5 ms·

If this actually gets enforced, I predict we'll all be talking about the law of unintended consequences in a year's time.

jackmodern 7y ago
don't know why this is getting down voted, all of you folks using lyft/uber.. get ready for the prices to double or triple.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  is this supposed to be an unintended consequence? We all know that the cheap rides of Uber are (partially) the result of them dodging around employer obligations.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
    And also losing $1B per quarter subsidizing cheap rides for growth and market share. There just really isn't that much demand for a $20 2-mile ride in the city. Uber has show that there is a HUGE demand for the same trip at $4.
    - jackmodern 7y ago
      you ever take a lyft or uber in NYC? you'd be surprised how many people are willing to pay those prices.
  - paul_f 7y ago
    I disagree with this. What other job on the planet allows me to work when I want to work, bring my own tools, have no boss, and never even talk to the company I am working for?
    - friendzis 7y ago
      This is usually called "self employment" or "owning a business"
    - IG_Semmelweiss 7y ago
      I dont understand why your comment is being downvoted. It is sad
    - mdorazio 7y ago
      To me, this is a lot like someone a hundred years ago asking, "what other job on the planet allows children to work around heavy machinery for half an adult wage?". No one here is saying that people shouldn't be able to drive for a rideshare company. We're saying that people who choose to do that should at least be paid a minimum wage for their time and given basic worker protections. If you oppose this kind of thing, you should probably also oppose minimum wage laws in general (which is a valid opinion).
- AndyMcConachie 7y ago
  If that means people driving for Uber/Lyft can now have a decent standard of living I'm all for it.
  - clinta 7y ago
    Even if it means that fewer people get the opportunity to to do it at all? I know people who drive for a little extra money while they work other jobs. This kind of flexibility is what might be at risk, excluding many people who need that extra income from ever getting the opportunity.
    - moate 7y ago
      So the trade off is always "more jobs" vs "better jobs". A company can hire 10 people at 10 dollars an hour or 20 people at 5 dollars an hour. Which situation is you believe is "better" depends on your end goal: Are you trying to make more small jobs, or are you trying to make jobs meaningful in their earning ability? Framed another way, the people you know driving for "a little extra cash" are chipping away at opportunities for someone to be consolidating those jobs into a single, better job. Not going to debate which is actually "better", because that's just personal opinions/economic model preferences.
      - miracle2k 7y ago
        > A company can hire 10 people at 10 dollars an hour or 20 people at 5 dollars an hour. No, it will probably exclude people who just want to work 2 hours some evenings whenever they have time to make some extra money, who'd make the full 10 dollars an hour like other drivers do in the time that they do work.
        moate 7y ago
        Frame it another way: You have 120 hours of shifts that you need covered at your job in a given week. You can hire 12 people who each work 10 hours, or 3 full-time employees. The "better" choice again comes down to your goal: More jobs or "better", full time jobs.
- drngdds 7y ago
  >don't know why this is getting down voted It's literally just "regulation bad!" with no argument backing it up
- Tiktaalik 7y ago
  Oh no workers will make a reasonable income!
  - mlindner 7y ago
