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Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

• rodiger 6y ago
  Will be interesting to see how this plays out. Doesn't seem like it would be feasible to maintain all drivers as employees.
  • heyoni 6y ago
    It’s going to be impossible to just casually drive for them too.
    • newguy1234 6y ago
      Service will degrade too. "Your driver will be here in 45 minutes" type of stuff going forward. A huge incentive of using uber/lyft was that in major cities you could literally be picked up in a few minutes of requesting the ride.
  • mosdl 6y ago
    They could make changes to their offering (like showing the end location, etc) to avoid this, which they are avoiding.
  • ItMayWorkTryIt 6y ago
    Definitely not feasible to keep drivers on as employees legally. Some issues that come to mind that seem incredibly hard for uber/lyft to enforce but are mandatory for California employees: * Meal & rest breaks * Callback pay * Split Shift premiums * Reporting premium (if you show up to work, but less work to do than half your scheduled shift) The only way I see this working is somebody started some "Driver Pool" company that employed drivers fulltime and then Uber/Lyft/Doordash/Grubhub/etc all use that company.
    • beamatronic 6y ago
      It would be like TriNet, but for drivers only
    • tedivm 6y ago
      AB5 explicitly allowed for flexible hours- it did not require "shifts" like you're talking about. It made allowances to give drivers the flexibility they want, but Uber and Lyft are upset that it also requires them to provide the option for insurance and that they'd have to pay into the unemployment pool.
      • apta 6y ago
        They cannot be classified as employees to begin with. AB5 also harmed non-Uber/Lyft drivers, I came across several posts for programming gigs that said that they would not be able to accept offers from programmers in CA due to AB5. It's broken.
    • toast0 6y ago
      Meal and rest breaks would be easy-ish. Have a button in the driver app to take a rest break available every so often. If it's been too long, force it and don't show rides. Same for meals. Callback, split shift, and reporting premiums only apply to my knowledge if the shifts are scheduled. I guess it depends if they go towards scheduled shifts over show up whenever, and/or if they can make it 'i'd like to work: yes/no'
• manigandham 6y ago
  California (govt) is fantastic at making California worse.
  • setpatchaddress 6y ago
    Genuine question: what state government would you look to for a better model?
    • kaesar14 6y ago
      Not many states are in the position California is. No matter how poorly run the state might be, people are unlikely to leave due to existing business and weather. Hard to compare.
      • beamatronic 6y ago
        Exactly Californians will succeed no matter what the government does.
        • manigandham 6y ago
          What's that mean exactly? There are a lot of people having a hard time in this state.
      • malandrew 6y ago
        This. It's basically a hostage situation. With the exception of not enforcing non-competes, I can't think of a single thing that makes California great that is the result of government. Hollywood is there because of the weather. The central valley is there because of the weather and the soil. The tech industry is there because of the defense industry in WWII and the importance of the west coast to the war effort in the Pacific. There almost 1000 miles of beautiful coast and some of the best National Parks and National Forests in the country are in California. The geography and the weather is the root of why California is successful. That has attracted and kept talent and created a positive feedback loop between talent and natural resources. The California government has the luxury of being able to be the most mismanaged because they don't even have to try. Tax money is abundant from all the economic activity and they have captive industries that would have a hard time relocating elsewhere.
• newguy1234 6y ago
  Thoughts on speculation that this will cause drunk driving deaths to increase?
  • beamatronic 6y ago
    It absolutely will increase. But this is tempered by the current coronavirus situation
• dannyw 6y ago
  I used to drive for Uber, a few hours a week during my downtime when I was bored and had nothing better to do. The earnings weren’t great, but it was very helpful as an extra. I had a fuel efficient car and kept track of all my expenses for deductions and made above minimum wage. I’ve met plenty of lovely and fascinating people and had great, enjoyable conversations. I barely had any issues with riders. This extra income helped me buy more stocks and make just a little bit more progress towards my financial goals. These stocks are still compounding away. I’m a bit sad that this opportunity is now taken away from Californians.
  • xenospn 6y ago
    My close friend drove for Uber and Lyft in Los Angeles. He was constantly abused and berated by drunk and rude passengers (which he couldn't refuse), drove more just to have Uber slash his take-home rate by 60%, and even invested in a larger van so he could drove pool (or whatever the name is for large groups) which never materialized. He's extremely happy to see them go.
    • creaghpatr 6y ago
      How much are Uber and Lyft paying him now?
      • xenospn 6y ago
        He left them a while ago. Couldn't make a living driving for both.
  • cafebabbe 6y ago
    Cool story, like a mini american dream! Some drivers have differing views on the topic though :(
    • stronglikedan 6y ago
      If driving is what someone has decided to solely do for a living, then they should get a driving job. There's plenty of driving jobs that aren't driving gigs. In my mind, the definition of "gig" sets the expectation for the type of work it will be.
• ivarv 6y ago
  So this is basically an admission that the ridesharing business model is not viable without worker exploitation?
  • manigandham 6y ago
    People freely working is not exploitation. Full time driving jobs already exist if you wanted that instead of freelance rideshare driving.
    • ironmagma 6y ago
      They exist, but those opportunities exist not in as numerous quantities because they are undercut by Lyft/Uber, which are only able to do so because they are operating unsustainably. The latter just need to either increase their prices to make the rideshare job more profitable and acceptable or, if that’s truly impossible as they suggest, I guess we’ll have to go back to cab rides.
      • manigandham 6y ago
        Uber/Lyft are both profitable in many markets. The system is perfectly sustainable. It's the service, not the price, that made the biggest difference for users. And this service requires having thousands of drivers able to start at a moment's notice, which is not viable under an employee-shift driven model.
        • ironmagma 6y ago
          If it’s so profitable, they should be able to pass on those profits to the drivers. If they were already doing that, we wouldn’t be where we are.
    • throwaway123x2 6y ago
      People freely worked under abusive conditions in factories in the Industrial Revolution before the labour rights movement. No one wants to go back to that.
• gotoeleven 6y ago
  California has proven itself again and again to be really good at centrally planning the economic activities of individuals so I think this will work out pretty well in the end.
  • dcow 6y ago
    This is why I’m leaving California.
  • georgeecollins 6y ago
    That is why the California economy is collapsing. /s Everybody likes to complain about California. When I was born here it was about 15m people. Now its 40m. If you are unhappy, please leave to a lower cost, lower tax state. People have been predicting California's decline my entire life and the real problem is it can't handle the growth. Also, California has been sucking up employing the young and of mid-west and south for a century. Now those states get mad when "Californians" move to places like Austin. Where do you think they came from originally?
    • saas_sam 6y ago
      Do you have a similar "love it or leave it" attitude when people complain about America? Not very Californian of you.
      • Daishiman 6y ago
        Unlike international immigration, US inter-state immigration is comparatively quite simple and built-in as a feature.
      • georgeecollins 6y ago
        That's a good point. I think immigration is great for the country. And I never mind it my neighbors come from the mid-west or from Central America or wherever. I just get sick of people bashing California. It outgrows the rest of the country at an amazing rate, spawns world beating companies, and then people say it is socialist.
• nemothekid 6y ago
  When I moved to CA, I put off getting a CA license for years. I always told myself I'd go to the DMV and do the paperwork, then I waited long enough to find out I would have to retake the test, until finally I just resigned to using Uber and Lyft all the time. I never thought I would need it and so I never made it a priority. So this news really sucks, as you haven't been able to schedule DMV appointments at all and it looks like it will continue to be that way for the foreseeable futuere. I understand the Uber/Lyft may have had this a long time coming but it really is inconvenient for this to happen during COVID.
  • JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
    The average person's response to being told they'd have to take another driver's test isn't to replace driving with Uber/Lyft. You're in a unique position to be able to afford to replace all driving with ridesharing, since gas+insurance+maintenance costs are much lower than say, a month of commuting to an office via rideshare.
