9 ms·

Lyft No Longer Showing What Individual Passengers Pay on Trips

113 points by throwaway413 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tempsy 7y ago
It's incredible how aggressively Lyft "woke-washed" their brand...and that people actually fell for it. If you had problems with Uber's business model, then Lyft is the exact same thing, though would argue Uber has built much more comprehensive safety features directly into their app than Lyft.
- pstuart 7y ago
  I fell for it with eyes intentionally closed, just like I have to do in so many other instances where I know that my luxuries have negative impacts on the world.
  - lmpostor 7y ago
    I got this blue pill I want to sell you :)
    - pstuart 7y ago
      It's certainly a delicate dance, isn't it?
- ProAm 7y ago
  On a humanitarian level Uber is by far worse.
  - tempsy 7y ago
    according to the media...not necessarily on purely objective terms
    - droopyEyelids 7y ago
      In support of your comment: We only hear about the abuses that happen to the white collar workers at these companies. However, the VAST majority of their workers are the voiceless blue collar drivers. Uber or Lyft could have a culture of handling driver-abuse that is beneficial or detrimental to hundreds of thousands, and we'd almost never hear about it.
      - tempsy 7y ago
        Yep - not sure why it's so controversial to suggest the media narrative is different than the opinion of actual drivers. Ask your driver next time which app they prefer.
      - ProAm 7y ago
        Even with how Uber has treated riders is horrific at times, no need to just focus on the employees/contractors. See my comment above for evidence.
    - ProAm 7y ago
      I'm sorry, Im pretty sure the evidence is clear [1] This is just one example. "A top Uber executive, who obtained the medical records of a customer who was a rape victim, has been fired" > according to the media... Who else besides the media should we listen to?.. the employees? Like this one? " As most of you know, I left Uber in December and joined Stripe in January. I've gotten a lot of questions over the past couple of months about why I left and what my time at Uber was like. It's a strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying story that deserves to be told while it is still fresh in my mind, so here we go" [2] [1] https://www.vox.com/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-india-assault-rape-medical-records https://www.vox.com/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-india-a... [2] 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...
- folkhack 7y ago
  They were higher margins for drivers for a while (2012ish) but the market has equalized that all out to the point where I've been told drivers make the same regardless of app these days (by drivers).
- 1123581321 7y ago
  It is, but as a continued Uber customer, I see it as a good thing. Uber needed a scary competitor in the US to force them to change quickly. They had playbooks to deal with regulatory threats that would have maintained status quo. Their playbook to deal with competitors was to quickly deploy changes that would erase Uber’s comparative deficiencies. Against Lyft, that deficiency was a lack of moral behavior signaling and the most straightforward way to achieve parity in that area was to uproot and out bad internal actors. :)
- cortesoft 7y ago
  I thought a big issue with Uber was sexism in their corporate offices?
  - tempsy 7y ago
    Any company with 10k full time employees will have some bad apples...
    - cortesoft 7y ago
      It is a bit different when the bad apple is the CEO and founder: https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/25/uber-ceo-kalanick-self-driving-car-crash/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/25/uber-ceo-kalanick-self-d...
      - tempsy 7y ago
        Those bars are everywhere in Korea, and if you read the story they didn't realize it was an "escort bar" until they were already there. I would blame the Uber Korea employees for bad judgement in bringing them there, not the CEO.
        cortesoft 7y ago
        They picked women by number to join them... they don't get a pass just because they didn't pick the place
        tempsy 7y ago
        Yes that is how it works. All "picking" someone means is that they sit there with you and keep you company while drinking. It's tamer than a typical bachelorette party in Las Vegas.
pstuart 7y ago
Unlike people, I think corporations should be considered guilty until proven innocent. Bring on the hate. Edit: it's an intentionally loaded statement. The `Bring on the hate` was a request for counter arguments rather than simple downvotes (go ahead if it makes you happy).