    No, workers lose their jobs. 2-3x increase in prices is not sustainable for such services except for a minority of rides. UberX will disappear and it will become only UberBlack.
    - IG_Semmelweiss 7y ago
      Indeed. No one in hacker news is a senior or retirée knowing how uber changed their austere lives, for the better. Or riders for that matter. To my 80yr old mother, using uber has been a godsend. Its the only app she uses in her mobile. I dont even have uber on my phone. Somehow she figured out how to instal it and run it. She does not drive due to her age and she cant wait outside due to the cold at bus stops. Now thanks to this, either pricing will skyrocket, or availability will fall. No one in HN is a senior, so they are oblivious to it all. And this is 1 example. I'm sure there are others of families not having to do transportation juggling to move kids around, all of which is helped by ubers. But to the wage justice warriors of HN, it matters little that less people are earning, and less customers benefit. Or that elderly people that qualify for Medicaid like my mother , can free themselves from the chain of lack of transport... What matters to the wage warrior is that they can show "liveable wages" for the limited few. Disgusting
influx 7y ago
Won’t this just mean that Uber hires all their drivers, prevents them from driving on another service, waits for Lyft to die and then raise rates?
- dnautics 7y ago
  no, uber can just do what the taxi companies do, which is to charge the drivers for the service. That way, the drivers are customers and not employees.
- scottmsul 7y ago
  Everyone here's talking about Uber, I would guess most of the unintended consequences will be less visible. Smaller companies, freelancers, independent contractors, consultants, that whole ecosystem might undergo a chilling effect.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
One thing that I find disappointing in this legislation is that I wish it did essentially the reverse: instead of forcing the drivers to be employees, I wish it loosened the control Uber/Lyft had to bring it down to the level of what should be expected for independent contractors. The biggest issue for me is pricing - the fact that drivers have 0 input to rates always made the IC designation fiction. But if the apps worked eventually like a reverse auction, where drivers got to set their own rates and you could then choose based on distance and cost, that would be much more of a true marketplace model with independent sellers.
- helen___keller 7y ago
  > But if the apps worked eventually like a reverse auction, where drivers got to set their own rates and you could then choose based on distance and cost, that would be much more of a true marketplace model with independent sellers. It's interesting to think what kind of efficiencies could be unlocked with a more versatile and robust driver-client interaction. Could clients order a ride at X time to Y location and have drivers bid down to fulfill the ride? Could the bid-down process be performed automatically based on the driver's personal settings on pricing and location? Ultimately these efficiencies would make the driver's life better. The UI for the rider may be similar and the price may be similar (or higher!) as well. Uber and Lyft had their chance to show leadership and empower their drivers if they truly believed their drivers were contractors, rather than leaving them in some gray zone of partially contractor and partially employee.
- wilg 7y ago
  Wouldn't that still be allowed by this bill? If Uber reduced their control such that they could be considered contractors again?
  - ummonk 7y ago
    That would probably not be sufficient, because of other clauses in the bill.