    • gibolt 6y ago
      There are tons of people who could have replaced their car with rideshare and maybe some public transit, and still come out cheaper. Insurance, parking, fuel, depreciation, maintenance, and random events add up. If you don't need it for commuting, most of the recurring rideshare costs vanish. If you need to make an extra long occasional trip, car rental for a day or two outweighs ownership. Edit: To be clear, anything other than a car is cheaper for many (not all) people. (e)Bike, shared scooter, walking, trolley, Uber/Lyft, taxi, carpooling, etc. Cities are expensive and small towns are small. On average, ~50% of car trips are under 2 miles. A car is not required for most of those in most locations.
      • toomuchtodo 6y ago
        It’s only cheaper because riders were taking advantage of the unrealistically low labor costs (while regulation was catching up) and dumb VC money. Riders only have themselves to blame if they made life choices around a service that was clearly unsustainable, Movie Pass style.
• Reedx 6y ago
  > Instead, what Sacramento politicians are pushing is an employment model that 4 out of 5 drivers don’t support. Is that stat accurate? If so, what is the argument for imposing a model that the vast majority of drivers don't support?
  • manigandham 6y ago
    100% of the thousands of Uber drivers I've talked to over the past 8 years have said work flexibility is their greatest advantage. Many of them already have other commitments and drive for extra income. If they wanted a FT driving job, they would've gotten one.
    • sb8244 6y ago
      Thinking through this more. I've noticed that a lot of drivers work both Uber and Lyft (flexibility allows this). Would that go away in the employee model?
      • manigandham 6y ago
        Yes. While you can be employed by multiple companies, it's unlikely you'll have the flexibility to do so because they will implement shift schedules to maximize employee driving time and coverage.
      • YuriNiyazov 6y ago
        Yes. You can’t be on the clock at two employers at the same time
      • Androider 6y ago
        I would think so, no more running multiple apps as a driver if you're employed. Because the pool of drivers for a particular company would be massively reduced as well, driver down-time between rides on their platform may be expected to significantly decrease, which was a major reason for running multiple apps in the first place. Basically the remaining drivers will essentially partition themselves into two pools, driving exclusively for either Uber or Lyft. I'm not saying anything about whether that's good or bad, but it seems a likely outcome.
• kaesar14 6y ago
  Why can't we have a new worker classification that allows gig workers to have both the flexibility the job entails + better benefits/protections?
  • weyland108 6y ago
    I think that’s what is proposed in prop 22. Maybe it could be argued it needs to do more ... but seems like a step towards it.
  • raziel2701 6y ago
    Better yet would be to have universal healthcare to decouple access to healthcare from being employed.
    • kaesar14 6y ago
      100% this. This wouldn't be a political fight if people weren't worried about not being taken care of when they or a family member gets sick or hurt.
    • goodluckchuck 6y ago
      Health insurance and healthcare are very far from the same thing. In my work I am constantly dealing with people who have "great" insurance, but who are going without medical attention. Sometimes claims are denied. Others spent all their money buying the insurance and now can't afford their co-pay (when they would have been able to easily afford the treatment if not for the cost of the insurance). More often, the system works just as its designed. There's no official denials. No refusals. Just a Kafkaesque runaround that inconveniences and delays treatment so that people get less of it, at a lower quality, and a lower cost for the insurer. Of course, there's a lot of people who make good livings off the insurance industry (myself included). So there's a lot of vested interests trying to prevent people from being able (or accustomed) to buy medical care with cash, credit, etc. They should simply decouple health insurance from employment by taxing it as income.
  • rodiger 6y ago
    Seems like that's what Lyft was hoping would be sufficient compromise. Per the release: "We’ve spent hundreds of hours meeting with policymakers and labor leaders to craft an alternative proposal for drivers that includes a minimum earnings guarantee, mileage reimbursement, a health care subsidy, and occupational accident insurance, without the negative consequences."
• meritt 6y ago
  When Tesla/Waymo/Uber/Lyft roll out actual self-driving technology in the future and people complain "robots are taking our jobs!" we can point to this legislation and say "actually, no, it was the politicians"
  • raziel2701 6y ago
    Automation is coming regardless of policies.
    • ryanmarsh 6y ago
      Automation isn’t done for automation’s sake. Business people don’t think that way. It’s done to save money or make money. Also, business owners are not quick to break a system that makes money for a few extra pennies. Politicians like to flip the scales, and business owners react predictably.
  • roseway4 6y ago
    Well, actually it was the margins that did it, but finance can be a little abstract when you're populist.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • meritt 6y ago
      That's interesting since Craigslist has operated a rideshare marketplace for 20+ years and runs at an 80% profit margin. They've also never ran afoul of contractor vs. employee scrutiny. Could it be that perhaps Uber and Lyft are simply poorly ran organizations who only excel at burning VC money?
  • nafey 6y ago
    Well both of the statements can be true.
  • jayd16 6y ago
    If you had commodity full self driving, how could a human compete at almost any price point? You can run the car all day and night. Lack of this legislation didn't stop factory automation. I can't help but think this is a bad take.
• kaesar14 6y ago
  I'm not wholly convinced drivers were ever really contractors, but by what measure are drivers employees? We really need a third classification
  • deadmik3 6y ago
    a 3rd classification isn't enough. employment is a spectrum just like gender and policies need to reflect that. politicians are so stuck in the old binary way of thinking
    • dang 6y ago
      Please don't do this here.
      • 101008 6y ago
        Do what?
        • dang 6y ago
          Troll. Or, if you'd like the longer version: "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
          • 101008 6y ago
            Ah, you meant the gender comment. Sorry, I didnt read it and I didnt understood what you were mentioning. Thanks.
  • theplague42 6y ago
    You could read the new law, or a summary. It's not super hard to understand.
• woeirua 6y ago
  I suspect that California is going to backpedal on this pretty quickly. Uber and Lyft are popular. Going back to taxis is going to be very unpopular. IMO, if the California Republican party was smart they would make this a wedge issue in the next election. "Elect us, and we'll make it possible to use Uber again."
  • x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
    The State of California doesn't care about workers, they care about the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars they want from payroll and unemployment taxes, in addition to revenue from automatic withholdings for people whom would otherwise be below the reporting limit.
    • CPLX 6y ago
      Those things seem like reasonable things for a government to care about.
    • compycom 6y ago
      I think it's reasonable for a government to crack down on businesses where the entire operational structure is designed to subvert that government's tax code and regulations.
      • agentdrtran 6y ago
        I swear people forget how Uber got popular in the first place.
        • BadassFractal 6y ago
          By providing a service that was more convenient, safer and affordable than the alternatives protected by regulatory rent-seeking.
          • AgloeDreams 6y ago
• subdane 6y ago
  Am I nuts, or is the heart of this issue really the fact that our healthcare system is built on tying benefits to full time jobs?
  • bgorman 6y ago
    The heart of the issue is big labor unions want more power, and independent contractor status is a threat to their power.
    • pottertheotter 6y ago
      Can you provide some sources on this? Would like to read about it.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • bgorman 6y ago
        Here is where the primary AB5 bill sponsors get their money: https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=37194&default=candidate https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=37194&defa... https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=133178&default=candidate https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=133178&def... List of all sponsors: https://legiscan.com/CA/sponsors/AB5/2019 https://legiscan.com/CA/sponsors/AB5/2019 As you can see "Labor" is by far the biggest sponsor to the politicans who pushed through this initiative.
        • runarberg 6y ago
          I don’t understand, why is that surprising? After all the reason behind this bill is to prevent unfair labor conditions. It is literally the job of labor unions to push forward and lobby for bills like these. I think you are guilty of bad faith reasoning here. First you state that “big labor unions want more power” and your evidence for that claim is “Labor unions push for bills that prevent bad labor practices”.
• milofeynman 6y ago
  I don't know if you're genuine or not but the way you wrote this post sounds so utterly inauthentic[0]. You're whimsically sad you can't get more fun money to invest in stock, while the reason that ride sharing is being shut down is because it takes advantage of the lower class it depends on. [0]edit: unauthentic->inauthentic
  • fokinsean 6y ago
    Yeah I wouldn't doubt if there's some Lyft shills in here. Removing my tin foil hat now.
  • oliverx0 6y ago
    He is giving his point of view based on past experience. A lot of drivers see Uber as helpful side money, and that seems quite genuine. Those who see Uber this away are indeed seeing this opportunity taken away.
