> One poinI have no idea what orifice @AOC pulled the$3.37 number from, but it’s wrong at best or intentionally deceptive at worst. I never made less than $10/hour and usually made $15-$45 an hour. And this was BEFORE Uber allowed tipping via the app.
This woman is clearly not taking her expenses into account when calculating her income, and there lies the rub - in one way Uber is taking advantage of people's poor ability to do math. If you are a short/part-time driver, the increased depreciation and maintenance costs are probably not that visible to you, but for folks who drive more regularly they absolutely need to be factored in to your income calculations.
A good treatment of the topic: https://www.ridester.com/uber-lyft-driver-costs-and-expenses...
She probably never heard about the retraction, it got a lot less press than the original study
Are you sure you're not being patronizing there? i.e. underestimating people's ability to choose what works for them? I talk to most Uber/Lyft drivers I ride with, every one of them has said they're happy with it, and most have given specific reasons why.
I know a couple of intelligent people that have a real blind spot when it comes to dealing with figures. So this isn't a 'stupid people' thing.
Have you never had a conversation with someone about their new car/phone. They say it's cheap because it only costs them X per month. You ask them what the total cost is, and they have no idea? Because I seem to have that kind of conversation with a wide variety of people.
It's not about choosing what works for them, its about making sure that choice is informed. If you're earning $10/hr great, if you spend $5 of that on other costs, you should really be deciding if $5/hr is worth it.
Yes, the company is taking advantage of this. Welcome to capitalism. A sucker is born every second.
"it fits with a meme of poorer people being dumber "
I agree that that's the meme, the parent doesn't actually refer to Uber driver's wealth, rich or poor.
I'm guessing theres an unspoken assumption that Uber drivers are poorer, because it isn't that well paid? People don't seem to be giving up careers to do it.
They could have reasons (or just stated reasons) beyond considering raw profitability.
As soon as you talk about future costs, different people have different believes and different bets, because they have different risk profiles
Edit : why is my comment flagged?
I wanted to point the fact that the argument "exploiting people who are bad at math" is not a strong argument, given we are all exploited at some point because we aren't "math machine". Miscalculation can happen to anyone who is human.
As for "sharing economy" & drugs and - banning them outright may not be a good idea, but it sure would be best if working for Uber came with Surgeon's General warning.
New York recently made moves to, among other things, establish a floor wage for rideshare drivers similar to how there is a minimum wage for tipped workers.
Ban things that we have good reasons to believe are harmful for people (or sign them up by default for things we believe are beneficial for them), but allow people to opt out by submitting some document that basically says "I know what I am doing is likely bad for me but I accept the risks"?
This way you both protect people from their own irrationality and maximize liberty.
The vast majority of people do not read lengthy forms; GDPR updated notification requirements to reflect that. Restricting irrational behavior to limit damage to society is not new; that’s why we regulate things like usurious payday loans.
One person being irrational is not dangerous, but many people being irrational is. The Great Depression started from the fallout of everyday people mortgaging their house and their car because the stock market was advertised as guranteed returns.
I had a somewhat similar discussion, and it turns out many people from different origins and Culture think differently. And hence why politics are complicated. In America that would be considered as hard working American. Some are proud ( until the hard cold market reality got in to their end I suppose ) and they don't even think there is anything wrong with it. In Europe, that would be considered as Market and Companies taking unfair advantage over its citizen on labours. And should be condemned as evil and greed. Then this often leads to discussion of US with little regulation, and comparatively EU with many regulations.
The hardest problem to solve are problem that many don't seen it as a problem. In the case most Uber drivers in US don't seems to be having an issues with Uber.
You can not choose to not pay tax. Well, you can choose that but you will go to jail and be potentially sodomised.
