9 ms·

Uber and Lyft leave Minneapolis over $15 minimum wage

29 points by lando2319 3y ago

markus92 3y ago
Sounds like a great opportunity for Bolt to launch in the USA.
SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
Good riddance.
bradleyankrom 3y ago
They haven't left MSP - they're saying they'll do so on May 1.
testhest 3y ago
Minimum wages just removes opportunities.
- suby 3y ago
  The opportunity to work well below the poverty line.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    I'm not sure if $1.40 per mile is working well below the poverty line. At freeway speeds this is over $90 per hour. If the previous prices really were bad wages, then Uber and Lyft would be having a hard time finding drivers.
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      I assume most people aren’t getting dropped off on the side of the highway. They’re being moved between more dense points that are otherwise underserved or not served by mass transit. The existence of a job doesn’t imply that said job is unexploitative. People are attracted to (or left with) exploitative jobs for all kinds of reasons.
      - Manuel_D 3y ago
        What is exploitation? Working a service job for minimum wage is not what I'd call a good job, but it's not exploitation as long as the employer did not cheat employees out of wages, put them at undisclosed risk, or some other dishonest practice. Exploitation is more than just "I think the wage is too low". These Uber and Lyft drivers picked this job out of all their options. They arrived at the conclusion that it was the best job that they could get out of all their options. Why do you think you know better than they do?
        woodruffw 3y ago
        I think that using peoples’ inability to factor in the depreciation of their cars is a form of exploitation in this case. Uber and Lyft are profitable in part because they assume no maintenance or repair risk. Edit: “out of all their options” reveals the point here: the minimum wage exists so that, in theory, there is a cap on the things that people have to do to put food in their mouths.
        Manuel_D 3y ago
        If this were the case, then the remediation is to promote better awareness about depreciation and factoring it into net profit calculation. Then, once drivers realize that depreciation is a thing, Uber and Lyft would see drivers quitting en masse when they realize they're not making as much money as they thought - if what you are saying is true, that is. But the reality is Uber and Lyft drivers aren't idiots and do indeed realize that depreciation exists. This strikes me a quite a condescending take, that Uber and Lyft drivers aren't smart enough to o take wear and tear on their vehicles into account.
        woodruffw 3y ago
        > If this were the case, then the remediation is to promote better awareness about depreciation and factoring it into net profit calculation. This is a long-standing point of public messaging around rideshares. It's not a secret; the reality is that the people who care about it aren't the ones with hundreds of millions allocated for advertising. None of this assumes that Uber or Lyft drivers are stupid. Everybody discounts long-term externalities; it's a universal human trait, and it's why we have entire society-level issues that boil down to long-term discounting. The only thing that sets rideshare drivers apart in this particular case is that a company is actively exploiting that human weakness, and can do so in part because we allow economic privation as a fulcrum.
    - ydlr 3y ago
      $1.40 isn't the current rate. It is the rate the companies are threatening to pull out over.
    - frumper 3y ago
      Then it sounds like it would be easy for them to meet $15/hr minimum wage...
  - blastonico 3y ago
    Opportunity to make a side hustle.
- DarkNova6 3y ago
  Opportunity for exploitation.
  - nickpp 3y ago
    Do you think removing people’s options will result in less exploitation or more?
    - gwd 3y ago
      Well, look at the history of workplace safety laws (removing the option to work in dangerous conditions), minimum wage laws (removing the optin to work below a certain amount of money), and union protection laws. I haven't done a study, but I'm pretty sure we'd find that each of those laws resulted in less exploitation. EDIT: There are also loads of limitations on what contracts are valid. The government removes the option to contract yourself into slavery, as well as a host of other things. All these laws removing these options were written in response to exploitation, and I'm pretty sure you'd find that they actually reduced exploitation.
      - nickpp 3y ago
        > I'm pretty sure you'd find that they actually reduced exploitation Correlation is not causation. It would be illogical to remove options and have less exploitation. When luck and free markets compensate for the removed options - great. A strong labor market with lots of employers is the best tool against exploitation. But here we are talking about a corrupted, monopolistic government-controlled market where there weren't many choices to begin with. New entrants should be encouraged and celebrated, not shunned and punished. Minimum wage laws are incredibly damaging as well. For example, the unpaid part-time "job" that launched me in the IT field would be illegal now. And I would be much poorer for it. But, hey, I wouldn't have been "exploited".