    • azinman2 6y ago
      How do you know “Danny” identifies as a “he”?
    • theplague42 6y ago
      Does the California court order apply to these part-time drivers? I thought it only affected drivers essentially working full-time.
      • lhorie 6y ago
        As far as I understand, it applies to all drivers, even ones that only drive 5 hours a week.
  • majormajor 6y ago
    > You're whimsically sad you can't get more fun money to invest in stock, while the reason that ride sharing is being shut down is because it takes advantage of the lower class it depends on. The American people take advantage of the lower class by tying healthcare to employment, and in an extra-cruel way where less lucrative jobs also provide insurance that is both more expensive day-to-day to the employee AND less comprehensive. Uncouple basic benefits from jobs and so many of these problems go away in a much simpler way.
• unethical_ban 6y ago
  This seems lazy by CA. We either have "full time = forty hours of work and tons of benefits that have been shoehorned into employment because our government doesn't provide it" or "part time = less than forty hours and you get abused" I'm not privy so I won't pretend to have the right idea, but it seems like there should be a middle ground.
  • x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
    It's not lazy, it's _greedy_. The state is only interesting in getting a share of the Uber/Lyft pie via payroll and unemployment taxes. They would also get automatic deduction of taxes from peoples' paychecks who would otherwise be under the reporting limit.
    • MAGZine 6y ago
      Independent contractors pay both sides of the payroll tax, don't they? So there's no greed there. Unemployment is a different case, but here, it would actually make the state liable for more money—it would be a pretty weird greed situation.
      • x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
        > Independent contractors pay both sides of the payroll tax, don't they? So there's no greed there. Not if they are under the reporting limit, which many drivers are.
• JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  I wonder what new app will spring up in place of Uber and Lyft. This is a huge opportunity for some aspiring entrepreneur. Of course, they're probably bluffing and will be back soon.
  • zelly 6y ago
    Would an app that defies this order even be allowed on the App Store?
    • JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
      Who said the competitor has to defy the order? Lyft is choosing not to abide by it. Whether Apple would permit it or not, who knows, they tend to apply policy unevenly. On Android, apps can be side-loaded so no need to get App Store approval.
• aazaa 6y ago
  The move seems to be specifically in response to the recent court order: > Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman ruled Monday [August 10, 2020] that Lyft and Uber's thousands of contract drivers should be given the same protections and benefits under labor law as other employees of the ride-hailing companies. > The judge said Uber and Lyft have refused to comply with a California law passed last year that was supposed to make it harder for companies in the state to hire workers as contractors, so gig economy workers such as drivers for the ride-hailing companies would receive health insurance, workers' compensation and paid sick and family leave. As independent contractors, Uber and Lyft drivers are not provided these benefits. https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/901099643/california-judge-orders-uber-and-lyft-to-consider-all-drivers-employees https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/901099643/california-judge-or...
  • Shivetya 6y ago
    Interesting how cities are being allowed to violate the same by not holding their own taxi services into account[0] that they regulate thereby letting them skirt the law. This is likely because these companies tend to put good money into local political campaigns. This law is impacting people outside of Uber and Lyft but those two are highlighted because it thwarted the lock down many municipalities had over cab companies and they did not want to give up the side benefits of that cash into their political coffers. Then throw in that Uber and Lyft were truly effective alternatives to unionized mass transit lines operated in many cities and you can see the entirety of the political graft that was being upended. If you want more you just jump into that this is part of undoing decades of jobs bounded up in occupational licensing which only serves to protect vested interest who again are quick to maintain their political donations. If they were out to protect workers they had many more ways to do it. [0]https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-s-gig-work-law-targets-Uber-and-14565001.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-s-gi...
    • tdeck 6y ago
      > Then throw in that Uber and Lyft were truly effective alternatives to unionized mass transit lines operated in many cities No they weren't. It's called "mass transit" for a reason - replacing trains and buses with masses of individuals riding in separate cars is not an effective alternative. While Uber and Lyft are more convenient for certain trips, mass transit still has a place due to capacity constraints. > If they were out to protect workers they had many more ways to do it. Such as what? Strengthening collective bargaining rights? Oh wait, you don't like unions either.
• nafey 6y ago
  Maybe some of the drivers can come together to create a driver owned ride sharing app. A good example of this is http://www.rideaustin.com/ http://www.rideaustin.com/
  • beervirus 6y ago
    I haven’t used that one since Uber and Lyft were briefly shut down in Austin. Didn’t realize it was still a thing. How does it compare?
• mqus 6y ago
  > the rest would have scheduled shifts, and capped hourly earnings. I don't really understand why this is necessary. Can't there still be flexible arrangements with drivers simply clocking their work and then getting some kind of salary derived from that? Can't they still get paid bonuses for driving in particularly unwanted hours? Sure, this would be a complex contract, but I don't see how this is impossible. But I'm not a USA citizen so maybe there is something I'm missing.
  • MAGZine 6y ago
    I had the same thought. Lyft and Uber are already employers in the view of the state. No further modification is necessary. What I'm guessing is that having people waiting being paid $0 is a core principal of Uber and Lyft. They hinge on over-supply. If they have to pay minimum wage to everyone who signs on, they need to be a lot more careful about who they allow to sign on, and when. Saying it'll go to shift work though seems a bit extreme. Sounds like a tantrum to me.
  • LatteLazy 6y ago
    No one would work when you wanted them to work unless you make them. Would you work a busy Friday night dealing with drunk people and missing your friends when you could get the same money for doing nothing on a Tuesday morning?
    • mqus 6y ago
      That's why I mentioned bonuses. You are getting paid more if no one wants to drive, but there is some kind of base payment you can expect to get.
      • LatteLazy 6y ago
        I mean, what you're describing without realizing it is just a cab company except you pay everyone a 30+ hours a week for doing nothing on top of what you pay them for actually working... This is why cab companies don't already let drivers pick their own hours (assuming they don't use the uber-lite approach of people just hiring the cab\medallion).
• SamWhited 6y ago
  We had this same thing happen in Austin when Uber and Lyft pulled out after having a hissy fit about fingerprinting and background checks and not parking in the bus lanes. As soon as they pulled out half a dozen alternatives sprung up that paid better (I always used Ride Austin, a not-for-profit). If you're a rider just take the bus, bike, or get any other cab service (seriously, they all have apps now and they maintain a fleet so drivers don't get stuck with repair bills). If you're a driver it's going to suck for a few weeks, you may have to find other opportunities, but more places will pop up and there will be better competition and better pay pretty quickly if the Austin example holds true. TL;DR it's easy to flip out because Uber and Lyft are big names, but there are plenty of other good services, just use those instead.
  • deleted 6y ago
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  • lhorie 6y ago
    I read RideAustin was going to shut down[1] this year and so did Fasten and Fare a few years ago [1] https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-austin/impacts/2020/06/12/rideaustin-shuts-down-operations/#:~:text=Local%20ride%2Dsharing%20nonprofit%20RideAustin,community%2C%E2%80%9D%20read%20the%20email https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-austin/impacts/20....
    • SamWhited 6y ago
      That's extremely sad; I moved away towards the end of last year so I haven't been keeping up with it sadly :(
  • kooshball 6y ago
    This is not a good comparison because they're dismantling the whole business model with this ruling. With the new requirements in place (e.g. actually hiring employees and providing benefits) the barrier to entry here is waaaaay higher than before. I would argue Ride Austin would have never even started (especially as a non profit) if these requirements were in place the last time Uber/Lyft shut down in Austin.
• lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Yes, voters in the US want to give people education, healthcare, and unemployment (or basic income-ish) benefits. Voters in the US also don’t want to pay for any of this. Hence, the politicians that get elected are ones that give people education via student loans, and healthcare/unemployment benefits tied to employer/employment status. Those politicians get to claim they helped people, and they get to claim they kept taxes low. The game is to try to reduce your tax burden as much as possible, and don’t slip up and end up in the bottom 3, maybe even 4 income quintiles.
  • claudeganon 6y ago
    Medicare for All is widely popular in the US. The insurance industry, hospitals, and employers who want leverage over workers buy off politicians to prevent it from happening.
