In Colorado, a law went into effect at the beginning of 2025 that showed you how much of the actual fare the driver gets. I took an Uber ride to the airport last week and the total cost was ~$98 before tip, and the drivers share of that was reported as ~$41. I don't see how it makes sense that Uber for connecting me to a driver gets close to 60% of the fare, while the driver who does all the work, puts miles onto their car, etc, gets less than half of the fare.
alwa · 1h ago
I seem to remember Uber’s tilt to profitability coinciding with a move to extend their “dynamic pricing” to a driver-side reverse auction for fares, which they called “Trip Radar.”
Mysteriously I’m having trouble finding much reference to it now, although I remember it being discussed at the time… the only real discussion I can find now is recent and vaguely agenda-flavored [0]. Complete with extra-weaselly non-denial denials from Uber’s PR.
> In 2024, American media non-profit More Perfect Union conducted an experiment to discover whether Uber’s algorithms facilitate wage discrimination. It gathered seven experienced Uber drivers together in a high-traffic area in Los Angeles and asked each of them to open up the app and place their phones on a table next to each other. It found that Uber offered the same rides 46 times to multiple drivers, and that there was discrepancy between fares for 63% of those trips. Uber refuted that this was discrimination, saying in a blog post that differing pay was due to GPS discrepancies.
So the drivers bid each other down, while the riders bid each other up through “surge pricing” (even as they’re individually priced according to their willingness to pay). Nice market position if you can get it…
It’s a good party trick if they’ve clocked you, like they apparently have me, as a total cheapskate. As a rider I routinely see prices 50%-70% of those Uber offers to my richer and less price-sensitive friends when we call for the exact same ride from the same place at the same time, whether I call first or second…
IANAL (also, not from Colorado; never used a rideshare); it seems that this would provide benefit to both drivers and riders.
My nephew used to commute to work via rideshare, and would usually work outside deals with regular drivers. Knowing how much each person in the rideshare might save would definitely incentivize out-of-network rides.
dfxm12 · 1h ago
I have doubts that the intent of the law was to encourage people to hire gypsy cabs.
ProllyInfamous · 1h ago
Unintended consequences, or not, presuming the rider/gypsy decide to "split the difference": that's still 110% more money staying within the local economy. With obvious safety concerns/trade-offs.
AlexandrB · 2h ago
It's hard to find a specific number, but that seems like it's even more than "traditional" taxi companies take.
So the enshittification has come full circle - Uber is now priced basically the same as traditional taxis and takes a possibly bigger cut for themselves without any of the overhead or capex of a traditional taxi company. Filing this away under: don't ever believe tech company hype.
TeMPOraL · 2h ago
Always have been.
What they never were, was "the underdog fighting taxi mafia". That's just propaganda. They beat "taxi mafias", plural, with divide-and-conquer, market after market, and they did that as a multinational corporation with ~infinite money supply thanks to VC funding.
Uber is a story of the Goliath going from town to town and beating everyone's Davids.
orangecat · 1h ago
Uber won by offering services that people wanted and that existing taxi oligopolies were not providing: reliable pickups, not complaining about your destination, and not having "broken" credit card readers.
Y-bar · 1h ago
Is it because I use taxis in Europe that I have never experienced any of those when riding a taxi?
Here they all are required by law to have their cost stayed up front, printed on a sticker in the window.
Most of them have had apps for booking, with geolocation, ETA, and mobile payments for >10 years now.
Never had a single refusal, or complaint, or incorrect drop-off. Even in places which are lower class run-down areas.
They have always sent a wheelchair-compatible car when requested.
Den_VR · 1h ago
My experience with taxi in Italy (Napoli) was getting scammed by the driver and nearly missing my flight as he wanted to demand double fare because he had no guaranteed pickup from the Airport.
TeMPOraL · 40m ago
It's easy to offer a better service when you're cheating. And when a cheater wins, the service invariably gets much worse very quickly.
