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I question the authenticity of the $3.37 number when I see that the paper this article references was published by an organization funded by these bodies: Alli

I question the authenticity of the $3.37 number when I see that the paper this article references was published by an organization funded by these bodies: Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, BP, ClearPath Foundation, Conoco Phillips, Duke Energy, Electricité de France, EnBW, ENGIE, ENI, Eversource, Exelon Corporation, ExxonMobil, Gas Natural Fenosa, GE, Golden Spread Electric Cooperative, Inc., Iberdrola, IHI Corporation, EDPC J-Power, Kiewit Energy Group Inc., National Grid, Norwegian Ministries, PSEG, Southern Company, Swedish Energy Agency, Toyota Motor Corporation, TransCanada Corporation I think Uber/Lyft economics are problematic, but these guys have pretty solid incentives to make Uber/Lyft look unviable. http://ceepr.mit.edu/support/associates http://ceepr.mit.edu/support/associates

elmar 9y ago
This study only confirms the unspoken word for many years. Looks like these ride-sharing services are a race to the bottom, the only ones that are better off are the users.
Clanan 9y ago
Instead of giving in to a gut reaction, you should read the paper. All research must get funding in one way or another. If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much. If the majority of research is tainted by conflicts, that doesn't somehow make it any less tainted by conflicts. It's trivially easy to design a study to produce the results you want it to, just by selecting things like accounting methods at the outset. For example, one method of accounting is to allocate costs based on usage. So if you have a car and you drive it 90% for Uber and 10% for your own usage, allocate 90% of all costs to Uber. That makes Uber look really bad. But if you would have bought the car either way and the question is the incremental cost of driving for Uber, that accounting method is the sunk cost fallacy. It allocates large fractions of a bunch of fixed costs to the incremental use, like the original purchase price of the car, even though they're sunk and can't be avoided either way. And the money actually does taint the study, because the funders know the parameters of the study ahead of time and only fund the ones that will produce the results they want, which makes the results tainted by selection bias.
  - elgenie 9y ago
    You could also read the methodology in the study when it comes out, since describing that is required in science, as opposed to questioning hypothetical methodologies that could be used. From the brief version of the study (http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf), it appears they're using per-mile costs and ascribing only the incremental costs on a per-mile basis. > Of the five sources of cost estimated per mile (Insurance, Maintenance, Repairs, Fuel and Depreciation), approximately 40% of costs are attributable to Insurance, Maintenance and Repairs, 40% to fuel expenses, and 20% to depreciation.
    - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      You are correct that I used a hypothetical methodology. That's because -- and this is the real problem -- finding the flaw in a specific methodology is a lot of work. It's often not just one thing that throws the numbers off by 200%, it's one thing that throws them off by 12%, then another by 7%, and twenty other little things that add and multiply up to an inaccurate overall conclusion. It can take multiple hours to figure out what actually happened and people don't have that kind of time, so the majority of people only have time to read the conclusion and who sponsored it. In theory the solution to the problem of everyone having to personally evaluate every study is for a trustworthy reporter to do it for you, but that hasn't worked ever since reporters figured out that "Uber eats souls" gets more clicks than "wage study methodology miscalculates wages." But if you want a real flaw in this study, how about this one -- most other jobs don't let you count transportation expenses against the hourly wage. Obviously an Uber driver's transportation expenses will be higher, but that doesn't mean you can discount them in the other cases when you count them in this case. If someone has a 30 mile commute (because living closer to work is even more expensive) at $0.53/mile, that's 60 miles a day, so $31.80 in daily incremental expenses to take the job. 8 hours at federal minimum wage ($7.25/hr) is $58, so after transportation expenses their hourly wage is $3.28/hour. For someone with a 50 mile commute it's $0.63/hour. Suddenly Uber doesn't look so bad.
      - malandrew 9y ago
- TangoTrotFox 9y ago
