8 ms·

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.