Uber was able to offer "reliable pickups, not complaining about your destination, and not having 'broken' credit card readers" for a competitive price by a combination of:
- Not servicing people with mobility issues
- Not servicing unprofitable areas in the city
- Subsidizing fares with their ~infinite VC money supply to a degree that didn't even pretend to be sustainable
- Offering unsustainably favorable conditions to drivers to create the initial impression of premium, high-quality service
- Blatantly breaking the local laws, and using their ~infinite VC money supply to avoid law enforcement and tie up any cases against them
The last three points being a plain and obvious bait&switch. The business was based on hoping they'll destroy local transportation businesses and gain reputation with people to make regulators face public backlash faster than they run out of money.
Market by market, they succeeded to a greater or lesser degree, and then perfectly predictably, they behaved like the paragons of honesty and virtue they always were: the drivers got shafted, service went to shit, and all good it did was to replace local businesses with multinational franchise of shit pseudo-taxi.
A McDonald'ification of the taxi market, if you like, except McDonald's doesn't suck as much.
NoMoreNicksLeft · 33m ago
>What they never were, was "the underdog fighting taxi mafia".
The only people who ever fight mafias, are up-and-coming crime syndicates themselves.
I wonder if a state could cap their cut of the fare to say, $1. Index it to CPI every 3 years, so they don't have future legislators itching to bump that number up so often. Would this be fought out in courts, by secret meeting lobbyists, or would they just add a bunch of fees to it in such a way that it becomes opaque again (the fees could be paid by the driver, for instance, so it's totally under the radar of any customers/passengers)?
CamperBob2 · 1h ago
Whatever. When I call an Uber, it shows up. That's more than I could ever say for taxis.
floren · 1h ago
Shows up sometimes. Sometimes it wanders off for 10 minutes because the driver is finishing a Lyft ride first but accepted your fare anyway, or they got lost, or they stopped to pick up food (all of these have happened to me)
TeMPOraL · 50m ago
Yes, this. Sometimes they cancel because they claim they have a malfunction. Sometimes they cancel because fuck you, that's why. Almost cost me an appointment with the doctor when our small kid got sick and a driver strung us for 15 minutes of extra wait time while he circled a grocery store, then claimed his car broke down.
I don't trust those companies with important stuff anymore, I either go straight for public transport, or in some cases (airport) I pre-book an early enough departure to still be able to catch a bus to airport if the driver doesn't show.
Pxtl · 33m ago
Killing the anachronistic and corrupt feudal medallion systems that some big North American cities used was a good thing, and that was one of their explicit goals... I'm no libertarian but there's plenty of municipal regulation that has an abominable effect on quality of life.
But once that was dead and all taxi competitors no longer have to pay medallion-holding gentry for the right to do business? Uber is just a massive pile of debt and some slick marketing that adds very little value. Now that my local taxi companies have mobile software basically as good as Uber plus decades of established good name in my community? I've no reason to use Uber.
benterix · 1h ago
> It's hard to find a specific number, but that seems like it's even more than "traditional" taxi companies take.
It's incomparable. I talked local taxi drivers and they told me they just paid a flat monthly rate like €200-€300/month.
Den_VR · 1h ago
Uber is still better than a Taxi from the consumer side. Transparent and low friction interactions are worth a modest premium, especially when traveling in places where you don’t speak the language very well.
And as for Colorado, I’ve had my share of Uber bills there. It’s 30% tolls, 40% Uber, 30% Driver in my experience.
dingnuts · 2h ago
Except at some level you do obviously believe that using the app was worth $57, because you didn't end the story by saying you called a cab company and got a big discount by doing it the old fashioned way.
OR could it be that the scheduling, summoning, and advertising infrastructure is actually close to 60% of the cost, and the added convenience of the app is in fact worth the difference in price?
lenerdenator · 2h ago
Or it could be that a massive influx of VC money into the for-hire transportation market allowed for a player (Uber) to more-or-less set prices as it found desirable.
OC has something they must do: get from point A to point B. If your choices for doing so have been restricted by anticompetitive behavior on the part of a market player, you will have to do so by a less consumer-friendly set of rules.