  How exactly would you suggest people read the paper? The article linked to a brief [1] which says literally absolutely nothing about how they conjured up their numbers. And the paper itself is here [2]. It's rather worse than a paywall. Instead the paper is restricted to their "sponsors" until an embargo of up to 6 months. This sort of behavior should not instill confidence in the paper's conclusions. And I think it was completely reckless of the Guardian to run an eye catching headline with absolutely 0 justification given to the numbers other than an implicit appeal to authority by calling it an MIT paper. Though such is the state of the media today. [1] - http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf [2] - http://ceepr.mit.edu/publications/working-papers/681 http://ceepr.mit.edu/publications/working-papers/681
  - shakna 9y ago
    I'm not sure if it's purposeful, or how long the hole will remain open, but you can see the full paper. Remove the "-Brief". [0] The paper is fairly open about their methodology, and give access to things like the actual survey being answered, rather than just saying "a survey matching these criteria was used". Most of their data apparently has come through Harry Campbell [1], and his yearly survey, which has it's own data and methodology out in the open [2]. I'm not remotely qualified to analyse it, but you can see the data from therideshareguy's survey if you're looking to critique the results of this paper. (I've edited this paragraph to try and get less push/offensive. I'm still not happy with it, but the aphasia is kicking my butt. Rest assured, I'm just trying to be helpful, and just wanted to point the direction to discussing the data. Still not happy with this phrasing either.) [0] http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005.pdf [1] https://therideshareguy.com https://therideshareguy.com [2] https://therideshareguy.com/2018SurveyReport https://therideshareguy.com/2018SurveyReport
  - slaymaker1907 9y ago
    In other words, the paper is currently less than worthless since it can easily mislead people. At this point, it is little more than an appeal to authority.
  - Clanan 9y ago
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >Instead of giving in to a gut reaction, you should read the paper. All research must get funding in one way or another. If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much. It makes sense to try and figure out what the funders would want the answer to be and see if the research matches that. If it does, shouldn't you be more skeptical? For example, if Exxon funded research saying that global warming isn't caused by man or Walmart funded research saying that raising the minimum wage causes mass unemployment then it's pretty clear that they would benefit from the result. In this example it looks like these companies probably just want to be associated with MIT (or they have an interest in other pieces of research) and I can't see any particular reason to suppose that they'd be invested in the outcome of this study in particular.
  - Clanan 9y ago
    Every patron of every piece of research is hoping to benefit from it. I certainly agree that a reader should consider the goals of the authors and backers, and I would hope the authors would make both clear. I just get piqued when intellectual laziness steps in and says "don't read this, it's funded by biased sponsors (i.e. humans)!"
    - randall 9y ago
      I think this is a very salient point... it's essentially ad hominem and I'm tempted to fall into this fallacy. Thanks!
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      >Every patron of every piece of research is hoping to benefit from it. A) Not always. Bill Gates funding malaria research doesn't benefit him. B) If you benefit from the research being accurate and truthful that's very different to only benefitting if the research yields a particular answer.
petermonsson 9y ago
I don’t see any of the these competing with Uber/Lyft. They may be suppliers. Where is the conflict?
omarforgotpwd 9y ago
Why would those companies want to smear Uber? Many of them profit from uber. Uber sells a ton of gas and cars.
- rmc 9y ago
  Additionally, Uber usage encourages car ownership and usage, as opposed to cycling or public transport.
  - danpalmer 9y ago
    Does it? I'd have thought the opposite. The whole idea behind "ride sharing" is not needing to own a car, but being able to benefit from one when needed.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - thesumofall 9y ago
      Some people believe that Uber basically incentivizes people to switch from public transport. Hence, you’d have more cars on the road. Along the same lines you could argue that there are few people who already own a car who would sell their car just because of Uber
    - chatmasta 9y ago
      That’s the idea behind it for the passenger. Remember there’s another person on every side of your Uber transaction, who might have recently bought a car but would not have otherwise.
      - BurningFrog 9y ago
        Yes, but to spell out the obvious: There are a lot more passengers than drivers. This should result in fewer personally owned cars in total.
eevilspock 9y ago
Another conflict of interest worth examining is that of readers of these studies. Is it in your interest to discount or promote the study? Does your lifestyle, paycheck, politics or identity (as in identity politics) bias your read? What would a rejection of business models such as Uber's mean to SV, it's means of wealth, it's self-image?

