6 ms·

A few months ago when I was in Seattle for work, I caught Uber everywhere. I had so many conversations with Uber drivers about why they drove for Uber, how much

A few months ago when I was in Seattle for work, I caught Uber everywhere. I had so many conversations with Uber drivers about why they drove for Uber, how much money they made and why they weren't doing something else. Needless to say, unless I felt legitimately fearful for my life (which rarely ever happened) I would always rate 5 stars. I realised a lot of these Uber drivers (usually migrants with broken English) probably didn't have many other options to earn money. An almost consistent sentiment amongst those drivers was they were working long hours and support family (not just a wife and children but parents/relatives). My reasoning for this was I am paying like half the cost of what a taxi would cost me, so why not 5 stars? I think Uber is great for a certain subset of people. While most people who frequent HN on six figure tech salaries would definitely struggle to live on an Uber salary, a lot of people rely on it. In all honesty, I couldn't do it and I have a certain level of respect for those willing to earn so little and work so much to support their families. As a passenger Uber is great, but you can't deny that drivers get absolutely shafted unless they're driving through surge pricing periods and areas. I always rate 5 stars when I get an Uber unless of course the driver is swerving all over the place, speeding or doing dangerous things to endanger my life (which has happened like twice in all of the time I have used Uber). Aside: Anyone else find the article sporadically refresh? Made it very difficult to read the article.

