25 ms·

Uber stops upfront ride pricing in response to California worker law

132 points by njarboe 7y ago

planetzero 7y ago
Hopefully, the same people pushing for these laws aren't going to turn around and complain when all of the prices go up.
- lovich 7y ago
  Lower prices at the cost of turning a group of people into a serf class, is not a good tradeoff imo
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    You have no idea what serfs are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom
    - supercanuck 7y ago
      How can you even make such a definitive statement? >There is no commonly accepted modern definition of feudalism, at least among scholars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism
    - cranky_coder 7y ago
      The definition offered in the first paragraph of that article seems to conjure the exact same imagery in my head that the parent post did. How exactly is he parent off base with this comparison?
      - BurningFrog 7y ago
        The second paragraph: "As with slaves, serfs could be bought, sold, or traded (...), abused with no rights over their own bodies, could not leave the land they were bound to, and could marry only with their lord's permission." Does anyone really think this is how Uber drivers live?
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        edoo 7y ago
        You could argue yes but on a grander scale. There are many laws that cover what you can do to your own body and the government claims the output of your labor as theirs. Trump just tried to buy Greenland and the inhabitants. You require papers to leave the country and permission to revoke your citizenship. Marriage (a religious institution) licenses were originally created to prevent different ethnicities from union and are still used to prevent same sex marriages.
        UncleEntity 7y ago
        Could also be that common usage of words tend to change over time, maybe?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - lovich 7y ago
      Ill refer you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloquialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloquialism which is how I am using the word as this is a forum and not a research paper. They have very little control over their lives and work, Uber does not let them set prices and they arent making enough money to go retire early. I refer to them as serfs in that they have to answer to Uber with no actual negotiating power on their own.
      - BurningFrog 7y ago
        I've driven myself. You drive whenever you want, and can quit without even telling Uber. How is that "they have to answer to Uber"?
  - merkaloid 7y ago
    no ones being forced to drive for uber lol, prices are only low because theres way too many people doing it
    - ahoy 7y ago
      yeah they could just not work instead!
      - flyingfences 7y ago
        Exactly! Uber is offering these people income where they would otherwise be without.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        Or Uber is offering the illusion of income and hoping they're desperate enough not to do the math on vehicle depreciation.
        flyingfences 7y ago
        Income, not profit.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        How does income with no profit benefit the drivers?
        njarboe 7y ago
        It can be a useful way to extract some value from your car without selling it. Say you are between jobs and have a car you bought new. You would like to keep the car, as you know its history, so you drive Uber to "sell" a part of the car until you get a new job.
        7y ago
  - billions 7y ago
    Take it from a software contractor that's refused full time from multiple Fortune 100 companies: You don't know what's best for someone else. Choice is the only form of empowerment.
    - lovich 7y ago
      Software work is incredibly different from what Uber does. Edit: On top of that, I'm not coming into this thinking that this is whats best for all those people in their current situation. This is what I think is best for my society and country. I do not want companies to be able to push off large costs of doing business to their employees by just calling them contractors. I don't think this is good for _me_ in general and so I would support laws like this
      - billions 7y ago
        > This is what I think is best for my society and country. Could you be wrong? Perhaps Uber drivers chose the profession by choice. Perhaps before the company Uber existed, these drivers would be less content. Perhaps you or I are not smart enough to calculate what each individual wants and needs. Despite the fact that we commit the world's most powerful computers to the cause, weather prediction systems are incredibly inaccurate. Should those wearing inappropriate attire be fined?
        lovich 7y ago
        >Could you be wrong? Yea, but I can turn the question right back around at you. You are trying to claim that this law shouldn't have passed because people can make the best decision for themselves. I am saying that I view this law passing as one of the best decisions for me. I do not want to work in an environment where companies can be this predatory without regulation. Letting companies do so will embolden other companies and then put downward pressure on my wages.
        billions 7y ago
        Taxis were an exact example of what you describe. How did that work out? Have you ever asked an Uber driver how they feel about the law? All the ones I spoke with dislike it. You think you're doing good by forcing people how to live? Your position is either arrogant or uninformed. Uber driver loved their jobs and the freedom they provided until politicians came in to enforce your view of the world. If they couldn't figure out taxis, what make you think they can figure out Uber?
  - shams93 7y ago
    However you could use the tax system to do things like pay certain workers "reverse income tax" where instead of taxing their income you support the lower prices with tax credits for their profession.
    - dv_dt 7y ago
      Why that baroque approach vs expecting, and maybe enforcing, that companies pay a fair wage.
      - cygaril 7y ago
        The proposed approach amounts to subsidizing human labour over automation. That night be a legitimate public policy aim.
        dv_dt 7y ago
        Why then tie it to labor at all, why not the full UBI? Also why tax credits - many low wage jobs aren't well served by annualized refunds (you can see that in stats where medical visits surge for a bit after tax refunds...).
        cygaril 7y ago
        Because you might think that people having employment is a good thing, worth encouraging through the tax / benefit system. Also, tax credits can be (and are) paid weekly.
        chillacy 7y ago
        A NIT and UBI can be designed to be equivalent: http://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-what-makes-them-the-same-and-what-makes-them-different http://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unco... A UBI of course has a lot of other benefits (being distributed monthly or more often, going to people who are unable to work, being universal and therefore more resistant politically).
        7y ago
  - hpoe 7y ago
    They weren't the serf class though. Most of the people I know that drive uber, and on the comments on these many of the people that said they were driving uber weren't doing it to make a living they were doing as a little extra spending cash or to meet new people. Quite frankly anyone that thinks they can suddenly make a decent living off of just driving people around and had that vision of making it rich doing Uber was stupid in the first place. If it is easy enough for anyone to do it then rest assured it won't be lucrative. The corollary is true if something takes great skill and is difficult and people need it then you are probably going to be able quite a bit more. Supply and demand economics 101, if we keep trying to approach economic issues from social perspectives we are going to end up with lots of stupid decisions that cause more problems than the solve. Classic example rent control.
    - lovich 7y ago
      I agree but then the only solutions are to either have a massive shift over to government services to help people, or let people die in the street if they don't have the resources and get sick. The two major political parties in the United States seem like they would rather destroy the system than accept one of those two positions, Republicans against growth in government and Democrats against letting people go without help
  - Matticus_Rex 7y ago
    I wasn't a serf when I drove for Uber, and I was totally capable of making the tradeoff for myself.
  - planetzero 7y ago
    Serf class? Hardly. Uber and Lyft allow pretty much anyone to use their car and make money for rides. This is a complete choice and if you can make a living at it? Great. If not, it's a great way to make some extra money on the side. The end result will be that many people just won't be able to drive for Uber or Lyft any longer. So you are taking money making opportunities away from many people and giving to a select few (the ones that can make the cut as employees). The next step will be unionization..and then we will be back to the taxi cab situation: high prices, difficult to become a driver, and sub-par technology that stays decades behind the rest of the world.