- xingped 7y ago
  Why do you think this? And what problems does it solve and how?
  - pstuart 7y ago
    Thank you for asking. Corporations are effectively machines designed for one purpose: making money. Now add in the fact that corporations are composed of people, and people typically put themselves first before others. The point is: money comes first, and truth is somewhere down the line. So if an accusation comes in that a corporation is doing something wrong and there is an obvious financial incentive for them to do so, and a "reasonable person" could construe such, then said corp should be rightfully compelled to prove otherwise. After all, if they have nothing to hide, then it should be such a big deal. tl;dr: Corporations aren't there for your health, but for theirs.
    - slfnflctd 7y ago
      As long as Citizens United is upheld, despite how extreme this may seem I actually agree with it. Provided there was a sufficiently high bar for proving "an obvious financial incentive for them" (I see that as the most tricky part). Of course it will never happen and I'd rather just have C.U. thrown out, but it's a decent thought experiment.
      - pstuart 7y ago
        CU was a travesty of justice. Money is not speech, money is power. It's not about proving incentives, it's about complaints like the OP being brushed off without satisfactory evidence. Do I have a good solution? No, but I do think that we need to continue to talk about "trust" in the business community. And I was kinda cranky atm.
dawnerd 7y ago
As a rider, I'm for this. I've had on more than one occasion a driver complain about how little I paid and checking their earning right in front of me. Maybe they were trying to guilt trip me into a higher tip, I don't know. Side note, ended up using a taxi in Orlando for the first time in years and it was surprisingly a much easier, cheaper, and faster ride (plus the driver knew the area and didn't need nav). Edit: I know they're doing this to screw drivers ultimately and that's not cool.
- MuffinFlavored 7y ago
  > Side note, ended up using a taxi in Orlando for the first time in years and it was surprisingly a much easier, cheaper, and faster ride (plus the driver knew the area and didn't need nav). Did you hail a taxi through an easy to use smartphone app?
  - untog 7y ago
    What's easier to use than holding your hand up while on the street? Or going to a taxi rank at the airport? Don't get me wrong, these apps have made arranging a ride a lot easier. But they're not a requirement in 100% of cases.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      > What's easier to use than holding your hand up while on the street? A smartphone app that essentially guarantees that the car will show up, and having shown up, won't listen to where you want to go and then refuse to take you there. > these apps have made arranging a ride a lot easier. But they're not a requirement in 100% of cases. When they are a requirement in cases as common as "it's raining", they might as well be a requirement in all cases.
    - smileysteve 7y ago
      > What's easier to use than holding your hand up while on the street? You won't find a taxi that way in a city like Orlando with the exception of a few hotels.
whack 7y ago
Relevant detail that I'm sure most commenters have not read: > drivers are directed to a web link that shows a weekly breakdown of their fares, how much Lyft took, and how much all of their riders paid during that time period in aggregate > Lyft explained how the decoupling of driver and rider payments influenced their decision to no longer show the driver what the rider paid. “Because driver pay is decoupled from what a rider pays, we wanted to highlight aggregate earnings content and basic insights like total hours & booked hours which can encourage drivers to rely less on individual ride details, which can be misleading, and more on the larger weekly earnings picture.” Ie, drivers can still see what passengers pay on trips, and what Lyft's take is. The only thing they can't see is what individual passengers paid on individual trips. I don't have a strong opinion on this change, but the above detail seems very relevant to the discussion on why this change is bad for drivers.
- ghostly_s 7y ago
  It seems clear they want to remove the disincentive for drivers to simply not work when higher pricing multipliers are not in effect (which they have the right to do if they are ostensibly independent contractors).
  - zoomablemind 7y ago
    Had the same impression about this. Also some drivers used these figures to cap their _daily_ driving. I guess there may be still some way to estimate this based on their experience.
- jbob2000 7y ago