AlexandrB · 2h ago
Why would the old fashioned way be a big discount? Old fashioned taxi companies are not taking 0%.
> scheduling, summoning, and advertising infrastructure is actually close to 60% of the cost
Funny story about that - "pre-booking" an Uber for a future date costs something like an additional 20% on top of the actual fare. Made that mistake once and never again.
ngangaga · 2h ago
> Except at some level you do obviously believe that using the app was worth $57
That's ridiculous. "because you didn't end the story by saying you called a cab company and got a big discount by doing it the old fashioned way." is just bad-faith weaseling. Uber is worse in every way than the taxi stands that used to be at airports; now you hail a car via an expensive app and have to wait for them to all jockey to where you are if they don't bail on the way.
Taxi stands still make the most sense at events and leaving mass transit and that's even before considering the ridiculous cost. Visiting europe felt like a breath of fresh air in comparison—technically they have uber, but there was no point in using it because taxis were so prevalent, reliable, and cheap.
dbspin · 1h ago
'Europe' is a big place. Lots of local variation. Here in Ireland, only taxi's are allowed on Uber. So the same people are driving on uber, freenow, and being hailed at taxi ranks (although costs vary depending on the app).
chgs · 2h ago
Part time I went to Paris I had a 30 minute wait for a taxi at Gare du Nord.
However last time I was as Dulles I wanted straight into a taxi, having been burnt the previous time when I ordered uber while going through customs and had to wait for ages.
At Singapore Changi taxi queues can take ages, or no time at all.
In Kenya I waited for an uber for 40 minutes to have it cancelled by the driver as I saw him get close to the airport, with a message saying he had “been arrested”.
I don’t bother with uber in the U.K. any more - very rarely works. Used to be nice and reliable in cities
It was in, about 10 years ago.
You can’t draw a conclusion based on personal annecdotes.
thaumasiotes · 1h ago
> Visiting europe felt like a breath of fresh air in comparison—technically they have uber, but there was no point in using it because taxis were so prevalent, reliable, and cheap.
Taxis in Shanghai have been largely replaced by app-related taxis. I have no particular knowledge of whether this moved prices up or down.
But there are two obvious changes:
1. It's now possible to get a taxi when it's raining.
2. The app drivers feel free to smoke.
Point 2 is a negative, but point 1 is a huge positive. How do European taxis respond to the rain?
adocomplete · 2h ago
I remember reading about the law going into effect but had never seen the split broken out until last week.
I highly doubt the scheduling, summoning, and advertising infra is close to 60% of the cost. I like Uber, I've been a customer for a long time. It's invaluable when visiting a new place imo. I also think they can and should pay their drivers more.
Buttons840 · 1h ago
We live in a society where the largest and most successful companies got that way by NOT making a profit, and now you're going to bring out the free market arguments?
riffraff · 2h ago
Taxi could be more expensive than Uber for the same reason AirBnB is cheaper than hotels: they do not respect the same standards (e.g. insurance, worker rights, etc).
Not same this is the case, but there's more than convenience embedded in markets.
n_ary · 3h ago
Robber barrons rob people.
The issue with gig economy is that, the provider side is either doing it for some extra cash for as a short stint is fine, but people relying on it for survival do not want to shake the boat as they are desperate and have bills to pay and food to put on the table.
Consultants and contractors charge a fixed rate dictated by the work and contract. Gig economy pushes all liabilities on the consultants minus paying for that privilege. The bargaining power is heavily skewed in favor of then platform, hence nothing will change.
econ · 13m ago
My theory is that it is counterproductive to have a difference between employees and entrepreneurs. There should be a shall we say type A minimum wage for employees who have full time contracts for unlimited duration, healthcare, unemployment savings, paid sick leave, vacations, pension and are members of a union etc etc. This would be the lowest minimum wage available. Employers should be free to drop any of the above for a fee. You might for example want to hire someone for only 6 months or for the duration of a project. This would both require a considerably higher salary and payments into some unemployment fund. The difference should be such that it is financially exciting for an employer to replace the 6 month contract with one for unlimited time.