  - hash872 7y ago
    >Lower prices at the cost of turning a group of people into a serf class, is not a good tradeoff imo All of the estimates I've seen range from $10-20 an hour after all of their expenses are factored in. Let's be really conservative and take the bottom quartile, so Uber drivers make $10-12.50 an hour. That's.... a perfectly normal wage for tens of millions of people. Have you eaten a meal out or gotten a coffee, ever? That's how much money the people behind the counter were making. Did you feel like you were contributing to a 'serf class' when you bought a coffee this morning, or bought dinner last week? And if these people weren't employed by Uber, they'd be working for $10-12 an hour at a different employer instead. Kind of by definition, they lack the ability to earn more money in the market (especially this job market!) because if they could they'd already be doing so
    - smeyer 7y ago
      >$10-$12.50 an hour The minimum wage in California (the subject of the OP) for companies with more than 25 employees is $13.00. I know you were trying to be conservative in your estimate and I don't know if that $10-20 range you're referencing is for California, the USA, or all Uber drivers. Maybe the real average is higher than that, but it's wrong to present $10-12 as a "perfectly normal" wage for workers in California.
      - hash872 7y ago
        I don't have an issue with Uber/Lyft/any gig companies being required to pay workers effectively whatever the minimum wage is wherever they are (which is obviously much lower in other states). And maybe a regulator can sample drivers, look at their annual expenses, and work out what their 'effective' wage is, I'm fine with that. I just think it's overly dramatic when people present lower wage jobs as literally serfdom or whatever- especially when the HN crowd has undoubtedly eaten out, had drinks, hired a contractor, got coffee, or employed a cleaner that was probably making the same as an Uber driver. There will always be low wage jobs. No one's picketing coffeeshops for making their employees 'serfs', why single out Uber?
      - malandrew 7y ago
        $23.28/hour before expenses in SF Bay Area according to Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.in/the-32-places-uber-and-lyft-drivers-earn-the-most-according-to-the-data/32-tampa-florida-12-71/slideshow/73050844.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/the-32-places-uber-and-lyft-d... Also keep in mind that pretty much no minimum wage job except ridesharing allows you to earn to and from your way to work. If you make $13 and hour on an 8 hour shift in California with a 1 hour commute each way and a $3 bus fare each way, it comes out to $9.80/hour not $13.
- mushufasa 7y ago
  We're going back to taxi prices. Taxis were originally as cheap as ubers used to be (think rickshaws in developing countries). Absent regulation, the price goes down to the cost of fuel, because this is a class of workers with barely any bargaining power. Uber originally claimed their innovation was logistical efficiencies ("traveling salesman") which would lower prices, but I don't think that matters as much as avoiding the regulation and removing bargaining power from drivers. It's a cycle: rickshaws > regulation > new rickshaws ("innovation") > regulation. This will hurt the people who take ubers for convenience e.g. don't feel like walking or squeamish about public transit. But won't affect people who need to get A > B directly. IMO this is a good thing -- more people on public transit will improve public transit.
  - usaar333 7y ago
    This absolutely hurts people who need to go to A->B in suburban areas where public transit is abysmal (due to everyone driving, not using Uber). e.g. a family member of mine frequently helps with picking my kid up at school (by using Uber as she can't drive). Public transit is so slow (an hour vs. 10 minutes driving) that it isn't possible to use it schedule-wise - we'll just be taking the pricing hit. Others might be less able to absorb the pricing hit and will just suffer (it's either pay more or lose job).
    - slumdev 7y ago
      What did these people do before Uber?
      - usaar333 7y ago
        suffered. underemployed. Uber is really a 10x+ life improvement if you live in suburbia and cannot drive.
        smsm42 7y ago
        I know people who use rideshares to get to the job, and wouldn't have a job without that possibility. They'd probably had another one - but probably worse one due to restricted choices.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  The law at issue merely codified in statute what the California Supreme Court had long held to be the way the law worked (and added some new exceptions not germane to Uber), so there was no relevant change to the law. So, it's the same legal regime Uber has always been working under, and so the policy change is, no matter what the PR spin is, not actually driven by the new law.
  - pishpash 7y ago
    Wrong, the Supreme Court produced a test for use in case of litigation, not to proactively apply to every non-litigant. Codification of the test is a step change, and its litany of incomprehensible exceptions is a strong sign that the test and the law are severely flawed in the general context.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Wrong, the Supreme Court produced a test for use in case of litigation, not to proactively apply to every non-litigant. That's...not how law works. The law doesn't adopt a different meaning in litigation than it has in administrative application; when the Court adopts an interpretration/operationalization of the law (which is what adopting a “test for use in litigation” is), it defines what the law is. That's true in general in common law systems, and it's certainly true in specific in that administrative application if California State Law is controlled by how that law has been interpreted by the State Supreme Court.
      - pishpash 7y ago
        Are you suggesting Lorena Gonzalez wasted her time completely? Because if the codification did nothing then you would have a point.
        dragonwriter 7y ago
        > Are you suggesting Lorena Gonzalez wasted her time completely? Making the legal regime more resilient against future change in the composition of the Supreme Court is a thing, whether it's something that justifies the effort expended or not, it's really not my place to say. But AB5 did not substantively alter the status quo legal regime faced by Uber, etc., so any change in practice they shot was not driven by a change in legal regime stemming from the law.
- dmode 7y ago
  I mean prices will go up no matter what. But also as a reasonable person, why would complain if the price reflects the living wage of a person providing the service ? I know if we used child labor my tv would be a lot cheaper, but do I really complain about that ?
KKKKkkkk1 7y ago
Could they be using the law as a pretext? Offering a service without an upfront price is shady. If Uber can get away with it, we know the market is not as competitive as we thought it is.
- olalonde 7y ago
  > Offering a service without an upfront price is shady. One of the many reasons Uber gained market share over taxis. I doubt they're using the law as a pretext.
  - traek 7y ago
    This is not at all true. Uber only introduced upfront pricing at the end of 2017. Prior to that users were charged based on time and distance, the same way as taxis.
    - rchaud 7y ago
      Which country/region was that in? I'm a late adopter of Uber (2015) in Canada and I have always seen the fixed rate price when requesting a ride.
- jlmorton 7y ago
  Is it? There's no upfront pricing in the taxi industry. There is a set fare rate, but the fare is dependent on external conditions.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Many cities have a set rate for airport-to-downtown trips, and you may be able to negotiate one directly with the taxi driver for long or unusual trips. For example: https://www.jfkairport.com/to-from-airport/taxi-car-and-van-service https://www.jfkairport.com/to-from-airport/taxi-car-and-van-... > Taxis at JFK Airport charge a flat fare of $52 for trips between the airport and Manhattan. Taxis impose a $4.50 surcharge during peak hours (4-8 p.m. weekdays, excluding holidays), for a fare of $56.50.
pmx 7y ago
Uber already works this way here in the UK and in my opinion it's the only fair way to charge for rides. I'm totally ok with paying for the ride I actually took (taking into account traffic and diversions) so that drivers make a decent living.
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  This encourages drivers to maximize each fare, though. So now every time my driver makes a wrong turn, not only does it cost me time but it also costs me money - and what's worse is the drivers are now incentivized to do this!
  - melevittfl 7y ago