  This could be a social politics move. By disassociating trips with money earned, it’ll stop a driver saying “I’m not going to accept a trip from these people/this area because then I won’t make as much money than if I waited for a trip from this person/this area”
  - kevin_b_er 7y ago
    That too. The drivers are not supposed to make decisions about clients like an independent contractor. Because they are employees. The rest is a fiction to get around labor rights.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
otterley 7y ago
Flagging for misleading headline. Passengers, of course, still get to see what they paid. It’s the driver who no longer gets to see it after the trip has completed; but they do get an aggregate report.
ping_pong 7y ago
If the drivers are paid by distance and time, why doesn't it matter how much the customer paid? It might have mattered when they were taking a cut of the original fare, but now that it's fixed to time and distance, it really is none of their concern.
mastre_ 7y ago
I literally got asked what I will tip by my Lyft driver, and was reminded multiple times during the trip about the tip. Now, I understand, and I did tip, but I did not enjoy the experience. This is after I got stringed along by a no show for almost 30 min (at 11:30 PM), someone who had no intention to show. The aggressive tip dude that took me basically told me that my fare was "too short" and nobody wants to take it, but how he's such a good guy and doesn't play that game and that's why I should tip him well. He also gave me some insight into how they game it -- they adapt (as they should) to whatever changes Lyft makes and find a way to game it; my first driver, the no show guy, used me and my time as part of his gaming the system to get a better fare. I ended up wasting 30 minutes of my life waiting for somebody that was never going to show; I was tired and 30 minutes of extra sleep that night would have been great. This was a few months ago from LAX to Venice. Last year ('18) was the last good year of ride sharing from LAX, 2-3 years ago it was actually great, I literally remember thinking how well the services work, how useful and pleasant they are for the customer, from the timeliness, to the cars, to the drivers and convos. Then in all went downhill, quick. Right now I loathe using UberLyft.
- throwawaylolx 7y ago
  >I literally got asked what I will tip by my Lyft driver, and was reminded multiple times during the trip about the tip. Now, I understand, and I did tip, but I did not enjoy the experience. This reads to me that you were pretty much harassed to tip.
  - mastre_ 7y ago
    > This reads to me that you were pretty much harassed to tip. I was, but he did save my ass and it was very late and I was tired, so I was honest with myself and realized I would pay for his service. And I understand, he needs to eat too. Just a crappy situation all around. I'm gonna take taxis from now, if no public transport is avail. My fav would be something like ZipCar if possible, like renting the car equivalent of a Bird.
- magic_beans 7y ago
  You shouldn't have tipped. Don't let people push you around because you feel uncomfortable.
40acres 7y ago
I learned yesterday that Uber maxes out tips at $10. My Uber driver returned my lost phone and I wanted to thank him with a big tip, unfortunately after giving $10 Uber suggests that you tip the driver further in cash. I'm confused about the rationale for this is..
- ngoel36 7y ago
  Uber automatically charges you $15 (to be awarded to the driver) for a lost item return: https://help.uber.com/riders/article/contact-driver-about-a-lost-item?nodeId=53539bde-f6f4-4909-85de-fa0b99f82be0&state=uGZUj-kj32mX4vcec9IbxxgQQKT2dWB-gRIvlmok2Qs%3D#_ https://help.uber.com/riders/article/contact-driver-about-a-...
  - tomjakubowski 7y ago
    What's Uber's cut of that fee?
    - icebraining 7y ago
      "The entire fee is passed on to the driver." https://help.uber.com/riders/article/lost-item-return-fee-?nodeId=633c684e-1d4b-426a-bd4f-6bee488dac6a https://help.uber.com/riders/article/lost-item-return-fee-?n...
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
I guess this way it would be easier for Lyft to claim these are not real employees but just contractors? IANAL so correct me if I'm wrong.
kbos87 7y ago
This feels like an important distinction between a platform that contractors can come and offer their services on and a business that has full fledged employees. When Lyft controls pricing and all of the information about pricing, it’s laughable for them to make the argument that “we are just a platform, people come here and operate their own businesses on their own terms!” Action by lawmakers to right this wrong will be less painful now than it will be the longer we wait.

