7 ms·

To add some data to the "exploitation" argument, consider this: “Imagine developing a company specifically to take advantage of people’s ignorance of how expen

• frockington1 7y ago
  This seems like a fault by the individual being 'exploited'. I don't think it is the job of a corporation to run an a cost-benefit analysis tailored for watch individual. There is also no obligation to continue driving, so if the drivers cost-benefit isn't what they thought they can always find something else
  • vernie 7y ago
    I'm guessing you love the way healthcare currently works in US. So many choices! Who doesn't love a combinatorial explosion?
    • frockington1 7y ago
      I'm not as opposed to most people. I certainly enjoy all of the advances we've had in recent history. I do hate the government waster and subsidizing of the uninsured. If we could get rid of those we could mute many of the burdensome combinations
      • ceejayoz 7y ago
        It's not often you find someone whose criticism of American healthcare is "it's not mean enough yet".
      • vernie 7y ago
        Respect.
  • harryf 7y ago
    Yes, but... you can be sure there's a business plan lying around somewhere at Uber that accounts for the fact that some % of drivers won't do the math...
  • rjtavares 7y ago
    We routinely make known scams illegal despite fact that the "fault" lies in the individual being scammed. Not saying Uber is a scam, but "victims should know better" isn't a valid defense of it.
    • shantly 7y ago
      Time and resources to comparison shop (in a broad sense) being neither of them infinite, the more we can assure certain definitely- or probably-bad options are absent from the market, the better the market will function. Pro-healthy-and-effective-markets and absolutist pro-liberty or laissez-faire stances aren't always aligned.
      • yellowbuilding 7y ago
        Right, and there must be competitors to compare with. This is why a federal job guarantee makes sense.
  • throwaway35784 7y ago
    This is precisely the way a market for lemons works. Scumbags like you thinking it's ok to prey on the less knowledgeable human beings we live with.
  • nathan_compton 7y ago
    Not one wants to live in a society where your every moment must be dominated by one cost-benefit analysis or another. There is an assumption, I would argue, in the everyday notion that society exists for the common good, that our lives not be either 100% optimized or, otherwise, exploited for profit by some other optimizer. There is a sense in which being induced to consider whether your life is efficient or not is virtuous, of course. Since much of what we use every day is common resource, rather than private resource, we don't want people to be completely careless. But things don't shake out fairly in the real world. The people who are most often punished for failing to optimize are not, by any stretch, the most profligate resource consumers. And yet no one is particularly concerned about whether the lifestyles of the wealthy are completely optimal or whether they could be making more rational use of their resources. Even this state of affairs could be tolerable except that only a clown would suggest the distribution of resources we see now is one that aligns with what people deserve. For the most part, its the vagueries of history which have decided who gets to live without too much care for optimization and who must be completely rational or get fucked.
    • WalterBright 7y ago
      > Not one wants to live in a society where your every moment must be dominated by one cost-benefit analysis or another. Except we all do, regardless of how society is organized. For example, is that luscious chocolate torte's taste worth the detriment to one's health? Is driving a little faster worth the extra risk of getting a ticket? Should I buy or rent? Should I buy the expensive shoes or the knockoffs? Should I buy it now at the higher price or wait till I get home and order it online for cheaper?
      • nathan_compton 7y ago
        To some extent what you describe is paradigmatic - the product of a particular set of circumstances (one might even say an ideology, if they were of that frame of mind). Its not inherent to the human condition. Imagine, either as a practical possibility, or an as yet manifested, potentially utopian ideal, where your time wasn't being metered out by any immediate demands and you moved through life on the basis of purely aesthetic concerns. Think of the supposed hunter-gatherers who lived in times of abundance. Only a bit of time was given each day to the dumb gods of survival. The rest of the time could be used for leisure - an idea almost dead in contemporary life (as your comment demonstrates). In fact, just a few days ago, Paul Graham was posting about one important aspect of genius: an impractical (say aesthetically motivated) obsession unconnected to (though perhaps restrained by) practical concerns. Almost every human has some purely aesthetic desires which they would like to act on in the portion of their life which they can carve out from practicalities of survival. I see the social contract or whatever you'd like to call it (if the name contract offends) as an attempt to carve out some portion, hopefully not too meager, of our lives out for just such living, for every human. Its only an immediate condition of modernity, which I'd attribute vaguely to the vague "liberal" zeitgeist, which makes that idea seem alien to all but the wealthiest. Its certainly true that we could rationalize our every moment but in almost any reasonable account a person who wanted to do that or who tried would be considered mentally ill and certainly unhappy. Its inhuman. Its not what we should want. When I spend time with my two year old son I'm not fucking filling in a god-damned column in some great spreadsheet in the sky, is what I'm saying. That should be the privilege of every person.
