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> but the second anyone suggests we were better off with the taxi cab than Uber or Lyft Uber or Lyft are more convenient for the customer, but the drivers are

by palata 2y ago

> but the second anyone suggests we were better off with the taxi cab than Uber or Lyft Uber or Lyft are more convenient for the customer, but the drivers are being abused by Uber or Lyft. Which is less than ideal. That's the thing about BigTech: nobody says that the product was not more convenient (at least before enshittification), but the problem is that BigTech abuses their dominant position, over and over again.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
AlexanderTheGr8 2y ago
> Uber or Lyft are more convenient for the customer Gross understatement! 1) You can find a cab wherever (almost) and whenever (24x7) - you don't have to hail a cab for minutes/hours (even worse was not knowing when/if the cab would even arrive). 2) Much safer. Emergency support + seeing the route on GPS (can see the path on the driver's uber app) + rating system. 3) Better behaviour, enforced by rating system. Yes, it's not perfect, but much much better than cabs. Cab drivers were regularly abusive, knowing there were no repurcussions. Unfortunately, humans only behave when there's consequences. 4) No scamming vulnerable un-informed people. Cabs were known for scamming foreigners or un-informed people. I can point out a few more things. Calling it `more convenient` is a massive understatement. > but the drivers are being abused by Uber or Lyft. Which is less than ideal. This can be fixed by regulation. Just because a new technology brought a new problem, that doesn't mean we should discard the technology and go to its worse predecessor. Remember : there is a reason the new technology took over its predecessor. I think we can have both : the benefits of digital ride-share + good regulation for drivers to ensure they can maintain their livelihood. PS : that's until driverless waymo/tesla take over everything...
- palata 2y ago
  > I think we can have both : the benefits of digital ride-share + good regulation Not in the US, who don't believe in regulations. But yeah, my point was that the best would be the convenience of those apps without the abuse. It seems possible outside the US, though: I believe Greece had banned Uber from the beginning on, and Taxis ended up building a similar app. > that's until driverless waymo/tesla take over everything... Oh right, it's the year of the fully autonomous car! Or was it last year? Or 2016?
  - AlexanderTheGr8 2y ago
    > Oh right, it's the year of the fully autonomous car! Or was it last year? Or 2016? Just because CEOs have been hyping this tech up to raise valuations doesn't mean it will never happen. They said the same about landing rockets - now, it's a regular thing. It's pretty clear that driverless is coming - exact timeline is unclear. Whether in 3 years, 5 years, or a decade, but it's coming.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> the drivers are being abused by Uber or Lyft. I still don't get this one. You don't have to sign a long-term contract to drive for these companies. They don't own you. If you try it and it sucks more than working somewhere else then stop doing it. Your leverage is your ability to say no. But if it's better than your other alternatives then why isn't the complaint about the alternatives which are somehow even worse?
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  Vehicle depreciation is one big example. Any commercial vehicle operator knows that driving a car around causes its value to decrease substantially, 29 cents per mile on average as of 2018, and will (must!) account for that when running the numbers on their business. But most individual drivers don't have the expertise to intuit this, and Uber and Lyft don't tell them. So all but the most financially savvy drivers have an effective income significantly lower than they believe.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > Any commercial vehicle operator knows that driving a car around causes its value to decrease substantially, 29 cents per mile on average as of 2018, and will (must!) account for that when running the numbers on their business. People are always saying this and then you go to KBB. The average car is >12 years old, so let's suppose you're going to get rid of your Prius when it's 12 years old instead of allowing it to become older than average. Typical mileage at that age might be around 150,000 miles. Trade in value in good condition for a 12 year old Prius with 150,000 is ~$4300. Double the mileage to 300,000 miles, it drops to ~$2600. That's $1700 for an extra 150,000 miles, or around $0.01/mile. $0.29/mile is from new or nearly-new cars which are then resold as nearly new. If you buy a new car and immediately roll the odometer past six digits its value is going to fall off a cliff. But if you start with a ten year old car which has already lost most of its value to depreciation, and then put a lot more miles on it over a couple more years -- which is what most of the people driving for Uber would actually be doing -- the cost is dramatically lower. Presuming that the people choosing to do this as a profession can't figure this out is kind of patronizing, but, in the common case, not even that much of a difference.
whimsicalism 2y ago
number of causal inference studies have shown that uber/lyft lead to broad based wage gains for the poorest segment of the working population. the cartel approach is only better for the select few who get to be drivers
- palata 2y ago
  Ok, based wage gains for the poorest segment. What about those who lose? Because Uber makes a ton of money while it's still cheaper to take an Uber than a taxi. Someone, somewhere has to lose, right? Now imagine they did not abuse the drivers... it would possibly be even better for the poorest segment!

