4 ms·

It's the allure for sure but I imagine quite quickly gets proven wrong as you find yourself working certain hours due to higher rates and/or increased demand. W

It's the allure for sure but I imagine quite quickly gets proven wrong as you find yourself working certain hours due to higher rates and/or increased demand. With wages that low (these are Uber's own figures too) and close to no upward mobility career wise, it seems like a colossal dead end one could easily become trapped in. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for the maintenance costs of their car being used that more heavily too, which could abruptly land them in the red when a garage bill comes in.

dionidium 8y ago
>I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for the maintenance costs of their car Nearly every car owner fails to adequately budget for (or even understand) the full cost of ownership of their car :) Edit: I forgot my audience for a second. Guys, college-educated engineers and 1% developers aren't typical. People routinely fail to properly account for the TCO. The entire auto-sales model is centered around tricking people into accepting terms worse than the perceived TCO. Don't worry. I wasn't talking about you.
- fulafel 8y ago
  Even many engineers fail to account for the environmental externalities, which I must be part of any "full cost" model.
- gruez 8y ago
  >The entire auto-sales model is centered around tricking people into accepting terms worse than the perceived TCO. how? you mean long auto loan periods?
  - mamon 8y ago
    Rather, warranty that comes with mandatory technical inspections at authorized repair shops that cost you fortune, original spare parts that cost you another fortune, not to mention things like upgrading maps in your built in navigation system for 300 USD.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  I'm not sure why people fail to account for it, the IRS does the hard work and comes up with $0.53 per mile, so for most people just calculate how many miles you're traveling in a year and multiply by that, or add 20% to have a safe buffer. That includes the cost of gas, tire/oil changes, routine brake work. Or every time you go somewhere, the cost of a roundtrip is the number of miles to reach your destination, in dollars (since each mile costs around 50 cents, or more). Plus some for tolls and the rising gas costs, but a 20% buffer should take care of that. If you have a luxury car, add another 20% or 30%.
- carlmr 8y ago
  >Guys, college-educated engineers and 1% developers aren't typical. Even a lot of college-educated engineers seem to not account for it. I was on vacation with a few guys (most of them engineers). This was for a very long road trip (~3000km). They wanted to give the drivers the gas costs. I said the gas costs only cover a minimal part of expenses. I even gave them a back of the envelope calculation (insurance costs + average maintenance costs per km, etc.). They all just said that's not what the car costs. I said ok, I'm not willing to drive at that price. But I'll pay another person whatever the group agrees on, even if it's total cost in the end. They still went with gas costs. Gas is like 10 Euro cents per km in Germany (depending on car). The government assesses 30 cents per km. For a newer car the costs are much higher. I'm guessing the guy that drove incurred costs of roughly 50 cents per km (looking as his car was only 3 years old), and got back 10. That's 3000 * 0,4 = 1200€ he gifted the rest of us. I find this "gas costs" approach only works if all of your friends drive roughly the same. But living in a European city only a third of us even owns a car.
candiodari 8y ago
Well if you ever decide to freelance, expect the same. I mean there is a direct benefit/cost associated with working at specific times. If you optimize purely for money, expect to pay up in convenience, and happiness frankly.

dionidium 8y ago

>I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for the maintenance costs of their car Nearly every car owner fails to adequately budget for (or even understand) the full cost of ownership of their car :) Edit: I forgot my audience for a second. Guys, college-educated engineers and 1% developers aren't typical. People routinely fail to properly account for the TCO. The entire auto-sales model is centered around tricking people into accepting terms worse than the perceived TCO. Don't worry. I wasn't talking about you.

fulafel 8y ago
Even many engineers fail to account for the environmental externalities, which I must be part of any "full cost" model.
gruez 8y ago
>The entire auto-sales model is centered around tricking people into accepting terms worse than the perceived TCO. how? you mean long auto loan periods?
- mamon 8y ago
  Rather, warranty that comes with mandatory technical inspections at authorized repair shops that cost you fortune, original spare parts that cost you another fortune, not to mention things like upgrading maps in your built in navigation system for 300 USD.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
lotsofpulp 8y ago
I'm not sure why people fail to account for it, the IRS does the hard work and comes up with $0.53 per mile, so for most people just calculate how many miles you're traveling in a year and multiply by that, or add 20% to have a safe buffer. That includes the cost of gas, tire/oil changes, routine brake work. Or every time you go somewhere, the cost of a roundtrip is the number of miles to reach your destination, in dollars (since each mile costs around 50 cents, or more). Plus some for tolls and the rising gas costs, but a 20% buffer should take care of that. If you have a luxury car, add another 20% or 30%.
carlmr 8y ago
>Guys, college-educated engineers and 1% developers aren't typical. Even a lot of college-educated engineers seem to not account for it. I was on vacation with a few guys (most of them engineers). This was for a very long road trip (~3000km). They wanted to give the drivers the gas costs. I said the gas costs only cover a minimal part of expenses. I even gave them a back of the envelope calculation (insurance costs + average maintenance costs per km, etc.). They all just said that's not what the car costs. I said ok, I'm not willing to drive at that price. But I'll pay another person whatever the group agrees on, even if it's total cost in the end. They still went with gas costs. Gas is like 10 Euro cents per km in Germany (depending on car). The government assesses 30 cents per km. For a newer car the costs are much higher. I'm guessing the guy that drove incurred costs of roughly 50 cents per km (looking as his car was only 3 years old), and got back 10. That's 3000 * 0,4 = 1200€ he gifted the rest of us. I find this "gas costs" approach only works if all of your friends drive roughly the same. But living in a European city only a third of us even owns a car.

candiodari 8y ago

Well if you ever decide to freelance, expect the same. I mean there is a direct benefit/cost associated with working at specific times. If you optimize purely for money, expect to pay up in convenience, and happiness frankly.