I was an undercover Uber driver

Re:I was an undercover Uber driver by pmorici on Wednesday May 06, 2015 @07:47PM (#9502496)

I drove for Uber in Baltimore last spring for a few months during weekends just for fun and I agree this article's assessment is _dead_ on.

I've since stopped using Uber even as a rider. The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous and I don't want to be an enabler to that. Lyft is a bit better because at least I can leave the driver a reasonable tip through the app.

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Re:I was an undercover Uber driver by jaredhansen on Wednesday May 06, 2015 @08:13PM (#9502578)

>The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous I keep hearing this, and it's ... confusing. I mean maybe Uber's really nasty to drivers, I guess, but if it is, then what are all these Uber drivers doing?

It takes all of ... what, like 45 seconds to download Lyft? If Uber is so bad, why don't all the drivers just switch?

I don't know enough about the economics of any particular driver's situation to know how many people it works for or doesn't, but (1) believing that Uber drivers get screwed, (2) believing that, say, Lyft drivers have it much better, AND (3) recognizing that far more people choose to drive for Uber than for these other platforms, requires us to believe some rather surprising things about the subjective mental states of the many, many Uber drivers, right?

I mean: Damn, I hate my job, my company treats me terribly, and a substantially identical job is about 4 taps and 2 minutes away, and ... I guess I'll just keep working for The Man.

Why would anyone do that?

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Re:I was an undercover Uber driver by pmorici on Wednesday May 06, 2015 @10:31PM (#9503006)

You can't just download the app and start driving. There is an application process. The issue is they are duopoly as far as smartphone hailed transportation goes and as a driver if one already has you locked into a car loan it's a very limited choice and a bit of a sharecropper like situation. It isn't like being a software engineer where there are dozens of top firms competing to hire a limited pool of talent. How would you feel if your home loan for example was tied to your employer and your salary was adjusted by your employer every 4-6 months based on what they felt was fair.

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Re:I was an undercover Uber driver by stickfigure on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:06AM (#9503386)

I don't buy this at all. Whatever the application process, it's much easier to switch between Uber and Lyft than it is to move to a different software (or almost any other kind of traditional) job. The parent's question stands.

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Re:I was an undercover Uber driver by pmorici on Thursday May 07, 2015 @09:23AM (#9504830)

I never said I thought Lyft drivers had it much better. I said I don't have a problem using them because I can use the tipping mechanism to make sure that I personally am not taking advantage of them. Lyft's proposition for drivers is substantially similar to Uber.

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Re:I was an undercover Uber driver by smelendez on Wednesday May 06, 2015 @08:22PM (#9502620)

I've had drivers in a couple of different cities tell me they're on both apps, but there are generally more fares on Uber, since it's a more famous brand.

In some cities, the base fares are notably higher on Lyft, too, making more money for the drivers but driving more customers to Uber. I'm not sure about other apps (Sidecar, etc.).

But basically, the drivers can get a cheap fare fast on Uber, or they can wait longer to get a slightly better fare on Lyft.

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Re:I was an undercover Uber driver by hkmurakami on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:33AM (#9503301)

I have found that the two services are comparable in supply side liquidity in SF, but that Uber far outpaces Lyft in that regard near Stanford.

I wonder if it's possible to stave off this issue.

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Re:I was an undercover Uber driver by vacri on Wednesday May 06, 2015 @09:05PM (#9502776)

requires us to believe some rather surprising things about the subjective mental states of the many, many Uber drivers

Only if you believe that humans are the sort of simplified perfectly-informed stimulus-response mechanoids (and operating in a simplified-rules environment) that game theory requires. There's nothing surprising here; it's actually pretty mundane.

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Re:I was an undercover Uber driver by querulous on Wednesday May 06, 2015 @11:32PM (#9503139)

i'd bet most uber drivers would quit if they hadn't financed vehicles they can't afford without driving for uber

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Re:I was an undercover Uber driver by jaredhansen on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:07AM (#9503228)

That's a pretty interesting point, and one that could be material. Does anybody have any data on the percentage of Uber drivers that have financed their cars through Uber, or what the "oops, I need to get out of this mess now" terms are in those financings?

I don't have any and am curious - my mind might change depending on what those numbers look like. If it's all a big bait-and-switch and then you're stuck to it because you can't get out of the car you just bought, well, that's a different story than the way I've seen it to date. Anybody with info on this?

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