        gwd 3y ago
        > It would be illogical to remove options and have less exploitation. It may be somewhat counterintuitive, but it's certainly not illogical. > Minimum wage laws are incredibly damaging as well. For example, the unpaid part-time "job" that launched me in the IT field would be illegal now. And I would be much poorer for it. But, hey, I wouldn't have been "exploited". First of all, are you sure it wouldn't have existed? Just because you're willing to get something for free doesn't mean you're not also willing to pay for it; and minimum wage is a lot cheaper than a properly trained full-time IT person. Secondly, having skilled workers available is a public good [1] that benefits all companies, so it makes economic sense for the government to invest (on behalf of all companies) in developing those skills. If these sorts of apprenticeships are generally useful, then having the government sponsor or subsidize them also makes sense. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)
- silent_cal 3y ago
  There's some truth to this. A minimum wage is a blunt instrument that can end up causing more harm than good. If the goal is to raise wages, I think there's better ways of doing it. Maybe with some kind of tax code reform.
- toss1 3y ago
  No. Semi-slavery is no "opportunity" in any real sense of the word, it is a trap. Very few people advance out of sub-poverty wages (and the few who do are no "proof" that it is an "opportunity"). There is a massive difference between people of equal power making arms-lencgh transactions, vs people of virtually unlimited power coercing others to work for sub-poverty wages when their only other option is starvation. Minimum Wage and Unions work against the tendency for capital, owners, and management to exploit workers for their own gain. History shows societies with a large middle class are far better off and more resilient than societies with a thin upper class and mostly impoverished workers. Whenever workers for a company are disproportionately reliant on public assistance, as was found in MN, it means that the management has figured out a scam to get rest of the taxpayers to subsidize their business. The taxpayers make up the difference between what is paid vs a living wage which would be required for those workers to sustainably work for the corp, and the management/shareholders pocket the difference. So, Uber and Lyft are literally scamming the rest of the taxpayers for their profits. Do you enjoy paying taxes to support the executives and shareholders of Uber and Lyft (also WalMart, etc.). There are several solutions, including: Solution 1: Reset the minimum wage the way it was originally designed (by 1950s Republicans), so that it pays a livable wage for one person working 40 hours to support a family of 4 above the poverty line. This is what built the middle class. Solution 2: Tax any and all automation sufficiently to pay a Universal Basic Income above the poverty level so that people have options and do not need to work unless an employer makes it worth their while to undertake the commute, etc. Actual minimum wages may be lower, but the corp taxes will be higher. Either way, we are the wealthiest society in the history of the planet. We CAN afford to treat everyone with dignity, which includes providing for their basic needs of food, housing, healthcare when they work a full-time job. Allowing some to exploit others in a coercive semi-slavery arrangement should not be an option in the most wealthy society in history.
- rybosworld 3y ago
  Arguing with such a broad statement usually isn't worth the time but I'll bite anyways. First: If all minimum wage did was remove opportunities, we wouldn't have one in most of the civilized world. It's plainly obvious that isn't all it does, regardless how you feel about it's effectiveness. Second: Minimum wage does remove opportunities - and so what? There's nothing inherently bad about that. If a business can't afford a minimum wage, then they aren't a viable business. Businesses don't deserve to exist in the same sense that jobs don't deserve to exist. A business that can only survive by trapping employees in wage-slavery isn't to the happiness and health of it's society. Third: Minimum wage has little to no effect on inflation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165176520300616 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01651... And it does have a positive effect on the quality of life of low-skilled workers: https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20180622.107025/ https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20180622.107025/ People that argue against the merits of a minimum wage are usually: - parroting something they heard from a right-wing talking head, (i.e.: they have no evidence to back their claims), or - they are a business owner that knows their business can only survive if they prey on low-skilled labor
Bluecobra 3y ago
Some other rideshare app(s) will come in and fill in the void. I had zero issues getting around Austin when Uber/Lyft pulled out of that market.
- ninju 3y ago
  What are some alternatives for US-based passengers? In my experience Uber and Lyft pretty much have the mindshare of rideshare options
  - wilsjacob 3y ago
