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except uber/lyft will remove you from the platform if you decline too many rides, thereby only giving the illusion of choice.

erichocean 6y ago
How is that any different from Patreon suspending user accounts due to ToS violations? Are companies free to suspend accounts for any reason or not?
- YawningAngel 6y ago
  You are free to fire a contractor for any reason, but if you consistently fire contractors for doing things that you would prefer that they not do but which you cannot mandate they not do because they are not employees, then you undermine the claim that they are in fact contractors.
  - totony 6y ago
    If a contractor always overcharge you it seems normal to stop business with him, how is this different?
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      If by overcharging you mean billing for more hours than were in fact done, that's fraud and is a different matter entirely. Obviously you may stop working with a person if their prices are too high or because quality of their work is shit. However if you use this as a pretence for firing contractors, but the real reason you are firing them is because of their sex / gender / race - that would be illegal. In the same vein, if you fire contractors for doing things that are none of your business, and it is common knowledge that you do that and exercise control you should not have over them, then a court may decide that in fact the relationship is not that of a contractor. That in fact this is nothing more than a legal fiction created for the purpose of tax avoidance or similar.
      - totony 6y ago
        >In the same vein, if you fire contractors for doing things that are none of your business Like what? I'm pretty sure you can put all the terms you want in a contractual relationship. Even things that are none of your business (as long as not protected class).
- wetpaws 6y ago
  The good analogy would be Patreon forcing you to follow specific schedule / backer numbers / revenue figures / working model.
- larksimian 6y ago
  Yeah, but if they suspend you for a certain bundle of reasons then that makes you an employee. An employee is just a contractor with additional rules.
skybrian 6y ago
It seems like changing that would be an easier and less disruptive fix?
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Imagine the fun metagames this would cause. If the government took Uber's stick away, the company would be forced to find a rate at which they'd have enough drivers to allow for reasonably short pickup time. Drivers then could, over their local "$city Uber drivers" FB/WhatsApp group, agree to not take any ride below $X, thus forcing Uber to raise their rates to $X (+ Uber's cut). (While dropping drivers from the platform if they refuse too many rides doesn't make such collusion impossible in theory, it introduces enough individual risk to make such coordination unlikely in practice.)
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    > "the company would be forced to find a rate at which they'd have enough drivers to allow for reasonably short pickup time." Oh the humanity, how will they manage? They only have like the entire dataset of all rides ever taken plus a world class data science team plus a ton of market power. Will they be able to negotiate on equal footing rate with cab-drivers?
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    There is no stick; they already have to do that. If the drivers don’t like the rates and think they earn too little, they quit. Uber has to ensure that drivers make attractive rates if it wants retain them. And indeed, it offers lots of bonus pay, special deals etc precisely for that reason. > Drivers then could, over their local "$city Uber drivers" FB/WhatsApp group, agree to not take any ride below $X, This is, of course, illegal.
    - drusepth 6y ago
      >> Drivers then could, over their local "$city Uber drivers" FB/WhatsApp group, agree to not take any ride below $X, >This is, of course, illegal. What law does this break?
kbenson 6y ago
And maybe if you keep signalling to a company that you want to do contract work for them but never submit any bids for what they put out as jobs, they'll start ignoring you as not serious. Being a contractor doesn't mean you get to pick where you work, it means you get to pick where you work out of the people willing to hire you for contract work. Many companies have different criteria for what they require out of contractors. I don't see this as all that different.
- baddox 6y ago
  > And maybe if you keep signalling to a company that you want to do contract work for them but never submit any bids for what they put out as jobs, they'll start ignoring you as not serious. Okay, but none of this is about people who wanted to do work for Uber but didn't. This issue is about people who did in fact do work for Uber. If you never submit any bids and never do any work, you're neither a contractor nor an employee.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    Well, this specific tangent is about whether Uber drivers are like contractors in that they get to choose their jobs/rates or aren't. Specifically, I was responding to: >>> except uber/lyft will remove you from the platform if you decline too many rides, thereby only giving the illusion of choice. I don't see any real difference to that than to someone who was is contractor and maybe did some work, but hasn't responded in a while and the company removes them from the list of people they notify (and fast-track) for bids. If I'm at a company and I have a couple preferred contractors and one hasn't even bothered to reply to my the last few times I contacted them, maybe I'll lose faith in them being responsive while they're on the job. Any contractor relationship is a two way street. If either side doesn't maintain the relationship, the other side may choose to alter it or cut if off entirely.
- ummonk 6y ago
  Turning down a ride request is not the same as not submitting a bid.
subsaharancoder 6y ago
> except uber/lyft will remove you from the platform if you decline too many rides, thereby only giving the illusion of choice. Factually incorrect for Uber drivers in CA, the platform no longer penalizes drivers for declining trips and now allows them to pick and choose trips without any impact on driver rating. (I worked in Uber Eng up until the 5/18 layoffs)
- MAGZine 6y ago
  Thank you for the clarification—I'd edit my comment if I could.
- Jommi 6y ago
  This is the bigger problem. None of the people even here on HN actually now how Uber works and how different the experience for rider and drivers can be varying on city, state, country etc. Just a bunch of people repeating what they hear from anti-tech journalsits writing about startups.
  - subsaharancoder 6y ago
    Uber app is very hyperlocal because each location has different requirements/challenges especially around fare calculation, taxes and levies, how the app works in CA is very different from London and different from New York. The Driver app in CA was reworked on extensively during Q4 2019 in response to AB5 in order to strengthen the Uber case that it is essentially a platform that matches riders to drivers. Internally those changes can be rolled out to all cities in the U.S. if the AB5 tide goes beyond CA, but to be honest no one knows if those changes will make the case for Uber or not, they are the proverbial canary in the coal mine.
    - Jommi 6y ago
      Yep. Though is it still true that the prices for riders and the earnings for drivers are seperated? To me that is the key greediness here. At least in Europe all competitors still work with the % of fare calculations.