by palata 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

AlexanderTheGr8 2y ago

> Uber or Lyft are more convenient for the customer Gross understatement! 1) You can find a cab wherever (almost) and whenever (24x7) - you don't have to hail a cab for minutes/hours (even worse was not knowing when/if the cab would even arrive). 2) Much safer. Emergency support + seeing the route on GPS (can see the path on the driver's uber app) + rating system. 3) Better behaviour, enforced by rating system. Yes, it's not perfect, but much much better than cabs. Cab drivers were regularly abusive, knowing there were no repurcussions. Unfortunately, humans only behave when there's consequences. 4) No scamming vulnerable un-informed people. Cabs were known for scamming foreigners or un-informed people. I can point out a few more things. Calling it `more convenient` is a massive understatement. > but the drivers are being abused by Uber or Lyft. Which is less than ideal. This can be fixed by regulation. Just because a new technology brought a new problem, that doesn't mean we should discard the technology and go to its worse predecessor. Remember : there is a reason the new technology took over its predecessor. I think we can have both : the benefits of digital ride-share + good regulation for drivers to ensure they can maintain their livelihood. PS : that's until driverless waymo/tesla take over everything...

palata 2y ago
> I think we can have both : the benefits of digital ride-share + good regulation Not in the US, who don't believe in regulations. But yeah, my point was that the best would be the convenience of those apps without the abuse. It seems possible outside the US, though: I believe Greece had banned Uber from the beginning on, and Taxis ended up building a similar app. > that's until driverless waymo/tesla take over everything... Oh right, it's the year of the fully autonomous car! Or was it last year? Or 2016?
- AlexanderTheGr8 2y ago
  > Oh right, it's the year of the fully autonomous car! Or was it last year? Or 2016? Just because CEOs have been hyping this tech up to raise valuations doesn't mean it will never happen. They said the same about landing rockets - now, it's a regular thing. It's pretty clear that driverless is coming - exact timeline is unclear. Whether in 3 years, 5 years, or a decade, but it's coming.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

> the drivers are being abused by Uber or Lyft. I still don't get this one. You don't have to sign a long-term contract to drive for these companies. They don't own you. If you try it and it sucks more than working somewhere else then stop doing it. Your leverage is your ability to say no. But if it's better than your other alternatives then why isn't the complaint about the alternatives which are somehow even worse?

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
Vehicle depreciation is one big example. Any commercial vehicle operator knows that driving a car around causes its value to decrease substantially, 29 cents per mile on average as of 2018, and will (must!) account for that when running the numbers on their business. But most individual drivers don't have the expertise to intuit this, and Uber and Lyft don't tell them. So all but the most financially savvy drivers have an effective income significantly lower than they believe.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Any commercial vehicle operator knows that driving a car around causes its value to decrease substantially, 29 cents per mile on average as of 2018, and will (must!) account for that when running the numbers on their business. People are always saying this and then you go to KBB. The average car is >12 years old, so let's suppose you're going to get rid of your Prius when it's 12 years old instead of allowing it to become older than average. Typical mileage at that age might be around 150,000 miles. Trade in value in good condition for a 12 year old Prius with 150,000 is ~$4300. Double the mileage to 300,000 miles, it drops to ~$2600. That's $1700 for an extra 150,000 miles, or around $0.01/mile. $0.29/mile is from new or nearly-new cars which are then resold as nearly new. If you buy a new car and immediately roll the odometer past six digits its value is going to fall off a cliff. But if you start with a ten year old car which has already lost most of its value to depreciation, and then put a lot more miles on it over a couple more years -- which is what most of the people driving for Uber would actually be doing -- the cost is dramatically lower. Presuming that the people choosing to do this as a profession can't figure this out is kind of patronizing, but, in the common case, not even that much of a difference.

whimsicalism 2y ago

number of causal inference studies have shown that uber/lyft lead to broad based wage gains for the poorest segment of the working population. the cartel approach is only better for the select few who get to be drivers

palata 2y ago
Ok, based wage gains for the poorest segment. What about those who lose? Because Uber makes a ton of money while it's still cheaper to take an Uber than a taxi. Someone, somewhere has to lose, right? Now imagine they did not abuse the drivers... it would possibly be even better for the poorest segment!