10 ms·

As it stands the price you pay for a ride in an uber is unfairly low. Driving it even lower would be irresponsible.

rubicon33 7y ago
Call me a snob, but Uber's criteria for what qualifies as an acceptable car has dramatically declined to the point where even Taxis are sometimes "nicer". Combine that with the fact that the drivers often don't know the neighborhood and rely exclusively on GPS (so tend to be worse drivers than a taxi). I'm left feeling like the fare - strictly from the perspective of a consumer - is actually too high.
- mlindner 7y ago
  That's when Uber Black is an option. Which is around what traditional taxis used to cost.
- cbhl 7y ago
  What are your thoughts on Uber Select / Uber Black / Lyft Lux / Lyft Lux Black?
  - rubicon33 7y ago
    Definitely a fan of the Select and Black options. In fact, I've been using them more and more. The price - while higher - feels more aligned with what I would consider to be "good value". Ranked in order of importance for me are: - A competent + safe driver, preferably someone who knows the area. - A nice, clean, comfortable ride. - A driver who doesn't talk to me. All 3 of these are markedly improved in both the Select and Black options. Given I don't take Uber that often, I can justify the expense. If it was something I relied upon on a more regular basis I just don't think I could justify using Select/Black.
    - seppin 7y ago
      > Definitely a fan of the Select and Black options. In fact, I've been using them more and more. How was burning man this year?
    - caseyohara 7y ago
      > A driver who doesn't talk to me I wish "Quiet Ride, Please" was an option in the app.
      - kelnos 7y ago
        I wish drivers that pick me up from the airport (or who are taking me to the airport at an early hour) would have some sense of situational awareness and realize that someone who just got off a plane (or is waking up early to catch a flight) might not be feeling all that chatty, and just wants to sit back, close their eyes, and enjoy some peace and quiet.
        BigJono 7y ago
        I wonder if this is a uniquely American problem. Over here (Australia) it's always a couple of short sentences ('how'zit goin'?', 'yeah good') then awkward silence the rest of the trip. Unless the cricket is on the radio, then all bets are off.
        kelnos 7y ago
        I figure probably 80% of my rides are as you describe. But I don't know what it is about airport pickups. I guess it's easy to start a conversation with "where are you flying from?" maybe, and then they don't want to stop after I give a terse answer.
        jacksproit 7y ago
        You could always ask....
      - sib 7y ago
        I always thought this should be a "swipe left / swipe right" thing for both driver & passenger. If they both indicate they want to chat, talk away.
        lukevdp 7y ago
        Or you can use the voice activated option with the driver. You just need to say “I’m feeling pretty tired right now and don’t feel like chatting”
  - cge 7y ago
    Uber Black, at least for me, is not a good option because it usually (seemingly every time in LA) results in getting a giant SUV. These are not comfortable, and are not discreet, by comparison to good sedans.
    - speedplane 7y ago
      > Uber Black, at least for me, is not a good option because it usually (seemingly every time in LA) results in getting a giant SUV. These ... are not discreet, by comparison to good sedans. I am dubious. You live in LA and want to be discreet?
- parksy 7y ago
  Yeah an uber that smells of farts, vomit and piss, and the seats are sticky... that has become more commonplace for standard uber. Uberx is much nicer for an extra dollar or two (for standard trips), no more farty taxis. But using my power of recollection - taxis were a crapshoot before uber came along too. Some were okay, some were disgusting. I have not had (after a night out at a comedy lounge with my wife) an uber driver chase me into another uber, try and yank open the door yelling "I was first in line! You fuck! You Fuck! Get out!" while my taxi driver speeds away tires squealing. Since uber came along, the quality of standard taxis here in Perth has increased dramatically. The result is a net positive.
  - rubicon33 7y ago
    Totally agree that in the past Taxis were MUCH more of a crapshoot, but lately they've really stepped their game up, which I think is attributable to Uber/Lyft. So all in all, I think it's been a net positive for the consumer.
- cabaalis 7y ago
  > drivers often don't know the neighborhood and rely exclusively on GPS I drove for Uber about 3 years ago for a couple of months when getting my consultancy off the ground, which led to my current gig. If I had a way to tell Uber "Don't give me rides that require me to leave a given geofence--we'll all have a bad time." Then I'd have been much, much happier. Everyone wanted a ride from my suburban town to the metro area that I know nothing about. Every now and then I'd get one where start point and endpoint were both my own town. I'd have happily taken less fares in order to drive more familiar streets, and the people who rode with me would have enjoyed it more.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    The problem there is twofold: 1) Many drivers from your town would likely geofence themselves to your town, reducing the supply of drivers that will drive to the metro area, increasing wait times and driving up prices, making riders unhappy. 2) Drivers would use this feature to avoid driving to "bad" parts of town, making transportation discriminatory. (In ways that are illegal for traditional taxi companies, so Uber would eventually run afoul of the same regulations.) It's a shame because there are reasonable use cases for a geofencing feature (you seem to certainly be one of them), but it can be easily abused and can hurt the rider experience depending on locale. (Not saying the rider experience is inherently more important, but certainly Uber/Lyft would see it that way.)
