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> If Uber has let so many drivers on the app such that they cannot earn a minimum wage, they should stop aggressively enrolling new drivers. The number of driv

> If Uber has let so many drivers on the app such that they cannot earn a minimum wage, they should stop aggressively enrolling new drivers. The number of drivers needed at any given time is completely variable. It's obviously a larger number during peak travel periods. Suppose number of drivers needed off-peak is 100 and the number needed at the peak is 500 and they have 300 drivers. They need to sign up another 200 drivers to satisfy the peak demand, but they already have 200 more than they can use off-peak. What would you have them do? They effectively need a large proportion of the drivers to be working part time specifically during peak hours. Moreover, there are many people willing to do that. They're not sitting in their cars idling, they're at home doing chores or other contract work and they only get in their car if the app tells them they can get paid. This is not a problem for the people who are satisfied with it, and why are the people who are unsatisfied with it even doing it? If you don't like driving for Uber, don't do it.

II2II 2y ago
> The number of drivers needed at any given time is completely variable. It's obviously a larger number during peak travel periods. That's variable based upon time of day, not completely variable. It is not a new problem either. Take public transit: drivers may hate split shifts, yet they are given well defined shifts that they are paid for. On top of that, a company that operates through an app ought to have the ability to develop software to relatively reliably predict demand. > Moreover, there are many people willing to do that. Willing, or desperate? For example: relatively few people want to be on-call replacement workers. They either do it because they need the money or they do it because they are hoping to get their foot in the door. Those who do it willingly are typically doing so for extra cash and because they don't have any other obligations (e.g. retirees in some fields). Now imagine that an entire company is based upon the concept of replacement workers. That puts Uber closer to the exploitive end of the spectrum than the opportunity end.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > That's variable based upon time of day, not completely variable. It's completely variable. If there is a major sporting event in your city, the demand is going to be much different than it is at the same time of day when there isn't a major sporting event. Demand is affected by weather, public transit disruptions, current events etc. It's not just time of day. > Take public transit: drivers may hate split shifts, yet they are given well defined shifts that they are paid for. Public transit has internal buffers that absorb demand. You have a bus which seats 40 but typically has 7 passengers. If there is a demand spike, this time you have 35 passengers, but this is still less than 40 so you don't need any more drivers. If that happens with Uber, they suddenly need five times as many drivers. > On top of that, a company that operates through an app ought to have the ability to develop software to relatively reliably predict demand. They could certainly predict part of the demand, but then what? You don't know ahead of time what time of day it's going to rain and cause a ton of people who usually ride a bike to want a ride. There is still a high amount of unpredictable variability in the demand. > Willing, or desperate? For example: relatively few people want to be on-call replacement workers. They either do it because they need the money or they do it because they are hoping to get their foot in the door. Let's consider these people then. Their options are to have no job and likely run into serious financial difficulties, take the on-call job to cover some bills while they look for a better job, or take some even worse job than the on-call job, but that might not be worse in a way that has been legislated against, e.g. because it's two hours away and there is no law against having a four hour round trip commute. The only reason they'd take the on-call job is if their other options are worse. But if their other options are worse then taking away the on-call job option isn't helping them. To actually help them you need to give them some options that are better, in which case you still don't have to prohibit the on-call job because then they'd just choose the better alternative once it's available. > Those who do it willingly are typically doing so for extra cash and because they don't have any other obligations (e.g. retirees in some fields). Then why shouldn't those people be able to do it, and get the extra cash? > Now imagine that an entire company is based upon the concept of replacement workers. Suppose Uber was part of Costco but otherwise operated in an identical way. Is that supposed to make any difference?
FireBeyond 2y ago
> The number of drivers needed at any given time is completely variable. It's obviously a larger number during peak travel periods. That's Uber's business problem to solve, though, not ours. Sucks to be them. The solution isn't "well, let's make it easier for Uber and screw over their not-employees". The government, the people, are not obligated to ensure profitability is possible for every corporations every idea.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Particularly after operating at a loss for a decade by overpaying drivers and undercharging riders, such that they get a monopoly, squeeze out local competition, and change consumer habits to rely on ridehailing. Now that they won and are making money, boo hoo the government is being tough on us.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > That's Uber's business problem to solve, though, not ours. The solution is going to be dictated by economics, not magic. There is no option where they convert all of the part-time drivers to full-time without any increase in the demand for rides. What they're trying to do is avoid cutting off the part-time drivers entirely. But stop trying to force them to do that, it doesn't actually help people.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    Let's not pretend that they want to have all the benefits of having those part-time drivers without any of the responsibilities. I don't expect them all to be converted to FTEs. But this unavailability BS is just that, BS. "You are unable to log in because we have enough drivers to meet anticipated demand." Simple. Not log in, and then do a job or two then "oops, you've been randomly selected to be unable to earn money for the next hour".
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      Suppose you're a part-time driver. You're at home, going about your other business but are willing to take a fare whenever there is one. They're not at all sure they'll have enough fares for you to do an 8-hour shift, but they know there's one for you right now. They should deny you because they can't guarantee there will be more an hour from now? How does that help you?
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
I mean this is just a private corporation that replaced an older private corporation (a taxi company) who in turn was trying to solve the core issue with car dependent infrastructure, which is: what does one do if one doesn't have a car? Because if you're just at home, car centered infrastructure while expensive, inefficient, and dangerous, does function. But then, if you leave home on a business trip or a vacation... the problems become quite apparent quite quickly. And you're completely correct here diagnosing the problem: > Suppose number of drivers needed off-peak is 100 and the number needed at the peak is 500 and they have 300 drivers. They need to sign up another 200 drivers to satisfy the peak demand, but they already have 200 more than they can use off-peak. What would you have them do? They effectively need a large proportion of the drivers to be working part time specifically during peak hours. Where I disagree is that there's a car-based answer to this, because restricting ourselves to working within the bounds of the car has caused the damn problem: because you need X number of cars with X number of drivers available to move Y number of people at Z time of day, and all three of these are going to change with availability in unpredictable ways. Whereas just... good mass transit could move all of those people, with less fuel, FAR less vehicles, and while those journeys would all probably take a bit longer even in ideal conditions, they would be safer, our air would be cleaner, and you wouldn't even need a taxi company or an app that pays people slave wages to take you places.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  The transit problem is largely a housing problem because mass transit needs a threshold amount of population density to function and that level is below what you get when the majority of the land area is zoned exclusively for single-family homes. But that's not something you can solve overnight -- it takes time to build stuff like that -- so people are still going to have to decide what to do today. Moreover, even if you build more multi-family housing and mass transit, you're still not changing the nature of the issue, only the scale. There will never be 100% mass transit use because there will always be higher and lower population density areas and some proportion of people living in the latter. Then the people who live outside the reach of mass transit may want to come inside it from time to time, and you'll still have car service for that, and still have peak and off peak, and still have to answer the same questions even if there are only a third as many people doing it.