    There are more than folks realize, Alto, Kaptyn, and Revel to name a few. Lots of “second gen” companies starting with a different approach. Disclosure: I work at Alto.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      Revel isn’t in Minneapolis and has been shitting the bed in terms of service in New York. Kaptyn appears to be only in Las Vegas. Hadn’t heard of Alto; looks neat. But the website seems to ambitiously evade disclosing their area of operation. That said, it does look like ride-sharing in Minneapolis is headed for a members-only model [1]. [1] https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2024/03/14/uber-lyft-alternatives-minneapolis-legislation https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2024/03/14/uber-lyft...
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Yes "ride share", where you share the car with a driver that only happens to go the same way as you because you asked them to. These are straight up taxi companies, not ride sharing. Uber, and Lyft, keeps sticking to "ride sharing" sales pitch, while running money losing taxi services. If they truly where ride sharing services, then they wouldn't be having these legal issues.
- sa-code 3y ago
  Can I ask why you call them ride shares and not taxis?
nobleach 3y ago
There are only 39 licensed cab drivers in the city (as opposed to 1900 drivers 10 years ago). The sudden crash bang will be interesting as ride-sharing has become such a part of city life. I'm not familiar with what wage Uber currently pays their drivers. Leaving every city that demands a minimum wage, can't be their long-term plan... can it?
silent_cal 3y ago
It's troubling that these business models aren't viable unless you pay the drivers less than $15 an hour. Especially with no benefits. That is very little these days.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  The law did not mandate a $15 and hour wage. It set specific per mile cost requirements, which could easily be well over $15 per hour. Ride share driver's aren't slaves. They chose to drive for ride share companies above the other options. If it was a bad deal then Uber and Lyft would be having trouble finding drivers. How is strictly fewer options a good thing?
  - gwd 3y ago
    Go read about working conditions at factories in the 19th century. Those people weren't slaves either; they "chose" to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week, in extraordinarily dangerous conditions, because the alternate from their perspective was to starve to death. That's not the situation these Uber drivers are in, specifically because of unions and other laws (such as minimum wage laws) which prevent such "choices" from happening.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      The irony is that industrial jobs in the early 19th century were better than the alternatives, namely subsistence farming. For all the talk about "Dickensian" industrial working conditions, the industrializing countries in 19th century saw some of the biggest leaps in standards of living in history, unions or not. This is exactly the kind of misguided take that leads people deprive people less privileged then themselves of employment opportunities. You wouldn't want to drive for Uber, it'd be a bad choose in your situation. And you're applying the same thinking to people who don't have the same employment prospects. What will Uber and Lyft drivers do now that price controls have made ride sharing too expensive for most of the market? Work at fast food joints? In retail? All of those choice were present when drivers chose to drive for ride share companies, and the drivers concluded they were inferior to working for Uber and Lyft. Now, were forcing them to go to one of those inferior choices and patting ourselves on the back for doing a supposedly good thing.
twh270 3y ago
Naive thought since I'm not familiar with the situation, but since Uber/Lyft could simply raise rates it seems to me this is political posturing on their part to see if they can force the city to back down. What am I missing here?
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  They could raise rates but also run the risk of losing customers at the margin. Uber and Lyft are publicly traded companies and, as such, are required by their stockholders to maximize profit - which means raising rates, lowing costs (labor), or some mix of that (and more). The problem here, as I see it, is that the model changed from being highly accurate (payment per mile, which can happen in a minute) to something more broad (payment per 15 minutes according to FLSA rules as I understand them).
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    So they choose to lose all the money instead some? Is that really in best interest of their stock holders?
    - brodouevencode 3y ago
      When it comes to market viability there will come a time at which companies just pull out because the headache is too much, even if they are somewhat profitable. FWIW I think this is posturing on Uber/Lyft's behalf, but is almost certainly a sign of future actions if they cannot make the number work.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      They would have to invent a new business model to operate with an hourly minimum wage. Currently they demand very little of their drivers since they don't have to pay when the driver doesn't have a client, but add an hourly minimum wage and now they have to manage drivers a lot more to ensure they are worth that pay per hour. Now they will get replaced by more traditionally run taxi companies that managers their drivers tighter. Edit: Or no, the law explicitly said how much ride shares should pay per mile and per minute riding. So scratch that, not sure why they pulled out here.