    • aceman22 6y ago
      Just my humble opinion, but it seems Medicare for all would only exacerbate the actual problem of medical costs being too high due to government subsidization. I'll take my down votes and go now...
      • rattray 6y ago
        HN's guidelines discourage commenting on downvotes; you may wish to remove the last sentence. I will say that I recently had to deal with the medical system for a family member, and he was on decent private insurance. We actually would have received better care at a lower cost if he was on Medicare instead. N=1, of course. I'm pretty sure that Medicare has been shown to be a more effective negotiator than the private insurers and generally operates more efficiently, but I may be misremembering. Disclaimer that I don't support medicare for all myself, I'd much prefer a model closer to the NHS, with caveats (federal funding, county administration, state oversight).
      • the_mitsuhiko 6y ago
        Medicare for all would create the largest insurance pool the US has seen. It makes absolutely no sense why that would raise the costs.
• joewadcan 6y ago
  Pathetic... why not take the ~20% of drivers who put in 35h+ a week and make them employees to keep their service running and help their customers? ... Oh right because they can instead inflict pain 75 days before the carveout ballot measure they wrote. They aren't the innocent victims of gov't overreach for us to venerate. They stonewalled participation in writing a better AB5, because they want no rules but their own. IMHO This would be a great time for TESLA to spin up a 100% employee based human driving service in California and gobble up the demand.
  • rodonn 6y ago
    I don't see how the TESLA model could work with human employee drivers. Uber is already not making a profit with their current lower cost structure. TESLA with more expensive cars and more expensive employee costs, will almost certainly also lose money unless they substantially increase prices. And at the higher price level, demand is likely to be lower as well.
• zelly 6y ago
  What's stopping someone from running a Lyft-like service "dry" (without payment processing) and just matching riders with drivers, with the expectation of paying cash or Zelle I mean other than the fact that it would make no money. What could California do to the developers of such an app?
  • kippinitreal 6y ago
    Maybe an alternative model would be too charge the drivers a subscription fee. Could be a typical SAAS model where first 10 rides/month are free and the ability to work unlimited hours costs ~$1k. I don't think you could do this for free as the support costs are likely really high and support is super important when people are putting their lives in the drivers' hands.
• superfamicom 6y ago
  I've met a few drivers in Seattle who offered their own rates via text pickup. I used this to get to the airport once. I wonder how many drivers in California were doing the same thing knowing this was on the way- get your local clients and build trust and start their own mini ride service- assuming you know how to use Venmo and the like.
  • dhosek 6y ago
    I've encountered something similar here, where a driver with a minivan equipped with carseats picks up direct work (courtesy of “word-of-mouth” promotion through the highly powerful local working moms group on Facebook). [note: I'm not being sarcastic about calling the Facebook moms group “highly powerful”—they have significant civic clout in local politics/business/activism.]
  • ur-whale 6y ago
    This is exactly what is needed. At the end of the day, the added value of Uber and Lyft is not that amazing, and should be easy to replicate in a p2p system.
• ur-whale 6y ago
  When a good thing comes around, you can always trust a leftist governments to ruin everyone's day at some point.
• basicsbeauty 6y ago
  They had months to prepare for this, but choose not to.
• onion2k 6y ago
  We don’t want to suspend operations. So don't. Either give the drivers what the California politicians are saying all Californians should have as a minimum benefit, and then go to court to argue why Lyft drivers should get something else, or let Lyft drivers set their own prices as they should be able to as independent contractors.
  • servercobra 6y ago
    Are they not able to set their own prices/minimums? I just had a notification pop up this week at the airport that the nearby drivers were charging more and I'd need to accept a surge price or wait longer. I'm not sure if this is just a clever rewording of the surge pricing policy or an actual change on the driver side. For what it's worth, it was after 16 hours of travel, so I wasn't paying super close attention.
    • freeone3000 6y ago
      That's Lyft setting the prices, not individual drivers.
      • servercobra 6y ago
        Ah at least for Uber (unclear on Lyft) it is able to be set by the drivers: https://www.uber.com/blog/california/set-your-fares/ https://www.uber.com/blog/california/set-your-fares/
  • ggreer 6y ago
    > Either give the drivers what the California politicians are saying all Californians should have as a minimum benefit, and then go to court to argue why Lyft drivers should get something else, or let Lyft drivers set their own prices as they should be able to as independent contractors. Both companies did go to court (which is why the shutdown is happening now and not eight months ago) and Uber does allow drivers to set their own rates.[1] The people involved in these economic transactions know what they're getting into and consent. The negative externalities created (pollution, congestion, increased accidents, road wear & tear) are paid for by gas taxes, liability insurance, and road/bridge tolls. There are positive externalities such as lives saved due to fewer drunk drivers. It seems crazy to stop consenting adults from doing an activity that, as far as I can tell, mutually benefits everyone involved. 1. https://www.uber.com/blog/california/set-your-fares/ https://www.uber.com/blog/california/set-your-fares/
• blhack 6y ago
  Lot of my friends who work in non tech jobs use driving for Uber or Lyft as a way to either get a little extra cash, or bridge themselves across gaps in employment. This would devastate them. Absolutely heartless move on behalf of the California government. Don’t kick the little guys while they’re down to make some political point. It’s not the time.
  • pmcollins 6y ago
    The interesting thing is that this may not have been a heartless move, it seems to have been, from what I can tell, a well-meaning move that is going to hurt the very people politicians were trying to help. I feel like this is a theme of the last 100 years repeating itself over and over. The road to hell...
    • fizzled 6y ago
      The road to hell... ...is paved with (IMHO) an irrational support for billionaires getting richer at the expense of the exploitation of the commoner.
      • Infinitesimus 6y ago
        But isn't the better position here to create a bill that decouples health benefits from the employer and allow contractors to have better lives?
        • seiferteric 6y ago
          This exactly. I can't for the life of me figure out why so many people think we should keep saddling private companies with all of this stuff. We should make operating a business as simple as possible. If you want everyone to have healthcare, pass universal healthcare (in California at least).
          • yazaddaruvala 6y ago
            Thinking about how to structure this: - Drivers should get the extra funds for medical insurance. California has Medicare and Medicaid, it just needs funds. - Uber and Lyft don't want to employ people because of fixed vs non-fixed hours, etc. Full time employees at 40 hours per week get medical insurance, so gig-work (like Uber/Lyft) should probably pay partial amounts for medical insurance based on hours worked (i.e. roughly calculated at driving time for Uber or Lyft). - California (through Medicare/Medicaid) sets a "medical insurance target", e.g. $200 per week, and a HSA for all gig-workers. If a driver drives 4 hours a week (40 / 4 = 10%), Lyft has to contribute $20 (10% of $200) to the HSA for that driver. - The driver can either withdraw the money from HSA as income, or use the money tax-free to pay Medicare to continue coverage. If the driver only drove 20 hours per week on average, i.e. the HSA didn't have enough funds, the driver would pay the difference out-of-pocket. Ideally, drivers would drive 40 hours per week between Lyft, Uber, etc, and get full medical coverage.
• azinman2 6y ago
  Would Lyft/Uber stop operations in CA in the long term? Or is this just a ploy to get people to vote for their proposition? It seems silly to leave money on the table.
  • manigandham 6y ago
    If operations are unprofitable then what money are they leaving? However it's likely that without changes, they will just operate in a few core urban regions rather than the widespread coverage they have today.
    • azinman2 6y ago
      If it's not profitable to treat those already working 40+ hours a week as an employee, then that's not a great business in the first place. We shouldn't rely on exploiting the lower class in order to provide basic services like transportation. Personally I think the idea of being a contractor to loosely pick up some extra cash is a great thing, assuming this is effectively an extra job and way less than 40h/week. I don't know how common that actually is -- almost every Lyft/Uber driver I've asked are working 8+ hours, and driving into SF/NYC/DC/LA from a far away location.
      • manigandham 6y ago
        That's your subjective opinion. Millions of riders and drivers think it's a great business, and full-time driving jobs already exist for those who want them. Why should drivers not have a choice? What if flexibility is important to them? Why do hours matter they're a contractor? Should they not set their own time? Do you also oppose freelance writers or artists that work 40+ hours?