II2II 2y ago

> The number of drivers needed at any given time is completely variable. It's obviously a larger number during peak travel periods. That's variable based upon time of day, not completely variable. It is not a new problem either. Take public transit: drivers may hate split shifts, yet they are given well defined shifts that they are paid for. On top of that, a company that operates through an app ought to have the ability to develop software to relatively reliably predict demand. > Moreover, there are many people willing to do that. Willing, or desperate? For example: relatively few people want to be on-call replacement workers. They either do it because they need the money or they do it because they are hoping to get their foot in the door. Those who do it willingly are typically doing so for extra cash and because they don't have any other obligations (e.g. retirees in some fields). Now imagine that an entire company is based upon the concept of replacement workers. That puts Uber closer to the exploitive end of the spectrum than the opportunity end.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> That's variable based upon time of day, not completely variable. It's completely variable. If there is a major sporting event in your city, the demand is going to be much different than it is at the same time of day when there isn't a major sporting event. Demand is affected by weather, public transit disruptions, current events etc. It's not just time of day. > Take public transit: drivers may hate split shifts, yet they are given well defined shifts that they are paid for. Public transit has internal buffers that absorb demand. You have a bus which seats 40 but typically has 7 passengers. If there is a demand spike, this time you have 35 passengers, but this is still less than 40 so you don't need any more drivers. If that happens with Uber, they suddenly need five times as many drivers. > On top of that, a company that operates through an app ought to have the ability to develop software to relatively reliably predict demand. They could certainly predict part of the demand, but then what? You don't know ahead of time what time of day it's going to rain and cause a ton of people who usually ride a bike to want a ride. There is still a high amount of unpredictable variability in the demand. > Willing, or desperate? For example: relatively few people want to be on-call replacement workers. They either do it because they need the money or they do it because they are hoping to get their foot in the door. Let's consider these people then. Their options are to have no job and likely run into serious financial difficulties, take the on-call job to cover some bills while they look for a better job, or take some even worse job than the on-call job, but that might not be worse in a way that has been legislated against, e.g. because it's two hours away and there is no law against having a four hour round trip commute. The only reason they'd take the on-call job is if their other options are worse. But if their other options are worse then taking away the on-call job option isn't helping them. To actually help them you need to give them some options that are better, in which case you still don't have to prohibit the on-call job because then they'd just choose the better alternative once it's available. > Those who do it willingly are typically doing so for extra cash and because they don't have any other obligations (e.g. retirees in some fields). Then why shouldn't those people be able to do it, and get the extra cash? > Now imagine that an entire company is based upon the concept of replacement workers. Suppose Uber was part of Costco but otherwise operated in an identical way. Is that supposed to make any difference?