    True, although unlike a taxi, I can see during the trip the route the driver should be taking and, after the trip, I can see the route the driver actuall took. And, if the route taken is unreasonably different from the optimal route, I can complain to Uber and get a refund. So yes, while drivers may be incentivised to take longer routes, they can’t do it without being exposed.
    - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      Everything you just said applies to what Uber already has. This change is objectively worse for the customer in every way.
- xphilter 7y ago
  That doesn’t make any sense. Unless something else has changed, there’s no concrete way of knowing or estimating the cost of a ride. The price per mile/min is not regulated or posted like taxis. So what, you just hope surge pricing or per-rider-price-discrimination is not suddenly in play?
  - djohnston 7y ago
    you would know if surge pricing took effect, the range is pretty small in the UK (a few pounds). you aren't going to suddenly pay 20 quid over the midpoint of the original band
rightbyte 7y ago
I don't understand this change. Why would this make the drivers any less of a employee or more of a contractor? If they were serious about the drivers being contractors, the drivers should process the payment and give Uber commission for the lead.
- TomMarius 7y ago
  Why should the driver process the payment? There are middlemen processing payments for hundreds of years.
  - jfengel 7y ago
    I think the idea is "not Uber". If Uber is the only payment processor, then they look more like an employer and less like the middleman they want to claim to be. The money is coming from Uber to the driver rather than from the driver to Uber as their commission.
    - TomMarius 7y ago
      That is normal, e.g. if you travel through a federated regional bus/train transport system, you're paying through the platform and the company is processing your payment, sending money to individual transport operators. See flixbus as the most extreme example, but there are tons of these across Europe, many of them formed during post-communist privatization. Its similar with parcel delivery companies, these even are forced to have the PPL brand on their own cars!
- Litmus2336 7y ago
  It seems to me that the option to refuse drives is the bigger change. But regarding pricing, Uber is no longer "mandating" the drivers accept a price, instead Uber drives agree to the rates Uber sets. Maybe that has some bearing? I'm no expert.
  - sida 7y ago
    Maybe eventually uber needs to allow drivers to set prices for themselves, with a large enough market it should proxy surge pricing?
sp332 7y ago
Uber in a blog post on Wednesday said the step was the result of changes to its fare structure Does anyone know where this blog post is? I checked https://www.uber.com/blog https://www.uber.com/blog but the only post I could find for Wednesday was in the Culture section and didn't have this info.
- josuepeq 7y ago
  https://www.uber.com/blog/california/keeping-you-in-the-drivers-seat-2/ https://www.uber.com/blog/california/keeping-you-in-the-driv...
  - josuepeq 7y ago
    Also, here’s part one: https://www.uber.com/blog/california/keeping-you-in-the-drivers-seat-1/ https://www.uber.com/blog/california/keeping-you-in-the-driv...
  - sp332 7y ago
    Thanks!
iakov 7y ago
Interestingly enough, here in Czech republic it changed the other way around, roughly half a year ago.
- sellweek 7y ago
  As far as I remember some articles that came out around the time of this change, that's because Uber is not an official taxi service. So they need to operate as "contract rides" which must have their prices specified in advance.
the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
Upfront pricing is the main reason I use uber over alternatives in Europe. Almost all other services have price ranges.
- mb_72 7y ago
  Bolt has fixed upfront pricing (at least in Estonia and Hungary). It's also NOT Uber, one significant factor I use Bolt (for all of Uber's past transgressions).
- tpetry 7y ago
  Yes! And when no uber is nearby i have to take a taxi: But the estimated price of the taxi is all the time a lot higher than uber pricing, and the real price is again a lot higher than the estimated price. This is the exact reason uber got big, you feel tricked when getting a taxi.
piyushpr134 7y ago
Uber has made the taxi market worse off than govt controlled taxi services, when it comes to pricing, safety and affordability. These shady practices prove that the interventions such as surge pricing is just a money making scheme for them. If you disagree, then explain to me as to why does surge pricing increases their commission ? And does it not give them incentive to always surge. I can agree with a peak hour surcharge to increase supply but surge and these kind of things show that they are just money fleecing business
__composed 7y ago
It's insane how much of this contractor vs employee debate would just be solved with universal healthcare. I don't understand why the US is obsessed with passing on any cost to their citizens or employers in ways that lower productivity and clearly hurt the economy, instead of just biting the bullet and budgeting out policies to improve the economy, increase quality of life, and make the country in general stronger.
- cjslep 7y ago
  "If I don't do this shady thing, someone else will, and then I'll go out of business" zero-sum mentality.
- lovich 7y ago
  The conservative viewpoint is that the government can never do things as well as companies can, so they like to not provide services. The reason companies provide healthcare at all is an artifact from WWII when the tax rate was high enough that offering more salary was not enough to attract the limited workers left, so companies started offering other perks that were untaxed. Since the US Constitution being set up in a way as to encourage deadlock if there is not a large majority of agreement, were stuck in a deadlock on moving this forward to a government operated endeavor, and wont do anything to remove it from an employer offered benefit.
  - Agustus 7y ago
    An addendum to this is that the government forced the companies to do this because the feds passed the insane 1942 Stabilization Act putting limits on wage hike capabilities of firms. The problem is that we have good economists who say: here are the facts and history of what your choices will do and bad economists who say: if you have x, y, z, and the planets of Saturn and Uranus in alignment, you may be able to affect the economy to the way you wish despite all of the historical evidence to the contrary. The bad economists are hired into administrations to justify politically expedient proposals.
    - lovich 7y ago
southphillyman 7y ago
Do this and the market will speak. I view ridesharing mostly as a luxury/convenience thing. My usage has already began to decline as prices have risen locally. If they start operating like taxis then I'll use them as often as taxis, which is to say rarely.
- vineyardmike 7y ago
  2015+ when I started to use Uber was the most freeing time to be in a city. You could always get home from a bar easily, in any weather. If you wanted to explore, and got lost or walked too far, home was only a tap away. It was such a convenience that after pricing, it was cheaper to Uber to work and anywhere else I drove to than to own a car for me.
  - Rapzid 7y ago
    It really was all the convenience of a car without having to drive it. A designated driver on call. And in cities where finding a cab was hard or next to impossible.
  - AlexandrB 7y ago
    The low cost was subsidized by a combination of VC money and underpaying drivers. The fact that you don’t get free stuff anymore is unfortunate but not all that different than the fate of Movie Pass.
Rapzid 7y ago
The estimates should be pretty darn accurate most of the time, and Uber still knows if drivers are taking the piss based on their data so.. I'm not overly pessimistic on this.
CodeWriter23 7y ago
If Uber et.al. were really smart, their response to AB5 would be to cap every driver at 30 hours per week, avoiding the legally mandated benefits and the decreased supply will increase surge pricing. Also, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez would have her feet held to the fire by most of her base.
- pishpash 7y ago
  I believe that already happens in NYC rideshare, and if Lorena Gonzalez or her ilk keeps it up, you will surely be treated to such glory in California too. All hail Dear Leader Lorena Gonzalez and her infinite wisdom!
- leoh 7y ago
  Clever yet risky. Narrative could be spun as "drivers who could barely support themselves now definitely can't support themselves on their diminished hours because Uber doesn't want to give provide them basic benefits and yet rides are more expensive than ever." If that narrative prevailed, _Uber's_ feet would end up right back in the fire and California would look like a saint.
  - CodeWriter23 7y ago
    Uber has more cash to spend pushing the other side of that narrative, how much better off drivers were prior to AB 5. The gambit for Uber is, if they don’t flat reverse this law in CA, NY then WA will adopt it, followed by all Blue States. And then it’s game over for them. They will cost more than a taxi. And taxis will cost more due to the same contractor to employee conversion.
