34 ms·

Uber's experiment in behavioral science to subtly entice drivers

322 points by nikolasavic 10y ago

minimaxir 10y ago
That's certainly one approach toward interactive journalism. Works incredibly well on mobile devices too.
DigitalSea 10y ago
>"We've underinvested in the driver experience," a senior official said. "We are now re-examining everything we do in order to rebuild that love." This just seems so crazy to me. A company who's very foundations are built on its number one assets: drivers has been neglecting them. It's like an airline neglecting its pilots or hospital neglecting its surgeons. Without drivers, Uber dies. I know they're investing in self-driving vehicles, but self-driving Uber's are a long way off after a spate of incidents and the pending Waymo lawsuit. It's going to take many more millions and countless lobbying to adopt laws for self-driving vehicles. Seems to me that Uber see their drivers as temporary pawns in a long game of chess. Eventually, Uber hopes to replace their drivers with self-driving vehicles a dream they've been aggressively trying to make happen. What a horrible business.
- aianus 10y ago
  What else are the drivers going to do? Flip burgers at McDonald's? Driving an Uber is still as good as you're going to get with flexible hours and no skills. I say this as someone who drives for Uber (albeit part-time for fun).
- skolos 10y ago
  They underinvested in drivers because they were very optimistic about self-driving cars. Now they see that replacing drivers won't happen quick enough they realizing need to pump investment in drivers.
- brians 10y ago
  Airlines do underinvest in their pilots and hospitals in their nurses. Management is shockingly short sighted about these things.
  - briandear 10y ago
    Are they actually short sighted or are they actually behaving economically rationally?
- taneq 10y ago
  The problem here is that to some degree it's a zero-sum game between drivers and passengers. Anything Uber does to benefit the one probably comes at the expense of the other.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  Hospitals abuse residents who are the future lifeblood of the hospitals. Just because the personnel are essential doesn't preclude the abuse.
  - misnamed 10y ago
    I feel like there's less choice in that case. With Uber, I can flip to lift or a taxi or black car service with the push of a button - don't have to think about what's closest or in-plan.
  - Crito 10y ago
    That's a form of institutionalized hazing. Probably unethical, but I've seen behavioral science defenses of it.
  - puranjay 10y ago
    Hospitals have the luxury of choice. Where else are the doctors going to practice?
- chaser7016 10y ago
  Uber doesn't care about its drivers they stole Google's IP to try and win the self driving car race. Those cars will replace these drivers who are struggling to get by like my best friend who works two jobs and drives for both Uber yet now more so for Lyft. Uber drivers are slowly rotting trash to Uber/Kalanick.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Have you ever spoken to a surgeon or pilot? Both are probably more disgruntled than the average Uber driver.
- bbarn 10y ago
  Drivers are not Uber's life blood. Passengers ignorant of the company's treatment of their drivers, and other shady tactics are.
  - iamdave 10y ago
    Passengers ignorant of the company's treatment of their drivers, and other shady tactics are. This is such a mindblowing thing to me; as you can't throw a rock without finding site after site, blogpost among blogpost among forum post among social media share/tweet/post of this-among other instances of Uber conducting some very ugly, clandestine business that screws drivers over and because they're so damn convenient people just ignore it completely at best-shoot the messenger with a .50 caliber barrage at worst. None of this is more prevalent than in my city subreddit of /r/austin where people are convinced that the city banned Uber/Lyft when every news outlet in the city wrote at length how the former bought a referendum over fingerprinting rules (which Uber complies with in more profitable cities), lost said referendum vote, and then left of their own volition after targeting a(n admittedly unpopular) councilwoman. That hasn't stopped the overriding narrative that we forced the company out unfairly. It's a weird phenomenon to behold. They treat their workers like utter crap; I wonder if you took some of the tactics they employ, apply them to any other sector and make them as public as Uber's have been-if anyone would stand for it. Or does the convenience factor of Uber compared to a cab make it easier for people to engage in rampant whataboutism?
    - BigJono 10y ago
      > This is such a mindblowing thing to me; as you can't throw a rock without finding site after site, blogpost among blogpost among forum post among social media share/tweet/post of this-among other instances of Uber conducting some very ugly, clandestine business that screws drivers over and because they're so damn convenient people just ignore it completely at best-shoot the messenger with a .50 caliber barrage at worst. Yes you can. Here in Australia literally nobody that doesn't browse HN gives a fuck. I can't name one person I know IRL that knows anything about Uber other than that it's 1000x better and more convenient than the taxi service here.
- joelrunyon 10y ago
  Their promo video from a year ago tells you everything. [1] They thought they'd get to self driving cars pretty quick. They didn't (yet). [1] https://youtu.be/bx1-im6i8uk?t=1m40s https://youtu.be/bx1-im6i8uk?t=1m40s
- JDiculous 10y ago
  The sad reality is that Uber's drivers are dispensable and replaceable. There's an endless supply of unemployed/underemployed people, and they'll do whatever it takes to support themselves and their families, even if it means begrudgingly working for Evil Corporation.
- Kiro 10y ago
  > It's like an airline neglecting its pilots Sorry but that's a really bad comparison. In Europe pilots go on strike all the time due to the abuse.
- LoSboccacc 10y ago
  > A company who's very foundations are built on its number one assets: drivers Uber is still built on vc rounds and it's foundation is the idea that they might be a monopoly if they can survive enough to drive all competitors out of business. That foundation is shaking, but they're not ready yet to compete at market prices. I fully expect more shenanigan involving messing with drivers, as they are not ready to pull out the veil they put in front of the customers yet.
joelrunyon 10y ago
> It has even concocted an algorithm similar to a Netflix feature that automatically loads the next program, which many experts believe encourages binge-watching. In Uber’s case, this means sending drivers their next fare opportunity before their current ride is even over. I have to say that as a USER, I've noticed this change (I think it's been fairly recent) that they assign you a driver who hasn't yet finished a trip. What ends up happening is Uber tells you an "estimate" of 3 minutes to arrival before you book. Then it assigns the driver and says "10 minutes" to arrival, but the driver hasn't even dropped off their last passenger yet. So, what's happened multiple times is that the 10 minute estimate ends up staying at "10 minutes" for 5-10 minutes straight and 15-20 minutes after I booked, the driver shows up. I would understand this if I ordered an Uber pool, but I ordered a black car and it still operated like that. I'm not sure when they made this specific change, but I've noticed it a lot more in 2017 and overall I've been really disappointed with the uber app this year as they seem to be trying to over-optimize everything to the hilt and it's starting to backfire
- karthikb 10y ago
  I've also seen the opposite - 10 minute estimate and the car shows up in less than 3. This is just as bad...maybe I ordered the car early because of the long projected lead time, now the driver has to wait for me while possibly blocking traffic.
  - 0xC0DECAFE2020 10y ago