  • lonelappde 7y ago
    Can I return my car for a refund if I decide I don't want to drive for Uber anymore?
• TurkishPoptart 7y ago
  Great article from the 'Stache. It seems like the people who benefit most from driving are those that lack the necessary documentation to get a "real job" - i.e. immigrants. If that's the target audience for Uber and Lyft's "clients" (because they are _not_ employees, right?), well, I find that somewhat immoral. I dunno. When I was between jobs I worked Postmates and Caviar (and Amazon Flex, until I was "fired by an algorithm" (no joke!) to make rent, and it was a modest success. I only ended up using the platforms for 2-3 months max, and starting off, I really enjoyed being the delivery driver and offering excellent customer service. I would go out of my way to ensure I grabbed extra napkins, utensils, sauces, etc. to go the extra mile, and when the tip reflected that, I was elated - the lizard parts of my brain that respond to video game achievements lit up - and I mentally competed myself to be better, faster, and more efficient. And this part of the brain, like the gambler's, forgets the bad times and cherishes only the good times. But I won't forget having to pace around in a pitch-black cul-de-sac, looking for a mysterious stranger who won't answer their phone, thinking that five minutes more, and these Greek fries are mine until...a college kid came out with a disposition reflecting both "hey bro" and "sorry bro" and we did the awkward exchange of "here's your food" and "here's me thanking you for it". Now I have a boring office job, and I tend to cook for myself.
• aey 7y ago
  If your narrative was true, why wouldn’t drivers quit in droves? My retired dad drives an Uber. He built a spreadsheet and did the math on car deterioration and gas costs and is happy with the result. If Uber is exploiting anything, it’s idle labor. I don’t own any Uber or Lyft stock. I think worker owned apps could potentially hurt Ubers market share if the drivers collectively push them and prices are at least 20% cheaper or faster.
  • wffurr 7y ago
    Retired. Did the math. Somehow doesn't strike me as the average Uber driver. It's trivial for Uber to "do the math" based on some simple factors drivers could plug into the app, and then they could show what the driver is actually earning after gas, maintenance, and depreciation. Writing a spreadsheet and figuring out all that yourself is difficult to get right and requires a fair amount of mathematical and technical knowledge. Mr. Money Mustache's argument is that it would be trivial for Uber and Lyft to "do the math" for them, but they won't because then drivers will realize just how little they're making.
    • phkahler 7y ago
      My sister was teaching math. One student asked why they even needed to learn that stuff. She said "how will you ever know if you're getting ripped off?". The kid considered that for a moment and started paying attention.
    • WalterBright 7y ago
      > Retired. Did the math. Somehow doesn't strike me as the average Uber driver. I often explain to people who duck learning math, who don't think it is relevant, etc., that being inept at math is a strong predictor of being poor. None want to hear that, but what can I do?
      • jjeaff 7y ago
        Are you sure that being poor isn't a strong predictor of being bad at math?
• jjeaff 7y ago
  Before you call an enormous group of people ignorant, you might want to run your numbers again. These kind of analysis all seems to make the same mistake. They use an average, linear depreciation of the value of the vehicle and they continue that depreciation into infinity. But the fact is, the depreciation curve is effectively flat as you get to zero. And the maintenance does not increase into infinity either. After a vehicle has a few hundred thousand miles on it, the resale value is effectively the scrap value of the metal in it. Putting another 100k miles will not make it negative. And there are only so many parts to replace in a vehicle as far as maintenance goes.
  • mywittyname 7y ago
    You are correct that running a car into the ground is the way to make money as a taxi service. There's a reason used taxis have like 500,000+ miles on them. However, to drive for Uber, you have to have a car newer than 10 years old This means, you're going to take the bulk of the depreciation hit on a car. We can debate whether driving ten, 9-year old cars for a year each results in less depreciation than a single new car driven for ten years. But either way, you can't drive a car into the ground using Uber like you can with delivering pizzas or running a taxi service because they specifically prohibit the use of beaters. You have to pay for depreciation. Depreciation is entirely vehicle dependent, but using the IRS reimbursement guidelines of ~$0.56/mi is quite reasonable when talking about <10yo vehicles.
    • jjeaff 7y ago
      There are plenty of 5-7 year old cars out there with enough miles on them to have already been fully depreciated.