    - pishpash 7y ago
      If "game over" is what WA and blue states are dead set on bringing about (vs. unintended consequences) then they and their constituents can have it and deal with the outcome. A faceless corporation doesn't care in the long run, there are always other markets and other businesses.
- 7y ago
blendergeek 7y ago
I am an Uber Driver. I have been wanting changes like this ever since I started driving. I saw people asking, 'how does this make drivers less employee like?' I'll tell you this. It makes us feel less like employees when we actually have enough information to choose whether or not we want to take a ride. Now we will be able to see the estimated fare before we take a specific ride. There will be no more driving 20 minutes to a ride only to discover that it will be a half mile ride that wastes another twenty minutes at a convenience store netting us $3 for 40 minutes of our time. I will simply skip any ride like that. We feel less like employees and more like the contractors we are supposed to be when we know why Uber gets a certain percentage of the fare. I wholeheartedly agree with the changes Uber is making.
- yoavm 7y ago
  I don't really understand. It sounds great that the drivers would have enough information to decide whether to take a ride or not, but what does this have to do with stopping upfront pricing? In my ideal world, the driver knows everything about the proposed ride, and the rider knows the exact cost of it. Why is that not possible?
  - blendergeek 7y ago
    The change to variable priced rides is because the 'cut' of the fare that Uber takes has been standardized to 25% while driver pay remains based on time and mileage. Giving drivers information about upcoming rides is a separate change.
    - e12e 7y ago
      How does that work? If a driver is always paid x/minute/mile (total X), customer always pays Y dollars as made up by Uber. Uber takes U, 25% of Y, pays the driver X, where does the rest go if Y-U-X > 0? How can this ever work without Uber sometimes taking a loss?
  - analyst74 7y ago
    Variable payout means some form of fare bidding on driver side, as drivers can reject rides that are too low. On top of that, they are capping their commission to 25%, meaning that they can't use more profitable rides to offset losses from less profitable ones. Those two factors combined, means Uber cannot offer fixed pricing upfront without incurring loss.
ww520 7y ago
AB5 aside, I am all for giving drivers greater latitude at refusing rides. The abuses some drivers got from the riders are sickening.
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  I mean, to be fair, back in the days before Uber the abuses some riders got from drivers was even more sickening. Giving them the right to refuse rides arbitrarily is not really the greatest thing for consumers.
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    It has downsides (like redlining, for one thing) but those downsides already existed in the traditional cab model, so it's at least not worse. Given the problems upfront ride pricing caused for drivers I think it's reasonable for it to go away, even if it's slightly less convenient for me as a passenger. Ideally the problems with abuse of ride cancellation can just be solved via universal methods that apply to uber, lyft, AND traditional cabs. There's plenty of data available so it is feasible to use that data to police abuses of the system.
  - smsm42 7y ago
    Why not? I certainly don't want to be driven by somebody who doesn't want to drive me and hates my guts for being forced into driving me. I'd rather he refused and another willing driver pick up the job.
    - freepor 7y ago
      Now imagine you live in a housing project and need to get to work and nobody will pick you up.
      - fujiters 7y ago
        One would think the price would increase until someone would pick you up. Uber should add the ability to bid up your route--like when it's taking a long time to match you to a driver, or you want to entice a driver who is nearby so you can get where you're going sooner.
scarejunba 7y ago
Saw this coming. Bought a car. I just drive everywhere in SF. This is great. My commute stays the same (8 min) + parking and walking time (6 mins). As a bonus when I hang out with my friends I "can't" drink which is a nice constraint on myself.
smsm42 7y ago
>> the final price would now be calculated at the end of a trip, “based on the actual time and distance traveled.” Well that sucks big time. One of the main reasons I used Uber was I know what it's going to cost me, upfront, no matter what, I just click, get in the car, get out and that's it. Now I have to gamble, risk that I get stuck in traffic and my price suddenly doubles, worry that the driver "took the scenic route", and so on, and so forth. It becomes just a taxi with a nice app.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- t34543 7y ago
  I completely agree. It should be a fixed price, incentivizing the driver to take the most efficient route. I also don’t want my driver to see where I’m going, because not all rides are big fares. Sometimes I must get somewhere close and I don’t want a hassle. Uber has gotten a lot of bad press lately and I think unfairly so. What’s worse is Amazon’s gig program. Let’s say your doing jobs like assembling BBQs and Treadmills for customers. They don’t pay trip time to the job, so you can drive 40 miles only to find out half the screws are missing. You must get the customer to request the parts, come back, only to find it’s wrong again. You take a big hit refusing the job but you have to take all the shitty work to get the chance of a real profitable gig. Much worse than ride share semantics, IMO. Anyway - another reason to use Lyft.
  - busymom0 7y ago
    Don’t the same laws apply to lyft too?
    - takeda 7y ago
      It does, but Lyft might respond to the law differently.
      - Balgair 7y ago
        > but Lyft might respond to the law differently. Well if that's filling my oligarchy quota for the day, I don't know what is!
mattlondon 7y ago
For what it is worth, I think it has always been this way in the UK. You put in a destination and you get a £15-18 estimate or whatever. It is even an estimate in the ads shown in google maps for Uber/Bolt/Kapten/etc
- garmaine 7y ago
  It used to be this way in California too. Then a year ago they switched to fixed price rises because that’s what people wanted.
bengale 7y ago
I'm fairly sure this is how it works already in London, once a month or so I have to travel across the city with a load of bags so I uber, and the app normally says something like £30-40 estimate and I end up paying closer to £30.
rolltiide 7y ago
Only reason this will work out is because California is a big enough destination that out of state uber riders won’t notice
timvdalen 7y ago
Wait, Uber uses fixed pricing in other countries? That sounds amazing. Here in The Netherlands, the actual price is usually 25% more than the top estimate Uber gives before the ride (they give a range).
- Scea91 7y ago
  Yeah, we have fixed pricing in Prague. I believe that Uber was forced to implement it by government to distinguish itself from taxi service and the related regulations (which truly are obsolete). From a customer perspective, it was a win and one more reason to prefer Uber over a traditional taxi.
bluecalm 7y ago
Why not let the drivers see the destination and price and then make the choice if they want to accept it? When we are at it the customer should be able to increase the price to encourage drivers. I see it this way: drivers reject giving a reason, one of the two: too cheap or other. Then the customer gets information about how many drivers rejected because of the amount and they get an option to increase it. As it is I often feel bad about requesting short trips. I feel most drivers don't want them and the situation is uncomfortable for everyone. I would like to have an option to pay enough so it's worthwhile for them to take a short ride.
34679 7y ago
Uber has no contact phone number or email for costumers or drivers to reach anyone in the company in the event an issue arises. Delete Uber, it's a shit company. I once had someone try to brute force my uber password, I was getting constant login failed notifications. Could not contact Uber, so I tried deleting the CC they had on file. They don't allow that. So I tried deleting the account. They don't allow that. So I changed my password to a ridiculously long set of random characters and deactivated the account, which they indicated would take 60 days. They make it so easy to give them your money, but if you have a problem, it's 100% "We don't give a fuck about you."
- coldcode 7y ago
  I believe the latter is Uber's motto. I find it amazing that such a large and "successful" company survives with such pathetic customer service. Of course they are not profitable (and not likely ever will be) so I assume customer service is the least of their concerns.