    Consider yourself lucky. It's never happened to me. I've only been charged numerous cancellation fees. Im starting to think i can just walked there faster.
- manacit 10y ago
  Yeah, I noticed this for the first time a few weeks ago when I was ordering one. Their time estimates are already pretty horrific in Midtown NYC traffic, assigning me to someone that is "5 minutes away" from dropping someone off "5 minutes away" from me can easily be 15+ minutes of wall clock time before a car gets there.
- 10y ago
spectistcles 10y ago
>"We've underinvested in the driver experience," a senior official said. "We are now re-examining everything we do in order to rebuild that love." This is a pretty troubling way to phrase using behavioral science to manipulate your employees.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Not employees. Free agents, totally independent contractors.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    Who have no control over their work schedule or fares among other things. They're technically contractors but the super court in California has ruled otherwise.
    - tehlike 10y ago
      they probably control their work schedule, but not fare?
- pbreit 10y ago
  In Uber's defense, the article doesn't mention much or anything that isn't covered in Business 101. Encouraging drivers to locate in busy areas does not require behavioral science.
- eh78ssxv2f 10y ago
  > This is a pretty troubling way to phrase using behavioral science to manipulate your employees. Isn't this pretty common across all companies? Can the HN modifying the ranking of articles be categorized as user manipulation and evil?
  - spectistcles 10y ago
    I didn't say manipulation was evil, just pointing out that manipulating someone and calling it love seems more like abuse than love.
username223 10y ago
> Some local managers who were men went so far as to adopt a female persona for texting drivers, having found that the uptake was higher when they did. [...] Uber acknowledged that it had experimented with female personas to increase engagement with drivers. Classic. Men are predictable, and Uber is predictably amoral.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  I've always wanted a nag for my navigator turn directions: "Ya shoulda tarned bak dare, ya fakkin twit! Now you're making me recalculate! Whazza matta wit ya?"
- colmvp 10y ago
  Many, many years ago, when I was thinking of moving, I was looking for salary ranges for a particular American city. It was pre-Glassdoor so there wasn't a website that aggregated that information. I decided to go the HackerNews of that particular industry, except instead of using my own account, I decided to make a fake one with an avatar of an attractive but non-famous female. Basically it looked like it was a genuine personal photograph rather than a professionally shot photo you would've found in a magazine. I basically posted one post, introducing myself and asked if anyone had an idea of salary ranges for that city given a specific job position. Holy. Crap. The number of replies I got was unbelievable. I think on average threads on that news site had double digit responses but this one had over 100. I even had people private message me to say they wanted to interview me despite not including any links to a personal website or resume.
  - YCode 10y ago
    When I sign up for services where the goal is to get tech support (i.e. StackExchange, Discord, Slack) I use a female persona. I've had to explain to a few people (including my wife) that it's not a gender confusion thing at all, it's purely for the perks. It's ridiculous how far people will go to help a "woman" online.
    - chipperyman573 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
a_c 10y ago
Not related. Can someone share what are those interactive "images" made of? Or what are the correct terms to call those "images"?
- jonathanpoulter 10y ago
  They're Javascript canvases. They're very neat... https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2017/03/07/uber/563471f0245b93b6b543e35d57b91ed84cc5f35b/build.js https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2017/03/07/uber/563471...
- jeffjose 10y ago
  My initial assumption was they were made of d3.js (SVG) but looking at the inspector they seem to be canvas elements (<canvas>). I didn't see any mention on d3.js in the js libraries being pulled in, so not sure.
  - y_u_no_rust 10y ago
    d3 would be pretty horrible for something like that.. it looks like it's pixi
hn_throwaway_99 10y ago
I'll just point out that every two-sided marketplace in existence uses tons of data and behavioral techniques to get "suppliers" (e.g. drivers on Uber, hosts on AirBnB, sellers on eBay, manufacturers on Alibaba, etc. etc.) to offer the best buyer experience at the lowest cost.
Animats 10y ago
On a somewhat unrelated note, I saw a Uber-labeled vehicle tday on I-280 near Woodside, equipped with an older model rotating Velodyne scanner on top. It didn't look like Uber's publicly known self-driving cars. It was doing a steady 45 in the middle lane, and I suspect it was mapping, not self-driving.
- bri3d 10y ago
  https://www.uber.com/info/mapping/ https://www.uber.com/info/mapping/ Uber have had mapping cars for quite some time - they also acquired Bing Maps from Microsoft in 2015.
  - jeffjose 10y ago
    What do you mean they acquired Bing Maps from Microsoft? Bing Maps is owned by Uber now? Sorry if this is common-knowledge to everyone; I don't remember reading about it.
    - mikeyouse 10y ago
      News to me too, but apparently they bought a bunch of tech and 100 Bing Maps employees in 2015: http://mashable.com/2015/06/29/uber-bing-maps/#yo4ZMCPC1aqj http://mashable.com/2015/06/29/uber-bing-maps/#yo4ZMCPC1aqj
MarkMc 10y ago
TL;DR: here's the list of psychological tricks mentioned in the article: 1. When driver's are about to log off, it tells them that they are very close to reaching an earnings target, such as "You are $6 away from making $40 net earnings". The target is set by Uber, and is always just out of reach. 2. Uber suggests to drivers that they should go to a certain area for better chance of finding riders. The article says this might be an example of where Uber benefits at the expense of drivers because Uber does not prefer surge pricing. 3. Uber prompts drivers to accept the next fare opportunity before the current ride is over. 4. Uber tells new drivers when they are 50% towards the goal of 25 first rides. At 25 rides Uber will pay a 'signing on' bonus. 5. Some Uber employee's would pretend to be women when communicating with the (overwhelmingly male) drivers. 6. Lyft did a split test of two different calls to action: (a) "You're losing $15 per hour by driving on Tuesday mornings instead of Friday evenings"; and (b) "You would make $15 per hour more by driving on Friday evenings instead of Tuesday mornings". They found that (a) was more effective, but eventually decided not to use this approach [for reasons not explained in the article] 7. Uber provides non-cash rewards to drivers in the form of 'badges' like "Above and Beyond", "Excellent Service" and "Entertaining Drive". It also gives drivers stats like how many trips they have taken in the current week, how much money they have made, how much time they have spent logged on and what their overall rating from passengers is.
- hn_throw_1234 10y ago
  1) Probably the most manipulative by far. Interesting to learn. 2) Also how driver get the most rides helping to maximize their earnings. In fact isn't this the whole point of surge in the first place? To push drivers to high surge areas? I would hardly call this a "psychological trick" and is very reasonable. 3) How is this a "psychological trick"? This clearly is in the drivers' benefit as it helps maximize the number of rides they take. All their time becomes productive if they get dispatched to another trip ahead of their current trip ending. Also, it's clear this makes Uber more efficient as a platform as they can treat occupied cars as active supply. 4) Is this not simply providing transparency of the bonuses/incentives Uber is offering? 5) Weird but even weirder that it works. Not the first time I've heard of this. Apparently works on emails too. A number of companies use this. A quick google show's it's well known. 6) Not shocking. Seems like relatively standard A/B testing of copy. 7) Some of this is gamification and some is transparency. All standard. This article to me largely seems like an attempt to play on the recent many bad deeds of Uber for a click-bait article that deliberately perturbs some facts to fit the narrative. This article could very easily have been written about any other company in the world. But writing it about Uber now, generates clicks and upvotes.