erichocean 6y ago

How is that any different from Patreon suspending user accounts due to ToS violations? Are companies free to suspend accounts for any reason or not?

YawningAngel 6y ago
You are free to fire a contractor for any reason, but if you consistently fire contractors for doing things that you would prefer that they not do but which you cannot mandate they not do because they are not employees, then you undermine the claim that they are in fact contractors.
- totony 6y ago
  If a contractor always overcharge you it seems normal to stop business with him, how is this different?
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    If by overcharging you mean billing for more hours than were in fact done, that's fraud and is a different matter entirely. Obviously you may stop working with a person if their prices are too high or because quality of their work is shit. However if you use this as a pretence for firing contractors, but the real reason you are firing them is because of their sex / gender / race - that would be illegal. In the same vein, if you fire contractors for doing things that are none of your business, and it is common knowledge that you do that and exercise control you should not have over them, then a court may decide that in fact the relationship is not that of a contractor. That in fact this is nothing more than a legal fiction created for the purpose of tax avoidance or similar.
    - totony 6y ago
      >In the same vein, if you fire contractors for doing things that are none of your business Like what? I'm pretty sure you can put all the terms you want in a contractual relationship. Even things that are none of your business (as long as not protected class).
wetpaws 6y ago
The good analogy would be Patreon forcing you to follow specific schedule / backer numbers / revenue figures / working model.
larksimian 6y ago
Yeah, but if they suspend you for a certain bundle of reasons then that makes you an employee. An employee is just a contractor with additional rules.

skybrian 6y ago

It seems like changing that would be an easier and less disruptive fix?