    - cabaalis 7y ago
      For #1, it seems the market would adjust. We already see complaints about drivers not knowing the area they're driving in. Would it reassure riders to know that their driver spends 99% of driving time in an area they're riding? For #2, sincere problem for which I am not aware of a good solution.
      - kelnos 7y ago
        Not if there aren't enough drivers there, period. I'd much rather a driver unfamiliar with my city who needs Google Maps to get me to my destination if the alternative is I have to wait 20 minutes for a car.
- GordonS 7y ago
  > Combine that with the fact that the drivers often don't know the neighborhood I used to travel to Houston quite a lot. Not sure if this is representative of taxis in general in the US, but the taxi drivers never knew the neighbourhood. I couldn't say "I want to go to Acme Stuff in X district", I had to give a "Cross road" (a very US thing, that) and the driver would use satnav based on that. It did seem that a lot of taxi drivers were recent immigrants (invariably chatty), so that accounts for some, but not all. At first, this was a surprise, as in my native UK I can literally give a street name within 50 miles of where I am, and the driver cocks their head for a second, gears whir, and yes! They know it!
  - astrodust 7y ago
    That's probably because becoming a taxi driver in places like London is extremely hard (https://www.theknowledgetaxi.co.uk https://www.theknowledgetaxi.co.uk), while becoming a taxi driver in Houston is probably as simple as "do you have a license?"
    - wrboyce 7y ago
      Yes, London is the whole UK. EDIT: If it sets a standard then why has that standard not been adopted nationwide? Your argument is dead in the water and I can only assume you’re speaking as a person who has never visited the UK.
      - astrodust 7y ago
        It sets a standard. The US has no such equivalent.
    - maxlybbert 7y ago
      I lived in a small New Jersey town where getting a taxi medallion involved little more than paying $100 and promising to charge every customer no more than $5 (for in-town trips).
    - GordonS 7y ago
      I'm not in London, or even England. AFAIK, it's relatively straightforward to get a taxi license anywhere in the UK but London.
- GordonS 7y ago
  > Uber's criteria for what qualifies as an acceptable car has dramatically declined to the point where even Taxis are sometimes "nicer" In my travels to the US, which almost exclusively meant Houston, the taxis were always very basic, "boxy" cars; not sure about make/model, but they always felt "cheap". Meanwhile in Europe, a lot of taxis are Mercedes E class saloons, or high-spec saloons from other makers.
  - astrodust 7y ago
    A taxi in Europe is akin to an "airport limo" in North America. The differences are astounding.
    - Bayart 7y ago
      Here in France taxi driving is pretty hard to get into. You not only need to pass an exam, but you also need a licence that can be bought or rented from its owner, which is really expensive. New licences are basically non-existent. In comparison the cost of the car itself isn't as important, so drivers put some effort into it. And they're more professional. I've never once in my life talked to a taxi driver in France besides entering and leaving the car.
      - namdnay 7y ago
        You’ve identified one of the reasons for having nice cars, which is the relative low cost of the car as compared to buying the licence. The others are that they are only paying about 50% of the cost of their cars (as the installments are deductible from gross income), they get subsidised diesel (hence the ludicrously overpowered v6 German engines when the rest of the world is running on Japanese hybrids), and most importantly they get to use the vehicle as their personal car when not working...
    - photonios 7y ago
      Depends on where you are in Europe. Here in Romania, taxis are consistently horrible. The cars are usually old and not well maintained. It's not uncommon to see duck taped airbags. The drivers are far from friendly. But! They are consistently horrible in my experience. Not once has one ripped me off and they always use the meter. They know every address you throw at them and get you there safely. No matter the hour. They're also dirt cheap. 2.25 RON/km. So that's about $0.55/km. For the Romanians reading this; Bucharest is an exception and I've had nothing but bad experiences with cabs there. My experiences are based on using cabs weekly in major Transylvanian cities.
- duxup 7y ago
  A while back in Chicago I was picked up for Uber, in a Taxi... that also drove for the other services and was tied to a local taxi company. Not a bad ride that one, but that guy had all his bases covered...
- clhodapp 7y ago
  I'm with you right until the line break. The thing is: even for the quality-declined cars, we are not paying enough to cover the costs. Those are simply the economics of using a phone app to hire a person to come and pick you up in their car and then drive you somewhere. The truth is that if you want to pay less for transport then you need to not be taking human-driven taxis.
  - fwip 7y ago
    Yep. Uber is subsidising the fares and even then the drivers are barely making minimum wage, after accounting for their expenses.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >Call me a snob You're a snob. I wish they'd relax their policy on vehicles. I would have no problem riding in 90s shitboxes. I would find it novel. As long as it's been vacuumed that week I don't care what condition it's in.
  - tomjakubowski 7y ago
    I'd rather pass on 90s-era safety tech
    - kortilla 7y ago
      Such as?
      - macintux 7y ago