        • azinman2 6y ago
          Should kids have a choice if they want to engage in child labor? Should people be able to sell their organs or children for money? Opt into slavery? The reason why we have legislation that creates regulation is because there's a body of people trying to look out for the larger common good, particularly when existing labor laws are being skirted around. If there wasn't a problem of exploitation of this entire business model (not just Lyft, but also Postmates, Instacart, task rabbit, etc), then CA wouldn't be intervening. If NYTimes and all other news publishers had people working full time for only them, but only classified them as contractors (so much flexibility! except when you need to make a full time living), then yes I would have a problem with it. In fact, I believe that would be breaking the law.
• abakker 6y ago
  Behold California! master of the Pyrrhic victory. Now we have more unemployment claims for CA to process. I'm sure they'll get right on that.
  • snowron6 6y ago
    They weren't employees, so AFAIK they don't qualify for unemployment.
    • abakker 6y ago
      That was kind of my point. CA just took the work away and replaced it with nothing.
• tempsy 6y ago
  I wonder if this will mean a bunch of new car buyers in CA...which would ironically be good for the economy/recovery effort.
• subsubzero 6y ago
  What people are not talking about is how much congestion these services bring to city streets. For San Francisco traffic congestion increased by 60% between 2010-2016[1] and Lyft/Uber contributed to half of that. That is very bad as more traffic leads to more traffic accidents, more fatalities and pedestrians getting hit. In addition lets not forget the heavy toll on the environment with air pollution and its myriad effects on the area. All of this for workers making barely minimum wage[2]. Given the air quality in the bay area right now due to the fires this couldn't have come at a better time. [1] - https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/8/18535627/uber-lyft-sf-traffic-congestion-increase-study https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/8/18535627/uber-lyft-sf-traf... [2] - https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-uber-driver-wages-20180518-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-uber-driver-w...
  • seanmcdirmid 6y ago
    I don't think modern car exhaust emissions are a significant factor when you have a bunch of forest fire smoke floating around. The traffic concerns are much more credible, but can the government step up on public transportation to fill the inevitable gaps?
    • akamaka 6y ago
      You might want to consider doing some research before just mindlessly dismissing what other people say. “Mobile sources of air pollution from cars, trucks, ships, emissions from construction equipment, and tire and brake wear on roadways are the biggest root cause of poor air quality in the city, and addressing these should result in positive air quality trends.” https://sfgov.org/scorecards/environment/days-epa-air-quality-index-rating-good https://sfgov.org/scorecards/environment/days-epa-air-qualit...
      • hajile 6y ago
        That is grossly misleading because one of those things is very much not like the others. Ships measure fuel in tons per hour. It only takes a few hundred transport ships to put out as much pollution as every car on the planet and there are hundreds of thousands of them with their collective output dwarfing cars and trucks combined by several orders of magnitude. If we really wanted to cut transportation pollution fast, we'd internationally mandate turbosails on all transport ships as current models cut fuel consumption by 25% or more. Stepping aside from ships, big rigs are the overwhelmingly biggest NOx contributors (even beating out industrial and power plants). Stepping back though, transportation in ALL its forms still only contributes around 1/4 of the US greenhouse emissions.
• ur-whale 6y ago
  What is needed is a decentralized, p2p, version of the Uber / Lyft app based on crypto. If anyone builds this, there will be no way central planners (I use these two word to remain polite) can stick their nose in the free exchange of money and services between drivers and driven.
• opportune 6y ago
  Maybe we should have actually listened to the the uber and Lyft drivers (most of whom did not support this change, and I don’t think it’s because they are stupid and duped) and see why they wanted to stay part-time, work-as-you-want contractors, rather than just decide for them. Yes Uber and Lyft share some of the blame for cutting services completely rather than giving it a try with higher prices. But it’s also yet another example of CA attempting to “help” people in a totally self defeating way (and more cynically, a huge handout to taxi companies, and a kick in the ribs of Uber and Lyft while they’re struggling). Nobody wanted this except a vocal group of self righteous individuals and taxi companies
• supernova87a 6y ago
  I was really surprised by the 3rd requirement of the law to qualify as a contractor. Recall, the new law says that you can be counted as a contractor (instead of an employee) only if all 3 conditions are met [1]: -- Are free from control of the company in how the job is executed -- Perform work outside the company's normal line of business -- Are customarily engaged in this work anyway as an independent worker This last condition is really unreasonable I think. Basically someone can only be counted as a contractor if they already do that kind of work as their primary employment. This basically forecloses anyone from casually offering their time as a driver, even if that's a perfectly efficient and reasonable thing for people to do. If I were cynical, I would say that this is a concession to taxi / labor lobbies to protect their wages. Which I do not support. Strange how Sacramento representatives, in trying to fix certain failings of current laws, always try to insert something extra like this while they do it. [1] https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_independentcontractor.htm https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_independentcontractor.htm
  • dmode 6y ago
    I don't think the third pillar is a problem. You can claim you customarily engaging in driving as a work. The primary problem Uber and Lyft are running into is #2. The courts think that drivers perform work within the company's normal line of business, while Uber and Lyft believe they are a technology marketplace and not a transportation company.
    • supernova87a 6y ago
      Well, on #2 I agreed with the court's analysis -- at least in how Lyft/Uber are operating now. These companies would not exist if not for being in the transportation business. It is a real stretch to divorce them from the aspect of cars driving -- that is their very business. On #3, so companies would just ask the people driving whether "this is your customary line of work" and if you don't answer right, you're not allowed to drive? Or would there be some independent way this would be verified? Or is it up to the company to test how much risk they're willing to look the other way on?
      • 6y ago
• dmode 6y ago
  I dislike Uber and Lyft's practices as much as the next guy. But I also believe AB5 is a terrible bill and will be voting in November to exempt Uber and Lyft from AB5. AB5 was written to impose a 20th century employment model to a 21st century situation. As such, the bill is distorted that it carve out hundreds of exemptions to musicians, freelancers, journalists, doctors, hair stylists and so on and so forth. A bill that has to rely primarily on exemptions is no bill at all. A much better bill could have written that could have created a healthcare and unemployment fund of gig economy workers by taxing Gig companies, without trying box everyone into the employment model
  • mLuby 6y ago
    > A bill that has to rely primarily on exemptions is no bill at all. Exemptions are a leading indicator of ineptness or corruption.
  • AgloeDreams 6y ago
    'Ridesharing' (Which is a hilarious term for the simple fact that the ride is not being shared, the driver is not intending to go to your favorite bar. ) isn't a 21st century situation or solution. It's not a profitable or a good force in an economy, it does not pay a reasonable wage for anyone to live on, it is not environmentally friendly unless done in large quantities of people,(which is called a bus). Ridesharing exists to profit Uber/Lyft investors and management and is successful due to lower pricing than is sustainable. It is built on the back of loopholes in the law to use and abuse working class people and to lie about the true costs and profits. The bill's exceptions exist to split apart reality from this subsidized artificial market (There are exemptions in most laws, purely due tot he idea that things are complex, by nature) I see this as an attempt to make the Gig Economy pay all workers fairly in addition to healthcare costs and to put the onus on the company rather than their taxes. This would force Uber and Lyft to limit the number of drivers in an area by cost and profits, to deny those they cannot pay fairly. Uber currently may give you 100 rides a day or 1, you don't know which and you cant depend on it nor if you cant drive can get unemployment. The hard problem is contracting work is not a known reality for most, they don't understand the costs. Dressing it up in pretty fonts and Ads makes it much like the alcohol or tobacco industries, you don't know the danger until you are very invested and nobody is there to save you.
• mola 6y ago
  Great, if this business is not feasible without workers rights, then it's not feasible business.