The main idea is that you need help right now and shouldn't be obstructed with pensions and healthcare puzzles. I just want you to mow my lawn. Maybe mow it at all my 700 properties. What is the difference?
flkiwi · 1h ago
Gig companies violate a lot of things, though workers' rights may well be at the top of the list. They are profoundly unaccountable. Doordash driver screws up your order (or takes part of it)? They'll credit you via an automated system. It is never, ever, ever the fault of Uber, Lyft, or the rest when something goes wrong, and there are no mechanisms for you, as a customer, to express anything other than transactional frustration other than not using the platform entirely. Given there is real value for me in having someone else do my shopping sometimes, it's unfortunate it's essentially my sole risk if something goes wrong.
There is some pushback happening. A significant US grocery chain has recently launched its in-house grocery delivery where I live, and they have been astonishingly good. They have actual customer service, employees driving liveried vehicles. It's a weird throwback and it works.
egypturnash · 1h ago
Delivery works so much better for the customer when it's in-house.
ApolloFortyNine · 3h ago
>Six of the seven companies use algorithms with opaque rules to assign jobs and determine wages, meaning that workers do not know how much they will be paid until after completing the job.
This seems like the low hanging fruit that should be resolved immediately.
Though Uber does show how much someone will make before taking a ride, I'm not sure how one would legislate forcing a user to only accept a ride if it's profitable for them after taking gas+depreciation of the vehicle into account. And if someone wants to trade life of the vehicle for income now (pretty much no one takes their car to it's manufactured limit, it's usually age that kills it), shouldn't we allow that?
SoftTalker · 2h ago
If drivers are supposed to be contractors the pricing should work opposite to the way it does. Drivers should bid on rides, the same way a contractor bids on a job. Uber then selects the low bid and computes the price for the customer.
In that case however, drivers would need to have the tools to accurately estimate their costs, such as knowing the time and mileage from where they are to where the rider is and then to where the rider wants to go, just as a contractor needs to know how much lumber he'll need before he bids on framing an addition to a house. And if he's wrong, he generally needs to eat the cost of his mistake.
Ekaros · 1h ago
Or just make app show list of bids. Which user can then sort on some criteria. Like inserting their estimation of time and distance.
This would allow drivers to set fees on things like base fare or cancelation fee. And make clear list of penalties like cleaning the car and damages. And possibly any suitable small print legalese too.
rat9988 · 1h ago
Wouldn't work. I guess a driver expects different prices depending on destination, as some are more profitable than others.
SoftTalker · 1h ago
Right, so he could do what a contractor does when he's asked to bid on a job he doesn't really want. Submit a very high bid, so that if it's accepted at least it's worth his time.
None of this happens or will happen, which means that Uber drivers are (or should be) employees not contractors.
TuringNYC · 3h ago
>> Though Uber does show how much someone will make before taking a ride
I think the problem was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mileage
I took an Uber from Newark Airport an hour south to Princeton NJ -- the Uber driver, which being compensated nicely for that ride, now has to get back an hour north, and no rides are "guaranteed" for this trip, so they go back uncompensated. Traditional Taxi services built in the cost of that return trip, but Uber does not from what I can see.
harvey9 · 3h ago
If no driver accepts the job (as there's a good chance of making a loss), does Uber try offering a higher fare?
dylan604 · 1h ago
I wonder if this is why it takes 4+ "finding new driver" because when the driver that was assigned while "finishing current ride" finally gets a chance to see where they are being sent decides to reject the ride. The fact that the driver is being assigned a ride without any confirmation as they are currently driving and not able to check the details, I'm left twiddling my thumbs as the platform's "negotiations" with drivers for my destination just looks like incompetence from my vantage point.
charlieyu1 · 46m ago
I'm not sure if drivers can take new orders while driving. Happened to me once, the uber comes with a passenger from the previous trip who left there.
dylan604 · 37m ago
it happens all of the time. the app pops up a notification to the driver that a new ride has been assigned, and they can click to dismiss the notification. i can't think of the last ride i was in that the next ride was not assigned before my ride was completed
TuringNYC · 2h ago
>> If no driver accepts the job (as there's a good chance of making a loss), does Uber try offering a higher fare?