132 points by njarboe 7y ago

Hopefully, the same people pushing for these laws aren't going to turn around and complain when all of the prices go up.

lovich 7y ago
Lower prices at the cost of turning a group of people into a serf class, is not a good tradeoff imo
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  You have no idea what serfs are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom
  - supercanuck 7y ago
    How can you even make such a definitive statement? >There is no commonly accepted modern definition of feudalism, at least among scholars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism
  - cranky_coder 7y ago
    The definition offered in the first paragraph of that article seems to conjure the exact same imagery in my head that the parent post did. How exactly is he parent off base with this comparison?
    - BurningFrog 7y ago
      The second paragraph: "As with slaves, serfs could be bought, sold, or traded (...), abused with no rights over their own bodies, could not leave the land they were bound to, and could marry only with their lord's permission." Does anyone really think this is how Uber drivers live?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - edoo 7y ago
        You could argue yes but on a grander scale. There are many laws that cover what you can do to your own body and the government claims the output of your labor as theirs. Trump just tried to buy Greenland and the inhabitants. You require papers to leave the country and permission to revoke your citizenship. Marriage (a religious institution) licenses were originally created to prevent different ethnicities from union and are still used to prevent same sex marriages.
      - UncleEntity 7y ago
        Could also be that common usage of words tend to change over time, maybe?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - lovich 7y ago
    Ill refer you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloquialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloquialism which is how I am using the word as this is a forum and not a research paper. They have very little control over their lives and work, Uber does not let them set prices and they arent making enough money to go retire early. I refer to them as serfs in that they have to answer to Uber with no actual negotiating power on their own.
    - BurningFrog 7y ago
      I've driven myself. You drive whenever you want, and can quit without even telling Uber. How is that "they have to answer to Uber"?
- merkaloid 7y ago
  no ones being forced to drive for uber lol, prices are only low because theres way too many people doing it
  - ahoy 7y ago
    yeah they could just not work instead!
    - flyingfences 7y ago
      Exactly! Uber is offering these people income where they would otherwise be without.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        Or Uber is offering the illusion of income and hoping they're desperate enough not to do the math on vehicle depreciation.
        flyingfences 7y ago
        Income, not profit.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        How does income with no profit benefit the drivers?
        njarboe 7y ago
        It can be a useful way to extract some value from your car without selling it. Say you are between jobs and have a car you bought new. You would like to keep the car, as you know its history, so you drive Uber to "sell" a part of the car until you get a new job.
        7y ago
- billions 7y ago
  Take it from a software contractor that's refused full time from multiple Fortune 100 companies: You don't know what's best for someone else. Choice is the only form of empowerment.
  - lovich 7y ago
    Software work is incredibly different from what Uber does. Edit: On top of that, I'm not coming into this thinking that this is whats best for all those people in their current situation. This is what I think is best for my society and country. I do not want companies to be able to push off large costs of doing business to their employees by just calling them contractors. I don't think this is good for _me_ in general and so I would support laws like this
    - billions 7y ago
      > This is what I think is best for my society and country. Could you be wrong? Perhaps Uber drivers chose the profession by choice. Perhaps before the company Uber existed, these drivers would be less content. Perhaps you or I are not smart enough to calculate what each individual wants and needs. Despite the fact that we commit the world's most powerful computers to the cause, weather prediction systems are incredibly inaccurate. Should those wearing inappropriate attire be fined?
      - lovich 7y ago
        >Could you be wrong? Yea, but I can turn the question right back around at you. You are trying to claim that this law shouldn't have passed because people can make the best decision for themselves. I am saying that I view this law passing as one of the best decisions for me. I do not want to work in an environment where companies can be this predatory without regulation. Letting companies do so will embolden other companies and then put downward pressure on my wages.
        billions 7y ago
        Taxis were an exact example of what you describe. How did that work out? Have you ever asked an Uber driver how they feel about the law? All the ones I spoke with dislike it. You think you're doing good by forcing people how to live? Your position is either arrogant or uninformed. Uber driver loved their jobs and the freedom they provided until politicians came in to enforce your view of the world. If they couldn't figure out taxis, what make you think they can figure out Uber?
- shams93 7y ago
  However you could use the tax system to do things like pay certain workers "reverse income tax" where instead of taxing their income you support the lower prices with tax credits for their profession.
  - dv_dt 7y ago
    Why that baroque approach vs expecting, and maybe enforcing, that companies pay a fair wage.
    - cygaril 7y ago
      The proposed approach amounts to subsidizing human labour over automation. That night be a legitimate public policy aim.
      - dv_dt 7y ago
        Why then tie it to labor at all, why not the full UBI? Also why tax credits - many low wage jobs aren't well served by annualized refunds (you can see that in stats where medical visits surge for a bit after tax refunds...).
        cygaril 7y ago
        Because you might think that people having employment is a good thing, worth encouraging through the tax / benefit system. Also, tax credits can be (and are) paid weekly.
        chillacy 7y ago
        A NIT and UBI can be designed to be equivalent: http://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-what-makes-them-the-same-and-what-makes-them-different http://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unco... A UBI of course has a lot of other benefits (being distributed monthly or more often, going to people who are unable to work, being universal and therefore more resistant politically).
        7y ago
- hpoe 7y ago
  They weren't the serf class though. Most of the people I know that drive uber, and on the comments on these many of the people that said they were driving uber weren't doing it to make a living they were doing as a little extra spending cash or to meet new people. Quite frankly anyone that thinks they can suddenly make a decent living off of just driving people around and had that vision of making it rich doing Uber was stupid in the first place. If it is easy enough for anyone to do it then rest assured it won't be lucrative. The corollary is true if something takes great skill and is difficult and people need it then you are probably going to be able quite a bit more. Supply and demand economics 101, if we keep trying to approach economic issues from social perspectives we are going to end up with lots of stupid decisions that cause more problems than the solve. Classic example rent control.
  - lovich 7y ago
    I agree but then the only solutions are to either have a massive shift over to government services to help people, or let people die in the street if they don't have the resources and get sick. The two major political parties in the United States seem like they would rather destroy the system than accept one of those two positions, Republicans against growth in government and Democrats against letting people go without help
- Matticus_Rex 7y ago
  I wasn't a serf when I drove for Uber, and I was totally capable of making the tradeoff for myself.
- planetzero 7y ago
  Serf class? Hardly. Uber and Lyft allow pretty much anyone to use their car and make money for rides. This is a complete choice and if you can make a living at it? Great. If not, it's a great way to make some extra money on the side. The end result will be that many people just won't be able to drive for Uber or Lyft any longer. So you are taking money making opportunities away from many people and giving to a select few (the ones that can make the cut as employees). The next step will be unionization..and then we will be back to the taxi cab situation: high prices, difficult to become a driver, and sub-par technology that stays decades behind the rest of the world.
- hash872 7y ago
  >Lower prices at the cost of turning a group of people into a serf class, is not a good tradeoff imo All of the estimates I've seen range from $10-20 an hour after all of their expenses are factored in. Let's be really conservative and take the bottom quartile, so Uber drivers make $10-12.50 an hour. That's.... a perfectly normal wage for tens of millions of people. Have you eaten a meal out or gotten a coffee, ever? That's how much money the people behind the counter were making. Did you feel like you were contributing to a 'serf class' when you bought a coffee this morning, or bought dinner last week? And if these people weren't employed by Uber, they'd be working for $10-12 an hour at a different employer instead. Kind of by definition, they lack the ability to earn more money in the market (especially this job market!) because if they could they'd already be doing so
  - smeyer 7y ago
    >$10-$12.50 an hour The minimum wage in California (the subject of the OP) for companies with more than 25 employees is $13.00. I know you were trying to be conservative in your estimate and I don't know if that $10-20 range you're referencing is for California, the USA, or all Uber drivers. Maybe the real average is higher than that, but it's wrong to present $10-12 as a "perfectly normal" wage for workers in California.
    - hash872 7y ago
      I don't have an issue with Uber/Lyft/any gig companies being required to pay workers effectively whatever the minimum wage is wherever they are (which is obviously much lower in other states). And maybe a regulator can sample drivers, look at their annual expenses, and work out what their 'effective' wage is, I'm fine with that. I just think it's overly dramatic when people present lower wage jobs as literally serfdom or whatever- especially when the HN crowd has undoubtedly eaten out, had drinks, hired a contractor, got coffee, or employed a cleaner that was probably making the same as an Uber driver. There will always be low wage jobs. No one's picketing coffeeshops for making their employees 'serfs', why single out Uber?
    - malandrew 7y ago
      $23.28/hour before expenses in SF Bay Area according to Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.in/the-32-places-uber-and-lyft-drivers-earn-the-most-according-to-the-data/32-tampa-florida-12-71/slideshow/73050844.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/the-32-places-uber-and-lyft-d... Also keep in mind that pretty much no minimum wage job except ridesharing allows you to earn to and from your way to work. If you make $13 and hour on an 8 hour shift in California with a 1 hour commute each way and a $3 bus fare each way, it comes out to $9.80/hour not $13.
mushufasa 7y ago
We're going back to taxi prices. Taxis were originally as cheap as ubers used to be (think rickshaws in developing countries). Absent regulation, the price goes down to the cost of fuel, because this is a class of workers with barely any bargaining power. Uber originally claimed their innovation was logistical efficiencies ("traveling salesman") which would lower prices, but I don't think that matters as much as avoiding the regulation and removing bargaining power from drivers. It's a cycle: rickshaws > regulation > new rickshaws ("innovation") > regulation. This will hurt the people who take ubers for convenience e.g. don't feel like walking or squeamish about public transit. But won't affect people who need to get A > B directly. IMO this is a good thing -- more people on public transit will improve public transit.
- usaar333 7y ago
  This absolutely hurts people who need to go to A->B in suburban areas where public transit is abysmal (due to everyone driving, not using Uber). e.g. a family member of mine frequently helps with picking my kid up at school (by using Uber as she can't drive). Public transit is so slow (an hour vs. 10 minutes driving) that it isn't possible to use it schedule-wise - we'll just be taking the pricing hit. Others might be less able to absorb the pricing hit and will just suffer (it's either pay more or lose job).
  - slumdev 7y ago
    What did these people do before Uber?
    - usaar333 7y ago
      suffered. underemployed. Uber is really a 10x+ life improvement if you live in suburbia and cannot drive.
      - smsm42 7y ago
        I know people who use rideshares to get to the job, and wouldn't have a job without that possibility. They'd probably had another one - but probably worse one due to restricted choices.
dragonwriter 7y ago
The law at issue merely codified in statute what the California Supreme Court had long held to be the way the law worked (and added some new exceptions not germane to Uber), so there was no relevant change to the law. So, it's the same legal regime Uber has always been working under, and so the policy change is, no matter what the PR spin is, not actually driven by the new law.
- pishpash 7y ago
  Wrong, the Supreme Court produced a test for use in case of litigation, not to proactively apply to every non-litigant. Codification of the test is a step change, and its litany of incomprehensible exceptions is a strong sign that the test and the law are severely flawed in the general context.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Wrong, the Supreme Court produced a test for use in case of litigation, not to proactively apply to every non-litigant. That's...not how law works. The law doesn't adopt a different meaning in litigation than it has in administrative application; when the Court adopts an interpretration/operationalization of the law (which is what adopting a “test for use in litigation” is), it defines what the law is. That's true in general in common law systems, and it's certainly true in specific in that administrative application if California State Law is controlled by how that law has been interpreted by the State Supreme Court.
    - pishpash 7y ago
      Are you suggesting Lorena Gonzalez wasted her time completely? Because if the codification did nothing then you would have a point.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        > Are you suggesting Lorena Gonzalez wasted her time completely? Making the legal regime more resilient against future change in the composition of the Supreme Court is a thing, whether it's something that justifies the effort expended or not, it's really not my place to say. But AB5 did not substantively alter the status quo legal regime faced by Uber, etc., so any change in practice they shot was not driven by a change in legal regime stemming from the law.
dmode 7y ago
I mean prices will go up no matter what. But also as a reasonable person, why would complain if the price reflects the living wage of a person providing the service ? I know if we used child labor my tv would be a lot cheaper, but do I really complain about that ?