rKarpinski 3y ago
Why does Lyft co-operate with Uber here instead of taking this market for themselves? Seems like they should free load off of Uber's willingness to sacrifice business to politically posture.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Why does Lyft co-operate with Uber here instead of taking this market for themselves? The market isn’t worth supporting at those rates.
  - rKarpinski 3y ago
    On margin I can't believe Lyft would loose money by continuing to support Minneapolis, passing on this per mile/per minute floor to the consumer & taking over Uber's market share there. It "not being worth supporting" has everything to do with signalling to other municipalities not to regulate (which I think makes much more sense for Uber to do than Lyft)
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > I can't believe Lyft would loose money by continuing to support Minneapolis, passing on this per mile/per minute floor to the new cost to the consumer I can. They have to pay for when the drivers are earning revenue as well as not. At the same time, support the local infrastructure running a ride-hailing service requires (e.g. government relations, customer service, et cetera). Minneapolis and St. Paul are not super wealthy cities.
      - rKarpinski 3y ago
        > They have to pay for when the drivers are earning revenue as well as not. Where are you getting this from? "The ordinance requires rideshare companies to pay drivers a wage of at least $1.40 per mile, and 51-cents per minute on rides to, from, and through city limits." I see nothing about paying them when they aren't earning.
- 3y ago
Ajay-p 3y ago
To me the taxis were like an entrenched monopoly. Then competition tried to disrupt the system, but after lawsuits and regulation pushing up costs/prices on ride sharing, taxis will come back to fill the void. Full circle it seems. I can't help but feel this is exactly what the taxi industry wants.
- black_13 3y ago
  [dead]
- IllIlIIllI 3y ago
  Have the lawsuits/regulation been anything that taxi companies didn't also have to deal with when they had a monopoly though? I don't really see it as disrupting the system if you just don't pay the taxes or follow the regulations of the other guy. I'm starting to think that ride sharing is just an area where you can have a profitable, sustainable company (taxis) but not the sustained, exponential growth a company like Uber is pitching. If Uber was happy to settle for paying drivers decent (but low) wages and operate at a sustainable level they would probably be fine, but that's a death sentence for a publicly traded company in their position.
- tivert 3y ago
  > To me the taxis were like an entrenched monopoly. Then competition tried to disrupt the system, but after lawsuits and regulation pushing up costs/prices on ride sharing, taxis will come back to fill the void. Full circle it seems. I can't help but feel this is exactly what the taxi industry wants. I think it's proof that taxis weren't "an entrenched monopoly," or at least weren't as bad as the Uber's propaganda made them out to be. If Uber's big innovation was just "pay workers less," and their competitive advantage evaporates once regulation catches up to them, it's just proof of how misleading SV smoke-and-mirrors can be. I can tell you that I'm about as excited about the next "innovative" consumer-oriented startup as I am the next Google chat app.
bayareateg 3y ago
How are they able to continue to operate in SF
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > How are they able to continue to operate in SF San Francisco is richer. That lets it support higher prices.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
[dupe] Some more discussion last week when this was news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39711041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39711041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39718043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39718043
numbsafari 3y ago
Seems to me like an opportunity for new entrants into the market. Granted… Uber and Lyft have generally been money losers over all. More folks can/should take public transit, and prices should reflect the actual social cost of these services. There’s no reason ordinary people should be subsidizing billionaire VCs efforts to disrupt the social fabric and exploit the commons by further eroding use of non-car options.
tharmas 3y ago
Uber and Lyft pulling out of Minneapolis is a good thing. Why? Because those companies are in California. That means the profits are leaving Minnesota and going to California. Sure, a Taxi company operating in Minneapolis could be California owned and the profits would get funneled back to California too. What would be better is if locally owned Taxi companies created their own ride sharing apps. Or even better, if the drivers themselves were able to create some kind of co-op company that managed the ride sharing application for them.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