Yes, but one of the problems with these gig platforms is that workers do not consider all the costs and end up seeing the top line instead of bottom line. Many people are unaware of hidden costs such as mileage, wear-and-tear, insurance impacts, etc. Further, some gig workers are so desperate for money that the top line is the only thing that matters at the moment, I empathize with this and it hurts me to think so many fellow citizens get into this spot.
itake · 2h ago
How would Uber or anyone know how long it would take to go between two locations?
dylan604 · 1h ago
The same way you or I would by entering the starting address and destination address and getting a route from any of the plethora of options available for this very task
SirMaster · 1h ago
I thought the point of gig is that it's not supposed to be like a full time job. Like that's the entire point of it.
ceejayoz · 1h ago
Plenty of folks doing it for full-time hours, and even part-timers deserve some rights.
ProllyInfamous · 1h ago
I used to gig for a bay area startup which connected runners with task seekers (had recently added a bunny to its name...). This was a long time ago, well before they changed their matching system to be more algorythmic/generic.
Honestly, my twentysomething brain thought I was making $bigtime$, when in reality I was whoring my life away underbidding even the least-sane of co-giggers. The company consistently sided against its 1099 contractors, often ending arrangements without justification nor input from its workers.
To this day, I do not use gig platforms, and despise when family rents in AirBNB neighborhoods (I think quite possibly the worst for humanity Y-Combinator-funded idea). After my couple years scrapping by the bayarea, I eventually completed an IBEW apprenticeship and became a full-time electrician (the antithesis of gig work).
Although I still hope things have improved for current gig-workers, I know they likely have not.
breakyerself · 1h ago
Would be nice if there was a not for profit version of some of these things.
Extropy_ · 2h ago
To what extent is a "gig" considered employment?
ceejayoz · 50m ago
Companies like Uber want to exist on the blurry line between them.
Benefits? No, you're an independent contractor.
Oh, you want to set your own prices and performance standards, like a contractor does? Nope!
guiriduro · 3h ago
Next they'll be telling us the Pope is a Catholic...
Mysteriously I’m having trouble finding much reference to it now, although I remember it being discussed at the time… the only real discussion I can find now is recent and vaguely agenda-flavored [0]. Complete with extra-weaselly non-denial denials from Uber’s PR.
> In 2024, American media non-profit More Perfect Union conducted an experiment to discover whether Uber’s algorithms facilitate wage discrimination. It gathered seven experienced Uber drivers together in a high-traffic area in Los Angeles and asked each of them to open up the app and place their phones on a table next to each other. It found that Uber offered the same rides 46 times to multiple drivers, and that there was discrepancy between fares for 63% of those trips. Uber refuted that this was discrimination, saying in a blog post that differing pay was due to GPS discrepancies.
So the drivers bid each other down, while the riders bid each other up through “surge pricing” (even as they’re individually priced according to their willingness to pay). Nice market position if you can get it…
It’s a good party trick if they’ve clocked you, like they apparently have me, as a total cheapskate. As a rider I routinely see prices 50%-70% of those Uber offers to my richer and less price-sensitive friends when we call for the exact same ride from the same place at the same time, whether I call first or second…
[0] https://novaramedia.com/2025/03/06/taken-for-a-ride-inside-u...
Yea, natural monopolies that are somehow allowed to exist will do that.
More info: https://www.senatedems.co/newsroom/icymi-bill-to-improve-gig...
My nephew used to commute to work via rideshare, and would usually work outside deals with regular drivers. Knowing how much each person in the rideshare might save would definitely incentivize out-of-network rides.
So the enshittification has come full circle - Uber is now priced basically the same as traditional taxis and takes a possibly bigger cut for themselves without any of the overhead or capex of a traditional taxi company. Filing this away under: don't ever believe tech company hype.
