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> My last driver on vacation said he was on his 3rd vehicle over 7 years of driving with Uber. I see lots of people argue that drivers don't understand depreci

> My last driver on vacation said he was on his 3rd vehicle over 7 years of driving with Uber. I see lots of people argue that drivers don't understand depreciation, but you talk to these drivers who have been doing it for years across multiple vehicles, and they're still doing it. It seems like people want them to be exploited, so they feel justified in saying the big tech companies are bad, and it's really easy to just ignore the reality that there are many of these multi year multi vehicle drivers out there who are still doing it and say they like it and are making money. If drivers were actually losing money, you wouldn't expect to find nearly as many multi year drivers as you do.

ska 4y ago
> If drivers were actually losing money, you wouldn't expect to find nearly as many multi year drivers as you do. That might be an oversimplification too. That suggests at least some drivers are finding it worth sticking with, absolutely. There could be systemic reasons there are others who give it up in 6mo or whatever. The ration may be interesting also. It would be particularly interesting in how many people are maintaining a one income household with it, without other sources of income.
- viscanti 4y ago
  It may be an oversimplification but it seems like it might be challenging to classify how long someone intends to drive. Someone might drive for 6 months and leave because they were able to find full time work. I'm inclined to say that's a success and was something they were able to quickly and easily start doing while they were looking for someone else. Maybe someone else drives nights and weekends to save up for a wedding or some other one off expense and then quits. That's probably also considered a success. Simply looking at average length of work doesn't really tell us what their intent was. I bring up the surprising number of multi year drivers because if you believe what you read online, you'd imagine that Uber is stealing from people who don't understand what depreciation is and that no one could still be doing it on their second or third vehicle. That appears not to be the case and there are numerous counter examples that disprove it. That doesn't seem to stop people from still arguing that Uber is somehow exploiting everyone.
  - ska 4y ago
    > That appears not to be the case and there are numerous counter examples that disprove it. My point was that the existence of said counterexamples doesn't prove anything very strong, only that clearly Uber isn't only stealing from people who don't understand depreciation, etc. In order to actually understand what is going on, you'd need to have a broad survey (and yes, that should include people like your hypothetical). It would look something like a uniform sampling over drives (not trips) as a starting place. Average length doesn't prove anything, but it should be clear that I wasn't suggesting it did.

ska 4y ago

> If drivers were actually losing money, you wouldn't expect to find nearly as many multi year drivers as you do. That might be an oversimplification too. That suggests at least some drivers are finding it worth sticking with, absolutely. There could be systemic reasons there are others who give it up in 6mo or whatever. The ration may be interesting also. It would be particularly interesting in how many people are maintaining a one income household with it, without other sources of income.

viscanti 4y ago
It may be an oversimplification but it seems like it might be challenging to classify how long someone intends to drive. Someone might drive for 6 months and leave because they were able to find full time work. I'm inclined to say that's a success and was something they were able to quickly and easily start doing while they were looking for someone else. Maybe someone else drives nights and weekends to save up for a wedding or some other one off expense and then quits. That's probably also considered a success. Simply looking at average length of work doesn't really tell us what their intent was. I bring up the surprising number of multi year drivers because if you believe what you read online, you'd imagine that Uber is stealing from people who don't understand what depreciation is and that no one could still be doing it on their second or third vehicle. That appears not to be the case and there are numerous counter examples that disprove it. That doesn't seem to stop people from still arguing that Uber is somehow exploiting everyone.
- ska 4y ago
  > That appears not to be the case and there are numerous counter examples that disprove it. My point was that the existence of said counterexamples doesn't prove anything very strong, only that clearly Uber isn't only stealing from people who don't understand depreciation, etc. In order to actually understand what is going on, you'd need to have a broad survey (and yes, that should include people like your hypothetical). It would look something like a uniform sampling over drives (not trips) as a starting place. Average length doesn't prove anything, but it should be clear that I wasn't suggesting it did.