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California Uber and Lyft drivers criticize pay cuts under Prop 22

33 points by pmoriarty 5y ago

donsupreme 5y ago
You have to be naive to believe that Uber/Lyft has the best interest of the people rather than their share prices when they are able to write and pass their own laws.
- cjlars 5y ago
  The phrase, "don't blame the player, blame the game" comes to mind. Not that I fully believe that, but it's so easy to get a prop on the CA ballot that you get this sort of total nonsense every year. Sometimes it passes.
  - xsmasher 5y ago
    It's a good reason to always default to "NO" for propositions that you know nothing about.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    The players are very unequal, though. The rideshare companies poured an ungodly amount of money towards this proposition. Campaign financing is an issue even outside of the California electoral system.
- sneak 5y ago
  It sounds like this proposition was passed by California voters, just like the rest of them? Why do you claim that anything else is the case?
richardanaya 5y ago
I'm curious if people will actually decline to work for these low pay jobs.
- ChicagoDave 5y ago
  They already have. Uber is down 80% passenger drivers. They left because of Covid, many switched to UberEats and have not come back. The O’Hare waiting lot is empty even on busy days.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "Uber is down 80% passenger drivers." Did that result in a corresponding increase in prices and wages?
    - ChicagoDave 5y ago
      Yes. Riders are paying more and drivers are making more. But riders see no alternative. People under 30 without a car in the city will pay the higher prices.
hatsunearu 5y ago
Drivers say they are getting paid pennies, and riders are saying Uber is way too expensive now. What the hell is happening?
- tyree731 5y ago
  The model has never been economically sustainable, and it only thrived due to subsidies from venture capital.
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    Yup. The worst part is that Uber/Lyft can selectively keep subsidizing rides in markets where there's still competition from legacy taxis while charging what they want in less competitive markets. Notice from this article that Uber and Lyft are seemingly acting in concert when cutting pay and offering subsidies. This is either both companies responding to the market in similar ways or cartel behavior. Good luck proving the latter in court however.
  - antisthenes 5y ago
    And subsidies from the drivers themselves, many of whom are running their vehicles into the ground, not accounting for the depreciation. The only winners here are large Uber shareholders who got in early at low valuations.
  - treis 5y ago
    We've had taxis for 100 years. It's obviously a sustainable business.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      We’ve had terrible, smoke smelling, old taxis serving small areas compared to today, that may or may not show up if you lived a little out of the way. I suspect many people can’t afford the level of service that Uber/Lyft have gotten them accustomed to over the past decade. A possible solution would be to let drivers bid on trips proposed by passengers.
ChicagoDave 5y ago
I restarted driving in the Chicago area and I’m averaging $45/hr. I’d prefer an article that showed systemic driver responses. Not anecdotal interviews. There is no way I’ll believe most drivers want to be employees. Again. If you don’t like driving rideshare, then get a different job. It’s not Uber’s responsibility to provide FT or benefits. These complaints suggest they’re pro labor, but Uber is not a traditional employer. There is no law that says every business has to provide an employer/employee relationship. If drivers don’t return to Uber, that will be the free market reset that forces Uber to adapt. If drivers take the sign up bonus and stop driving, Uber will have to adapt to that as well. Let the market decide.
- donsupreme 5y ago
  Maybe you can look at the first word in that title, it says California and earning under prop 22. So yea not Chicago.
  - EduardoBautista 5y ago
    The comment you are replying to easily applies to drivers in other large cities in the USA.
- gugagore 5y ago
  > It’s not Uber’s responsibility to provide FT or benefits. > Let the market decide. I just want to spell out that these are political stances, and not universal truths. An alternative political stance is that multiple factors conspire such that "get a different job" is for many people not a viable strategy. The situation under which a worker feels that their only viable strategy is working for Uber is beneficial to Uber. Is it Uber's responsibility to ensure that there are multiple viable job strategies for people? No, not exactly. That's the responsibility of the government. We can't expect an entity to act against its own interests.
  - tom-_- 5y ago
    It can be a political stance, but that's for the commenter to decide, not you. It is a legal truth. Uber is not legally responsible for providing FT or benefits period. You can argue they should be but as you pointed out, regulation is the responsibility of the government, not Uber.
Rebelgecko 5y ago