mattbillenstein 10y ago
Please google Susan Fowler and stop using Uber altogether -- like it really shouldn't be a debate about how crappy their arrival estimates are at this point -- they are a company that has no soul.
- vosper 10y ago
  There are places where Uber is the safest way to get to the right destination without getting scammed, ripped off, or taken to a competing hotel or "travel agent" by a driver who's getting kickbacks from them. And in those places it's either Uber or take your chances.
- sebleon 10y ago
  Right on, seems like consumers underestimate how powerful their spending choices are. Would love to see more of this mentality when people decide which companies to support when buying gas, food, medicine, telecom, etc.
- nikolasavic 10y ago
  https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on... For those that didn't google her. The first hit I got was a blog post about her sexual harassment at Uber. After reporting the incident: "I was then told that I had to make a choice: (i) I could either go and find another team and then never have to interact with this man again, or (ii) I could stay on the team, but I would have to understand that he would most likely give me a poor performance review when review time came around, and there was nothing they could do about that. I remarked that this didn't seem like much of a choice, and that I wanted to stay on the team because I had significant expertise in the exact project that the team was struggling to complete (it was genuinely in the company's best interest to have me on that team), but they told me the same thing again and again. One HR rep even explicitly told me that it wouldn't be retaliation if I received a negative review later because I had been "given an option". I tried to escalate the situation but got nowhere with either HR or with my own management chain (who continued to insist that they had given him a stern-talking to and didn't want to ruin his career over his "first offense")."
known 10y ago
Thank you for TL;DR Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others);
- wingerlang 10y ago
  > Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others) Where did you get these from? Especially the second one.
  - tunap 10y ago
    Not the op, but probably because it is a confidence game, and con persons are more likely to have such traits. ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick
  - blablabla123 10y ago
    Actually the second one is connected to the former. I'm too lazy to cite a reference but there is evidence that psychopaths feel relaxed when others are not. (There are a few popular documentaries about that one Youtube) Of course 'psychopath' is a spectrum, so this doesn't mean Uber management consists of complete psychopaths. Actually there are clinical psychopaths that end up being altruistic - obviously not in this case though.
    - wingerlang 10y ago
      > Actually the second one is connected to the former. Sure, but I am asking where it even came from to begin with. Like sadism, what bullet point does it apply to on the top comment? > .. but there is evidence that psychopaths feel relaxed when others are not. Also, sure it might be true but why do you even bring this point into the discussion? Does the article or comment mention anything about "calmness" (or similar)? I didn't find it but I might be missing.
      - blablabla123 10y ago
kartickv 10y ago
The article says that some companies have switched to an employee model to ensure workers are available during peak hours. But there are other ways to do that: - Pay workers more during rush hours, and less during other times. This could be surge pricing, or the platform choosing to not take a commission during rush hour, and take a higher commission than normal during off-peak hours. - Tell workers they should be available from 8 AM to 11 AM and 5 - 8, at least four days of every work week, but are free at other times to work or not work. I don't think it's necessary to have employees to make them available at certain times.
_pmf_ 10y ago
I'd like to say you have hit rock bottom when you treat your employes (or "independent contractors") like whales in a pay-for-play MMO, but Uber always finds a way to go lower.
ianamartin 10y ago
I had a really bad date about a month ago. In a part of Brooklyn I'm not familiar with. Things started well, and the woman asked me if I would help her move some stuff because she was having some remodeling done. I was all, "Okay. Sure." I wasn't set up all that well to begin with. Long day at work, tired. My phone was close to dead. So euphemism for hooking up or not, I went home with her. And she's legit trying to move stuff. So I start helping out. She has a lot of art, and she's telling me really specifically about where to put stuff. I take one painting and put it where I thought she wanted it. That was not where she wanted it. Because the way I placed it in the closet it was touching some of her clothes. This was not okay. And she flips the fuck out on me and starts screaming at me about how I don't care about her things. Okay, okay. I'm sorry. We're cool now, right honey bunny? We're cool. She's cool. So then we're trying to move her biggest piece out of the living room. It's an 8'x15'-ish mural. Large. Heavy. We get it off the wall hooks holding it up, and she straight up drops her end of it, causing the corner of the thing I was holding over my head to crash down on my face. The corner landed straight on my left eye and cut me on the eyebrow before sinking into the eye itself. And then she starts screaming again about how this is what I deserve for disrespecting her art. At this point, I'm out. I just left. I left my man purse and everything. Did not care. Just wanted out. Because this woman is crazy. I had about 5% on my phone at that point, and I tried to get an uber to take me home. Got a connection to a driver, and my phone died. About this time, I started feeling really sketchy. Like something was wrong. Not wrong in a "I've had too much to drink." but more like, "There are probably drugs involved here." And I don't do drugs. Uber driver never showed up. I woke up in my apartment about 8 hours later. Have no idea how I got there. Judging from the way my legs felt, I suspect I walked the whole way home from Williamsburg to Ditmas Park. My entire face was caked in blood, and I had to get 6 stitches put in my left eyebrow and a badly blackened eye. Also ruined my favorite sweater and jeans. I mean, it was a date. I was dressed up nice. Bonus points to Uber for charging me the cancellation fee. I get it, they are not an ambulance service or a medical team. But come on, you have to have a better solution to a user whose phone dies than, "fuck you. give me five bucks."
- pmalynin 10y ago
  This one of the most interesting stories I've read in a while
zasz 10y ago
I'm so sorry but this is hilarious.
- ianamartin 10y ago
  You know, it is funny. It just is. Sometimes all you can do is laugh about stuff, and this is a thing to laugh about. What else are you going to do?
- marvin 10y ago
  It's super funny the way date rape is funny.
  - ianamartin 10y ago