  • pembrook 6y ago
    Funny how ridesharing companies have been successfully operating all over the world in countries that have very strong workers rights (like Finland, Sweden, Australia, France, and about 10-15 others). So the issue is clearly not the ridesharing business. But sure, I'll bite. Let's follow this to its logical conclusion. So you kill Uber and Lyft in California. Great. The California elite can pat themselves on the back for protecting all those workers from choosing to take "bad" jobs. But wait. Now what? How are you going to ensure all those unemployed drivers get healthcare benefits now? Will you go after all the fast food restaurants where they'll be forced to work part-time now (also with no benefits) to feed their children? And then after that, the next set of low wage jobs? I guess nobody thought that far. My hunch is, the people who cared most about passing this law don't actually care about the workers. They just care about the narrative, and the self satisfied feeling of hurting the "evil capitalist" boogeyman. Once the boogeyman is killed, they will move on and leave the workers behind to fend for themselves. Because the goal wasn't to give workers healthcare. That would've been a healthcare bill.
• Artistry121 6y ago
  Terrible overreach. So sad.
• Animats 6y ago
  When Uber tried that in Austin, competitors appeared quickly. When Uber started up again, some of them closed and some stayed.
• JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  Is there a recommended on-demand chauffeur service in the Bay Area?
• m1117 6y ago
  California is liberal, but California is very conservative. It shooting itself into its leg.
  • gkop 6y ago
    Indeed, Lyft is shooting itself in the leg with this decision.
• pseingatl 6y ago
  DUI arrests and deaths will go up.
• fotta 6y ago
  Another group caught in the collateral damage is people in wheelchairs. Paratransit sucks in most places and where wheelchair accessible Uber/Lyft is available they provide a much better service. This is an especially vulnerable population because it's not like a wheelchair user can just find a friend with an accessible vehicle to take them to appointments, etc.
  • wmichelin 6y ago
    What did people in wheelchairs do before these rideshare apps were around?
    • hnthrowaway353 6y ago
      Waste a lot of time waiting for paratransit to show up.
      • fotta 6y ago
        Yup basically.
    • meroes 6y ago
      Not sure the right word, but a lot of towns and cities have a heavily subsidized busing system for very local routes. Things like DATA Bus or Meals on Wheels. Also my grandparents in a city always used a cab service that only serves wheelchair and has trained drivers to load and unload.
    • vertbhrtn 6y ago
      I guess they hired a personal driver or spent hours a day in the public transit system.
    • Ensorceled 6y ago
      Endured. Worse, the financially better off using the paid services allowed the public services to become more responsive to the poorer members of this demographic. So now everybody will suffer.
    • 6y ago
• ilyas121 6y ago
  Is uber still running?
• shekispeaks 6y ago
  Lyft is being petty here. I understand that they cannot make all drivers employees, but they could have some drivers on the road and not pulled the rug on users. This goes to say that you cannot trust private companies like Lyft for critical services. The government actually has been transparent about this change and Lyft is acting like a spoilt child, not even willing to try the employee route. Lyft pulling the rug overnight is in bad faith.
  • pm90 6y ago
    They did this in Austin as well. Easy to do now, considering the rideshare volumes are probably lower than without SIP.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • rattray 6y ago
    Totally disagree; this is a courageous action to show that they really mean what they've been saying all along. The California government is the party that's been acting like a brat here. The rideshare drivers of California overwhelmingly didn't want this approach to receiving benefits. Lawmakers got jealous that economic activity was happening in a new way that they couldn't tax and control the way they were used to, and instead of solving problems creatively, attempted to slam a non-nail with a hammer. They were warned in no uncertain terms that it'd hurt.
  • manquer 6y ago
    The judge’s order literally came last week. It is not that lyft is striking, their product and process is not ready yet to do full time employees yet. The folks I spoke to were all doing hectic work trying to build it out , my understanding is they originally planned to do this by November. Even if the tech is ready , converting 1000’s to folks full time is ton of government paperwork that is going to take time . They first have to figure out who wants to be full time and who they want to be retain full time . It is not like they were given a reasonable 6-12 months to comply and they screwed up . Uber is also in the same boat.
• balozi 6y ago
  Are they still going to run their global operations from California?
• amoitnga 6y ago
  They spent ton of money to get me to install their app and consider it as an option. There is really no reason for me to use one over the other. Lyft, uber, some random taxi app.. Same drives are coming in the same cars. Now they are motivating me to look for alternatives and actually give 'some random taxi app' a name. this combined with "dont attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity" leads me to doubt their professionalism. I think this is a huge mistake. and if it's not a mistake but inability of the company to execute, then that's on executives.
  • amoitnga 6y ago
    P.S point being they are going to lose market share with no good reason.
    • sangnoir 6y ago
      It's a good reason: they are causing citizens pain so that they will vote for an AB5 carveout for Lyft/Uber on election day.
  • twblalock 6y ago
    I remember what it was like to get a taxi in California, even in San Francisco, before Uber and Lyft. You called some taxi company, might get put on hold, told them where to pick you up, and they would show up anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes later. Sometimes they would never show up. Many smaller cities in California had no taxi service of any kind. And good luck getting a taxi home from a bar after midnight! Uber and Lyft made it realistic for people to expect that they could actually get a taxi in California in a reasonable amount of time, pretty much any time of day or night. That's why people used them so much. This is not something the older taxi companies or "some random taxi app" will be able to pull off.
    • tomjakubowski 6y ago
      Back in 2010 I regularly used the TaxiMagic app and had more or less the same experience as calling an Uber or Lyft today, just a little pricier.
• mlindner 6y ago
  Glad to see Lyft taking this stance, hopefully Uber follows up. California shouldn't be outlawing independent contractors.
• efficax 6y ago
  if they can't afford to pay benefits and a decent wage to their drivers then they're just an unsustainable business! glad they "disrupted" transit and made it harder to build good public transit by giving tax-shy politicians an excuse. And despite the low wages both Uber and Lyft continue to operate at a loss! The business model just doesn't work and no amount of softbank cash can change that.
• droptablemain 6y ago
  If your business model is built upon skirting labor laws to employ workers, then perhaps you shouldn't be in business.
• propman 6y ago
  California needs to become a purple state again. Ever since 1 party supermajority has taken over, monumentally idiotic laws have come into play and there is 0 checks and balances. The media is completely biased as well so other systems of checks are failing.
• ajtulloch 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_strike
• viburnum 6y ago
  It would be better for society if the billions of dollars of capital invested in ride share platforms was invested in high productivity labor technologies instead of low labor productivity technologies.
• mcguire 6y ago
  "As employees they would have to work set schedules and shifts, would not be able to work for multiple app-based companies and would have reduced earning potential — and many jobs would actually be eliminated." (https://prop22facts.com/lyft/ https://prop22facts.com/lyft/) Is that something mandated by California? As far as I know, everywhere else I've been, work-schedules and anti-moonlighting are restrictions placed by the employer, not the state.
  • anigbrowl 6y ago
    Yeah, they're just saying that these are the conditions they'd choose to impose and hoping people will believe they're mandated by the state. I see this kind of bait and switch a lot.
  • chrisco255 6y ago
    Under federal tax law if you're an employee it means you have a schedule. And if you're getting paid by the hour by Lyft you can't double dip and also get paid by the hour by Uber.
    • tehwebguy 6y ago
      I believe you have that inverted: if your employer gives you a schedule (among other things), that makes you an employee.
      • chrisco255 6y ago
        Correct. But the point stands about being able to only work for one ride sharing app. How could they possibly cover minimum wage for folks without setting a schedule and requiring that they not be working for other apps at the same time?
        • cool_dude85 6y ago
          Hilarious stuff here. "Yes, I was wrong in my original post, I had it absolutely backwards. However, did you consider something totally unrelated?"
• typon 6y ago
  Good riddance. Hopefully this leads to companies that are less vampiric in their exploitation of labour. Congratulations on California for being courageous in this aspect.
• vertbhrtn 6y ago
  It's fascinating how the subsistence wage is simultaneously too low for workers and too high corporations.
  • ipnon 6y ago
    Why is that? It's because neither the government nor corporations are required to provide a basic quality of life to Americans.
  • rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
    It's because people can't afford the true cost of a rideshare if a driver needs to make subsistence wage, and the company needs to be profitable. In a difference landscape the Uber model might be sustainable, but the middle class is being completely gutted. California especially is headed toward a Hawaii-esque bifurcated economy, comprised of a wealthy minority and a massive underclass of service-industry people catering toward their every want and need.