29 points by lando2319 3y ago

markus92 3y ago

Sounds like a great opportunity for Bolt to launch in the USA.

SomeoneFromCA 3y ago

Good riddance.

bradleyankrom 3y ago

They haven't left MSP - they're saying they'll do so on May 1.

testhest 3y ago

Minimum wages just removes opportunities.

suby 3y ago
The opportunity to work well below the poverty line.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  I'm not sure if $1.40 per mile is working well below the poverty line. At freeway speeds this is over $90 per hour. If the previous prices really were bad wages, then Uber and Lyft would be having a hard time finding drivers.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    I assume most people aren’t getting dropped off on the side of the highway. They’re being moved between more dense points that are otherwise underserved or not served by mass transit. The existence of a job doesn’t imply that said job is unexploitative. People are attracted to (or left with) exploitative jobs for all kinds of reasons.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      What is exploitation? Working a service job for minimum wage is not what I'd call a good job, but it's not exploitation as long as the employer did not cheat employees out of wages, put them at undisclosed risk, or some other dishonest practice. Exploitation is more than just "I think the wage is too low". These Uber and Lyft drivers picked this job out of all their options. They arrived at the conclusion that it was the best job that they could get out of all their options. Why do you think you know better than they do?
      - woodruffw 3y ago
        I think that using peoples’ inability to factor in the depreciation of their cars is a form of exploitation in this case. Uber and Lyft are profitable in part because they assume no maintenance or repair risk. Edit: “out of all their options” reveals the point here: the minimum wage exists so that, in theory, there is a cap on the things that people have to do to put food in their mouths.
        Manuel_D 3y ago
        If this were the case, then the remediation is to promote better awareness about depreciation and factoring it into net profit calculation. Then, once drivers realize that depreciation is a thing, Uber and Lyft would see drivers quitting en masse when they realize they're not making as much money as they thought - if what you are saying is true, that is. But the reality is Uber and Lyft drivers aren't idiots and do indeed realize that depreciation exists. This strikes me a quite a condescending take, that Uber and Lyft drivers aren't smart enough to o take wear and tear on their vehicles into account.
        woodruffw 3y ago
        > If this were the case, then the remediation is to promote better awareness about depreciation and factoring it into net profit calculation. This is a long-standing point of public messaging around rideshares. It's not a secret; the reality is that the people who care about it aren't the ones with hundreds of millions allocated for advertising. None of this assumes that Uber or Lyft drivers are stupid. Everybody discounts long-term externalities; it's a universal human trait, and it's why we have entire society-level issues that boil down to long-term discounting. The only thing that sets rideshare drivers apart in this particular case is that a company is actively exploiting that human weakness, and can do so in part because we allow economic privation as a fulcrum.
  - ydlr 3y ago
    $1.40 isn't the current rate. It is the rate the companies are threatening to pull out over.
  - frumper 3y ago
    Then it sounds like it would be easy for them to meet $15/hr minimum wage...
- blastonico 3y ago
  Opportunity to make a side hustle.
DarkNova6 3y ago
Opportunity for exploitation.
- nickpp 3y ago
  Do you think removing people’s options will result in less exploitation or more?
  - gwd 3y ago
    Well, look at the history of workplace safety laws (removing the option to work in dangerous conditions), minimum wage laws (removing the optin to work below a certain amount of money), and union protection laws. I haven't done a study, but I'm pretty sure we'd find that each of those laws resulted in less exploitation. EDIT: There are also loads of limitations on what contracts are valid. The government removes the option to contract yourself into slavery, as well as a host of other things. All these laws removing these options were written in response to exploitation, and I'm pretty sure you'd find that they actually reduced exploitation.
    - nickpp 3y ago
      > I'm pretty sure you'd find that they actually reduced exploitation Correlation is not causation. It would be illogical to remove options and have less exploitation. When luck and free markets compensate for the removed options - great. A strong labor market with lots of employers is the best tool against exploitation. But here we are talking about a corrupted, monopolistic government-controlled market where there weren't many choices to begin with. New entrants should be encouraged and celebrated, not shunned and punished. Minimum wage laws are incredibly damaging as well. For example, the unpaid part-time "job" that launched me in the IT field would be illegal now. And I would be much poorer for it. But, hey, I wouldn't have been "exploited".