113 points by throwaway413 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

It's incredible how aggressively Lyft "woke-washed" their brand...and that people actually fell for it. If you had problems with Uber's business model, then Lyft is the exact same thing, though would argue Uber has built much more comprehensive safety features directly into their app than Lyft.

pstuart 7y ago
I fell for it with eyes intentionally closed, just like I have to do in so many other instances where I know that my luxuries have negative impacts on the world.
- lmpostor 7y ago
  I got this blue pill I want to sell you :)
  - pstuart 7y ago
    It's certainly a delicate dance, isn't it?
ProAm 7y ago
On a humanitarian level Uber is by far worse.
- tempsy 7y ago
  according to the media...not necessarily on purely objective terms
  - droopyEyelids 7y ago
    In support of your comment: We only hear about the abuses that happen to the white collar workers at these companies. However, the VAST majority of their workers are the voiceless blue collar drivers. Uber or Lyft could have a culture of handling driver-abuse that is beneficial or detrimental to hundreds of thousands, and we'd almost never hear about it.
    - tempsy 7y ago
      Yep - not sure why it's so controversial to suggest the media narrative is different than the opinion of actual drivers. Ask your driver next time which app they prefer.
    - ProAm 7y ago
      Even with how Uber has treated riders is horrific at times, no need to just focus on the employees/contractors. See my comment above for evidence.
  - ProAm 7y ago
    I'm sorry, Im pretty sure the evidence is clear [1] This is just one example. "A top Uber executive, who obtained the medical records of a customer who was a rape victim, has been fired" > according to the media... Who else besides the media should we listen to?.. the employees? Like this one? " As most of you know, I left Uber in December and joined Stripe in January. I've gotten a lot of questions over the past couple of months about why I left and what my time at Uber was like. It's a strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying story that deserves to be told while it is still fresh in my mind, so here we go" [2] [1] https://www.vox.com/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-india-assault-rape-medical-records https://www.vox.com/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-india-a... [2] 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...
folkhack 7y ago
They were higher margins for drivers for a while (2012ish) but the market has equalized that all out to the point where I've been told drivers make the same regardless of app these days (by drivers).
1123581321 7y ago
It is, but as a continued Uber customer, I see it as a good thing. Uber needed a scary competitor in the US to force them to change quickly. They had playbooks to deal with regulatory threats that would have maintained status quo. Their playbook to deal with competitors was to quickly deploy changes that would erase Uber’s comparative deficiencies. Against Lyft, that deficiency was a lack of moral behavior signaling and the most straightforward way to achieve parity in that area was to uproot and out bad internal actors. :)
cortesoft 7y ago
I thought a big issue with Uber was sexism in their corporate offices?
- tempsy 7y ago
  Any company with 10k full time employees will have some bad apples...
  - cortesoft 7y ago
    It is a bit different when the bad apple is the CEO and founder: https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/25/uber-ceo-kalanick-self-driving-car-crash/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/25/uber-ceo-kalanick-self-d...
    - tempsy 7y ago
      Those bars are everywhere in Korea, and if you read the story they didn't realize it was an "escort bar" until they were already there. I would blame the Uber Korea employees for bad judgement in bringing them there, not the CEO.
      - cortesoft 7y ago
        They picked women by number to join them... they don't get a pass just because they didn't pick the place
        tempsy 7y ago
        Yes that is how it works. All "picking" someone means is that they sit there with you and keep you company while drinking. It's tamer than a typical bachelorette party in Las Vegas.

pstuart 7y ago

Unlike people, I think corporations should be considered guilty until proven innocent. Bring on the hate. Edit: it's an intentionally loaded statement. The `Bring on the hate` was a request for counter arguments rather than simple downvotes (go ahead if it makes you happy).