FireBeyond 2y ago

> The number of drivers needed at any given time is completely variable. It's obviously a larger number during peak travel periods. That's Uber's business problem to solve, though, not ours. Sucks to be them. The solution isn't "well, let's make it easier for Uber and screw over their not-employees". The government, the people, are not obligated to ensure profitability is possible for every corporations every idea.

steveBK123 2y ago
Particularly after operating at a loss for a decade by overpaying drivers and undercharging riders, such that they get a monopoly, squeeze out local competition, and change consumer habits to rely on ridehailing. Now that they won and are making money, boo hoo the government is being tough on us.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> That's Uber's business problem to solve, though, not ours. The solution is going to be dictated by economics, not magic. There is no option where they convert all of the part-time drivers to full-time without any increase in the demand for rides. What they're trying to do is avoid cutting off the part-time drivers entirely. But stop trying to force them to do that, it doesn't actually help people.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  Let's not pretend that they want to have all the benefits of having those part-time drivers without any of the responsibilities. I don't expect them all to be converted to FTEs. But this unavailability BS is just that, BS. "You are unable to log in because we have enough drivers to meet anticipated demand." Simple. Not log in, and then do a job or two then "oops, you've been randomly selected to be unable to earn money for the next hour".
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    Suppose you're a part-time driver. You're at home, going about your other business but are willing to take a fare whenever there is one. They're not at all sure they'll have enough fares for you to do an 8-hour shift, but they know there's one for you right now. They should deny you because they can't guarantee there will be more an hour from now? How does that help you?

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

I mean this is just a private corporation that replaced an older private corporation (a taxi company) who in turn was trying to solve the core issue with car dependent infrastructure, which is: what does one do if one doesn't have a car? Because if you're just at home, car centered infrastructure while expensive, inefficient, and dangerous, does function. But then, if you leave home on a business trip or a vacation... the problems become quite apparent quite quickly. And you're completely correct here diagnosing the problem: > Suppose number of drivers needed off-peak is 100 and the number needed at the peak is 500 and they have 300 drivers. They need to sign up another 200 drivers to satisfy the peak demand, but they already have 200 more than they can use off-peak. What would you have them do? They effectively need a large proportion of the drivers to be working part time specifically during peak hours. Where I disagree is that there's a car-based answer to this, because restricting ourselves to working within the bounds of the car has caused the damn problem: because you need X number of cars with X number of drivers available to move Y number of people at Z time of day, and all three of these are going to change with availability in unpredictable ways. Whereas just... good mass transit could move all of those people, with less fuel, FAR less vehicles, and while those journeys would all probably take a bit longer even in ideal conditions, they would be safer, our air would be cleaner, and you wouldn't even need a taxi company or an app that pays people slave wages to take you places.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
The transit problem is largely a housing problem because mass transit needs a threshold amount of population density to function and that level is below what you get when the majority of the land area is zoned exclusively for single-family homes. But that's not something you can solve overnight -- it takes time to build stuff like that -- so people are still going to have to decide what to do today. Moreover, even if you build more multi-family housing and mass transit, you're still not changing the nature of the issue, only the scale. There will never be 100% mass transit use because there will always be higher and lower population density areas and some proportion of people living in the latter. Then the people who live outside the reach of mass transit may want to come inside it from time to time, and you'll still have car service for that, and still have peak and off peak, and still have to answer the same questions even if there are only a third as many people doing it.