      - gwd 3y ago
        > It would be illogical to remove options and have less exploitation. It may be somewhat counterintuitive, but it's certainly not illogical. > Minimum wage laws are incredibly damaging as well. For example, the unpaid part-time "job" that launched me in the IT field would be illegal now. And I would be much poorer for it. But, hey, I wouldn't have been "exploited". First of all, are you sure it wouldn't have existed? Just because you're willing to get something for free doesn't mean you're not also willing to pay for it; and minimum wage is a lot cheaper than a properly trained full-time IT person. Secondly, having skilled workers available is a public good [1] that benefits all companies, so it makes economic sense for the government to invest (on behalf of all companies) in developing those skills. If these sorts of apprenticeships are generally useful, then having the government sponsor or subsidize them also makes sense. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)
silent_cal 3y ago
There's some truth to this. A minimum wage is a blunt instrument that can end up causing more harm than good. If the goal is to raise wages, I think there's better ways of doing it. Maybe with some kind of tax code reform.
toss1 3y ago
No. Semi-slavery is no "opportunity" in any real sense of the word, it is a trap. Very few people advance out of sub-poverty wages (and the few who do are no "proof" that it is an "opportunity"). There is a massive difference between people of equal power making arms-lencgh transactions, vs people of virtually unlimited power coercing others to work for sub-poverty wages when their only other option is starvation. Minimum Wage and Unions work against the tendency for capital, owners, and management to exploit workers for their own gain. History shows societies with a large middle class are far better off and more resilient than societies with a thin upper class and mostly impoverished workers. Whenever workers for a company are disproportionately reliant on public assistance, as was found in MN, it means that the management has figured out a scam to get rest of the taxpayers to subsidize their business. The taxpayers make up the difference between what is paid vs a living wage which would be required for those workers to sustainably work for the corp, and the management/shareholders pocket the difference. So, Uber and Lyft are literally scamming the rest of the taxpayers for their profits. Do you enjoy paying taxes to support the executives and shareholders of Uber and Lyft (also WalMart, etc.). There are several solutions, including: Solution 1: Reset the minimum wage the way it was originally designed (by 1950s Republicans), so that it pays a livable wage for one person working 40 hours to support a family of 4 above the poverty line. This is what built the middle class. Solution 2: Tax any and all automation sufficiently to pay a Universal Basic Income above the poverty level so that people have options and do not need to work unless an employer makes it worth their while to undertake the commute, etc. Actual minimum wages may be lower, but the corp taxes will be higher. Either way, we are the wealthiest society in the history of the planet. We CAN afford to treat everyone with dignity, which includes providing for their basic needs of food, housing, healthcare when they work a full-time job. Allowing some to exploit others in a coercive semi-slavery arrangement should not be an option in the most wealthy society in history.
rybosworld 3y ago
Arguing with such a broad statement usually isn't worth the time but I'll bite anyways. First: If all minimum wage did was remove opportunities, we wouldn't have one in most of the civilized world. It's plainly obvious that isn't all it does, regardless how you feel about it's effectiveness. Second: Minimum wage does remove opportunities - and so what? There's nothing inherently bad about that. If a business can't afford a minimum wage, then they aren't a viable business. Businesses don't deserve to exist in the same sense that jobs don't deserve to exist. A business that can only survive by trapping employees in wage-slavery isn't to the happiness and health of it's society. Third: Minimum wage has little to no effect on inflation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165176520300616 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01651... And it does have a positive effect on the quality of life of low-skilled workers: https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20180622.107025/ https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20180622.107025/ People that argue against the merits of a minimum wage are usually: - parroting something they heard from a right-wing talking head, (i.e.: they have no evidence to back their claims), or - they are a business owner that knows their business can only survive if they prey on low-skilled labor

Bluecobra 3y ago

Some other rideshare app(s) will come in and fill in the void. I had zero issues getting around Austin when Uber/Lyft pulled out of that market.