jackmodern 7y ago

don't know why this is getting down voted, all of you folks using lyft/uber.. get ready for the prices to double or triple.

Barrin92 7y ago
is this supposed to be an unintended consequence? We all know that the cheap rides of Uber are (partially) the result of them dodging around employer obligations.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  And also losing $1B per quarter subsidizing cheap rides for growth and market share. There just really isn't that much demand for a $20 2-mile ride in the city. Uber has show that there is a HUGE demand for the same trip at $4.
  - jackmodern 7y ago
    you ever take a lyft or uber in NYC? you'd be surprised how many people are willing to pay those prices.
- paul_f 7y ago
  I disagree with this. What other job on the planet allows me to work when I want to work, bring my own tools, have no boss, and never even talk to the company I am working for?
  - friendzis 7y ago
    This is usually called "self employment" or "owning a business"
  - IG_Semmelweiss 7y ago
    I dont understand why your comment is being downvoted. It is sad
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    To me, this is a lot like someone a hundred years ago asking, "what other job on the planet allows children to work around heavy machinery for half an adult wage?". No one here is saying that people shouldn't be able to drive for a rideshare company. We're saying that people who choose to do that should at least be paid a minimum wage for their time and given basic worker protections. If you oppose this kind of thing, you should probably also oppose minimum wage laws in general (which is a valid opinion).
AndyMcConachie 7y ago
If that means people driving for Uber/Lyft can now have a decent standard of living I'm all for it.
- clinta 7y ago
  Even if it means that fewer people get the opportunity to to do it at all? I know people who drive for a little extra money while they work other jobs. This kind of flexibility is what might be at risk, excluding many people who need that extra income from ever getting the opportunity.
  - moate 7y ago
    So the trade off is always "more jobs" vs "better jobs". A company can hire 10 people at 10 dollars an hour or 20 people at 5 dollars an hour. Which situation is you believe is "better" depends on your end goal: Are you trying to make more small jobs, or are you trying to make jobs meaningful in their earning ability? Framed another way, the people you know driving for "a little extra cash" are chipping away at opportunities for someone to be consolidating those jobs into a single, better job. Not going to debate which is actually "better", because that's just personal opinions/economic model preferences.
    - miracle2k 7y ago
      > A company can hire 10 people at 10 dollars an hour or 20 people at 5 dollars an hour. No, it will probably exclude people who just want to work 2 hours some evenings whenever they have time to make some extra money, who'd make the full 10 dollars an hour like other drivers do in the time that they do work.
      - moate 7y ago
        Frame it another way: You have 120 hours of shifts that you need covered at your job in a given week. You can hire 12 people who each work 10 hours, or 3 full-time employees. The "better" choice again comes down to your goal: More jobs or "better", full time jobs.
drngdds 7y ago
>don't know why this is getting down voted It's literally just "regulation bad!" with no argument backing it up
Tiktaalik 7y ago
Oh no workers will make a reasonable income!
- mlindner 7y ago
  No, workers lose their jobs. 2-3x increase in prices is not sustainable for such services except for a minority of rides. UberX will disappear and it will become only UberBlack.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 7y ago
    Indeed. No one in hacker news is a senior or retirée knowing how uber changed their austere lives, for the better. Or riders for that matter. To my 80yr old mother, using uber has been a godsend. Its the only app she uses in her mobile. I dont even have uber on my phone. Somehow she figured out how to instal it and run it. She does not drive due to her age and she cant wait outside due to the cold at bus stops. Now thanks to this, either pricing will skyrocket, or availability will fall. No one in HN is a senior, so they are oblivious to it all. And this is 1 example. I'm sure there are others of families not having to do transportation juggling to move kids around, all of which is helped by ubers. But to the wage justice warriors of HN, it matters little that less people are earning, and less customers benefit. Or that elderly people that qualify for Medicaid like my mother , can free themselves from the chain of lack of transport... What matters to the wage warrior is that they can show "liveable wages" for the limited few. Disgusting

influx 7y ago

Won’t this just mean that Uber hires all their drivers, prevents them from driving on another service, waits for Lyft to die and then raise rates?

dnautics 7y ago
no, uber can just do what the taxi companies do, which is to charge the drivers for the service. That way, the drivers are customers and not employees.
scottmsul 7y ago
Everyone here's talking about Uber, I would guess most of the unintended consequences will be less visible. Smaller companies, freelancers, independent contractors, consultants, that whole ecosystem might undergo a chilling effect.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

One thing that I find disappointing in this legislation is that I wish it did essentially the reverse: instead of forcing the drivers to be employees, I wish it loosened the control Uber/Lyft had to bring it down to the level of what should be expected for independent contractors. The biggest issue for me is pricing - the fact that drivers have 0 input to rates always made the IC designation fiction. But if the apps worked eventually like a reverse auction, where drivers got to set their own rates and you could then choose based on distance and cost, that would be much more of a true marketplace model with independent sellers.

helen___keller 7y ago
> But if the apps worked eventually like a reverse auction, where drivers got to set their own rates and you could then choose based on distance and cost, that would be much more of a true marketplace model with independent sellers. It's interesting to think what kind of efficiencies could be unlocked with a more versatile and robust driver-client interaction. Could clients order a ride at X time to Y location and have drivers bid down to fulfill the ride? Could the bid-down process be performed automatically based on the driver's personal settings on pricing and location? Ultimately these efficiencies would make the driver's life better. The UI for the rider may be similar and the price may be similar (or higher!) as well. Uber and Lyft had their chance to show leadership and empower their drivers if they truly believed their drivers were contractors, rather than leaving them in some gray zone of partially contractor and partially employee.
wilg 7y ago
Wouldn't that still be allowed by this bill? If Uber reduced their control such that they could be considered contractors again?
- ummonk 7y ago
  That would probably not be sufficient, because of other clauses in the bill.