xingped 7y ago
Why do you think this? And what problems does it solve and how?
- pstuart 7y ago
  Thank you for asking. Corporations are effectively machines designed for one purpose: making money. Now add in the fact that corporations are composed of people, and people typically put themselves first before others. The point is: money comes first, and truth is somewhere down the line. So if an accusation comes in that a corporation is doing something wrong and there is an obvious financial incentive for them to do so, and a "reasonable person" could construe such, then said corp should be rightfully compelled to prove otherwise. After all, if they have nothing to hide, then it should be such a big deal. tl;dr: Corporations aren't there for your health, but for theirs.
  - slfnflctd 7y ago
    As long as Citizens United is upheld, despite how extreme this may seem I actually agree with it. Provided there was a sufficiently high bar for proving "an obvious financial incentive for them" (I see that as the most tricky part). Of course it will never happen and I'd rather just have C.U. thrown out, but it's a decent thought experiment.
    - pstuart 7y ago
      CU was a travesty of justice. Money is not speech, money is power. It's not about proving incentives, it's about complaints like the OP being brushed off without satisfactory evidence. Do I have a good solution? No, but I do think that we need to continue to talk about "trust" in the business community. And I was kinda cranky atm.

dawnerd 7y ago

As a rider, I'm for this. I've had on more than one occasion a driver complain about how little I paid and checking their earning right in front of me. Maybe they were trying to guilt trip me into a higher tip, I don't know. Side note, ended up using a taxi in Orlando for the first time in years and it was surprisingly a much easier, cheaper, and faster ride (plus the driver knew the area and didn't need nav). Edit: I know they're doing this to screw drivers ultimately and that's not cool.

MuffinFlavored 7y ago
> Side note, ended up using a taxi in Orlando for the first time in years and it was surprisingly a much easier, cheaper, and faster ride (plus the driver knew the area and didn't need nav). Did you hail a taxi through an easy to use smartphone app?
- untog 7y ago
  What's easier to use than holding your hand up while on the street? Or going to a taxi rank at the airport? Don't get me wrong, these apps have made arranging a ride a lot easier. But they're not a requirement in 100% of cases.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > What's easier to use than holding your hand up while on the street? A smartphone app that essentially guarantees that the car will show up, and having shown up, won't listen to where you want to go and then refuse to take you there. > these apps have made arranging a ride a lot easier. But they're not a requirement in 100% of cases. When they are a requirement in cases as common as "it's raining", they might as well be a requirement in all cases.
  - smileysteve 7y ago
    > What's easier to use than holding your hand up while on the street? You won't find a taxi that way in a city like Orlando with the exception of a few hotels.

whack 7y ago

Relevant detail that I'm sure most commenters have not read: > drivers are directed to a web link that shows a weekly breakdown of their fares, how much Lyft took, and how much all of their riders paid during that time period in aggregate > Lyft explained how the decoupling of driver and rider payments influenced their decision to no longer show the driver what the rider paid. “Because driver pay is decoupled from what a rider pays, we wanted to highlight aggregate earnings content and basic insights like total hours & booked hours which can encourage drivers to rely less on individual ride details, which can be misleading, and more on the larger weekly earnings picture.” Ie, drivers can still see what passengers pay on trips, and what Lyft's take is. The only thing they can't see is what individual passengers paid on individual trips. I don't have a strong opinion on this change, but the above detail seems very relevant to the discussion on why this change is bad for drivers.

ghostly_s 7y ago
It seems clear they want to remove the disincentive for drivers to simply not work when higher pricing multipliers are not in effect (which they have the right to do if they are ostensibly independent contractors).
- zoomablemind 7y ago
  Had the same impression about this. Also some drivers used these figures to cap their _daily_ driving. I guess there may be still some way to estimate this based on their experience.
jbob2000 7y ago
This could be a social politics move. By disassociating trips with money earned, it’ll stop a driver saying “I’m not going to accept a trip from these people/this area because then I won’t make as much money than if I waited for a trip from this person/this area”
- kevin_b_er 7y ago
  That too. The drivers are not supposed to make decisions about clients like an independent contractor. Because they are employees. The rest is a fiction to get around labor rights.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

otterley 7y ago

Flagging for misleading headline. Passengers, of course, still get to see what they paid. It’s the driver who no longer gets to see it after the trip has completed; but they do get an aggregate report.