ninju 3y ago
What are some alternatives for US-based passengers? In my experience Uber and Lyft pretty much have the mindshare of rideshare options
- wilsjacob 3y ago
  There are more than folks realize, Alto, Kaptyn, and Revel to name a few. Lots of “second gen” companies starting with a different approach. Disclosure: I work at Alto.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    Revel isn’t in Minneapolis and has been shitting the bed in terms of service in New York. Kaptyn appears to be only in Las Vegas. Hadn’t heard of Alto; looks neat. But the website seems to ambitiously evade disclosing their area of operation. That said, it does look like ride-sharing in Minneapolis is headed for a members-only model [1]. [1] https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2024/03/14/uber-lyft-alternatives-minneapolis-legislation https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2024/03/14/uber-lyft...
mrweasel 3y ago
Yes "ride share", where you share the car with a driver that only happens to go the same way as you because you asked them to. These are straight up taxi companies, not ride sharing. Uber, and Lyft, keeps sticking to "ride sharing" sales pitch, while running money losing taxi services. If they truly where ride sharing services, then they wouldn't be having these legal issues.
sa-code 3y ago
Can I ask why you call them ride shares and not taxis?

nobleach 3y ago

There are only 39 licensed cab drivers in the city (as opposed to 1900 drivers 10 years ago). The sudden crash bang will be interesting as ride-sharing has become such a part of city life. I'm not familiar with what wage Uber currently pays their drivers. Leaving every city that demands a minimum wage, can't be their long-term plan... can it?

silent_cal 3y ago

It's troubling that these business models aren't viable unless you pay the drivers less than $15 an hour. Especially with no benefits. That is very little these days.

Manuel_D 3y ago
The law did not mandate a $15 and hour wage. It set specific per mile cost requirements, which could easily be well over $15 per hour. Ride share driver's aren't slaves. They chose to drive for ride share companies above the other options. If it was a bad deal then Uber and Lyft would be having trouble finding drivers. How is strictly fewer options a good thing?
- gwd 3y ago
  Go read about working conditions at factories in the 19th century. Those people weren't slaves either; they "chose" to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week, in extraordinarily dangerous conditions, because the alternate from their perspective was to starve to death. That's not the situation these Uber drivers are in, specifically because of unions and other laws (such as minimum wage laws) which prevent such "choices" from happening.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    The irony is that industrial jobs in the early 19th century were better than the alternatives, namely subsistence farming. For all the talk about "Dickensian" industrial working conditions, the industrializing countries in 19th century saw some of the biggest leaps in standards of living in history, unions or not. This is exactly the kind of misguided take that leads people deprive people less privileged then themselves of employment opportunities. You wouldn't want to drive for Uber, it'd be a bad choose in your situation. And you're applying the same thinking to people who don't have the same employment prospects. What will Uber and Lyft drivers do now that price controls have made ride sharing too expensive for most of the market? Work at fast food joints? In retail? All of those choice were present when drivers chose to drive for ride share companies, and the drivers concluded they were inferior to working for Uber and Lyft. Now, were forcing them to go to one of those inferior choices and patting ourselves on the back for doing a supposedly good thing.

twh270 3y ago

Naive thought since I'm not familiar with the situation, but since Uber/Lyft could simply raise rates it seems to me this is political posturing on their part to see if they can force the city to back down. What am I missing here?

brodouevencode 3y ago
They could raise rates but also run the risk of losing customers at the margin. Uber and Lyft are publicly traded companies and, as such, are required by their stockholders to maximize profit - which means raising rates, lowing costs (labor), or some mix of that (and more). The problem here, as I see it, is that the model changed from being highly accurate (payment per mile, which can happen in a minute) to something more broad (payment per 15 minutes according to FLSA rules as I understand them).
- Ekaros 3y ago
  So they choose to lose all the money instead some? Is that really in best interest of their stock holders?
  - brodouevencode 3y ago
    When it comes to market viability there will come a time at which companies just pull out because the headache is too much, even if they are somewhat profitable. FWIW I think this is posturing on Uber/Lyft's behalf, but is almost certainly a sign of future actions if they cannot make the number work.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    They would have to invent a new business model to operate with an hourly minimum wage. Currently they demand very little of their drivers since they don't have to pay when the driver doesn't have a client, but add an hourly minimum wage and now they have to manage drivers a lot more to ensure they are worth that pay per hour. Now they will get replaced by more traditionally run taxi companies that managers their drivers tighter. Edit: Or no, the law explicitly said how much ride shares should pay per mile and per minute riding. So scratch that, not sure why they pulled out here.