    Oh tone it down a little bit. I'm an upper middle class white male. I'm pretty fucking privileged. I was trying to get laid. And I was being stupid. I own my mistakes here, okay? It's okay to laugh about it in retrospect. No one got raped. And I learned a lesson. Sort of. I kind of want to hang out with her again. That kind of crazy is a little hot. I mean, sometimes you just need to put your dick in crazy. Even when you know it's bad idea. (I'm trolling you, by the way. I can't not troll you. You're like my boss who hates it when I shoot him in the crotch with a nerf gun in client meetings. I just have to do it. 38-year-old me will never stop acting like a 12-year-old. But trolling is nicer than downvoting.)
    - wsinks 10y ago
      So I'm still confused - was it the lack of blood that made you feel drugged? Or did you actually drink something? Glad you're ok. What a strange occurrence.
    - debaserab2 10y ago
      Man I dunno call me crazy but I don't care what your demographic privilege is: getting roofied in a strange part of NYC sounds pretty terrifying and not like a "laugh it off" moment. It's great that you survived with just a few stitches and ruined clothes, but that could have ended far worse, no? Given that there was no consequences for this woman's actions, what are the chances she did or will do this again to another person?
romanticreptile 10y ago
A slightly off-topic question: when was the last time when Hacker News front page hasn't featured a negative post about Uber?
- nsebban 10y ago
  Probably back when they were focused on disrupting a market, more than on improving their operations in kind-of shady ways ?
- throwanem 10y ago
  When was the last time anyone had anything positive to say about Uber?
  - Anderkent 10y ago
    > When was the last time anyone had anything positive to say about Uber? This is the exact reason why I find it hard to take seriously anything anyone says about Uber on the internet. The completely one-sided 'discussion' is so divorced from reality - if there was really nothing positive to say about Uber, why do people still choose to use and drive for them?
    - throwanem 10y ago
      Is "taxis are even worse" really all that positive?
      - Anderkent 10y ago
        Yes, because one hardly sees outrage directed at the taxi companies? If Uber is an improvement over status quo, stop trying to bring them down for not being perfect. Sure, talk about how Uber could be better. But 'Uber is evil ZOMG never use them' is counter-productive.
        throwanem 10y ago
        I'm not sure I can agree. There's clearly a market there, because taxis suck almost everywhere they exist, but nothing, including its having identified that market, requires that Uber continue to be the primary company in it. I can see an argument that "Uber is evil ZOMG never use them", should it actually result in Uber doing less business - itself a questionable surmise, but whatever - opens up more space in the market for Uber's presumably less exploitive competitors. It's also a little much to suggest that Uber is merely "not perfect". Its business model has always been predicated upon the near-term advent of self-driving car technology, which has clearly not occurred quickly enough to make the company sustainable. That being so, Uber's instead been forced to fall back on tactics toward its drivers and customers which are widely regarded with what we might charitably call considerable distaste. As such, Uber itself has become ripe for disruption, and I think that's the intent toward which "Uber is evil ZOMG never use them" is ultimately directed - the underlying reasoning being that Uber, having been designed around an unsustainable model, is pretty much screwed no matter what happens, and the question now is how to limit the extent of damage it can do before its inevitable collapse and replacement in the market by more sustainable competitors and successors.
NegatioN 10y ago
That sounds like an extremely creepy evening. Sounds like you got away cheaper than the worst outcome that night, and that's saying something. Were there any other signs that things were gonna turn out like they did with that lady, before the picture escapade?
- ianamartin 10y ago
  I really got nothing. She wasn't any more flaggy than any other woman I've met on OKCupid who is born and raised in NYC. I'm starting to think that born and raised in NYC is itself a flag.
  - phaed 10y ago
    You should have left the second she freaked out on you over her clothes. That was the red flag.
    - ianamartin 10y ago
      Probably so.
    - thret 10y ago
      You should have left when you realised it wasn't an euphemism. It is not okay for her to use first dates as slave labour.
      - sprafa 10y ago
        I would not have left. She could just be seeing whether he was a nice guy before them bangin'. The minute she started yelling, yes, probably. But before? Why? Because she needed help moving a painting around. Anyway it all depends on the contents of the conversation, how he request was made etc.
        nommm-nommm 10y ago
        >She could just be seeing whether he was a nice guy before them bangin'. ^^^ I find it incredibly sexy when someone attractive does me a nice favor.
briandear 10y ago
"While surges do mitigate shortages, they do so in part by repelling passengers..." Supply and demand -- what will those crafty manipulators at Uber dream up next? The author makes it sound like some kind of voodoo magic.
- throwanem 10y ago
  The point is that Uber would rather mitigate shortages in ways less likely to impact revenue. An increase in drivers has less bottom-line impact than a reduction in passengers.
cyphunk 10y ago
Do Taxi services with employeed drivers simply not exist in the US anymore? So curious why people complain about how Uber treats their drivers when they could support Taxi companies that employ drivers. They may even have app's for generation Y to use for hailing as well.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Taxis cost a lot more, but to make up for it, they provide a much shittier service.
- lotsofpulp 10y ago
  As far as I understand, taxi companies never had employees. They've always been independent contractors. Taxi situation has always sucked, it just sucks a little less with an app, and the drivers tend to not be bottom of the barrel cigarette smokers. If you have some money though, you can just use a nice car service which will come with a professionally dressed driver and doesn't smell like cigarettes.
- rpmcmurphy 10y ago
  If you live in a dense city, taxis are a viable option. In SF, Flywheel is a good way to hail a cab by phone. The problem is outside of certain areas, driving a cab full time is a not a good way to make a living. I am glad Lyft, Uber, etc came along because it wasn't that long ago that your only option was to call Yellow Cab, who might as well have had a recording that said "Thank you for calling Yellow Cab, now go fuck yourself!". No words for how bad service used to be.
blr246 10y ago
There seems to me to be an optimal, market-based solution to this: form a Rideshare Drivers Alliance, hire brilliant former Uber programmers and data scientists, and build an app intended to run in the background on drivers' phones that optimizes for their interests. If you build something awesome, you should be able to charge millions of drivers a small monthly fee to show them metrics and data aligned to their interests. The real difficulty to overcome is the information imbalance between drivers and rideshare services. Edit: typo
Bartweiss 10y ago
Did anyone else find the treatment of "forward dispatch" here strange? Obviously a lot of the things in this article are gross (why the hell does Uber give out badges?), but forward dispatch makes a lot of sense. It convinces drivers to work longer hours by making them more money. Driver downtime is uniformly terrible - it delays rides, diminishes Uber's revenue, and cuts drivers' wages. It's textbook market inefficiency (unmet supply and demand at once), and reducing it is a win for everyone. Some of the things surrounding forward dispatch are messy, yes. It makes for inaccurate estimates, activating it every login is ugly, and deploying it without a pause button was malicious or idiotic (remember that drivers take hits for rejecting rides). But why is a central piece of this article a claim that a driver-requested, wage-increasing feature really just undermines self-control?