        Well, in the 90s pretty much the entire car was the crumple zone. (That may be a slight exaggeration.) ABS wasn’t as common. https://www.wired.com/2017/02/watch-terrifyingly-bad-car-safety-just-20-years-ago/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/watch-terrifyingly-bad-car-saf...
  - outside1234 7y ago
    They should add a tier of service so that you can choose as a rider.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- cyphar 7y ago
  > I'm left feeling like the fare - strictly from the perspective of a consumer - is actually too high. Not to mention personal risk if you consider how dangerous some Uber drivers are. However if you consider the cost of car maintenance, annual depreciation on a taxi-like vehicle, and petrol the fares are actually very low. I would be willing to bet that a lot of Uber drivers are wavering around breaking even on the long run. Maybe that's why a lot of drivers' cars aren't as well-groomed as they used to be. Now, I get that "from a consumer perspective" this is irrelevant, but it does mean that a cheaper service is simply not possible without sacrificing something.
  - lugg 7y ago
    The beauty of the uber model is that drivers don't even need to break even. Very few I speak to are doing it full time to make money. Most are doing it as a side hustle for a little extra cash before or after work. Or they're using the money to justify spending more on their dream car. They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway. Or at least the extra uber usage is going to be negligible compared to the time based depreciation.
    - cyphar 7y ago
      > Very few I speak to are doing it full time to make money. Interesting. Anecdotally, in Sydney it seems almost all Uber drivers I meet are doing it full-time now. A few years ago, it was just a side-gig for most but I think the demographics have shifted quite a lot. > They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway. Not if you're driving it 10x more than you normally would. Mileage affects the resale value and increases the likelihood of additional maintenance work (especially if you're doing city driving which is substantially more stressful on cars).
      - JBlue42 7y ago
        In LA, Uber drivers seem to be more like former shitty taxi drivers. Lyft drivers are for more likely to be part-time hoi polloi.
- rblatz 7y ago
  I feel like it depends on the city. In Phoenix I typically get a relatively nice car with a fairly normal guy or girl that drives a relatively newer car as a side gig, or to keep busy during retirement. Conversely in Columbus Ohio all the drivers I’ve had recently are clearly former taxi drivers that migrated to Uber. The cars are old and beat up, the insides are dirty, and the drivers disregard the app’s directions usually taking us to the wrong spot.
- deanCommie 7y ago
  Where are you finding these magical cabbies that know the city better than GPS? My p99 experience is the opposite (Except in London where they have The Knowledge I agree that when it comes to finding the most efficient routes across town, cab drivers are better (especially during rush hour), but once they get to the right street the experience is so much better with Uber/Lyft/GPS. "It's the red building in the middle of the next block. No, the next block. No, a bit further. The...it's fine, I'll just get out here." vs. "Perfect, thanks!"
aglavine 7y ago
The way to change it is affordable EV cars ===> less fuel costs
- URSpider94 7y ago
  Fuel costs aren’t a huge factor for most cars. It’s the time and vehicle depreciation and maintenance that add up.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    I don't know the numbers, or if there's even enough long term data to provide the numbers yet, but supposedly the lack of a combustion engine should eliminate much of the maintenance. How much is offset by other problems EVs have compared to combustion engines, I don't know.
stale2002 7y ago
Says you. That sounds awesome to me! How about we let consumers decide what the right "price" is? If you don't like it, then you should feel free to use the higher priced/quality alternatives!
- Skunkleton 7y ago
  Is it OK that there is slave labor in the coffee supply chain? If consumer price is the only metric, then I guess that is OK?
parksy 7y ago
I totally agree.
lukecameron 7y ago
It's kind of hard to predict which way the fare would go for such a service... It might actually end up being higher than what Uber is currently charging. Which wouldn't be a bad thing necessarily.
kortilla 7y ago
The drivers don’t have to bid. Do you find eBay auctions “irresponsible”? You can’t hide from the market.
- Skunkleton 7y ago
  Do you not support minimum wage laws?
axaxs 7y ago
But it's really not. At one time it was, but at least in my city, it's sanely priced. When I travel for work for example, an Uber takes my wife and child to school and back. The roundtrip time is about 15 minutes, and the cost is usually 12 to 14 dollars. That's at minimum 48 dollars per hour, which is the upper end of middle class here. My most recent trip to SF, my ride from Berkley to Downtown each day was about 30 dollars for about a 30 minute trip. 60/hour doesn't sound absurd for that region.
- URSpider94 7y ago
  A few issues with your calculation: 1. Drivers are not productive 100% of the time, 50% utilization is more common, so knock that hourly rate in half. 2. That’s revenue, not profit: you have to pay for gas, maintenance, depreciation, and probably higher insurance premiums for driving commercial and/or high mileage. The IRS deduction for business mileage for 2019 is 58 cents per mile, this is meant to be a median all-in cost, so subtract that from your fare, and subtract half again for the miles spent driving between fares or getting home after the last ride of the day.
  - Skunkleton 7y ago
    For many drivers, you also need to factor in the car payment. Lots of Uber drivers bought their car specifically for Uber (and sometimes from Uber).

