It costs around $100,000[1] to be allowed (by the city) to drive a taxi in New York ($1.3MM in 2014), for a job that pays on average $43,000[2] per year - which involves driving an average of 70,000 miles per year - which at an average speed of 4.7mph[3] works out to $3/hr (not counting waiting time).
It's still not a living wage, but making $9/hr[4] just by owning a decent car seems like progress.
[1] https://citylimits.org/2019/11/30/need-to-know-taxi-medallio...
[2] https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/taxi-driver...
[3] https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-york-traffic-manhat...
[4] https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/education/how-muc...
Labor laws are much harder to ignore than taxi boards.
Update for clarity:
I guess my bigger question is: what really changed? Customers became more comfortable and the business side became more reasonable, but competition and workers still get the shaft.
Maybe app based hire cars were an inevitable product of smart phones. If not Uber, then someone else. But certainly Uber's business model was incredibly disruptive of that industry. From my perspective it had a really strong effect on how my generation lived in the city.
The fact that I don't have to stress and figure out a new taxi system every new city I visit is a big plus. On the flip-side, the taxi system quirks of new cities could also be charming in a way. Double edged sword I guess.
Sure, some cabs would be finishing jobs taking people home from Shoreditch and soho, but you'd just have to walk to a main road and hope you bumped in to one. Along with anyone else doing the same thing...
Prior to their arrival on the scene, getting a taxicab in SF was nigh on impossible for there were far too few drivers, the cabs were often unsanitary, often took up to an hour to arrive when called, the drivers often tried to argue against taking card, often falsely claiming the machine was broken. The complaints stacked up on the SFMTA’s website and the SFMTA did basically nothing.
Uber and Lyft were disruptive, they were disruptive to the benefit of their customers. I have my complaints about Uber the company, but I would take this band of psychopaths over what we had prior to their arrival on the scene.
All that garbage is gone with Uber and Lyft.
As soon as apps existed, "calling an uber" became a thing within a few months -- for getting to and from restaurants and bars; for getting to work when you're late, etc.
By the time everybody catches on, the damage is done.
We need a better way to internalise social and environmental costs. Just because human society has been able to adapt to past technological and social upheavals is not an indication that it will be able to continue to do so.
I think Uber is much more efficient and better overall for society than what it is replacing. Not a great job by any means, but far better than a taxi company. And when I look back 10 years ago Uber/Lyft are probably top 3 things that have made the world better. It opened up an enormous amount of flexibility when going out at night and eliminated concerns around drunk driving.
Also, there is a chance that sole riders would actually be increasing their carbon footprint compared to driving, as the Uber driver is also involved in your trip. Unless Uber is proven to cut car ownership and vehicular use, it is very possible that it is worse for society and the environment than the previous status quo.
You can argue buses and trains also need space, but you can fit way more people into a bus or a train before you need to make square footage available for a second bus or a train.
If they are so mismanaged that they can't offer drastically lower prices, then driving them out of business and replacing them with better management seems like a great idea.
Really? A car service in your opinion is in the top 3 of what made the world measurably better in the last 10 years?
- polio cases worldwide have dropped to well below 100 per year since 2010 (except last year, 175)
- same sex marriage if you want to focus on the us
- Sharp drop in air travel with the corresponding benefits on global warming. Recent, but analysts seem to agree that business travel will permanently drop to between 1/2 and 1/3 of what it was before now that the world has discovered video conferencing is a thing.
I don't mean to downplay these accomplishments, but I think the impact of Uber/Lyft is greater than these on a simple per capita basis. Maybe that's a American-centric view but it's far more realistic for many Americans than "no polio cases"
Either way, it’s a very common tactic, and undoubtedly part of the motivation.
Better to control the narrative than just wait.
That's... wishful thinking. Such a reckoning will certainly not come under Trump, I agree; but it's not a given that it will happen under Biden. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that it will not, at least for the first 4 years.
To my knowledge, the US has never used unemployment to provide benefits to non-employees. UI is an insurance based program and always has been -- the business model is to loan money to the state programs during an uptick, which then gets recovered through UI premiums.
Chances are, changes are coming that will erode the free ride that "employers" of Uber have been enjoying. The states are broke and facing big increases of UI premiums. Once the door opens, it's hard to close. People will start looking at things and asking awkward questions about things like Medicaid and SNAP expenses associated with gig workers, etc.
It is among the many issues that are the contributing causes of why residential broadband sucks in many parts of the USA, and why consumers are dissatisfied.
You can make it difficult for everyone at the "national" level of operation, but then how does a smaller company ever get there from a "local" start?
What even constitutes a "small business" when it comes to gig economy? Most of the workers don't even count as employees.
There's going to have to be a -lot- of legal changes to constitute something worth while. And legal stuff moves slow on purpose (so that it doesn't bork things before they're understood... and also, it's just slow).
I agree with your broader point, but Uber lost some 8.5 billion USD last year. They're not (yet, at least) making bucketloads of money, despite paying their workers badly.
When the company's business model is this transparently an elaborate scheme to sell dollar bills for $0.75, though, focusing on revenue starts to seem like either committing or being taken in by a very elaborate version of lying by omission.
And by relaxing the regulations they will be making that job for smaller startups only easier.
I do not understand what they spend well over 8.5 billion on.
Their software for riders and drivers is quite good and certainly tons of engineer-hours have been poured into the front and back ends.
Are they paying their drivers more than they're charging riders? Or have all the billions gone into their moonshot projects like self-driving cars? Both?
Because otherwise, to me it's almost like, how do you not turn a profit on rides? Once they've got their app and infrastructure going (again, no small expense) then any rides they arrange should be profit.
Clearly, I am misunderstanding something about their business to an astronomical degree but I don't think I'm alone.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/08/uber-to-l...
https://observer.com/2019/09/uber-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-tech...
Raw capitalism should drive companies like Uber out of business as a billion-dollar company. They can always be undercut by a group of drivers in a locality starting a new app and stealing the local regulars (identical service, lower cost because no Uber premium) leaving Uber with only non-local traffic. Apps are not expensive.
Politicians do victory laps, big business get their position in the marketplace protected by law, and everyone else loses.
The solution is protections and to break up uber.
Uber has yet to make a profit. Some shareholders have made profits by selling stock, but the business is losing money hand over fist.
It's the same reason Facebook advocates for data protection laws in the US - they're going to happen either way, Facebook wants them to suit them and makes it harder for competition.
The capitalist solution to the 2008 financial meltdown would be to let new banks bump the old banks. Despite all the Fintech innovation, the old banks are more entrenched than ever. With Dodd-Frank, Barney Frank gave them one more gift on the way out of office.
However, my cynicism goes a level deeper. It is in Uber's best interests for laws to change and make the scene more complicated, so that all operators in this space - including Uber - have to pay more to their workers and have more encumbrances.
Why? Well, Uber is an established operator. They have made their bucketloads of money off the back of underpaying their workers, got themselves out of startup status in a way that - if they play their cards right - no other gig operator will be able to replicate. Less competition, less disruption.
I think there is an argument that says that "gig economy" should be enveloped in laws that protect the gig worker rights and ensure fair pay and a safety net, without introducing laws that enforce restrictions on the workers. Governments should work to simplify the burdens on individuals, without creating new loopholes for the wealthy. "It's hard" is a valid statement, but not a reason to reject the concept.
But I would continue to be fully cynical of any solution that has the top gig economy CEO's seal of approval.