322 points by nikolasavic 10y ago

That's certainly one approach toward interactive journalism. Works incredibly well on mobile devices too.

>"We've underinvested in the driver experience," a senior official said. "We are now re-examining everything we do in order to rebuild that love." This just seems so crazy to me. A company who's very foundations are built on its number one assets: drivers has been neglecting them. It's like an airline neglecting its pilots or hospital neglecting its surgeons. Without drivers, Uber dies. I know they're investing in self-driving vehicles, but self-driving Uber's are a long way off after a spate of incidents and the pending Waymo lawsuit. It's going to take many more millions and countless lobbying to adopt laws for self-driving vehicles. Seems to me that Uber see their drivers as temporary pawns in a long game of chess. Eventually, Uber hopes to replace their drivers with self-driving vehicles a dream they've been aggressively trying to make happen. What a horrible business.

aianus 10y ago
What else are the drivers going to do? Flip burgers at McDonald's? Driving an Uber is still as good as you're going to get with flexible hours and no skills. I say this as someone who drives for Uber (albeit part-time for fun).
skolos 10y ago
They underinvested in drivers because they were very optimistic about self-driving cars. Now they see that replacing drivers won't happen quick enough they realizing need to pump investment in drivers.
brians 10y ago
Airlines do underinvest in their pilots and hospitals in their nurses. Management is shockingly short sighted about these things.
- briandear 10y ago
  Are they actually short sighted or are they actually behaving economically rationally?
taneq 10y ago
The problem here is that to some degree it's a zero-sum game between drivers and passengers. Anything Uber does to benefit the one probably comes at the expense of the other.
hkmurakami 10y ago
Hospitals abuse residents who are the future lifeblood of the hospitals. Just because the personnel are essential doesn't preclude the abuse.
- misnamed 10y ago
  I feel like there's less choice in that case. With Uber, I can flip to lift or a taxi or black car service with the push of a button - don't have to think about what's closest or in-plan.
- Crito 10y ago
  That's a form of institutionalized hazing. Probably unethical, but I've seen behavioral science defenses of it.
- puranjay 10y ago
  Hospitals have the luxury of choice. Where else are the doctors going to practice?
chaser7016 10y ago
Uber doesn't care about its drivers they stole Google's IP to try and win the self driving car race. Those cars will replace these drivers who are struggling to get by like my best friend who works two jobs and drives for both Uber yet now more so for Lyft. Uber drivers are slowly rotting trash to Uber/Kalanick.
Spooky23 10y ago
Have you ever spoken to a surgeon or pilot? Both are probably more disgruntled than the average Uber driver.
bbarn 10y ago
Drivers are not Uber's life blood. Passengers ignorant of the company's treatment of their drivers, and other shady tactics are.
- iamdave 10y ago
  Passengers ignorant of the company's treatment of their drivers, and other shady tactics are. This is such a mindblowing thing to me; as you can't throw a rock without finding site after site, blogpost among blogpost among forum post among social media share/tweet/post of this-among other instances of Uber conducting some very ugly, clandestine business that screws drivers over and because they're so damn convenient people just ignore it completely at best-shoot the messenger with a .50 caliber barrage at worst. None of this is more prevalent than in my city subreddit of /r/austin where people are convinced that the city banned Uber/Lyft when every news outlet in the city wrote at length how the former bought a referendum over fingerprinting rules (which Uber complies with in more profitable cities), lost said referendum vote, and then left of their own volition after targeting a(n admittedly unpopular) councilwoman. That hasn't stopped the overriding narrative that we forced the company out unfairly. It's a weird phenomenon to behold. They treat their workers like utter crap; I wonder if you took some of the tactics they employ, apply them to any other sector and make them as public as Uber's have been-if anyone would stand for it. Or does the convenience factor of Uber compared to a cab make it easier for people to engage in rampant whataboutism?
  - BigJono 10y ago
    > This is such a mindblowing thing to me; as you can't throw a rock without finding site after site, blogpost among blogpost among forum post among social media share/tweet/post of this-among other instances of Uber conducting some very ugly, clandestine business that screws drivers over and because they're so damn convenient people just ignore it completely at best-shoot the messenger with a .50 caliber barrage at worst. Yes you can. Here in Australia literally nobody that doesn't browse HN gives a fuck. I can't name one person I know IRL that knows anything about Uber other than that it's 1000x better and more convenient than the taxi service here.
joelrunyon 10y ago
Their promo video from a year ago tells you everything. [1] They thought they'd get to self driving cars pretty quick. They didn't (yet). [1] https://youtu.be/bx1-im6i8uk?t=1m40s https://youtu.be/bx1-im6i8uk?t=1m40s
JDiculous 10y ago
The sad reality is that Uber's drivers are dispensable and replaceable. There's an endless supply of unemployed/underemployed people, and they'll do whatever it takes to support themselves and their families, even if it means begrudgingly working for Evil Corporation.
Kiro 10y ago
> It's like an airline neglecting its pilots Sorry but that's a really bad comparison. In Europe pilots go on strike all the time due to the abuse.
LoSboccacc 10y ago
> A company who's very foundations are built on its number one assets: drivers Uber is still built on vc rounds and it's foundation is the idea that they might be a monopoly if they can survive enough to drive all competitors out of business. That foundation is shaking, but they're not ready yet to compete at market prices. I fully expect more shenanigan involving messing with drivers, as they are not ready to pull out the veil they put in front of the customers yet.

joelrunyon 10y ago

> It has even concocted an algorithm similar to a Netflix feature that automatically loads the next program, which many experts believe encourages binge-watching. In Uber’s case, this means sending drivers their next fare opportunity before their current ride is even over. I have to say that as a USER, I've noticed this change (I think it's been fairly recent) that they assign you a driver who hasn't yet finished a trip. What ends up happening is Uber tells you an "estimate" of 3 minutes to arrival before you book. Then it assigns the driver and says "10 minutes" to arrival, but the driver hasn't even dropped off their last passenger yet. So, what's happened multiple times is that the 10 minute estimate ends up staying at "10 minutes" for 5-10 minutes straight and 15-20 minutes after I booked, the driver shows up. I would understand this if I ordered an Uber pool, but I ordered a black car and it still operated like that. I'm not sure when they made this specific change, but I've noticed it a lot more in 2017 and overall I've been really disappointed with the uber app this year as they seem to be trying to over-optimize everything to the hilt and it's starting to backfire

karthikb 10y ago
I've also seen the opposite - 10 minute estimate and the car shows up in less than 3. This is just as bad...maybe I ordered the car early because of the long projected lead time, now the driver has to wait for me while possibly blocking traffic.
- 0xC0DECAFE2020 10y ago
  Consider yourself lucky. It's never happened to me. I've only been charged numerous cancellation fees. Im starting to think i can just walked there faster.
manacit 10y ago
Yeah, I noticed this for the first time a few weeks ago when I was ordering one. Their time estimates are already pretty horrific in Midtown NYC traffic, assigning me to someone that is "5 minutes away" from dropping someone off "5 minutes away" from me can easily be 15+ minutes of wall clock time before a car gets there.
10y ago

spectistcles 10y ago

>"We've underinvested in the driver experience," a senior official said. "We are now re-examining everything we do in order to rebuild that love." This is a pretty troubling way to phrase using behavioral science to manipulate your employees.