The main point was that we shouldn't be celebrating that a mother of 3, going to school, and working multiple part time jobs is able to supplement their income by driving for Uber but instead be asking why is their income so low in the first place that they have to spend their nights and weekends driving in order to afford groceries. This was all in that original linked tweet. I'm sure they would rather be resting, interacting with their children, or studying for school. We can take a step back and recognize that this is a globally suboptimal outcome. At some point the "freedom to earn supplemental income" promised by the gig economy becomes "an obligation to overwork oneself in order to afford groceries." How can this person "choose to not participate in Uber's system", when they've calculated that being an Uber driver is the only way for them to afford groceries for their family?
Groceries don't fall from the sky. Somebody has to make them. So the option here is to either take from people to give to people who choose to irresponsibly have children, or don't.
If you chose the latter, then the optimal reproductive strategy would be to breed as much as possible and have other people take care of your children. That is not a 'globally optimal outcome'
If you jump into a river, other people should not be liable to bail you out if the water is faster than you thought (or never thought).
In Madrid rent is up a staggering 17% YoY, mostly due to AirBnB. That affects anyone looking for an apartment and I’m sure if renters were to pick between having AirBnB available for their travels - which is eye-wateringly expensive anyway! - or cheaper rent, they will invariably pick the latter.
AirBnB and similar players have a small percentage of the rent stock. They can only shift prices on the margin.
If you want the real culprits, Spain has a broken rental law that increases risks both for renters and lenders, and both cities have strict construction limiting codes (i.e. almost fixed supply).
Add the negative interest rates of the BCE, and you have found a nice way to make a killing...
AirBNB is around at the same time that the economies of scale has strongly tilted in favor of cities, who have restricted housing supply for years. In other words, clustering of specialties. Tech in SF, finance in NYC/London etc where the runaway effect is like businesses clustering b/c of talent, and talent flooding to the place, and the cycle continues.
They make an easy scapegoat for politicians other bad policies because timing goes along, but the rent is likely due to broader population crunch that other cities (including Boston where I live) are facing.
That is not to say we don't need to ever craft policy, maybe some kind of restriction on rental terms makes sense. Boston just made it tougher to do short term rentals -- but at the end of the day the real problem is that Boston restricted housing supply for years with bad zoning and burdensome regulation. Now a new technology hit that democratized what people can do with their property, and it's causing some friction, but I don't think it's fair to point all the blame there.
For instance, in Boston AirBNB is < 3% of stock last I checked… which probably has an impact when supply is so constrained but it should have never gotten to this point to begin with.
We need to fix supply problems, not ban a new technology that clearly resonates with consumers around the globe.
Just stop traveling to Madrid after all not everyone is entitled to invade life of locals and make their place crowded.
If a property owner can make 17% more, why should they make 17% less so YOU are more convenieced?
Optimal for profit margins for a single company, but at what cost to society as a whole?
although being a doctor, you only work when there are patients. so that's JIT too i guess.
Do you think that drives down the wages of the people who need to do it as their main source of income?
I tend to favor the perspective that the problem isn't tech but venture capitalists, and more directly the government that refuses to (or is too slow to) regulate all of this. It's the same old tricks people have been trying for 200 years of industry; anticompetitiveness, taking advantage of desperate labor, etc. The difference is that right now:
1) The markets can move (and even be created from scratch) so fast as to evade regulatory updates
2) They can dress it all up in flowery utopian language
That's a dangerous combination.
It’s not a sharing economy. It’s a temp economy. And highly underpaid and unprotected temp economy.
TL,DR: Why do we all buy an electric drill to put up 4 screws in 30 seconds? Sharing/renting can be much more productive than everyone buying things themselves.
See threads like: https://twitter.com/RantyAmyCurtis/status/110272136190510694...
That's what sharing is about, more optimal allocation/usage. It's not an end-all solution to everything, it's a supplement. There will be people who make their entire go at it, and there will be everything in between.
The importance is that you let people decide whether to participate in it or not. They're the ones with which the decision of whether it is a scam or not ultimately matters.
Trying to paint the entire phenomenon as either a total failure or the end-all panacea is dumb. It's a much welcome addition to the broader economy by millions of people.