KKKKkkkk1 7y ago

Could they be using the law as a pretext? Offering a service without an upfront price is shady. If Uber can get away with it, we know the market is not as competitive as we thought it is.

olalonde 7y ago
> Offering a service without an upfront price is shady. One of the many reasons Uber gained market share over taxis. I doubt they're using the law as a pretext.
- traek 7y ago
  This is not at all true. Uber only introduced upfront pricing at the end of 2017. Prior to that users were charged based on time and distance, the same way as taxis.
  - rchaud 7y ago
    Which country/region was that in? I'm a late adopter of Uber (2015) in Canada and I have always seen the fixed rate price when requesting a ride.
jlmorton 7y ago
Is it? There's no upfront pricing in the taxi industry. There is a set fare rate, but the fare is dependent on external conditions.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Many cities have a set rate for airport-to-downtown trips, and you may be able to negotiate one directly with the taxi driver for long or unusual trips. For example: https://www.jfkairport.com/to-from-airport/taxi-car-and-van-service https://www.jfkairport.com/to-from-airport/taxi-car-and-van-... > Taxis at JFK Airport charge a flat fare of $52 for trips between the airport and Manhattan. Taxis impose a $4.50 surcharge during peak hours (4-8 p.m. weekdays, excluding holidays), for a fare of $56.50.

pmx 7y ago

Uber already works this way here in the UK and in my opinion it's the only fair way to charge for rides. I'm totally ok with paying for the ride I actually took (taking into account traffic and diversions) so that drivers make a decent living.

