6 ms·

So basically, Lyft wins in CA? Ubers out and Lyft will comply and can finally raise the prices on rides however they want. Am I missing something?

nwallin 6y ago
Lyft is also a target of this injunction. It isn't clear yet that Lyft will begin complying with AB5.
- justinzollars 6y ago
  Margins are already negative. How can they possibly afford to?
  - nwallin 6y ago
    I don't know. Financials aside, I don't even know what this is supposed to look like from an organizational perspective. IMHO the biggest problem Lyft and Uber are facing is not an increase in cost, it's a reduction in flexibility. You can't afford to pay extra people to sit there on the clock if there's no demand. (plenty of drivers turn the app on in their house and go about their regular day, maybe only getting 1-2 rides in between eight hours of playing video games) Do you forcibly clock people out? You now have to be really careful about the 40 hours. You definitely can't afford to pay people overtime, and for all intents and purposes you can't allow people to work enough hours to constitute "full time" either. So if someone hits 35 hours or whatever, you have to clock them out. How do you handle drivers who turn down lots of rides? You have to fire them I suppose? This is not a problem you can just throw money at. I'm glad I'm not a product manager at Lyft/Uber right now. I'm not convinced it's possible to operate in California anymore.
    - catsarebetter 6y ago
      I guess another thing is that a lot of uber drivers could get fired b/c of just cost and the ones that stay on full-time are going to get thrashed around with little choice in what rides they want to pick. Yeah, this is a huge mess, it kind of makes sense why they choose to fight in legal battles in the past, it's just easier than figuring this out from a product perspective.

6 ms·

So basically, Lyft wins in CA? Ubers out and Lyft will comply and can finally raise the prices on rides however they want. Am I missing something?

by catsarebetter 6y ago

nwallin 6y ago
Lyft is also a target of this injunction. It isn't clear yet that Lyft will begin complying with AB5.
- justinzollars 6y ago
  Margins are already negative. How can they possibly afford to?
  - nwallin 6y ago
    I don't know. Financials aside, I don't even know what this is supposed to look like from an organizational perspective. IMHO the biggest problem Lyft and Uber are facing is not an increase in cost, it's a reduction in flexibility. You can't afford to pay extra people to sit there on the clock if there's no demand. (plenty of drivers turn the app on in their house and go about their regular day, maybe only getting 1-2 rides in between eight hours of playing video games) Do you forcibly clock people out? You now have to be really careful about the 40 hours. You definitely can't afford to pay people overtime, and for all intents and purposes you can't allow people to work enough hours to constitute "full time" either. So if someone hits 35 hours or whatever, you have to clock them out. How do you handle drivers who turn down lots of rides? You have to fire them I suppose? This is not a problem you can just throw money at. I'm glad I'm not a product manager at Lyft/Uber right now. I'm not convinced it's possible to operate in California anymore.
    - catsarebetter 6y ago
      I guess another thing is that a lot of uber drivers could get fired b/c of just cost and the ones that stay on full-time are going to get thrashed around with little choice in what rides they want to pick. Yeah, this is a huge mess, it kind of makes sense why they choose to fight in legal battles in the past, it's just easier than figuring this out from a product perspective.