Uber has been fundamentally broken at LAX, so hopefully these changes will make it better. It's so bad that taxi cabs are making a bit of a resurgence, because they win on convenience, user experience, and price. About half of people who request an Uber ride at LAX never get accepted by a driver[1]. I've been on the receiving end of that. My last time at LAX, there were half a dozen Uber drivers sitting in the lot. I kept getting notifications on my phone that I was being offered rides at increasingly high prices. When I tried to accept the driver would deny me. One driver pulled up and said that "because the app is buggy today", I wouldn't get matched with a driver but he'd be willing to drive me home for $50, paid via cash or venmo (for comparison, my Uber ride to the airport was $12). After watching the drivers a bit, SURPRISE, the app wasn't buggy. The drivers were just working as a cartel to deny every potential fare, which jacked up the prices in the app. Then they'd swoop up to frustrated travelers and offer to drive them home for an even more exorbitant rate, while also sidestepping Uber's cut. Unlike Uber, Lyft will apparently try to match you with drivers outside of the airport. That makes it harder to artificially raise prices. A Lyft driver a few blocks away ended up taking me home for $13+tip. In the time a spent waiting for him to pick me up, not a single Uber car took a passenger. [1]: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-may-stop-letting-drivers-see-destinations-16078491.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-may-stop-l...
- tschwimmer 5y ago
  I have had the same happen to me at SFO.
  - rkk3 5y ago
    Last time I landed at SFO, in Feb around 8pm, it was consistently $100 to $120 to go from SFO to SOMA. I waited for 10-15 minutes then got a "bargain" price of $50 to go from SFO to SOMA in a clunky older car. The driver actually said he was in the airport parking lot waiting for over 20 minutes to get matched.
- clairity 5y ago
  > “ A Lyft driver a few blocks away ended up taking me home for $13+tip.” i used to do this as a price hack anyways, when i was flying between LA and SF regularly. you could take any shuttle out of the airport to a nearby hotel/parking lot, which is where you’d have the car pick you up at non-airport prices (typically giving a bigger tip to the driver too).
LatteLazy 5y ago
Isn't the whole point of being self employed that if you can't make a living you stop? Don't go to LAX, don't accept rides there. Problem solved.
southerntofu 5y ago
And that's why workers coop like drivers.coop are the future (at least as long as "capitalism" is a thing). The bosses needs us, but we don't need a boss. Never forget that.
human_person 5y ago
For a long time I thought that companies like Uber, lyft and Doordash were the super rich subsidizing the lives of the upper middle class on the backs of the poor. We might never be able to retire but we can get cheap rides home from the bar. The bread and circuses of the modern age. Having worked as an engineer at one of the above it was clear that the amount people are willing to pay for a ride or food delivery is fundamentally less than what you need to pay a driver. Now I believe it was a ponzi scheme by the investors. If you sell hundred dollar bills for ten dollars you’ll have lots of customers. Even if you start selling the hundred bills for fifty dollars or even 95 you’ll have lots of customers and be able to claim you are the path to profitability. The numbers almost work. And it was a successful Ponzi scheme. All of the original vcs and investors were able to cash out with massive reruns. When these companies eventually (and inevitably) collapse it will be average investors and pension funds left holding the bag.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > Having worked as an engineer at one of the above it was clear that the amount people are willing to pay for a ride or food delivery is fundamentally less than what you need to pay a driver. Every market has an equilibrium price. The old medallion system enforced a given (high) price, and the result was that the drivers had to work 12+ hours to break even due to the medallion price and the low demand. Uber has shifted that equilibrium point. I'm not sure it's above minimum wage, but note that taxi medallions didn't enforce a minimal wage either. But nobody would be doing it if it wasn't profitable.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "nobody would be doing it if it wasn't profitable" Not necessarily true. Some drivers might not be figuring in the costs of depreciation and maintenance, which are the biggest expenses of owning a car, and so might not even realize they're losing money in the balance. Not everybody's good at math, accounting, or business.
  - ryanbrunner 5y ago
    People make plenty of economic decisions that aren't long term profitable. Go to any struggling downtown, and it will probably be chock full of predatory loan and check cashing places, which are universally considered to be a horrible economic decision to use. I'm not necessarily saying that driving Uber is quite at that level, but the fact that people are driving for Uber isn't evidence that it's a profitable thing for them to do.