yesbabyyes 11y ago
How magnanimous of you, to award imaginary points instead of enough money to support somebody. I think Uber is great for a certain subset of people. While most people who frequent HN on six figure tech salaries would definitely struggle to live on an Uber salary Seriously? I guess it's good for you guys so you only have to spend half of what it costs. Oh, and for the Uber owners of course. A certain subset of people, indeed. Here, have some imaginary points for your inner goodness.
- ossreality 11y ago
  Man, learn to pick the right fight with the right person.
- dethstar 11y ago
  You're being overly rude about this but I agree on the point you're trying to get across. Most of the taxis I've been in were also drove by people trying to support their family. They probably have a better salary and maybe even compensations. Uber is certainly not disruptor in the worker rights zone.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Taxi drivers got a terrible salary, with a huge amount of the income (as much as 45%, according to the Taxi Commission) going to the taxi companies which own the garages and medallions. In many cases, they had to pay to work, by dropping $50-$100 on the start of the shift to lease the medallion, before even knowing they would get enough rides to pay for it. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/02/opinion/new-york-s-taxi-drivers-need-disaster-relief.html http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/02/opinion/new-york-s-taxi-dr... http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-difficult-in-best-of-times-gets-tougher.html http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-di...
- jasonisalive 11y ago
  The entire economic system is built around people trying to get the best deal possible for themselves. You can try and paint that as inhumane and abusive if you're commited to emotionalising economic dynamics, but it really doesn't make any sense. At the end of the day as long as the transactions are consensual, there's no need for this rhetoric of abuse. Uber drivers know the deal and they can take it or leave it. No one's holding a gun to their heads. Likewise, it's not Uber or anyone else's job or responsibility to guarantee anyone or anybody a certain standard of living. You might as well vilify people for choosing the potatoes which are 10c/kg cheaper at the supermarket, isn't that a case of those wealthy enough to buy potatoes victimising helpless potato farmers?
  - dogecoinbase 11y ago
    The entire economic system is built around people trying to get the best deal possible for themselves. You can try and paint that as inhumane and abusive... Wow -- you're so damn close to the moment of insight, and yet so far.
    - jasonisalive 11y ago
      And the irony is that people like yourself, chasing phantoms of unfairness in the free market, support the extension and entrenchment of coercive governments, an institution which is and always will be eminently corruptible, an institution whose history is a litany of abuse and overreach.
      - haberman 11y ago
        Absolutism in any direction here is folly. Without antitrust law capitalism becomes oligarchy.
      - Frondo 11y ago
        You sound like someone who's never actually gotten involved in politics. Try getting in at the local level--volunteer for a state representative's campaign, or a local city/county commissioner. Get to know people, talk to them, see what it's really like. What you're characterizing as "eminently corruptible" and full of "abuse and overreach" actually makes a lot more sense when you step out from behind the keyboard (and its steady supply of anti-government, libertarian websites) and get involved.
- DigitalSea 11y ago
  Ouch. That hurts. You have taken such a small part of what I have said and used it to paint me as someone who is taking advantage of the fact that Uber offers cheaper fares than a taxi service. And then to add salt to injury, you throw in that last line. While I agree somewhat with your point, your comment was just plain rude. There are so many other ways you could have said what you wanted to say without launching a borderline personal attack on me and trying to paint me as this horrible person. Everyone can claim to be ethical, but at the end of the day whether you realise it or not, you're supporting people in not only your own country but other countries through the purchases you make everyday, not necessarily in the best way either. That $5 coffee you might purchase every morning is benefiting people picking coffee in coffee producing areas of the world. Those same people are getting paid horribly, they're also subjected to abusive work conditions bordering on fear tactics used to keep them working. You're helping people support families, but it is a catch-22, you're also not making things better either. So lets not get all self-righteous about this. Taking an Uber is no different than deciding to buy that new TV or pair of shoes. That iPhone or Android device you probably own was made of components mostly manufactured in China at the lowest possible price to maximise the profits of a large corporation. The same thing, people working in those factories earning a few dollars per day (way below the poverty line) because they have no choice. The MacBook Pro or desktop computer is also made up of components built and assembled by people working in deplorable conditions for cents on the dollar. At the end of the day Uber is a job. And while I do not agree with how Uber operates as a company or their misleading advertisements to get drivers, no matter if you're choosing to take an Uber or a taxi, you're putting money into someone's pockets. It might not be the best way to help someone, but at the same time there are a lot worse jobs out there in the US and other parts of the world where working conditions are dangerous, the money is even lower and the hours longer. At least with Uber you choose your own hours, how much you work is up to you.
  - javert 11y ago
    The people making shoes, iPhones, TVs---they don't have to do that. They could do whatever they were doing before that factory came to town. But working in that factory is preferable. The same thing is true for Uber drivers. You don't have to feel guilty for any of these purchaes---you should only feel good about them, if anything. That guy was very rude, but you are just accepting his argument and trying to use it against him. It's not a valid argument.