rKarpinski 3y ago

Why does Lyft co-operate with Uber here instead of taking this market for themselves? Seems like they should free load off of Uber's willingness to sacrifice business to politically posture.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Why does Lyft co-operate with Uber here instead of taking this market for themselves? The market isn’t worth supporting at those rates.
- rKarpinski 3y ago
  On margin I can't believe Lyft would loose money by continuing to support Minneapolis, passing on this per mile/per minute floor to the consumer & taking over Uber's market share there. It "not being worth supporting" has everything to do with signalling to other municipalities not to regulate (which I think makes much more sense for Uber to do than Lyft)
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > I can't believe Lyft would loose money by continuing to support Minneapolis, passing on this per mile/per minute floor to the new cost to the consumer I can. They have to pay for when the drivers are earning revenue as well as not. At the same time, support the local infrastructure running a ride-hailing service requires (e.g. government relations, customer service, et cetera). Minneapolis and St. Paul are not super wealthy cities.
    - rKarpinski 3y ago
      > They have to pay for when the drivers are earning revenue as well as not. Where are you getting this from? "The ordinance requires rideshare companies to pay drivers a wage of at least $1.40 per mile, and 51-cents per minute on rides to, from, and through city limits." I see nothing about paying them when they aren't earning.
3y ago

Ajay-p 3y ago

To me the taxis were like an entrenched monopoly. Then competition tried to disrupt the system, but after lawsuits and regulation pushing up costs/prices on ride sharing, taxis will come back to fill the void. Full circle it seems. I can't help but feel this is exactly what the taxi industry wants.

black_13 3y ago
[dead]
IllIlIIllI 3y ago
Have the lawsuits/regulation been anything that taxi companies didn't also have to deal with when they had a monopoly though? I don't really see it as disrupting the system if you just don't pay the taxes or follow the regulations of the other guy. I'm starting to think that ride sharing is just an area where you can have a profitable, sustainable company (taxis) but not the sustained, exponential growth a company like Uber is pitching. If Uber was happy to settle for paying drivers decent (but low) wages and operate at a sustainable level they would probably be fine, but that's a death sentence for a publicly traded company in their position.
tivert 3y ago
> To me the taxis were like an entrenched monopoly. Then competition tried to disrupt the system, but after lawsuits and regulation pushing up costs/prices on ride sharing, taxis will come back to fill the void. Full circle it seems. I can't help but feel this is exactly what the taxi industry wants. I think it's proof that taxis weren't "an entrenched monopoly," or at least weren't as bad as the Uber's propaganda made them out to be. If Uber's big innovation was just "pay workers less," and their competitive advantage evaporates once regulation catches up to them, it's just proof of how misleading SV smoke-and-mirrors can be. I can tell you that I'm about as excited about the next "innovative" consumer-oriented startup as I am the next Google chat app.

bayareateg 3y ago

How are they able to continue to operate in SF

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> How are they able to continue to operate in SF San Francisco is richer. That lets it support higher prices.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

[dupe] Some more discussion last week when this was news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39711041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39711041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39718043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39718043

numbsafari 3y ago

Seems to me like an opportunity for new entrants into the market. Granted… Uber and Lyft have generally been money losers over all. More folks can/should take public transit, and prices should reflect the actual social cost of these services. There’s no reason ordinary people should be subsidizing billionaire VCs efforts to disrupt the social fabric and exploit the commons by further eroding use of non-car options.

tharmas 3y ago

Uber and Lyft pulling out of Minneapolis is a good thing. Why? Because those companies are in California. That means the profits are leaving Minnesota and going to California. Sure, a Taxi company operating in Minneapolis could be California owned and the profits would get funneled back to California too. What would be better is if locally owned Taxi companies created their own ride sharing apps. Or even better, if the drivers themselves were able to create some kind of co-op company that managed the ride sharing application for them.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]