33 points by pmoriarty 5y ago

You have to be naive to believe that Uber/Lyft has the best interest of the people rather than their share prices when they are able to write and pass their own laws.

cjlars 5y ago
The phrase, "don't blame the player, blame the game" comes to mind. Not that I fully believe that, but it's so easy to get a prop on the CA ballot that you get this sort of total nonsense every year. Sometimes it passes.
- xsmasher 5y ago
  It's a good reason to always default to "NO" for propositions that you know nothing about.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  The players are very unequal, though. The rideshare companies poured an ungodly amount of money towards this proposition. Campaign financing is an issue even outside of the California electoral system.
sneak 5y ago
It sounds like this proposition was passed by California voters, just like the rest of them? Why do you claim that anything else is the case?

richardanaya 5y ago

I'm curious if people will actually decline to work for these low pay jobs.

ChicagoDave 5y ago
They already have. Uber is down 80% passenger drivers. They left because of Covid, many switched to UberEats and have not come back. The O’Hare waiting lot is empty even on busy days.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "Uber is down 80% passenger drivers." Did that result in a corresponding increase in prices and wages?
  - ChicagoDave 5y ago
    Yes. Riders are paying more and drivers are making more. But riders see no alternative. People under 30 without a car in the city will pay the higher prices.

hatsunearu 5y ago

Drivers say they are getting paid pennies, and riders are saying Uber is way too expensive now. What the hell is happening?

tyree731 5y ago
The model has never been economically sustainable, and it only thrived due to subsidies from venture capital.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  Yup. The worst part is that Uber/Lyft can selectively keep subsidizing rides in markets where there's still competition from legacy taxis while charging what they want in less competitive markets. Notice from this article that Uber and Lyft are seemingly acting in concert when cutting pay and offering subsidies. This is either both companies responding to the market in similar ways or cartel behavior. Good luck proving the latter in court however.
- antisthenes 5y ago
  And subsidies from the drivers themselves, many of whom are running their vehicles into the ground, not accounting for the depreciation. The only winners here are large Uber shareholders who got in early at low valuations.
- treis 5y ago
  We've had taxis for 100 years. It's obviously a sustainable business.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    We’ve had terrible, smoke smelling, old taxis serving small areas compared to today, that may or may not show up if you lived a little out of the way. I suspect many people can’t afford the level of service that Uber/Lyft have gotten them accustomed to over the past decade. A possible solution would be to let drivers bid on trips proposed by passengers.

ChicagoDave 5y ago

I restarted driving in the Chicago area and I’m averaging $45/hr. I’d prefer an article that showed systemic driver responses. Not anecdotal interviews. There is no way I’ll believe most drivers want to be employees. Again. If you don’t like driving rideshare, then get a different job. It’s not Uber’s responsibility to provide FT or benefits. These complaints suggest they’re pro labor, but Uber is not a traditional employer. There is no law that says every business has to provide an employer/employee relationship. If drivers don’t return to Uber, that will be the free market reset that forces Uber to adapt. If drivers take the sign up bonus and stop driving, Uber will have to adapt to that as well. Let the market decide.

donsupreme 5y ago
Maybe you can look at the first word in that title, it says California and earning under prop 22. So yea not Chicago.
- EduardoBautista 5y ago
  The comment you are replying to easily applies to drivers in other large cities in the USA.
gugagore 5y ago
> It’s not Uber’s responsibility to provide FT or benefits. > Let the market decide. I just want to spell out that these are political stances, and not universal truths. An alternative political stance is that multiple factors conspire such that "get a different job" is for many people not a viable strategy. The situation under which a worker feels that their only viable strategy is working for Uber is beneficial to Uber. Is it Uber's responsibility to ensure that there are multiple viable job strategies for people? No, not exactly. That's the responsibility of the government. We can't expect an entity to act against its own interests.
- tom-_- 5y ago
  It can be a political stance, but that's for the commenter to decide, not you. It is a legal truth. Uber is not legally responsible for providing FT or benefits period. You can argue they should be but as you pointed out, regulation is the responsibility of the government, not Uber.