elmar 9y ago

This study only confirms the unspoken word for many years. Looks like these ride-sharing services are a race to the bottom, the only ones that are better off are the users.

Clanan 9y ago

Instead of giving in to a gut reaction, you should read the paper. All research must get funding in one way or another. If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much. If the majority of research is tainted by conflicts, that doesn't somehow make it any less tainted by conflicts. It's trivially easy to design a study to produce the results you want it to, just by selecting things like accounting methods at the outset. For example, one method of accounting is to allocate costs based on usage. So if you have a car and you drive it 90% for Uber and 10% for your own usage, allocate 90% of all costs to Uber. That makes Uber look really bad. But if you would have bought the car either way and the question is the incremental cost of driving for Uber, that accounting method is the sunk cost fallacy. It allocates large fractions of a bunch of fixed costs to the incremental use, like the original purchase price of the car, even though they're sunk and can't be avoided either way. And the money actually does taint the study, because the funders know the parameters of the study ahead of time and only fund the ones that will produce the results they want, which makes the results tainted by selection bias.
- elgenie 9y ago
  You could also read the methodology in the study when it comes out, since describing that is required in science, as opposed to questioning hypothetical methodologies that could be used. From the brief version of the study (http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf), it appears they're using per-mile costs and ascribing only the incremental costs on a per-mile basis. > Of the five sources of cost estimated per mile (Insurance, Maintenance, Repairs, Fuel and Depreciation), approximately 40% of costs are attributable to Insurance, Maintenance and Repairs, 40% to fuel expenses, and 20% to depreciation.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    You are correct that I used a hypothetical methodology. That's because -- and this is the real problem -- finding the flaw in a specific methodology is a lot of work. It's often not just one thing that throws the numbers off by 200%, it's one thing that throws them off by 12%, then another by 7%, and twenty other little things that add and multiply up to an inaccurate overall conclusion. It can take multiple hours to figure out what actually happened and people don't have that kind of time, so the majority of people only have time to read the conclusion and who sponsored it. In theory the solution to the problem of everyone having to personally evaluate every study is for a trustworthy reporter to do it for you, but that hasn't worked ever since reporters figured out that "Uber eats souls" gets more clicks than "wage study methodology miscalculates wages." But if you want a real flaw in this study, how about this one -- most other jobs don't let you count transportation expenses against the hourly wage. Obviously an Uber driver's transportation expenses will be higher, but that doesn't mean you can discount them in the other cases when you count them in this case. If someone has a 30 mile commute (because living closer to work is even more expensive) at $0.53/mile, that's 60 miles a day, so $31.80 in daily incremental expenses to take the job. 8 hours at federal minimum wage ($7.25/hr) is $58, so after transportation expenses their hourly wage is $3.28/hour. For someone with a 50 mile commute it's $0.63/hour. Suddenly Uber doesn't look so bad.
    - malandrew 9y ago
TangoTrotFox 9y ago
How exactly would you suggest people read the paper? The article linked to a brief [1] which says literally absolutely nothing about how they conjured up their numbers. And the paper itself is here [2]. It's rather worse than a paywall. Instead the paper is restricted to their "sponsors" until an embargo of up to 6 months. This sort of behavior should not instill confidence in the paper's conclusions. And I think it was completely reckless of the Guardian to run an eye catching headline with absolutely 0 justification given to the numbers other than an implicit appeal to authority by calling it an MIT paper. Though such is the state of the media today. [1] - http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf [2] - http://ceepr.mit.edu/publications/working-papers/681 http://ceepr.mit.edu/publications/working-papers/681
- shakna 9y ago
  I'm not sure if it's purposeful, or how long the hole will remain open, but you can see the full paper. Remove the "-Brief". [0] The paper is fairly open about their methodology, and give access to things like the actual survey being answered, rather than just saying "a survey matching these criteria was used". Most of their data apparently has come through Harry Campbell [1], and his yearly survey, which has it's own data and methodology out in the open [2]. I'm not remotely qualified to analyse it, but you can see the data from therideshareguy's survey if you're looking to critique the results of this paper. (I've edited this paragraph to try and get less push/offensive. I'm still not happy with it, but the aphasia is kicking my butt. Rest assured, I'm just trying to be helpful, and just wanted to point the direction to discussing the data. Still not happy with this phrasing either.) [0] http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005.pdf [1] https://therideshareguy.com https://therideshareguy.com [2] https://therideshareguy.com/2018SurveyReport https://therideshareguy.com/2018SurveyReport
- slaymaker1907 9y ago
  In other words, the paper is currently less than worthless since it can easily mislead people. At this point, it is little more than an appeal to authority.
- Clanan 9y ago
crdoconnor 9y ago
>Instead of giving in to a gut reaction, you should read the paper. All research must get funding in one way or another. If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much. It makes sense to try and figure out what the funders would want the answer to be and see if the research matches that. If it does, shouldn't you be more skeptical? For example, if Exxon funded research saying that global warming isn't caused by man or Walmart funded research saying that raising the minimum wage causes mass unemployment then it's pretty clear that they would benefit from the result. In this example it looks like these companies probably just want to be associated with MIT (or they have an interest in other pieces of research) and I can't see any particular reason to suppose that they'd be invested in the outcome of this study in particular.
- Clanan 9y ago
  Every patron of every piece of research is hoping to benefit from it. I certainly agree that a reader should consider the goals of the authors and backers, and I would hope the authors would make both clear. I just get piqued when intellectual laziness steps in and says "don't read this, it's funded by biased sponsors (i.e. humans)!"
  - randall 9y ago
    I think this is a very salient point... it's essentially ad hominem and I'm tempted to fall into this fallacy. Thanks!
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    >Every patron of every piece of research is hoping to benefit from it. A) Not always. Bill Gates funding malaria research doesn't benefit him. B) If you benefit from the research being accurate and truthful that's very different to only benefitting if the research yields a particular answer.