carrotleads 11y ago
I have come across a startup founder who drives Uber in the evenings to help with cashflow. But he is a unique subset as well. His family lives back in South Africa and this keeps him occupied in the evenings plus he can do a bit of customer validation if occasion presents.
BurningFrog 11y ago
> you can't deny that drivers get absolutely shafted Actually you can. I think the simplest argument is the best one: They choose to do this voluntarily, every single day they drive.
- zorpner 11y ago
  The idea of "choice" is significantly more complex than you present it to be, particularly within the context of people providing for themselves and their families, and the information asymmetry Uber leverages in order to convince people to work for them.
  - jasonisalive 11y ago
    So what, some people have urgent needs, different parties in economic transactions have access to different information. Welcome to the free market. They're still choosing to work for Uber. No one is forcing them. Uber isn't forcing them. Uber is just offering an opportunity that they are deciding to accept.
    - s73v3r 11y ago
      Doesn't mean they aren't shafting their drivers.
    - specialist 11y ago
      Please tell me more about this free market. Can you point to an example?
- pmorici 11y ago
  I disagree. Uber employs extremely deceptive advertising to recruit drivers and encourages them to do things like buy new cars then turns around and cuts the amount drivers get paid. This has the effect of totally screwing them over. It's a pretty exploitative situation for people who actually rely on it for income to pay their living expenses.
  - 11y ago
shitlord 11y ago
That's interesting, because I have had the opposite experience. The one time I used Uber instead of Lyft in NYC, I got a driver who was most probably a rapist. Whenever we passed a bar or any drunk girls, he would start telling me how he wanted to take advantage of them. Then he started insulting me for some reason. It was a strange experience, but clearly, the Uber driver pool is merging with the taxi driver pool. And it's bringing the bad elements you'd expect from a typical cabbie.
s73v3r 11y ago
"My reasoning for this was I am paying like half the cost of what a taxi would cost me, so why not 5 stars?" That's true for everyone using Uber. You're not supposed to rate it relative to a taxi, but relative to other Uber drivers.
guessbest 11y ago
> Aside: Anyone else find the article sporadically refresh? Made it very difficult to read the article. Yes. It did for me in Firefox on the desktop, but not on mobile safari. I thought I was crazy when it did it the first time but the second time, I knew it was the citypaper site.
- perfTerm 11y ago
  Very strange. For me on mobile safari (iOS 8.whatever's newest) it refreshed six or seven times by the end. Very frustrating. I don't have traffic inspection tools on my iPhone but usually I find weird page refreshes like that are due to advertising.
  - xasos 11y ago
    Same for me on an iOS 8 iPad. I only got the website to stop refreshing by constantly holding down the screen and scrolling
- justhw 11y ago
  There's a code that refreshes it every 5 min. https://i.imgur.com/SzFkzdG.png https://i.imgur.com/SzFkzdG.png
- saclark11 11y ago
  Came here to the comments to ask the same question about the page refresh. At one point the page even completely blanked out and served me an error message directly from the server. It wasn't anything particularly sensitive, but an information leak none-the-less.
- grrowl 11y ago
  Must be to boost their ad impressions. Really scummy, and kept interrupting the embedded Uber training video.
  - fudgy73 11y ago
    Ironically, I kept seeing ads at the top from uber.
chrismcb 11y ago
I don't plan on taking uber, but if I did, I got average service I would probably dare the driver 3 stars, because that is what 3 stars mean.... Average. And yet I would unknowingly be hurting the driver. And that is just stupid
zaroth 11y ago
> I realised a lot of these Uber drivers (usually migrants with broken English) probably didn't have many other options to earn money. This is just such a perfect observation. What we are seeing here is an end-run around the minimum wage. The so-called "1099 economy" is increasing employment of unskilled workers who would otherwise be unemployable at the mandatory minimum. Where else are people going to find a job they can set their own hours, work 12-hours a day, 80 hours a week, making $5/hour sitting down? If the minimum wage weren't so damn high there might be competitive alternatives. Keep in mind, the goal isn't to "make" $80k, or even $60k, and then lose over half of it to taxes and phased-out benefits. If you're supporting your wife and two kids, the goal is to make about $32k, which on a 1099 will work out to just about maximize your EITC, food stamps, Medi-Cal, etc. and in the end your net value is equivalent to about $100k fully loaded (the employer's fully loaded cost) of regular W-2 employment.
- stickfigure 11y ago
  The article mentions several times that expected wage post-expenses is around $10 per hour, not $5. That difference is material.
  - zaroth 11y ago
    You're right, the article claims OP had 1099 earnings of $9.34/hour assuming expenses of $0.51 per paid mile. But then also goes on to note that other driver's expenses were more like $0.70 per paid mile. I wonder if she amortized that $100 of tire damage in that $0.51 / mile! Also, what about the unpaid miles getting to a fare in the first place, or getting back home after a fare takes you off the beaten path? I think it's extremely difficult to fully account for all time and expenses in that line of work. Finally, subtract another 7.6% off the top for 1099 vs W2.
    - stickfigure 11y ago
      She also pointed out that her take-home was lower than that of the other drivers she checked against because she did not take full advantage of surge pricing and other "tricks" of experienced drivers. And she pointed out that some drivers' expenses were less than her $0.51. I suspect $10/hr is a fairly reasonable average. The discussion is interesting enough even without needing to exaggerate that number.

