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What keeps Uber competitive is access to a relatively cheap reservoir of labor force. They mediate this process where drivers compete against each other and ext
by yholio 6y ago
What keeps Uber competitive is access to a relatively cheap reservoir of labor force. They mediate this process where drivers compete against each other and extract a good rent in the process. The focus should be getting rid of the rent, not the competition.
While I wish these guys all the best and think it's a good paradigm shift, I don't think they will be successful for the same reasons most cooperatives aren't successful: the owner-workers see the business as a means to insulate themselves from market pressures. They stop growing and innovating and simply redistribute the larger than market compensations among each other. If many another drivers are willing to accept a lower pay for the same work, they will simply not accept them in the co-op.
- sm4rk0 6y ago> What keeps Uber competitive is access to a relatively cheap reservoir of labor force. Cheap labor force means someone is underpaid. If the coop cuts the middlemen out and transfer the extra to drivers then it's a win-win: drivers get more and customers pay the same for a better service because well-paid driver => good service.
- yholio 6y agoUnderpaid compared to what? If people are willing to do the work to a high professional standard for a certain wage, than that is the right compensation for that job. When you setup arbitrary fair wages above market, you must also somehow protect them from intruders from other fields willing to change jobs and benefit from the higher wages in your field. This is exactly what a co-op ends up doing most of the time - if they don't succumb to a traditional model where the initial members become the owners and the later employees have regular employment contracts.
- sm4rk0 6y ago> Underpaid compared to what? You said: "relatively cheap". Relative to what?
- yholio 6y agoIt's easy to define 'cheap': relative to the wages market, market prices for driving are relatively low compared to other jobs. 'Underpaid' is a value judgment, you claim that prevailing market wages are unfair so presumably you have a better model to determine and protect higher wages.
- pydry 6y agoAlso gargantuan amounts of capital subsidizing cheap rides. They can engage in a game of chicken with the cooperatives where they see who is willing to lose money the longest. This was how the UK "bus wars" we're fought that consolidated control of the market under a few players.