Spooky23 10y ago
Not employees. Free agents, totally independent contractors.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Who have no control over their work schedule or fares among other things. They're technically contractors but the super court in California has ruled otherwise.
  - tehlike 10y ago
    they probably control their work schedule, but not fare?
pbreit 10y ago
In Uber's defense, the article doesn't mention much or anything that isn't covered in Business 101. Encouraging drivers to locate in busy areas does not require behavioral science.
eh78ssxv2f 10y ago
> This is a pretty troubling way to phrase using behavioral science to manipulate your employees. Isn't this pretty common across all companies? Can the HN modifying the ranking of articles be categorized as user manipulation and evil?
- spectistcles 10y ago
  I didn't say manipulation was evil, just pointing out that manipulating someone and calling it love seems more like abuse than love.

username223 10y ago

> Some local managers who were men went so far as to adopt a female persona for texting drivers, having found that the uptake was higher when they did. [...] Uber acknowledged that it had experimented with female personas to increase engagement with drivers. Classic. Men are predictable, and Uber is predictably amoral.

WalterBright 10y ago
I've always wanted a nag for my navigator turn directions: "Ya shoulda tarned bak dare, ya fakkin twit! Now you're making me recalculate! Whazza matta wit ya?"
colmvp 10y ago
Many, many years ago, when I was thinking of moving, I was looking for salary ranges for a particular American city. It was pre-Glassdoor so there wasn't a website that aggregated that information. I decided to go the HackerNews of that particular industry, except instead of using my own account, I decided to make a fake one with an avatar of an attractive but non-famous female. Basically it looked like it was a genuine personal photograph rather than a professionally shot photo you would've found in a magazine. I basically posted one post, introducing myself and asked if anyone had an idea of salary ranges for that city given a specific job position. Holy. Crap. The number of replies I got was unbelievable. I think on average threads on that news site had double digit responses but this one had over 100. I even had people private message me to say they wanted to interview me despite not including any links to a personal website or resume.
- YCode 10y ago
  When I sign up for services where the goal is to get tech support (i.e. StackExchange, Discord, Slack) I use a female persona. I've had to explain to a few people (including my wife) that it's not a gender confusion thing at all, it's purely for the perks. It's ridiculous how far people will go to help a "woman" online.
  - chipperyman573 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

a_c 10y ago

Not related. Can someone share what are those interactive "images" made of? Or what are the correct terms to call those "images"?

jonathanpoulter 10y ago
They're Javascript canvases. They're very neat... https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2017/03/07/uber/563471f0245b93b6b543e35d57b91ed84cc5f35b/build.js https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2017/03/07/uber/563471...
jeffjose 10y ago
My initial assumption was they were made of d3.js (SVG) but looking at the inspector they seem to be canvas elements (<canvas>). I didn't see any mention on d3.js in the js libraries being pulled in, so not sure.
- y_u_no_rust 10y ago
  d3 would be pretty horrible for something like that.. it looks like it's pixi

hn_throwaway_99 10y ago

I'll just point out that every two-sided marketplace in existence uses tons of data and behavioral techniques to get "suppliers" (e.g. drivers on Uber, hosts on AirBnB, sellers on eBay, manufacturers on Alibaba, etc. etc.) to offer the best buyer experience at the lowest cost.

Animats 10y ago

On a somewhat unrelated note, I saw a Uber-labeled vehicle tday on I-280 near Woodside, equipped with an older model rotating Velodyne scanner on top. It didn't look like Uber's publicly known self-driving cars. It was doing a steady 45 in the middle lane, and I suspect it was mapping, not self-driving.

bri3d 10y ago
https://www.uber.com/info/mapping/ https://www.uber.com/info/mapping/ Uber have had mapping cars for quite some time - they also acquired Bing Maps from Microsoft in 2015.
- jeffjose 10y ago
  What do you mean they acquired Bing Maps from Microsoft? Bing Maps is owned by Uber now? Sorry if this is common-knowledge to everyone; I don't remember reading about it.
  - mikeyouse 10y ago
    News to me too, but apparently they bought a bunch of tech and 100 Bing Maps employees in 2015: http://mashable.com/2015/06/29/uber-bing-maps/#yo4ZMCPC1aqj http://mashable.com/2015/06/29/uber-bing-maps/#yo4ZMCPC1aqj

MarkMc 10y ago

TL;DR: here's the list of psychological tricks mentioned in the article: 1. When driver's are about to log off, it tells them that they are very close to reaching an earnings target, such as "You are $6 away from making $40 net earnings". The target is set by Uber, and is always just out of reach. 2. Uber suggests to drivers that they should go to a certain area for better chance of finding riders. The article says this might be an example of where Uber benefits at the expense of drivers because Uber does not prefer surge pricing. 3. Uber prompts drivers to accept the next fare opportunity before the current ride is over. 4. Uber tells new drivers when they are 50% towards the goal of 25 first rides. At 25 rides Uber will pay a 'signing on' bonus. 5. Some Uber employee's would pretend to be women when communicating with the (overwhelmingly male) drivers. 6. Lyft did a split test of two different calls to action: (a) "You're losing $15 per hour by driving on Tuesday mornings instead of Friday evenings"; and (b) "You would make $15 per hour more by driving on Friday evenings instead of Tuesday mornings". They found that (a) was more effective, but eventually decided not to use this approach [for reasons not explained in the article] 7. Uber provides non-cash rewards to drivers in the form of 'badges' like "Above and Beyond", "Excellent Service" and "Entertaining Drive". It also gives drivers stats like how many trips they have taken in the current week, how much money they have made, how much time they have spent logged on and what their overall rating from passengers is.

