drivers. That will continue to increase if they are successful in putting other taxi firms out of business. i.e once they remove the competition (or minimise the sufficiently) there will be no alternative but for drivers to pay uber a 45% fee for each ride.
  - zacharycohn 11y ago
    Uh, no. You don't have to provide your own smartphone.
VincentEvans 11y ago
To expand on this thought - i have thought exactly the same when reading another post on HN about HomeJoy folding - most of the comments discussed how cleaning contractors were cutting out the middleman by offering a discount to the homeowner to cancel the transaction with HomeJoy and deal with the contractor directly. And back then i thought exactly the same thing - why don't they offer the service as referral subscription? Then there would be no reason for contractors to try to cut out the middleman. It seems so obvious, what am i missing?
celticninja 11y ago
I actually think that it will be the size of the cut that they take that will be a factor in determining if they are employer or not. As you say if they charged a flat daily fee (as hackney cabs (licensed taxi service in the uk) do) then they would not have this issue. But as they are taking a cut of every fare, or another way is that they pay the driver a cut of every fare, it seems much closer to employer/employee relationship, at least in UK law.
throwaway049 11y ago
If I was thinking about working for them, I would only consider my own income. As some London drivers are saying that they make less than minimum wage after costs, they may be better off in a different job. I think it may even be a genuine choice here as there are lots of service sector jobs with variable hours. I'm not, however, saying that it is nice to be in a position of choosing between a rock and a hard place.
- VincentEvans 11y ago
  I know a few poor working class people who looked to Uber as their lifeline. Instead what they experienced is yet another form of legal exploitation of vulnerable population. Same as payday loans etc...
  - omonra 11y ago
    Can you explain why you think they experienced "legal exploitation of vulnerable population'? Ie it's not something that's intuitive to me and I'd like to know more.
    - VincentEvans 11y ago
      Paying sub-minimal wages to population in desperate need of income. Taking advantage of the the situation that working poor find themselves in by appearing to act as a benefactor while obscuring the fact that enployment with them is likely to make situation even worse. Why is sweatshop labor considered bad? Dont those people need money? Why is predatory lending is bad? I thought they willingly borrowed? Etc. Taking advantage of desperate and uninformed.
deleted 11y ago
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zacharycohn 11y ago

It's not excessive compared to how much most taxi drivers have to pay, every day, to lease their cars...

VincentEvans 11y ago
Ah, relative good deed! "The other guys are even worse" value offering :) Like the mob "protection" racket.
celticninja 11y ago
it is if you look at the UK market, in the UK most drivers own their own cars and they hire a radio from the taxi company at a daily rate. They then keep the fares themselves. As with UBER you have to provide your own vehicle, there is no radio so you have to provide your own smartphone too. And as their pricing indicates they will take a greater cut from new drivers. That will continue to increase if they are successful in putting other taxi firms out of business. i.e once they remove the competition (or minimise the sufficiently) there will be no alternative but for drivers to pay uber a 45% fee for each ride.
- zacharycohn 11y ago
  Uh, no. You don't have to provide your own smartphone.

VincentEvans 11y ago

To expand on this thought - i have thought exactly the same when reading another post on HN about HomeJoy folding - most of the comments discussed how cleaning contractors were cutting out the middleman by offering a discount to the homeowner to cancel the transaction with HomeJoy and deal with the contractor directly. And back then i thought exactly the same thing - why don't they offer the service as referral subscription? Then there would be no reason for contractors to try to cut out the middleman. It seems so obvious, what am i missing?

celticninja 11y ago

I actually think that it will be the size of the cut that they take that will be a factor in determining if they are employer or not. As you say if they charged a flat daily fee (as hackney cabs (licensed taxi service in the uk) do) then they would not have this issue. But as they are taking a cut of every fare, or another way is that they pay the driver a cut of every fare, it seems much closer to employer/employee relationship, at least in UK law.

throwaway049 11y ago

If I was thinking about working for them, I would only consider my own income. As some London drivers are saying that they make less than minimum wage after costs, they may be better off in a different job. I think it may even be a genuine choice here as there are lots of service sector jobs with variable hours. I'm not, however, saying that it is nice to be in a position of choosing between a rock and a hard place.

VincentEvans 11y ago
I know a few poor working class people who looked to Uber as their lifeline. Instead what they experienced is yet another form of legal exploitation of vulnerable population. Same as payday loans etc...
- omonra 11y ago
  Can you explain why you think they experienced "legal exploitation of vulnerable population'? Ie it's not something that's intuitive to me and I'd like to know more.
  - VincentEvans 11y ago
    Paying sub-minimal wages to population in desperate need of income. Taking advantage of the the situation that working poor find themselves in by appearing to act as a benefactor while obscuring the fact that enployment with them is likely to make situation even worse. Why is sweatshop labor considered bad? Dont those people need money? Why is predatory lending is bad? I thought they willingly borrowed? Etc. Taking advantage of desperate and uninformed.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]