It's a fair point. I think you'd have to segment labor market a little more, by personality (silent & professional/fun & engaging). My thought is that Lyft do

It's a fair point. I think you'd have to segment labor market a little more, by personality (silent & professional/fun & engaging). My thought is that Lyft does well with the second type, and Uber is recognizing value in that market. I don't think it will drive up costs though. Here Uber is not promising them a higher rate - just switching bonuses. Uber has strong incentives not to offer higher rates, changes their whole cost structure. This is just a recruiting expense. I don't see these services implementing multiple tier payment structures, because that would have to be passed to consumer and then pricing gets complicated when all you want is a ride now. Now I think you're absolutely right the supply is tight. Lyft has some serious driver shortages as it is, and this is not helping matters. I wonder when they'll start letting drivers share cars (or even use a third party car such as Zipcar), but that would help open up the SF market to labor that is constrained by not having a car of their own (which, I'd estimate that's quite a few people).