OnlineGladiator 7y ago
This encourages drivers to maximize each fare, though. So now every time my driver makes a wrong turn, not only does it cost me time but it also costs me money - and what's worse is the drivers are now incentivized to do this!
- melevittfl 7y ago
  True, although unlike a taxi, I can see during the trip the route the driver should be taking and, after the trip, I can see the route the driver actuall took. And, if the route taken is unreasonably different from the optimal route, I can complain to Uber and get a refund. So yes, while drivers may be incentivised to take longer routes, they can’t do it without being exposed.
  - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    Everything you just said applies to what Uber already has. This change is objectively worse for the customer in every way.
xphilter 7y ago
That doesn’t make any sense. Unless something else has changed, there’s no concrete way of knowing or estimating the cost of a ride. The price per mile/min is not regulated or posted like taxis. So what, you just hope surge pricing or per-rider-price-discrimination is not suddenly in play?
- djohnston 7y ago
  you would know if surge pricing took effect, the range is pretty small in the UK (a few pounds). you aren't going to suddenly pay 20 quid over the midpoint of the original band

rightbyte 7y ago

I don't understand this change. Why would this make the drivers any less of a employee or more of a contractor? If they were serious about the drivers being contractors, the drivers should process the payment and give Uber commission for the lead.

TomMarius 7y ago
Why should the driver process the payment? There are middlemen processing payments for hundreds of years.
- jfengel 7y ago
  I think the idea is "not Uber". If Uber is the only payment processor, then they look more like an employer and less like the middleman they want to claim to be. The money is coming from Uber to the driver rather than from the driver to Uber as their commission.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    That is normal, e.g. if you travel through a federated regional bus/train transport system, you're paying through the platform and the company is processing your payment, sending money to individual transport operators. See flixbus as the most extreme example, but there are tons of these across Europe, many of them formed during post-communist privatization. Its similar with parcel delivery companies, these even are forced to have the PPL brand on their own cars!
Litmus2336 7y ago
It seems to me that the option to refuse drives is the bigger change. But regarding pricing, Uber is no longer "mandating" the drivers accept a price, instead Uber drives agree to the rates Uber sets. Maybe that has some bearing? I'm no expert.
- sida 7y ago
  Maybe eventually uber needs to allow drivers to set prices for themselves, with a large enough market it should proxy surge pricing?

sp332 7y ago

Uber in a blog post on Wednesday said the step was the result of changes to its fare structure Does anyone know where this blog post is? I checked https://www.uber.com/blog https://www.uber.com/blog but the only post I could find for Wednesday was in the Culture section and didn't have this info.

josuepeq 7y ago
https://www.uber.com/blog/california/keeping-you-in-the-drivers-seat-2/ https://www.uber.com/blog/california/keeping-you-in-the-driv...
- josuepeq 7y ago
  Also, here’s part one: https://www.uber.com/blog/california/keeping-you-in-the-drivers-seat-1/ https://www.uber.com/blog/california/keeping-you-in-the-driv...
- sp332 7y ago
  Thanks!

iakov 7y ago

Interestingly enough, here in Czech republic it changed the other way around, roughly half a year ago.

sellweek 7y ago
As far as I remember some articles that came out around the time of this change, that's because Uber is not an official taxi service. So they need to operate as "contract rides" which must have their prices specified in advance.

the_mitsuhiko 7y ago

Upfront pricing is the main reason I use uber over alternatives in Europe. Almost all other services have price ranges.

mb_72 7y ago
Bolt has fixed upfront pricing (at least in Estonia and Hungary). It's also NOT Uber, one significant factor I use Bolt (for all of Uber's past transgressions).
tpetry 7y ago
Yes! And when no uber is nearby i have to take a taxi: But the estimated price of the taxi is all the time a lot higher than uber pricing, and the real price is again a lot higher than the estimated price. This is the exact reason uber got big, you feel tricked when getting a taxi.

piyushpr134 7y ago

Uber has made the taxi market worse off than govt controlled taxi services, when it comes to pricing, safety and affordability. These shady practices prove that the interventions such as surge pricing is just a money making scheme for them. If you disagree, then explain to me as to why does surge pricing increases their commission ? And does it not give them incentive to always surge. I can agree with a peak hour surcharge to increase supply but surge and these kind of things show that they are just money fleecing business

__composed 7y ago

It's insane how much of this contractor vs employee debate would just be solved with universal healthcare. I don't understand why the US is obsessed with passing on any cost to their citizens or employers in ways that lower productivity and clearly hurt the economy, instead of just biting the bullet and budgeting out policies to improve the economy, increase quality of life, and make the country in general stronger.

cjslep 7y ago
"If I don't do this shady thing, someone else will, and then I'll go out of business" zero-sum mentality.
lovich 7y ago
The conservative viewpoint is that the government can never do things as well as companies can, so they like to not provide services. The reason companies provide healthcare at all is an artifact from WWII when the tax rate was high enough that offering more salary was not enough to attract the limited workers left, so companies started offering other perks that were untaxed. Since the US Constitution being set up in a way as to encourage deadlock if there is not a large majority of agreement, were stuck in a deadlock on moving this forward to a government operated endeavor, and wont do anything to remove it from an employer offered benefit.
- Agustus 7y ago
  An addendum to this is that the government forced the companies to do this because the feds passed the insane 1942 Stabilization Act putting limits on wage hike capabilities of firms. The problem is that we have good economists who say: here are the facts and history of what your choices will do and bad economists who say: if you have x, y, z, and the planets of Saturn and Uranus in alignment, you may be able to affect the economy to the way you wish despite all of the historical evidence to the contrary. The bad economists are hired into administrations to justify politically expedient proposals.
  - lovich 7y ago

southphillyman 7y ago

Do this and the market will speak. I view ridesharing mostly as a luxury/convenience thing. My usage has already began to decline as prices have risen locally. If they start operating like taxis then I'll use them as often as taxis, which is to say rarely.

vineyardmike 7y ago
2015+ when I started to use Uber was the most freeing time to be in a city. You could always get home from a bar easily, in any weather. If you wanted to explore, and got lost or walked too far, home was only a tap away. It was such a convenience that after pricing, it was cheaper to Uber to work and anywhere else I drove to than to own a car for me.
- Rapzid 7y ago
  It really was all the convenience of a car without having to drive it. A designated driver on call. And in cities where finding a cab was hard or next to impossible.
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  The low cost was subsidized by a combination of VC money and underpaying drivers. The fact that you don’t get free stuff anymore is unfortunate but not all that different than the fate of Movie Pass.

Rapzid 7y ago

The estimates should be pretty darn accurate most of the time, and Uber still knows if drivers are taking the piss based on their data so.. I'm not overly pessimistic on this.

CodeWriter23 7y ago

If Uber et.al. were really smart, their response to AB5 would be to cap every driver at 30 hours per week, avoiding the legally mandated benefits and the decreased supply will increase surge pricing. Also, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez would have her feet held to the fire by most of her base.

pishpash 7y ago
I believe that already happens in NYC rideshare, and if Lorena Gonzalez or her ilk keeps it up, you will surely be treated to such glory in California too. All hail Dear Leader Lorena Gonzalez and her infinite wisdom!
leoh 7y ago
Clever yet risky. Narrative could be spun as "drivers who could barely support themselves now definitely can't support themselves on their diminished hours because Uber doesn't want to give provide them basic benefits and yet rides are more expensive than ever." If that narrative prevailed, _Uber's_ feet would end up right back in the fire and California would look like a saint.
- CodeWriter23 7y ago
  Uber has more cash to spend pushing the other side of that narrative, how much better off drivers were prior to AB 5. The gambit for Uber is, if they don’t flat reverse this law in CA, NY then WA will adopt it, followed by all Blue States. And then it’s game over for them. They will cost more than a taxi. And taxis will cost more due to the same contractor to employee conversion.
  - pishpash 7y ago
    If "game over" is what WA and blue states are dead set on bringing about (vs. unintended consequences) then they and their constituents can have it and deal with the outcome. A faceless corporation doesn't care in the long run, there are always other markets and other businesses.
7y ago

blendergeek 7y ago

I am an Uber Driver. I have been wanting changes like this ever since I started driving. I saw people asking, 'how does this make drivers less employee like?' I'll tell you this. It makes us feel less like employees when we actually have enough information to choose whether or not we want to take a ride. Now we will be able to see the estimated fare before we take a specific ride. There will be no more driving 20 minutes to a ride only to discover that it will be a half mile ride that wastes another twenty minutes at a convenience store netting us $3 for 40 minutes of our time. I will simply skip any ride like that. We feel less like employees and more like the contractors we are supposed to be when we know why Uber gets a certain percentage of the fare. I wholeheartedly agree with the changes Uber is making.