Call me a snob, but Uber's criteria for what qualifies as an acceptable car has dramatically declined to the point where even Taxis are sometimes "nicer". Combine that with the fact that the drivers often don't know the neighborhood and rely exclusively on GPS (so tend to be worse drivers than a taxi). I'm left feeling like the fare - strictly from the perspective of a consumer - is actually too high.

mlindner 7y ago
That's when Uber Black is an option. Which is around what traditional taxis used to cost.
cbhl 7y ago
What are your thoughts on Uber Select / Uber Black / Lyft Lux / Lyft Lux Black?
- rubicon33 7y ago
  Definitely a fan of the Select and Black options. In fact, I've been using them more and more. The price - while higher - feels more aligned with what I would consider to be "good value". Ranked in order of importance for me are: - A competent + safe driver, preferably someone who knows the area. - A nice, clean, comfortable ride. - A driver who doesn't talk to me. All 3 of these are markedly improved in both the Select and Black options. Given I don't take Uber that often, I can justify the expense. If it was something I relied upon on a more regular basis I just don't think I could justify using Select/Black.
  - seppin 7y ago
    > Definitely a fan of the Select and Black options. In fact, I've been using them more and more. How was burning man this year?
  - caseyohara 7y ago
    > A driver who doesn't talk to me I wish "Quiet Ride, Please" was an option in the app.
    - kelnos 7y ago
      I wish drivers that pick me up from the airport (or who are taking me to the airport at an early hour) would have some sense of situational awareness and realize that someone who just got off a plane (or is waking up early to catch a flight) might not be feeling all that chatty, and just wants to sit back, close their eyes, and enjoy some peace and quiet.
      - BigJono 7y ago
        I wonder if this is a uniquely American problem. Over here (Australia) it's always a couple of short sentences ('how'zit goin'?', 'yeah good') then awkward silence the rest of the trip. Unless the cricket is on the radio, then all bets are off.
        kelnos 7y ago
        I figure probably 80% of my rides are as you describe. But I don't know what it is about airport pickups. I guess it's easy to start a conversation with "where are you flying from?" maybe, and then they don't want to stop after I give a terse answer.
      - jacksproit 7y ago
        You could always ask....
    - sib 7y ago
      I always thought this should be a "swipe left / swipe right" thing for both driver & passenger. If they both indicate they want to chat, talk away.
      - lukevdp 7y ago
        Or you can use the voice activated option with the driver. You just need to say “I’m feeling pretty tired right now and don’t feel like chatting”
- cge 7y ago
  Uber Black, at least for me, is not a good option because it usually (seemingly every time in LA) results in getting a giant SUV. These are not comfortable, and are not discreet, by comparison to good sedans.
  - speedplane 7y ago
    > Uber Black, at least for me, is not a good option because it usually (seemingly every time in LA) results in getting a giant SUV. These ... are not discreet, by comparison to good sedans. I am dubious. You live in LA and want to be discreet?
parksy 7y ago
Yeah an uber that smells of farts, vomit and piss, and the seats are sticky... that has become more commonplace for standard uber. Uberx is much nicer for an extra dollar or two (for standard trips), no more farty taxis. But using my power of recollection - taxis were a crapshoot before uber came along too. Some were okay, some were disgusting. I have not had (after a night out at a comedy lounge with my wife) an uber driver chase me into another uber, try and yank open the door yelling "I was first in line! You fuck! You Fuck! Get out!" while my taxi driver speeds away tires squealing. Since uber came along, the quality of standard taxis here in Perth has increased dramatically. The result is a net positive.
- rubicon33 7y ago
  Totally agree that in the past Taxis were MUCH more of a crapshoot, but lately they've really stepped their game up, which I think is attributable to Uber/Lyft. So all in all, I think it's been a net positive for the consumer.
cabaalis 7y ago
> drivers often don't know the neighborhood and rely exclusively on GPS I drove for Uber about 3 years ago for a couple of months when getting my consultancy off the ground, which led to my current gig. If I had a way to tell Uber "Don't give me rides that require me to leave a given geofence--we'll all have a bad time." Then I'd have been much, much happier. Everyone wanted a ride from my suburban town to the metro area that I know nothing about. Every now and then I'd get one where start point and endpoint were both my own town. I'd have happily taken less fares in order to drive more familiar streets, and the people who rode with me would have enjoyed it more.