What they never were, was "the underdog fighting taxi mafia". That's just propaganda. They beat "taxi mafias", plural, with divide-and-conquer, market after market, and they did that as a multinational corporation with ~infinite money supply thanks to VC funding.
Uber is a story of the Goliath going from town to town and beating everyone's Davids.
Here they all are required by law to have their cost stayed up front, printed on a sticker in the window.
Most of them have had apps for booking, with geolocation, ETA, and mobile payments for >10 years now.
Never had a single refusal, or complaint, or incorrect drop-off. Even in places which are lower class run-down areas.
They have always sent a wheelchair-compatible car when requested.
Uber was able to offer "reliable pickups, not complaining about your destination, and not having 'broken' credit card readers" for a competitive price by a combination of:
- Not servicing people with mobility issues
- Not servicing unprofitable areas in the city
- Subsidizing fares with their ~infinite VC money supply to a degree that didn't even pretend to be sustainable
- Offering unsustainably favorable conditions to drivers to create the initial impression of premium, high-quality service
- Blatantly breaking the local laws, and using their ~infinite VC money supply to avoid law enforcement and tie up any cases against them
The last three points being a plain and obvious bait&switch. The business was based on hoping they'll destroy local transportation businesses and gain reputation with people to make regulators face public backlash faster than they run out of money.
Market by market, they succeeded to a greater or lesser degree, and then perfectly predictably, they behaved like the paragons of honesty and virtue they always were: the drivers got shafted, service went to shit, and all good it did was to replace local businesses with multinational franchise of shit pseudo-taxi.
A McDonald'ification of the taxi market, if you like, except McDonald's doesn't suck as much.
The only people who ever fight mafias, are up-and-coming crime syndicates themselves.
I wonder if a state could cap their cut of the fare to say, $1. Index it to CPI every 3 years, so they don't have future legislators itching to bump that number up so often. Would this be fought out in courts, by secret meeting lobbyists, or would they just add a bunch of fees to it in such a way that it becomes opaque again (the fees could be paid by the driver, for instance, so it's totally under the radar of any customers/passengers)?
I don't trust those companies with important stuff anymore, I either go straight for public transport, or in some cases (airport) I pre-book an early enough departure to still be able to catch a bus to airport if the driver doesn't show.
But once that was dead and all taxi competitors no longer have to pay medallion-holding gentry for the right to do business? Uber is just a massive pile of debt and some slick marketing that adds very little value. Now that my local taxi companies have mobile software basically as good as Uber plus decades of established good name in my community? I've no reason to use Uber.
It's incomparable. I talked local taxi drivers and they told me they just paid a flat monthly rate like €200-€300/month.
And as for Colorado, I’ve had my share of Uber bills there. It’s 30% tolls, 40% Uber, 30% Driver in my experience.
OR could it be that the scheduling, summoning, and advertising infrastructure is actually close to 60% of the cost, and the added convenience of the app is in fact worth the difference in price?
OC has something they must do: get from point A to point B. If your choices for doing so have been restricted by anticompetitive behavior on the part of a market player, you will have to do so by a less consumer-friendly set of rules.
> scheduling, summoning, and advertising infrastructure is actually close to 60% of the cost
Funny story about that - "pre-booking" an Uber for a future date costs something like an additional 20% on top of the actual fare. Made that mistake once and never again.
That's ridiculous. "because you didn't end the story by saying you called a cab company and got a big discount by doing it the old fashioned way." is just bad-faith weaseling. Uber is worse in every way than the taxi stands that used to be at airports; now you hail a car via an expensive app and have to wait for them to all jockey to where you are if they don't bail on the way.
Taxi stands still make the most sense at events and leaving mass transit and that's even before considering the ridiculous cost. Visiting europe felt like a breath of fresh air in comparison—technically they have uber, but there was no point in using it because taxis were so prevalent, reliable, and cheap.
However last time I was as Dulles I wanted straight into a taxi, having been burnt the previous time when I ordered uber while going through customs and had to wait for ages.
At Singapore Changi taxi queues can take ages, or no time at all.