Rebelgecko 5y ago

Uber has been fundamentally broken at LAX, so hopefully these changes will make it better. It's so bad that taxi cabs are making a bit of a resurgence, because they win on convenience, user experience, and price. About half of people who request an Uber ride at LAX never get accepted by a driver[1]. I've been on the receiving end of that. My last time at LAX, there were half a dozen Uber drivers sitting in the lot. I kept getting notifications on my phone that I was being offered rides at increasingly high prices. When I tried to accept the driver would deny me. One driver pulled up and said that "because the app is buggy today", I wouldn't get matched with a driver but he'd be willing to drive me home for $50, paid via cash or venmo (for comparison, my Uber ride to the airport was $12). After watching the drivers a bit, SURPRISE, the app wasn't buggy. The drivers were just working as a cartel to deny every potential fare, which jacked up the prices in the app. Then they'd swoop up to frustrated travelers and offer to drive them home for an even more exorbitant rate, while also sidestepping Uber's cut. Unlike Uber, Lyft will apparently try to match you with drivers outside of the airport. That makes it harder to artificially raise prices. A Lyft driver a few blocks away ended up taking me home for $13+tip. In the time a spent waiting for him to pick me up, not a single Uber car took a passenger. [1]: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-may-stop-letting-drivers-see-destinations-16078491.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-may-stop-l...

tschwimmer 5y ago
I have had the same happen to me at SFO.
- rkk3 5y ago
  Last time I landed at SFO, in Feb around 8pm, it was consistently $100 to $120 to go from SFO to SOMA. I waited for 10-15 minutes then got a "bargain" price of $50 to go from SFO to SOMA in a clunky older car. The driver actually said he was in the airport parking lot waiting for over 20 minutes to get matched.
clairity 5y ago
> “ A Lyft driver a few blocks away ended up taking me home for $13+tip.” i used to do this as a price hack anyways, when i was flying between LA and SF regularly. you could take any shuttle out of the airport to a nearby hotel/parking lot, which is where you’d have the car pick you up at non-airport prices (typically giving a bigger tip to the driver too).

LatteLazy 5y ago

Isn't the whole point of being self employed that if you can't make a living you stop? Don't go to LAX, don't accept rides there. Problem solved.

southerntofu 5y ago

And that's why workers coop like drivers.coop are the future (at least as long as "capitalism" is a thing). The bosses needs us, but we don't need a boss. Never forget that.

human_person 5y ago

For a long time I thought that companies like Uber, lyft and Doordash were the super rich subsidizing the lives of the upper middle class on the backs of the poor. We might never be able to retire but we can get cheap rides home from the bar. The bread and circuses of the modern age. Having worked as an engineer at one of the above it was clear that the amount people are willing to pay for a ride or food delivery is fundamentally less than what you need to pay a driver. Now I believe it was a ponzi scheme by the investors. If you sell hundred dollar bills for ten dollars you’ll have lots of customers. Even if you start selling the hundred bills for fifty dollars or even 95 you’ll have lots of customers and be able to claim you are the path to profitability. The numbers almost work. And it was a successful Ponzi scheme. All of the original vcs and investors were able to cash out with massive reruns. When these companies eventually (and inevitably) collapse it will be average investors and pension funds left holding the bag.

908B64B197 5y ago
> Having worked as an engineer at one of the above it was clear that the amount people are willing to pay for a ride or food delivery is fundamentally less than what you need to pay a driver. Every market has an equilibrium price. The old medallion system enforced a given (high) price, and the result was that the drivers had to work 12+ hours to break even due to the medallion price and the low demand. Uber has shifted that equilibrium point. I'm not sure it's above minimum wage, but note that taxi medallions didn't enforce a minimal wage either. But nobody would be doing it if it wasn't profitable.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "nobody would be doing it if it wasn't profitable" Not necessarily true. Some drivers might not be figuring in the costs of depreciation and maintenance, which are the biggest expenses of owning a car, and so might not even realize they're losing money in the balance. Not everybody's good at math, accounting, or business.
- ryanbrunner 5y ago
  People make plenty of economic decisions that aren't long term profitable. Go to any struggling downtown, and it will probably be chock full of predatory loan and check cashing places, which are universally considered to be a horrible economic decision to use. I'm not necessarily saying that driving Uber is quite at that level, but the fact that people are driving for Uber isn't evidence that it's a profitable thing for them to do.