hn_throw_1234 10y ago
1) Probably the most manipulative by far. Interesting to learn. 2) Also how driver get the most rides helping to maximize their earnings. In fact isn't this the whole point of surge in the first place? To push drivers to high surge areas? I would hardly call this a "psychological trick" and is very reasonable. 3) How is this a "psychological trick"? This clearly is in the drivers' benefit as it helps maximize the number of rides they take. All their time becomes productive if they get dispatched to another trip ahead of their current trip ending. Also, it's clear this makes Uber more efficient as a platform as they can treat occupied cars as active supply. 4) Is this not simply providing transparency of the bonuses/incentives Uber is offering? 5) Weird but even weirder that it works. Not the first time I've heard of this. Apparently works on emails too. A number of companies use this. A quick google show's it's well known. 6) Not shocking. Seems like relatively standard A/B testing of copy. 7) Some of this is gamification and some is transparency. All standard. This article to me largely seems like an attempt to play on the recent many bad deeds of Uber for a click-bait article that deliberately perturbs some facts to fit the narrative. This article could very easily have been written about any other company in the world. But writing it about Uber now, generates clicks and upvotes.

mattbillenstein 10y ago

Please google Susan Fowler and stop using Uber altogether -- like it really shouldn't be a debate about how crappy their arrival estimates are at this point -- they are a company that has no soul.

vosper 10y ago
There are places where Uber is the safest way to get to the right destination without getting scammed, ripped off, or taken to a competing hotel or "travel agent" by a driver who's getting kickbacks from them. And in those places it's either Uber or take your chances.
sebleon 10y ago
Right on, seems like consumers underestimate how powerful their spending choices are. Would love to see more of this mentality when people decide which companies to support when buying gas, food, medicine, telecom, etc.
nikolasavic 10y ago
https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on... For those that didn't google her. The first hit I got was a blog post about her sexual harassment at Uber. After reporting the incident: "I was then told that I had to make a choice: (i) I could either go and find another team and then never have to interact with this man again, or (ii) I could stay on the team, but I would have to understand that he would most likely give me a poor performance review when review time came around, and there was nothing they could do about that. I remarked that this didn't seem like much of a choice, and that I wanted to stay on the team because I had significant expertise in the exact project that the team was struggling to complete (it was genuinely in the company's best interest to have me on that team), but they told me the same thing again and again. One HR rep even explicitly told me that it wouldn't be retaliation if I received a negative review later because I had been "given an option". I tried to escalate the situation but got nowhere with either HR or with my own management chain (who continued to insist that they had given him a stern-talking to and didn't want to ruin his career over his "first offense")."

known 10y ago

Thank you for TL;DR Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others);

wingerlang 10y ago
> Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others) Where did you get these from? Especially the second one.
- tunap 10y ago
  Not the op, but probably because it is a confidence game, and con persons are more likely to have such traits. ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick
- blablabla123 10y ago
  Actually the second one is connected to the former. I'm too lazy to cite a reference but there is evidence that psychopaths feel relaxed when others are not. (There are a few popular documentaries about that one Youtube) Of course 'psychopath' is a spectrum, so this doesn't mean Uber management consists of complete psychopaths. Actually there are clinical psychopaths that end up being altruistic - obviously not in this case though.
  - wingerlang 10y ago
    > Actually the second one is connected to the former. Sure, but I am asking where it even came from to begin with. Like sadism, what bullet point does it apply to on the top comment? > .. but there is evidence that psychopaths feel relaxed when others are not. Also, sure it might be true but why do you even bring this point into the discussion? Does the article or comment mention anything about "calmness" (or similar)? I didn't find it but I might be missing.
    - blablabla123 10y ago

kartickv 10y ago

The article says that some companies have switched to an employee model to ensure workers are available during peak hours. But there are other ways to do that: - Pay workers more during rush hours, and less during other times. This could be surge pricing, or the platform choosing to not take a commission during rush hour, and take a higher commission than normal during off-peak hours. - Tell workers they should be available from 8 AM to 11 AM and 5 - 8, at least four days of every work week, but are free at other times to work or not work. I don't think it's necessary to have employees to make them available at certain times.

_pmf_ 10y ago

I'd like to say you have hit rock bottom when you treat your employes (or "independent contractors") like whales in a pay-for-play MMO, but Uber always finds a way to go lower.

ianamartin 10y ago

I had a really bad date about a month ago. In a part of Brooklyn I'm not familiar with. Things started well, and the woman asked me if I would help her move some stuff because she was having some remodeling done. I was all, "Okay. Sure." I wasn't set up all that well to begin with. Long day at work, tired. My phone was close to dead. So euphemism for hooking up or not, I went home with her. And she's legit trying to move stuff. So I start helping out. She has a lot of art, and she's telling me really specifically about where to put stuff. I take one painting and put it where I thought she wanted it. That was not where she wanted it. Because the way I placed it in the closet it was touching some of her clothes. This was not okay. And she flips the fuck out on me and starts screaming at me about how I don't care about her things. Okay, okay. I'm sorry. We're cool now, right honey bunny? We're cool. She's cool. So then we're trying to move her biggest piece out of the living room. It's an 8'x15'-ish mural. Large. Heavy. We get it off the wall hooks holding it up, and she straight up drops her end of it, causing the corner of the thing I was holding over my head to crash down on my face. The corner landed straight on my left eye and cut me on the eyebrow before sinking into the eye itself. And then she starts screaming again about how this is what I deserve for disrespecting her art. At this point, I'm out. I just left. I left my man purse and everything. Did not care. Just wanted out. Because this woman is crazy. I had about 5% on my phone at that point, and I tried to get an uber to take me home. Got a connection to a driver, and my phone died. About this time, I started feeling really sketchy. Like something was wrong. Not wrong in a "I've had too much to drink." but more like, "There are probably drugs involved here." And I don't do drugs. Uber driver never showed up. I woke up in my apartment about 8 hours later. Have no idea how I got there. Judging from the way my legs felt, I suspect I walked the whole way home from Williamsburg to Ditmas Park. My entire face was caked in blood, and I had to get 6 stitches put in my left eyebrow and a badly blackened eye. Also ruined my favorite sweater and jeans. I mean, it was a date. I was dressed up nice. Bonus points to Uber for charging me the cancellation fee. I get it, they are not an ambulance service or a medical team. But come on, you have to have a better solution to a user whose phone dies than, "fuck you. give me five bucks."

pmalynin 10y ago
This one of the most interesting stories I've read in a while

zasz 10y ago

I'm so sorry but this is hilarious.