yoavm 7y ago
I don't really understand. It sounds great that the drivers would have enough information to decide whether to take a ride or not, but what does this have to do with stopping upfront pricing? In my ideal world, the driver knows everything about the proposed ride, and the rider knows the exact cost of it. Why is that not possible?
- blendergeek 7y ago
  The change to variable priced rides is because the 'cut' of the fare that Uber takes has been standardized to 25% while driver pay remains based on time and mileage. Giving drivers information about upcoming rides is a separate change.
  - e12e 7y ago
    How does that work? If a driver is always paid x/minute/mile (total X), customer always pays Y dollars as made up by Uber. Uber takes U, 25% of Y, pays the driver X, where does the rest go if Y-U-X > 0? How can this ever work without Uber sometimes taking a loss?
- analyst74 7y ago
  Variable payout means some form of fare bidding on driver side, as drivers can reject rides that are too low. On top of that, they are capping their commission to 25%, meaning that they can't use more profitable rides to offset losses from less profitable ones. Those two factors combined, means Uber cannot offer fixed pricing upfront without incurring loss.

ww520 7y ago

AB5 aside, I am all for giving drivers greater latitude at refusing rides. The abuses some drivers got from the riders are sickening.

cycrutchfield 7y ago
I mean, to be fair, back in the days before Uber the abuses some riders got from drivers was even more sickening. Giving them the right to refuse rides arbitrarily is not really the greatest thing for consumers.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  It has downsides (like redlining, for one thing) but those downsides already existed in the traditional cab model, so it's at least not worse. Given the problems upfront ride pricing caused for drivers I think it's reasonable for it to go away, even if it's slightly less convenient for me as a passenger. Ideally the problems with abuse of ride cancellation can just be solved via universal methods that apply to uber, lyft, AND traditional cabs. There's plenty of data available so it is feasible to use that data to police abuses of the system.
- smsm42 7y ago
  Why not? I certainly don't want to be driven by somebody who doesn't want to drive me and hates my guts for being forced into driving me. I'd rather he refused and another willing driver pick up the job.
  - freepor 7y ago
    Now imagine you live in a housing project and need to get to work and nobody will pick you up.
    - fujiters 7y ago
      One would think the price would increase until someone would pick you up. Uber should add the ability to bid up your route--like when it's taking a long time to match you to a driver, or you want to entice a driver who is nearby so you can get where you're going sooner.

scarejunba 7y ago

Saw this coming. Bought a car. I just drive everywhere in SF. This is great. My commute stays the same (8 min) + parking and walking time (6 mins). As a bonus when I hang out with my friends I "can't" drink which is a nice constraint on myself.

smsm42 7y ago

>> the final price would now be calculated at the end of a trip, “based on the actual time and distance traveled.” Well that sucks big time. One of the main reasons I used Uber was I know what it's going to cost me, upfront, no matter what, I just click, get in the car, get out and that's it. Now I have to gamble, risk that I get stuck in traffic and my price suddenly doubles, worry that the driver "took the scenic route", and so on, and so forth. It becomes just a taxi with a nice app.

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t34543 7y ago
I completely agree. It should be a fixed price, incentivizing the driver to take the most efficient route. I also don’t want my driver to see where I’m going, because not all rides are big fares. Sometimes I must get somewhere close and I don’t want a hassle. Uber has gotten a lot of bad press lately and I think unfairly so. What’s worse is Amazon’s gig program. Let’s say your doing jobs like assembling BBQs and Treadmills for customers. They don’t pay trip time to the job, so you can drive 40 miles only to find out half the screws are missing. You must get the customer to request the parts, come back, only to find it’s wrong again. You take a big hit refusing the job but you have to take all the shitty work to get the chance of a real profitable gig. Much worse than ride share semantics, IMO. Anyway - another reason to use Lyft.
- busymom0 7y ago
  Don’t the same laws apply to lyft too?
  - takeda 7y ago
    It does, but Lyft might respond to the law differently.
    - Balgair 7y ago
      > but Lyft might respond to the law differently. Well if that's filling my oligarchy quota for the day, I don't know what is!

mattlondon 7y ago

For what it is worth, I think it has always been this way in the UK. You put in a destination and you get a £15-18 estimate or whatever. It is even an estimate in the ads shown in google maps for Uber/Bolt/Kapten/etc

garmaine 7y ago
It used to be this way in California too. Then a year ago they switched to fixed price rises because that’s what people wanted.

bengale 7y ago

I'm fairly sure this is how it works already in London, once a month or so I have to travel across the city with a load of bags so I uber, and the app normally says something like £30-40 estimate and I end up paying closer to £30.

rolltiide 7y ago

Only reason this will work out is because California is a big enough destination that out of state uber riders won’t notice

timvdalen 7y ago

Wait, Uber uses fixed pricing in other countries? That sounds amazing. Here in The Netherlands, the actual price is usually 25% more than the top estimate Uber gives before the ride (they give a range).

Scea91 7y ago
Yeah, we have fixed pricing in Prague. I believe that Uber was forced to implement it by government to distinguish itself from taxi service and the related regulations (which truly are obsolete). From a customer perspective, it was a win and one more reason to prefer Uber over a traditional taxi.

bluecalm 7y ago

Why not let the drivers see the destination and price and then make the choice if they want to accept it? When we are at it the customer should be able to increase the price to encourage drivers. I see it this way: drivers reject giving a reason, one of the two: too cheap or other. Then the customer gets information about how many drivers rejected because of the amount and they get an option to increase it. As it is I often feel bad about requesting short trips. I feel most drivers don't want them and the situation is uncomfortable for everyone. I would like to have an option to pay enough so it's worthwhile for them to take a short ride.

34679 7y ago

Uber has no contact phone number or email for costumers or drivers to reach anyone in the company in the event an issue arises. Delete Uber, it's a shit company. I once had someone try to brute force my uber password, I was getting constant login failed notifications. Could not contact Uber, so I tried deleting the CC they had on file. They don't allow that. So I tried deleting the account. They don't allow that. So I changed my password to a ridiculously long set of random characters and deactivated the account, which they indicated would take 60 days. They make it so easy to give them your money, but if you have a problem, it's 100% "We don't give a fuck about you."

coldcode 7y ago
I believe the latter is Uber's motto. I find it amazing that such a large and "successful" company survives with such pathetic customer service. Of course they are not profitable (and not likely ever will be) so I assume customer service is the least of their concerns.