- kelnos 7y ago
  The problem there is twofold: 1) Many drivers from your town would likely geofence themselves to your town, reducing the supply of drivers that will drive to the metro area, increasing wait times and driving up prices, making riders unhappy. 2) Drivers would use this feature to avoid driving to "bad" parts of town, making transportation discriminatory. (In ways that are illegal for traditional taxi companies, so Uber would eventually run afoul of the same regulations.) It's a shame because there are reasonable use cases for a geofencing feature (you seem to certainly be one of them), but it can be easily abused and can hurt the rider experience depending on locale. (Not saying the rider experience is inherently more important, but certainly Uber/Lyft would see it that way.)
  - cabaalis 7y ago
    For #1, it seems the market would adjust. We already see complaints about drivers not knowing the area they're driving in. Would it reassure riders to know that their driver spends 99% of driving time in an area they're riding? For #2, sincere problem for which I am not aware of a good solution.
    - kelnos 7y ago
      Not if there aren't enough drivers there, period. I'd much rather a driver unfamiliar with my city who needs Google Maps to get me to my destination if the alternative is I have to wait 20 minutes for a car.
GordonS 7y ago
> Combine that with the fact that the drivers often don't know the neighborhood I used to travel to Houston quite a lot. Not sure if this is representative of taxis in general in the US, but the taxi drivers never knew the neighbourhood. I couldn't say "I want to go to Acme Stuff in X district", I had to give a "Cross road" (a very US thing, that) and the driver would use satnav based on that. It did seem that a lot of taxi drivers were recent immigrants (invariably chatty), so that accounts for some, but not all. At first, this was a surprise, as in my native UK I can literally give a street name within 50 miles of where I am, and the driver cocks their head for a second, gears whir, and yes! They know it!
- astrodust 7y ago
  That's probably because becoming a taxi driver in places like London is extremely hard (https://www.theknowledgetaxi.co.uk https://www.theknowledgetaxi.co.uk), while becoming a taxi driver in Houston is probably as simple as "do you have a license?"
  - wrboyce 7y ago
    Yes, London is the whole UK. EDIT: If it sets a standard then why has that standard not been adopted nationwide? Your argument is dead in the water and I can only assume you’re speaking as a person who has never visited the UK.
    - astrodust 7y ago
      It sets a standard. The US has no such equivalent.
  - maxlybbert 7y ago
    I lived in a small New Jersey town where getting a taxi medallion involved little more than paying $100 and promising to charge every customer no more than $5 (for in-town trips).
  - GordonS 7y ago
    I'm not in London, or even England. AFAIK, it's relatively straightforward to get a taxi license anywhere in the UK but London.
GordonS 7y ago
> Uber's criteria for what qualifies as an acceptable car has dramatically declined to the point where even Taxis are sometimes "nicer" In my travels to the US, which almost exclusively meant Houston, the taxis were always very basic, "boxy" cars; not sure about make/model, but they always felt "cheap". Meanwhile in Europe, a lot of taxis are Mercedes E class saloons, or high-spec saloons from other makers.
- astrodust 7y ago
  A taxi in Europe is akin to an "airport limo" in North America. The differences are astounding.
  - Bayart 7y ago
    Here in France taxi driving is pretty hard to get into. You not only need to pass an exam, but you also need a licence that can be bought or rented from its owner, which is really expensive. New licences are basically non-existent. In comparison the cost of the car itself isn't as important, so drivers put some effort into it. And they're more professional. I've never once in my life talked to a taxi driver in France besides entering and leaving the car.
    - namdnay 7y ago
      You’ve identified one of the reasons for having nice cars, which is the relative low cost of the car as compared to buying the licence. The others are that they are only paying about 50% of the cost of their cars (as the installments are deductible from gross income), they get subsidised diesel (hence the ludicrously overpowered v6 German engines when the rest of the world is running on Japanese hybrids), and most importantly they get to use the vehicle as their personal car when not working...
  - photonios 7y ago