TeMPOraL 6y ago
Imagine the fun metagames this would cause. If the government took Uber's stick away, the company would be forced to find a rate at which they'd have enough drivers to allow for reasonably short pickup time. Drivers then could, over their local "$city Uber drivers" FB/WhatsApp group, agree to not take any ride below $X, thus forcing Uber to raise their rates to $X (+ Uber's cut). (While dropping drivers from the platform if they refuse too many rides doesn't make such collusion impossible in theory, it introduces enough individual risk to make such coordination unlikely in practice.)
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  > "the company would be forced to find a rate at which they'd have enough drivers to allow for reasonably short pickup time." Oh the humanity, how will they manage? They only have like the entire dataset of all rides ever taken plus a world class data science team plus a ton of market power. Will they be able to negotiate on equal footing rate with cab-drivers?
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  There is no stick; they already have to do that. If the drivers don’t like the rates and think they earn too little, they quit. Uber has to ensure that drivers make attractive rates if it wants retain them. And indeed, it offers lots of bonus pay, special deals etc precisely for that reason. > Drivers then could, over their local "$city Uber drivers" FB/WhatsApp group, agree to not take any ride below $X, This is, of course, illegal.
  - drusepth 6y ago
    >> Drivers then could, over their local "$city Uber drivers" FB/WhatsApp group, agree to not take any ride below $X, >This is, of course, illegal. What law does this break?

kbenson 6y ago

And maybe if you keep signalling to a company that you want to do contract work for them but never submit any bids for what they put out as jobs, they'll start ignoring you as not serious. Being a contractor doesn't mean you get to pick where you work, it means you get to pick where you work out of the people willing to hire you for contract work. Many companies have different criteria for what they require out of contractors. I don't see this as all that different.

baddox 6y ago
> And maybe if you keep signalling to a company that you want to do contract work for them but never submit any bids for what they put out as jobs, they'll start ignoring you as not serious. Okay, but none of this is about people who wanted to do work for Uber but didn't. This issue is about people who did in fact do work for Uber. If you never submit any bids and never do any work, you're neither a contractor nor an employee.
- kbenson 6y ago
  Well, this specific tangent is about whether Uber drivers are like contractors in that they get to choose their jobs/rates or aren't. Specifically, I was responding to: >>> except uber/lyft will remove you from the platform if you decline too many rides, thereby only giving the illusion of choice. I don't see any real difference to that than to someone who was is contractor and maybe did some work, but hasn't responded in a while and the company removes them from the list of people they notify (and fast-track) for bids. If I'm at a company and I have a couple preferred contractors and one hasn't even bothered to reply to my the last few times I contacted them, maybe I'll lose faith in them being responsive while they're on the job. Any contractor relationship is a two way street. If either side doesn't maintain the relationship, the other side may choose to alter it or cut if off entirely.
ummonk 6y ago
Turning down a ride request is not the same as not submitting a bid.

subsaharancoder 6y ago

> except uber/lyft will remove you from the platform if you decline too many rides, thereby only giving the illusion of choice. Factually incorrect for Uber drivers in CA, the platform no longer penalizes drivers for declining trips and now allows them to pick and choose trips without any impact on driver rating. (I worked in Uber Eng up until the 5/18 layoffs)

MAGZine 6y ago
Thank you for the clarification—I'd edit my comment if I could.
Jommi 6y ago
This is the bigger problem. None of the people even here on HN actually now how Uber works and how different the experience for rider and drivers can be varying on city, state, country etc. Just a bunch of people repeating what they hear from anti-tech journalsits writing about startups.
- subsaharancoder 6y ago
  Uber app is very hyperlocal because each location has different requirements/challenges especially around fare calculation, taxes and levies, how the app works in CA is very different from London and different from New York. The Driver app in CA was reworked on extensively during Q4 2019 in response to AB5 in order to strengthen the Uber case that it is essentially a platform that matches riders to drivers. Internally those changes can be rolled out to all cities in the U.S. if the AB5 tide goes beyond CA, but to be honest no one knows if those changes will make the case for Uber or not, they are the proverbial canary in the coal mine.
  - Jommi 6y ago
    Yep. Though is it still true that the prices for riders and the earnings for drivers are seperated? To me that is the key greediness here. At least in Europe all competitors still work with the % of fare calculations.