petermonsson 9y ago

I don’t see any of the these competing with Uber/Lyft. They may be suppliers. Where is the conflict?

omarforgotpwd 9y ago

Why would those companies want to smear Uber? Many of them profit from uber. Uber sells a ton of gas and cars.

rmc 9y ago
Additionally, Uber usage encourages car ownership and usage, as opposed to cycling or public transport.
- danpalmer 9y ago
  Does it? I'd have thought the opposite. The whole idea behind "ride sharing" is not needing to own a car, but being able to benefit from one when needed.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - thesumofall 9y ago
    Some people believe that Uber basically incentivizes people to switch from public transport. Hence, you’d have more cars on the road. Along the same lines you could argue that there are few people who already own a car who would sell their car just because of Uber
  - chatmasta 9y ago
    That’s the idea behind it for the passenger. Remember there’s another person on every side of your Uber transaction, who might have recently bought a car but would not have otherwise.
    - BurningFrog 9y ago
      Yes, but to spell out the obvious: There are a lot more passengers than drivers. This should result in fewer personally owned cars in total.

eevilspock 9y ago

Another conflict of interest worth examining is that of readers of these studies. Is it in your interest to discount or promote the study? Does your lifestyle, paycheck, politics or identity (as in identity politics) bias your read? What would a rejection of business models such as Uber's mean to SV, it's means of wealth, it's self-image?