In Kenya I waited for an uber for 40 minutes to have it cancelled by the driver as I saw him get close to the airport, with a message saying he had “been arrested”.
I don’t bother with uber in the U.K. any more - very rarely works. Used to be nice and reliable in cities It was in, about 10 years ago.
You can’t draw a conclusion based on personal annecdotes.
Taxis in Shanghai have been largely replaced by app-related taxis. I have no particular knowledge of whether this moved prices up or down.
But there are two obvious changes:
1. It's now possible to get a taxi when it's raining.
2. The app drivers feel free to smoke.
Point 2 is a negative, but point 1 is a huge positive. How do European taxis respond to the rain?
I highly doubt the scheduling, summoning, and advertising infra is close to 60% of the cost. I like Uber, I've been a customer for a long time. It's invaluable when visiting a new place imo. I also think they can and should pay their drivers more.
Not same this is the case, but there's more than convenience embedded in markets.
The issue with gig economy is that, the provider side is either doing it for some extra cash for as a short stint is fine, but people relying on it for survival do not want to shake the boat as they are desperate and have bills to pay and food to put on the table.
Consultants and contractors charge a fixed rate dictated by the work and contract. Gig economy pushes all liabilities on the consultants minus paying for that privilege. The bargaining power is heavily skewed in favor of then platform, hence nothing will change.
The main idea is that you need help right now and shouldn't be obstructed with pensions and healthcare puzzles. I just want you to mow my lawn. Maybe mow it at all my 700 properties. What is the difference?
There is some pushback happening. A significant US grocery chain has recently launched its in-house grocery delivery where I live, and they have been astonishingly good. They have actual customer service, employees driving liveried vehicles. It's a weird throwback and it works.
This seems like the low hanging fruit that should be resolved immediately.
Though Uber does show how much someone will make before taking a ride, I'm not sure how one would legislate forcing a user to only accept a ride if it's profitable for them after taking gas+depreciation of the vehicle into account. And if someone wants to trade life of the vehicle for income now (pretty much no one takes their car to it's manufactured limit, it's usually age that kills it), shouldn't we allow that?
In that case however, drivers would need to have the tools to accurately estimate their costs, such as knowing the time and mileage from where they are to where the rider is and then to where the rider wants to go, just as a contractor needs to know how much lumber he'll need before he bids on framing an addition to a house. And if he's wrong, he generally needs to eat the cost of his mistake.
This would allow drivers to set fees on things like base fare or cancelation fee. And make clear list of penalties like cleaning the car and damages. And possibly any suitable small print legalese too.
None of this happens or will happen, which means that Uber drivers are (or should be) employees not contractors.
I think the problem was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mileage I took an Uber from Newark Airport an hour south to Princeton NJ -- the Uber driver, which being compensated nicely for that ride, now has to get back an hour north, and no rides are "guaranteed" for this trip, so they go back uncompensated. Traditional Taxi services built in the cost of that return trip, but Uber does not from what I can see.
Yes, but one of the problems with these gig platforms is that workers do not consider all the costs and end up seeing the top line instead of bottom line. Many people are unaware of hidden costs such as mileage, wear-and-tear, insurance impacts, etc. Further, some gig workers are so desperate for money that the top line is the only thing that matters at the moment, I empathize with this and it hurts me to think so many fellow citizens get into this spot.
Honestly, my twentysomething brain thought I was making $bigtime$, when in reality I was whoring my life away underbidding even the least-sane of co-giggers. The company consistently sided against its 1099 contractors, often ending arrangements without justification nor input from its workers.
To this day, I do not use gig platforms, and despise when family rents in AirBNB neighborhoods (I think quite possibly the worst for humanity Y-Combinator-funded idea). After my couple years scrapping by the bayarea, I eventually completed an IBEW apprenticeship and became a full-time electrician (the antithesis of gig work).
Although I still hope things have improved for current gig-workers, I know they likely have not.
Benefits? No, you're an independent contractor.
Oh, you want to set your own prices and performance standards, like a contractor does? Nope!