ping_pong 7y ago

If the drivers are paid by distance and time, why doesn't it matter how much the customer paid? It might have mattered when they were taking a cut of the original fare, but now that it's fixed to time and distance, it really is none of their concern.

mastre_ 7y ago

I literally got asked what I will tip by my Lyft driver, and was reminded multiple times during the trip about the tip. Now, I understand, and I did tip, but I did not enjoy the experience. This is after I got stringed along by a no show for almost 30 min (at 11:30 PM), someone who had no intention to show. The aggressive tip dude that took me basically told me that my fare was "too short" and nobody wants to take it, but how he's such a good guy and doesn't play that game and that's why I should tip him well. He also gave me some insight into how they game it -- they adapt (as they should) to whatever changes Lyft makes and find a way to game it; my first driver, the no show guy, used me and my time as part of his gaming the system to get a better fare. I ended up wasting 30 minutes of my life waiting for somebody that was never going to show; I was tired and 30 minutes of extra sleep that night would have been great. This was a few months ago from LAX to Venice. Last year ('18) was the last good year of ride sharing from LAX, 2-3 years ago it was actually great, I literally remember thinking how well the services work, how useful and pleasant they are for the customer, from the timeliness, to the cars, to the drivers and convos. Then in all went downhill, quick. Right now I loathe using UberLyft.

throwawaylolx 7y ago
>I literally got asked what I will tip by my Lyft driver, and was reminded multiple times during the trip about the tip. Now, I understand, and I did tip, but I did not enjoy the experience. This reads to me that you were pretty much harassed to tip.
- mastre_ 7y ago
  > This reads to me that you were pretty much harassed to tip. I was, but he did save my ass and it was very late and I was tired, so I was honest with myself and realized I would pay for his service. And I understand, he needs to eat too. Just a crappy situation all around. I'm gonna take taxis from now, if no public transport is avail. My fav would be something like ZipCar if possible, like renting the car equivalent of a Bird.
magic_beans 7y ago
You shouldn't have tipped. Don't let people push you around because you feel uncomfortable.

40acres 7y ago

I learned yesterday that Uber maxes out tips at $10. My Uber driver returned my lost phone and I wanted to thank him with a big tip, unfortunately after giving $10 Uber suggests that you tip the driver further in cash. I'm confused about the rationale for this is..

ngoel36 7y ago
Uber automatically charges you $15 (to be awarded to the driver) for a lost item return: https://help.uber.com/riders/article/contact-driver-about-a-lost-item?nodeId=53539bde-f6f4-4909-85de-fa0b99f82be0&state=uGZUj-kj32mX4vcec9IbxxgQQKT2dWB-gRIvlmok2Qs%3D#_ https://help.uber.com/riders/article/contact-driver-about-a-...
- tomjakubowski 7y ago
  What's Uber's cut of that fee?
  - icebraining 7y ago
    "The entire fee is passed on to the driver." https://help.uber.com/riders/article/lost-item-return-fee-?nodeId=633c684e-1d4b-426a-bd4f-6bee488dac6a https://help.uber.com/riders/article/lost-item-return-fee-?n...

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

I guess this way it would be easier for Lyft to claim these are not real employees but just contractors? IANAL so correct me if I'm wrong.

kbos87 7y ago

This feels like an important distinction between a platform that contractors can come and offer their services on and a business that has full fledged employees. When Lyft controls pricing and all of the information about pricing, it’s laughable for them to make the argument that “we are just a platform, people come here and operate their own businesses on their own terms!” Action by lawmakers to right this wrong will be less painful now than it will be the longer we wait.