    Depends on where you are in Europe. Here in Romania, taxis are consistently horrible. The cars are usually old and not well maintained. It's not uncommon to see duck taped airbags. The drivers are far from friendly. But! They are consistently horrible in my experience. Not once has one ripped me off and they always use the meter. They know every address you throw at them and get you there safely. No matter the hour. They're also dirt cheap. 2.25 RON/km. So that's about $0.55/km. For the Romanians reading this; Bucharest is an exception and I've had nothing but bad experiences with cabs there. My experiences are based on using cabs weekly in major Transylvanian cities.
duxup 7y ago
A while back in Chicago I was picked up for Uber, in a Taxi... that also drove for the other services and was tied to a local taxi company. Not a bad ride that one, but that guy had all his bases covered...
clhodapp 7y ago
I'm with you right until the line break. The thing is: even for the quality-declined cars, we are not paying enough to cover the costs. Those are simply the economics of using a phone app to hire a person to come and pick you up in their car and then drive you somewhere. The truth is that if you want to pay less for transport then you need to not be taking human-driven taxis.
- fwip 7y ago
  Yep. Uber is subsidising the fares and even then the drivers are barely making minimum wage, after accounting for their expenses.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>Call me a snob You're a snob. I wish they'd relax their policy on vehicles. I would have no problem riding in 90s shitboxes. I would find it novel. As long as it's been vacuumed that week I don't care what condition it's in.
- tomjakubowski 7y ago
  I'd rather pass on 90s-era safety tech
  - kortilla 7y ago
    Such as?
    - macintux 7y ago
      Well, in the 90s pretty much the entire car was the crumple zone. (That may be a slight exaggeration.) ABS wasn’t as common. https://www.wired.com/2017/02/watch-terrifyingly-bad-car-safety-just-20-years-ago/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/watch-terrifyingly-bad-car-saf...
- outside1234 7y ago
  They should add a tier of service so that you can choose as a rider.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
cyphar 7y ago
> I'm left feeling like the fare - strictly from the perspective of a consumer - is actually too high. Not to mention personal risk if you consider how dangerous some Uber drivers are. However if you consider the cost of car maintenance, annual depreciation on a taxi-like vehicle, and petrol the fares are actually very low. I would be willing to bet that a lot of Uber drivers are wavering around breaking even on the long run. Maybe that's why a lot of drivers' cars aren't as well-groomed as they used to be. Now, I get that "from a consumer perspective" this is irrelevant, but it does mean that a cheaper service is simply not possible without sacrificing something.
- lugg 7y ago
  The beauty of the uber model is that drivers don't even need to break even. Very few I speak to are doing it full time to make money. Most are doing it as a side hustle for a little extra cash before or after work. Or they're using the money to justify spending more on their dream car. They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway. Or at least the extra uber usage is going to be negligible compared to the time based depreciation.
  - cyphar 7y ago
    > Very few I speak to are doing it full time to make money. Interesting. Anecdotally, in Sydney it seems almost all Uber drivers I meet are doing it full-time now. A few years ago, it was just a side-gig for most but I think the demographics have shifted quite a lot. > They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway. Not if you're driving it 10x more than you normally would. Mileage affects the resale value and increases the likelihood of additional maintenance work (especially if you're doing city driving which is substantially more stressful on cars).
    - JBlue42 7y ago
      In LA, Uber drivers seem to be more like former shitty taxi drivers. Lyft drivers are for more likely to be part-time hoi polloi.
rblatz 7y ago
I feel like it depends on the city. In Phoenix I typically get a relatively nice car with a fairly normal guy or girl that drives a relatively newer car as a side gig, or to keep busy during retirement. Conversely in Columbus Ohio all the drivers I’ve had recently are clearly former taxi drivers that migrated to Uber. The cars are old and beat up, the insides are dirty, and the drivers disregard the app’s directions usually taking us to the wrong spot.
deanCommie 7y ago
Where are you finding these magical cabbies that know the city better than GPS? My p99 experience is the opposite (Except in London where they have The Knowledge I agree that when it comes to finding the most efficient routes across town, cab drivers are better (especially during rush hour), but once they get to the right street the experience is so much better with Uber/Lyft/GPS. "It's the red building in the middle of the next block. No, the next block. No, a bit further. The...it's fine, I'll just get out here." vs. "Perfect, thanks!"