    • fumar 6y ago
      Is that future different in any other of the top 5 states in the US? What can be done about it?
      • rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
        Robust social safety nets, combined with increased access to education so unskilled workers can retool to partake in the 21st century global service economy, financed by massive pigouvian taxes on our carbon consumption, and an appropriately progressive tax structure (the latest studies suggest the optimal tax rate according to the Laffer curve for billionaires is somewhere around 73%).
  • umvi 6y ago
    Imagine creating an app called "Clean Streets" - basically people can put bounties on streets, other people can collect the bounty by picking up the litter. Sounds like a great little idea right? The app takes a 1% fee for server upkeep. Win/win, bored teenagers make some extra money and your neighborhood gets cleaned up... right? Wrong. Turns out, people aren't willing to pay that much for people to clean up their streets - only $1-5 on average per job. Yet it takes an hour to clean the street sometimes. That is an abysmal hourly wage, how can you expect desperate impoverished single mothers trying to work 3 jobs to live off of this?? Clean Streets ought to give a living wage and full health benefits to anyone who signs up. Oh, except... just one problem... the 1% transaction fee isn't enough to fund that, and jacking up pricing just means people stop using the app altogether. So yes, in theory this app is great - if you can restrict its use to only non-desperate people. But desperate people would nevertheless try to make a living on it, and you would get lambasted by human rights activists for exploiting the poor. Sigh, I wish there were a way for things like this to exist.
• telaelit 6y ago
  What a great example of a capital strike
• rch 6y ago
  Is there a member/driver owned rideshare app? If so, would there be an equity-based loophole that would allow it to continue operating in California under these rules?
• dhbradshaw 6y ago
  This law looks like a hack to try to smooth over negative effects from the root issue. The root issue is that health insurance is tied to employment, which reduces human freedom and distorts the economy in diverse ways. Solve the root issue and many things become less complicated.
• clearasmudd 6y ago
  If you can't operate your business without independent contractors, then they aren't independent contractors. If Lyft and Uber want to back up their claims that they aren't livery services but simply a technology platform, then there should be no problem with eliminating the independent contractor drivers. The fact that they have to "shut down" only proves they were misrepresenting drivers for as long as they have existed.
  • frockington1 6y ago
    They are providing a platform for independent contractors. If the state makes it so that there are no users of the platform, they can't do business as their is nobody to use their platform. It seems pretty reasonable that when a state attacks your platforms users, you remove the platform from said state
  • ztratar 6y ago
    They just said they could operate, if you wanted to destroy jobs and the entire innovation of dynamic schedules/hours. Why do you think they couldn't operate?
  • horsawlarway 6y ago
    > If you can't operate your business without independent contractors, then they aren't independent contractors. This makes no sense. There are industries ALL over that depend heavily on independent contractors - it's incredibly common in construction, agriculture, trade services, etc. And yes, the business absolutely can operate without any given independent contractor, but it cannot operate without access to any independent contractors at all. Hell, what do you think a "general contractor" does on a job site? Because the answer is basically organize a bunch of independent contractors. They also couldn't exist if legally they had to hire every plumber/painter/electrician/drywaller/roofer/framer etc full time. So while I think uber/lyft DO need legislation to address, I think hamfisting them into the legal model of full time employment is... fucking dumb.
    • NotHereButThere 6y ago
      "Depend heavily" is different then, "can't operate without". Uber and Lyft would have zero revenue if you took away their "independent contractors". Literally zero. Uber and Lyft have always lied about the nature of their business. The first lie was that the passenger was, "sharing a ride". This lie was necessary to support the second lie which was that, "were not a Taxi service" but a "technology platform". Your Uber or Lyft driver was not planning on going to your destination until you "hailed" them to do so. So it's not "ride sharing". It's a livery service. But by lying both companies could ignore existing laws. If it's ok for people to lie about what it is they do so they can skirt existing laws than I guess robbing banks could be classified as "undeclared venture capital opportunities". Also why aren't predatory business laws ever used against VC backed businesses? Why is it ok for ultra wealthy people to destroy businesses by offering products and services at below what it costs to provide them? And to do this not for short periods of time but for over a decade? In international trade this would be called, "dumping" and the US complains and files trade disputes about it constantly. Why? Because it destroys good paying jobs. But apparently if your a VC backed Unicorn and just so damn hip and sexy then everyone is supposed to just look the other way and praise you for "your genius". I hope whatever you do for a living gets undermined in the same way, perhaps then you'll reevaluate what's actually legal, just and sustainable for a nation of people
• PopeDotNinja 6y ago
  How is it that taxi drivers can be independent contractors, but Uber & Lyft drivers can't? Or am I wrong and all taxi drivers are employees?
• actuator 6y ago
  Aren't taxis inherently an on-demand business model? Uber/Lyft just made the whole model online. Wouldn't it have been sensible to enforce and regulate minimum fare thresholds based on ride and distance which can be even applied on taxis?
• ASinclair 6y ago
  Looks like they just got a temporary stay on the court decision: https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/1296520163441831936 https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/1296520163441831936
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• baggy_trough 6y ago
  California politicians can burn in a fire.
  • dang 6y ago
    Please don't do this here. We ban such accounts. Maybe you don't feel you owe California politicians better, but you owe this community much better if you're posting to it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
• eggsnbacon1 6y ago
  When the monopolistic rideshare titans were banned in Austin there were local competitors within weeks. They kinda sucked for a few months, but by the time Lyft and Uber returned they worked quite well. They also paid the drivers FAR better, I heard on driver forums that it was easy to make over 20 an hour. Most drivers I talked to were very upset when Lyft/Uber returned, because they took over 50% pay cut. With the technical might that is Silicon Valley, California only needs to hold their ground for a few months, then Lyft/Uber will become an afterthought
  • enraged_camel 6y ago
    This really needs to be the top post. The fact of the matter is that there isn’t anything special about Uber and Lyft, and the competitors that popped up in Austin during their absence proved that it is possible to have a viable business and treat your workers with respect and dignity by paying them well.
  • tick_tock_tick 6y ago
    The state doesn't get a choice the people will vote on proposition 22 which is already polling very well; Uber and Lyft will get there exemption.
• leptoniscool 6y ago
  Uber will benefit from this, since the demand will go to Uber and they could see surge pricing.
• admn2 6y ago
  Why are Uber and Lyft stocks now down on this news?
• mola 6y ago
  Great
• AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
  I wish all the energy spent on introducing business-have-to-provide-this and business-have-to-provide-that laws were invested in getting public healthcare and more affordable housing.
• CharlesMerriam2 6y ago
  There are rights in the United States: life, liberty, safe working environments. But there is no right to a business model. Lyft is a business model that found a loophole in a previously regulated business and was able to combine a technology upgrade with a way to pay substandard compensation. That legislators closed this loophole is not a surprise. The exact legislation will never be perfect, and will probably not be changed if it is "good enough".
• elietoubi 6y ago
  Not sure who wins here? It seems bad for both drivers and riders.
• seankimdesign 6y ago
  Kudos on that moral victory California. You robbed my mobility-impaired younger sister of her legs without providing any alternative. Fuck your sorry excuse of public transit filled with gawkers and requiring her to wonder whether there will be connected sidewalks for her to solve her last-two-mile trip on her chair. "Oh, but Uber and Lyft were brought down by their own greed" Well, where is the non-greedy alternative in this market, employing legitimate full-benefit workers and serving their community while making earnest profits? If there really exists a market that is sustainable via the terms outlined by the court of California, why the hell isn't anyone competing in this market that famously yields no incumbent benefits? If, on the other hand, if the math doesn't check out and there isn't a viable market, then what is being accomplished by this ruling? It's both shutting down an extremely useful service while taking jobs away from people who need it most, when they need it most. This is a terrible decision that is so far removed from reality that it's almost laughable. While I admire the idealistic worldview of those who rule from above, this is a classic case of the road to hell being paved by good intentions.
  • baggy_trough 6y ago
    Why do you assume good intentions? It's more likely that this law was the result of campaign bribes from unions. Unions want to have fewer (unionized) people employed at higher compensation. Gig workers go against that because there is higher employment at lower compensation.