yesbabyyes 11y ago

How magnanimous of you, to award imaginary points instead of enough money to support somebody. I think Uber is great for a certain subset of people. While most people who frequent HN on six figure tech salaries would definitely struggle to live on an Uber salary Seriously? I guess it's good for you guys so you only have to spend half of what it costs. Oh, and for the Uber owners of course. A certain subset of people, indeed. Here, have some imaginary points for your inner goodness.

ossreality 11y ago
Man, learn to pick the right fight with the right person.
dethstar 11y ago
You're being overly rude about this but I agree on the point you're trying to get across. Most of the taxis I've been in were also drove by people trying to support their family. They probably have a better salary and maybe even compensations. Uber is certainly not disruptor in the worker rights zone.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Taxi drivers got a terrible salary, with a huge amount of the income (as much as 45%, according to the Taxi Commission) going to the taxi companies which own the garages and medallions. In many cases, they had to pay to work, by dropping $50-$100 on the start of the shift to lease the medallion, before even knowing they would get enough rides to pay for it. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/02/opinion/new-york-s-taxi-drivers-need-disaster-relief.html http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/02/opinion/new-york-s-taxi-dr... http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-difficult-in-best-of-times-gets-tougher.html http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-di...
jasonisalive 11y ago
The entire economic system is built around people trying to get the best deal possible for themselves. You can try and paint that as inhumane and abusive if you're commited to emotionalising economic dynamics, but it really doesn't make any sense. At the end of the day as long as the transactions are consensual, there's no need for this rhetoric of abuse. Uber drivers know the deal and they can take it or leave it. No one's holding a gun to their heads. Likewise, it's not Uber or anyone else's job or responsibility to guarantee anyone or anybody a certain standard of living. You might as well vilify people for choosing the potatoes which are 10c/kg cheaper at the supermarket, isn't that a case of those wealthy enough to buy potatoes victimising helpless potato farmers?
- dogecoinbase 11y ago
  The entire economic system is built around people trying to get the best deal possible for themselves. You can try and paint that as inhumane and abusive... Wow -- you're so damn close to the moment of insight, and yet so far.
  - jasonisalive 11y ago
    And the irony is that people like yourself, chasing phantoms of unfairness in the free market, support the extension and entrenchment of coercive governments, an institution which is and always will be eminently corruptible, an institution whose history is a litany of abuse and overreach.
    - haberman 11y ago
      Absolutism in any direction here is folly. Without antitrust law capitalism becomes oligarchy.
    - Frondo 11y ago
      You sound like someone who's never actually gotten involved in politics. Try getting in at the local level--volunteer for a state representative's campaign, or a local city/county commissioner. Get to know people, talk to them, see what it's really like. What you're characterizing as "eminently corruptible" and full of "abuse and overreach" actually makes a lot more sense when you step out from behind the keyboard (and its steady supply of anti-government, libertarian websites) and get involved.
DigitalSea 11y ago
Ouch. That hurts. You have taken such a small part of what I have said and used it to paint me as someone who is taking advantage of the fact that Uber offers cheaper fares than a taxi service. And then to add salt to injury, you throw in that last line. While I agree somewhat with your point, your comment was just plain rude. There are so many other ways you could have said what you wanted to say without launching a borderline personal attack on me and trying to paint me as this horrible person. Everyone can claim to be ethical, but at the end of the day whether you realise it or not, you're supporting people in not only your own country but other countries through the purchases you make everyday, not necessarily in the best way either. That $5 coffee you might purchase every morning is benefiting people picking coffee in coffee producing areas of the world. Those same people are getting paid horribly, they're also subjected to abusive work conditions bordering on fear tactics used to keep them working. You're helping people support families, but it is a catch-22, you're also not making things better either. So lets not get all self-righteous about this. Taking an Uber is no different than deciding to buy that new TV or pair of shoes. That iPhone or Android device you probably own was made of components mostly manufactured in China at the lowest possible price to maximise the profits of a large corporation. The same thing, people working in those factories earning a few dollars per day (way below the poverty line) because they have no choice. The MacBook Pro or desktop computer is also made up of components built and assembled by people working in deplorable conditions for cents on the dollar. At the end of the day Uber is a job. And while I do not agree with how Uber operates as a company or their misleading advertisements to get drivers, no matter if you're choosing to take an Uber or a taxi, you're putting money into someone's pockets. It might not be the best way to help someone, but at the same time there are a lot worse jobs out there in the US and other parts of the world where working conditions are dangerous, the money is even lower and the hours longer. At least with Uber you choose your own hours, how much you work is up to you.
- javert 11y ago
  The people making shoes, iPhones, TVs---they don't have to do that. They could do whatever they were doing before that factory came to town. But working in that factory is preferable. The same thing is true for Uber drivers. You don't have to feel guilty for any of these purchaes---you should only feel good about them, if anything. That guy was very rude, but you are just accepting his argument and trying to use it against him. It's not a valid argument.

carrotleads 11y ago

I have come across a startup founder who drives Uber in the evenings to help with cashflow. But he is a unique subset as well. His family lives back in South Africa and this keeps him occupied in the evenings plus he can do a bit of customer validation if occasion presents.

BurningFrog 11y ago

> you can't deny that drivers get absolutely shafted Actually you can. I think the simplest argument is the best one: They choose to do this voluntarily, every single day they drive.