aglavine 7y ago

The way to change it is affordable EV cars ===> less fuel costs

URSpider94 7y ago
Fuel costs aren’t a huge factor for most cars. It’s the time and vehicle depreciation and maintenance that add up.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I don't know the numbers, or if there's even enough long term data to provide the numbers yet, but supposedly the lack of a combustion engine should eliminate much of the maintenance. How much is offset by other problems EVs have compared to combustion engines, I don't know.

stale2002 7y ago

Says you. That sounds awesome to me! How about we let consumers decide what the right "price" is? If you don't like it, then you should feel free to use the higher priced/quality alternatives!

Skunkleton 7y ago
Is it OK that there is slave labor in the coffee supply chain? If consumer price is the only metric, then I guess that is OK?

parksy 7y ago

I totally agree.

lukecameron 7y ago

It's kind of hard to predict which way the fare would go for such a service... It might actually end up being higher than what Uber is currently charging. Which wouldn't be a bad thing necessarily.

kortilla 7y ago

The drivers don’t have to bid. Do you find eBay auctions “irresponsible”? You can’t hide from the market.

Skunkleton 7y ago
Do you not support minimum wage laws?

axaxs 7y ago

But it's really not. At one time it was, but at least in my city, it's sanely priced. When I travel for work for example, an Uber takes my wife and child to school and back. The roundtrip time is about 15 minutes, and the cost is usually 12 to 14 dollars. That's at minimum 48 dollars per hour, which is the upper end of middle class here. My most recent trip to SF, my ride from Berkley to Downtown each day was about 30 dollars for about a 30 minute trip. 60/hour doesn't sound absurd for that region.

URSpider94 7y ago
A few issues with your calculation: 1. Drivers are not productive 100% of the time, 50% utilization is more common, so knock that hourly rate in half. 2. That’s revenue, not profit: you have to pay for gas, maintenance, depreciation, and probably higher insurance premiums for driving commercial and/or high mileage. The IRS deduction for business mileage for 2019 is 58 cents per mile, this is meant to be a median all-in cost, so subtract that from your fare, and subtract half again for the miles spent driving between fares or getting home after the last ride of the day.
- Skunkleton 7y ago
  For many drivers, you also need to factor in the car payment. Lots of Uber drivers bought their car specifically for Uber (and sometimes from Uber).