ianamartin 10y ago
You know, it is funny. It just is. Sometimes all you can do is laugh about stuff, and this is a thing to laugh about. What else are you going to do?
marvin 10y ago
It's super funny the way date rape is funny.
- ianamartin 10y ago
  Oh tone it down a little bit. I'm an upper middle class white male. I'm pretty fucking privileged. I was trying to get laid. And I was being stupid. I own my mistakes here, okay? It's okay to laugh about it in retrospect. No one got raped. And I learned a lesson. Sort of. I kind of want to hang out with her again. That kind of crazy is a little hot. I mean, sometimes you just need to put your dick in crazy. Even when you know it's bad idea. (I'm trolling you, by the way. I can't not troll you. You're like my boss who hates it when I shoot him in the crotch with a nerf gun in client meetings. I just have to do it. 38-year-old me will never stop acting like a 12-year-old. But trolling is nicer than downvoting.)
  - wsinks 10y ago
    So I'm still confused - was it the lack of blood that made you feel drugged? Or did you actually drink something? Glad you're ok. What a strange occurrence.
  - debaserab2 10y ago
    Man I dunno call me crazy but I don't care what your demographic privilege is: getting roofied in a strange part of NYC sounds pretty terrifying and not like a "laugh it off" moment. It's great that you survived with just a few stitches and ruined clothes, but that could have ended far worse, no? Given that there was no consequences for this woman's actions, what are the chances she did or will do this again to another person?

romanticreptile 10y ago

A slightly off-topic question: when was the last time when Hacker News front page hasn't featured a negative post about Uber?

nsebban 10y ago
Probably back when they were focused on disrupting a market, more than on improving their operations in kind-of shady ways ?
throwanem 10y ago
When was the last time anyone had anything positive to say about Uber?
- Anderkent 10y ago
  > When was the last time anyone had anything positive to say about Uber? This is the exact reason why I find it hard to take seriously anything anyone says about Uber on the internet. The completely one-sided 'discussion' is so divorced from reality - if there was really nothing positive to say about Uber, why do people still choose to use and drive for them?
  - throwanem 10y ago
    Is "taxis are even worse" really all that positive?
    - Anderkent 10y ago
      Yes, because one hardly sees outrage directed at the taxi companies? If Uber is an improvement over status quo, stop trying to bring them down for not being perfect. Sure, talk about how Uber could be better. But 'Uber is evil ZOMG never use them' is counter-productive.
      - throwanem 10y ago
        I'm not sure I can agree. There's clearly a market there, because taxis suck almost everywhere they exist, but nothing, including its having identified that market, requires that Uber continue to be the primary company in it. I can see an argument that "Uber is evil ZOMG never use them", should it actually result in Uber doing less business - itself a questionable surmise, but whatever - opens up more space in the market for Uber's presumably less exploitive competitors. It's also a little much to suggest that Uber is merely "not perfect". Its business model has always been predicated upon the near-term advent of self-driving car technology, which has clearly not occurred quickly enough to make the company sustainable. That being so, Uber's instead been forced to fall back on tactics toward its drivers and customers which are widely regarded with what we might charitably call considerable distaste. As such, Uber itself has become ripe for disruption, and I think that's the intent toward which "Uber is evil ZOMG never use them" is ultimately directed - the underlying reasoning being that Uber, having been designed around an unsustainable model, is pretty much screwed no matter what happens, and the question now is how to limit the extent of damage it can do before its inevitable collapse and replacement in the market by more sustainable competitors and successors.

NegatioN 10y ago

That sounds like an extremely creepy evening. Sounds like you got away cheaper than the worst outcome that night, and that's saying something. Were there any other signs that things were gonna turn out like they did with that lady, before the picture escapade?

ianamartin 10y ago
I really got nothing. She wasn't any more flaggy than any other woman I've met on OKCupid who is born and raised in NYC. I'm starting to think that born and raised in NYC is itself a flag.
- phaed 10y ago
  You should have left the second she freaked out on you over her clothes. That was the red flag.
  - ianamartin 10y ago
    Probably so.
  - thret 10y ago
    You should have left when you realised it wasn't an euphemism. It is not okay for her to use first dates as slave labour.
    - sprafa 10y ago
      I would not have left. She could just be seeing whether he was a nice guy before them bangin'. The minute she started yelling, yes, probably. But before? Why? Because she needed help moving a painting around. Anyway it all depends on the contents of the conversation, how he request was made etc.
      - nommm-nommm 10y ago
        >She could just be seeing whether he was a nice guy before them bangin'. ^^^ I find it incredibly sexy when someone attractive does me a nice favor.

briandear 10y ago

"While surges do mitigate shortages, they do so in part by repelling passengers..." Supply and demand -- what will those crafty manipulators at Uber dream up next? The author makes it sound like some kind of voodoo magic.

throwanem 10y ago
The point is that Uber would rather mitigate shortages in ways less likely to impact revenue. An increase in drivers has less bottom-line impact than a reduction in passengers.

cyphunk 10y ago

Do Taxi services with employeed drivers simply not exist in the US anymore? So curious why people complain about how Uber treats their drivers when they could support Taxi companies that employ drivers. They may even have app's for generation Y to use for hailing as well.

throwanem 10y ago
Taxis cost a lot more, but to make up for it, they provide a much shittier service.
lotsofpulp 10y ago
As far as I understand, taxi companies never had employees. They've always been independent contractors. Taxi situation has always sucked, it just sucks a little less with an app, and the drivers tend to not be bottom of the barrel cigarette smokers. If you have some money though, you can just use a nice car service which will come with a professionally dressed driver and doesn't smell like cigarettes.
rpmcmurphy 10y ago
If you live in a dense city, taxis are a viable option. In SF, Flywheel is a good way to hail a cab by phone. The problem is outside of certain areas, driving a cab full time is a not a good way to make a living. I am glad Lyft, Uber, etc came along because it wasn't that long ago that your only option was to call Yellow Cab, who might as well have had a recording that said "Thank you for calling Yellow Cab, now go fuck yourself!". No words for how bad service used to be.

blr246 10y ago

There seems to me to be an optimal, market-based solution to this: form a Rideshare Drivers Alliance, hire brilliant former Uber programmers and data scientists, and build an app intended to run in the background on drivers' phones that optimizes for their interests. If you build something awesome, you should be able to charge millions of drivers a small monthly fee to show them metrics and data aligned to their interests. The real difficulty to overcome is the information imbalance between drivers and rideshare services. Edit: typo

Bartweiss 10y ago

Did anyone else find the treatment of "forward dispatch" here strange? Obviously a lot of the things in this article are gross (why the hell does Uber give out badges?), but forward dispatch makes a lot of sense. It convinces drivers to work longer hours by making them more money. Driver downtime is uniformly terrible - it delays rides, diminishes Uber's revenue, and cuts drivers' wages. It's textbook market inefficiency (unmet supply and demand at once), and reducing it is a win for everyone. Some of the things surrounding forward dispatch are messy, yes. It makes for inaccurate estimates, activating it every login is ugly, and deploying it without a pause button was malicious or idiotic (remember that drivers take hits for rejecting rides). But why is a central piece of this article a claim that a driver-requested, wage-increasing feature really just undermines self-control?