zorpner 11y ago
The idea of "choice" is significantly more complex than you present it to be, particularly within the context of people providing for themselves and their families, and the information asymmetry Uber leverages in order to convince people to work for them.
- jasonisalive 11y ago
  So what, some people have urgent needs, different parties in economic transactions have access to different information. Welcome to the free market. They're still choosing to work for Uber. No one is forcing them. Uber isn't forcing them. Uber is just offering an opportunity that they are deciding to accept.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    Doesn't mean they aren't shafting their drivers.
  - specialist 11y ago
    Please tell me more about this free market. Can you point to an example?
pmorici 11y ago
I disagree. Uber employs extremely deceptive advertising to recruit drivers and encourages them to do things like buy new cars then turns around and cuts the amount drivers get paid. This has the effect of totally screwing them over. It's a pretty exploitative situation for people who actually rely on it for income to pay their living expenses.
- 11y ago

shitlord 11y ago

That's interesting, because I have had the opposite experience. The one time I used Uber instead of Lyft in NYC, I got a driver who was most probably a rapist. Whenever we passed a bar or any drunk girls, he would start telling me how he wanted to take advantage of them. Then he started insulting me for some reason. It was a strange experience, but clearly, the Uber driver pool is merging with the taxi driver pool. And it's bringing the bad elements you'd expect from a typical cabbie.

s73v3r 11y ago

"My reasoning for this was I am paying like half the cost of what a taxi would cost me, so why not 5 stars?" That's true for everyone using Uber. You're not supposed to rate it relative to a taxi, but relative to other Uber drivers.

guessbest 11y ago

> Aside: Anyone else find the article sporadically refresh? Made it very difficult to read the article. Yes. It did for me in Firefox on the desktop, but not on mobile safari. I thought I was crazy when it did it the first time but the second time, I knew it was the citypaper site.

perfTerm 11y ago
Very strange. For me on mobile safari (iOS 8.whatever's newest) it refreshed six or seven times by the end. Very frustrating. I don't have traffic inspection tools on my iPhone but usually I find weird page refreshes like that are due to advertising.
- xasos 11y ago
  Same for me on an iOS 8 iPad. I only got the website to stop refreshing by constantly holding down the screen and scrolling
justhw 11y ago
There's a code that refreshes it every 5 min. https://i.imgur.com/SzFkzdG.png https://i.imgur.com/SzFkzdG.png
saclark11 11y ago
Came here to the comments to ask the same question about the page refresh. At one point the page even completely blanked out and served me an error message directly from the server. It wasn't anything particularly sensitive, but an information leak none-the-less.
grrowl 11y ago
Must be to boost their ad impressions. Really scummy, and kept interrupting the embedded Uber training video.
- fudgy73 11y ago
  Ironically, I kept seeing ads at the top from uber.

chrismcb 11y ago

I don't plan on taking uber, but if I did, I got average service I would probably dare the driver 3 stars, because that is what 3 stars mean.... Average. And yet I would unknowingly be hurting the driver. And that is just stupid

zaroth 11y ago

> I realised a lot of these Uber drivers (usually migrants with broken English) probably didn't have many other options to earn money. This is just such a perfect observation. What we are seeing here is an end-run around the minimum wage. The so-called "1099 economy" is increasing employment of unskilled workers who would otherwise be unemployable at the mandatory minimum. Where else are people going to find a job they can set their own hours, work 12-hours a day, 80 hours a week, making $5/hour sitting down? If the minimum wage weren't so damn high there might be competitive alternatives. Keep in mind, the goal isn't to "make" $80k, or even $60k, and then lose over half of it to taxes and phased-out benefits. If you're supporting your wife and two kids, the goal is to make about $32k, which on a 1099 will work out to just about maximize your EITC, food stamps, Medi-Cal, etc. and in the end your net value is equivalent to about $100k fully loaded (the employer's fully loaded cost) of regular W-2 employment.

stickfigure 11y ago
The article mentions several times that expected wage post-expenses is around $10 per hour, not $5. That difference is material.
- zaroth 11y ago
  You're right, the article claims OP had 1099 earnings of $9.34/hour assuming expenses of $0.51 per paid mile. But then also goes on to note that other driver's expenses were more like $0.70 per paid mile. I wonder if she amortized that $100 of tire damage in that $0.51 / mile! Also, what about the unpaid miles getting to a fare in the first place, or getting back home after a fare takes you off the beaten path? I think it's extremely difficult to fully account for all time and expenses in that line of work. Finally, subtract another 7.6% off the top for 1099 vs W2.
  - stickfigure 11y ago
    She also pointed out that her take-home was lower than that of the other drivers she checked against because she did not take full advantage of surge pricing and other "tricks" of experienced drivers. And she pointed out that some drivers' expenses were less than her $0.51. I suspect $10/hr is a fairly reasonable average. The discussion is interesting enough even without needing to exaggerate that number.