    • sergiotapia 6y ago
      "You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the fuck it's gonna take you."
      • Seasonwreckage 6y ago
        well said.
      • bl0b 6y ago
        (Quote from character Lester Freamon from The Wire)
• oxymoran 6y ago
  So you all want to turn them back into taxi drivers? Do you remember how crappy and expensive taxi service was? Ride sharing is not a career. It’s sharing a ride to make extra cash. Yes, we are runnning out of actual careers, I get that. But turning gigs into careers is not the answer. UBI + gig work+ universal healthcare is the answer you were looking for.
• dantheman 6y ago
  Hopefully lyft and uber will decide to move their companies out of CA to a more business friendly climate.
• conradev 6y ago
  Update: https://twitter.com/redboxwire/status/1296521405010386944?s=21 https://twitter.com/redboxwire/status/1296521405010386944?s=...
• filereaper 6y ago
  Shutdown has been averted by judge: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24227340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24227340
• matmann2001 6y ago
  So, if Prop 22 is the solution to this mess, then it's natural to ask: 1) What do services like Uber/Lyft/Doordash (who are proposing Prop 22) currently offer in terms of benefits? 2) How do current benefits compare to what will be mandated by Prop 22? 3) If there is any difference, why? Is a state law required to treat your contractors better than the bare minimum?
• yonran 6y ago
  A lot of people have condemned Uber and Lyft for violating the new law, but I’m wondering whether there is any correct way to apply the law. Does anyone know how AB5 has affected taxi drivers (who typically cannot set their rates), particularly those who use hailing apps (flywheel.com)? Are taxi drivers guaranteed minimum wage, and if so is it on waiting time or only driving time (like in the proposed Proposition 22)? Do taxi drivers get health insurance coverage? If Uber and Lyft instituted a driver cap (medallion), would this bring them into compliance with AB5, or is AB5 compliance impossible even with a driver cap?
• tzm 6y ago
  Now would be a good time to launch the Tesla Network
• Ericson2314 6y ago
  Everyone calm down, this called negotiating at scale. Lyft just got their stay. As usual, the effect of all lawmaking will be subtle and slow, so the average person will not notice. Sigh.
• killerdhmo 6y ago
  https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-Lyft-win-last-minute-reprieve-Service-to-15499317.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-Lyft-win-l...
• resters 6y ago
  Along with the bipartisan trend toward authoritarianism is a bipartisan trend away from economic freedom. Some want to hinder our ability to trade with Chinese firms or hire foreign workers, others want to hinder our ability to take gig economy jobs or operate our home as an Airbnb. The idea that these authoritarians have is that economic freedom is bad. Why not just make laws that very specifically protect the most vulnerable and foist the tax burden fairly on everyone else? It's a historical accident that employee provided healthcare is tax deductible and that workers comp and social security/medicare are funded by payroll taxes. All of the quirky rules and perverse incentives exist because at some point in the past they benefited some established interest group. There is a very disappointing lack of creativity and willingness to look at the simple issue at the core of all of these problems. We can't let the most vulnerable workers be victimized, but we must do everything possible to preserve their economic freedom. I think UBI is the closest we are seeing to a meaningful rethink of how we handle entitlement spending. We need the equivalent creativity to help manage the funding side.
• black3r 6y ago
  Not being from the US the only thing I don't understand is why does CA expect taxi drivers to be employees? Here in Slovakia even regular taxi drivers can be independent contractors and it's perfectly OK with the law, a lot of taxi drivers here even ride for multiple companies (regular taxi dispatchers, uber, bolt, their own prices for longer trips)
  • mike00632 6y ago
    Drivers are allowed to be independent contractors in California. But the law requires that the drivers be truly independent in ways that Uber and Lyft do not allow.
    • black3r 6y ago
      from what I've just read about the AB5 the one thing that doesn't make sense to me is the clause that defines an independent contractor when "the service is performed outside the usual course of business of the employer". This seems that it can also force software devs to become employed if they just want to do a short-term contract for a software company and potentially affect other businesses as well. In our country, we instead require independent contractors to use their own resources/equipment to perform the job while allowing companies to hire them even if it's their main course of business.
• OCASM 6y ago
  Lyft and Uber work great for what they are: gig jobs. The problem is people trying to turn them into something completely different. If these companies don't offer the terms you want, maybe seek employment elsewhere?
• bikamonki 6y ago
  Just when the World is in dire need for alternative and innovative ways to create jobs, politicians find a way to stop them with tired and failed arguments.
• maxpert 6y ago
  Stay order is here :| IDK what will that mean https://finance.yahoo.com/news/appeals-court-grants-stay-giving-190629802.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/appeals-court-grants-stay-giv...
• mayank02555 6y ago
  https://github.com/Mayank0255/Resume-Bot https://github.com/Mayank0255/Resume-Bot
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• eutropia 6y ago
  This is why healthcare benefits shouldn't be tied with employment. IMO, that's the biggest thing contractors are missing out on by not being traditional employees. It's not like being an employee in the US gives you much more legal protection than being a contractor due to "at-will" employment laws. Universal healthcare decouples this critical service from employment, making _everyone_ more able to work flexibly.
• mensetmanusman 6y ago
  This is the time to release the open source version of these services that let individuals set their own rate and communicate with openness. Wasn’t this a proposed example application of ethereum?
• surfmike 6y ago
  They got a reprieve until the election. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/08/20/appeals-court-grants-uber-and-lyft-a-temporary-reprieve-in-case-over-driver-classification.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/08/20/app...
• cromwellian 6y ago
  Imagine a distributed, open-source, bit-coin like version of Uber. There's no company, drivers get 100%, set their prices, and somehow a distributed protocol allows people to broadcast a bid for a ride, and nearby drivers could accept it. It would 1) workaround the law, there's no employer, no company, and no one to sanction 2) be impossible to regulate or shutdown
  • mike00632 6y ago
    That would actually be more in line with the law than Uber and Lyft's practices. Currently drivers don't get to set their own prices and have to abide by other such things that don't make them independent contractors in the eyes on the law.
• hevelvarik 6y ago
  A sad state of affairs. Population loves the service. People lining up in droves to be paid to provide it. Government stomps it cause reasons.
• butterfi 6y ago
  I'm curious if this issue would be as contentious if we had a single payer health care system? It strikes me that one of the major issues with this kind of employment is little access to health care.
• unabirra 6y ago
  Phewww, we definitely saved those drivers this time!
• anticensor 6y ago
  We also have a similar problems with taxi (and short-distance private mass transport) licences here in Turkey. However, we have learned a lesson from our history and solved medium-distance bus licensing problem, with a very thorough regulation (taxis and short-distance privately owned buses still are a problem, though): *Suburban and rural passenger transport on a route, within the same province regardless of distance, or shorter than 100 kilometres without regards of provincial boundaries, count as medium-distance mass transportation. *Those medium-distance bus licences are tied to vehicle and non-transferable. *Medium-distance bus owners have to get a licence called D4, which is similar in shape to a European intercity bus company licence, however, subject to a more stringent regime. I am going to explain that below. *A D4 licence is primarily intended for end-to-end and end-to-mid transportation. Up to 12 such vehicles is allowed to be registered to each such licence. *In case that there are multiple overlapping such routes, shorter route takes the precedence of transporting inside the common section. For example, if you want to go from B to C, and there is a medium-distance bus covering B-C route, and one covering A-B-C-D route, the latter cannot accept you (you could also think of this as a mandatory gentleman's agreement). However, if you want to go from B to D, you can take the latter without requiring a transfer in C. *D4 licences have their passenger capacity strictly regulated, such that you cannot have more vehicles than that, 100% demand at least one week's worth of trips each year, and 80% demand in average throughout the validity of the licence. *D4 licences are reviewed thoroughly during renewals as if you get afresh. It takes approximately two weeks to process a D4 licence application (one week in the provincial transportation coordination centre, one week in the national D4 coordination centre). *Those medium distance buses are usually operated by private operators, and allowed to enter the city centers more freely than long distance buses, subject to the restrictions above.