Isn't this true for the vast majority? Most people take jobs not because they're passionate about them, but because they need money to pay bills and buy stuff - simple as that. Some earn more, some earn less, but at the end of the day almost everyone would like to do something else. Even in IT, where wages are high and work is comfortable, I doubt most are passionate about their work - it's a different thing hacking some fun app or game in your spare time and working on some monstrous enterprise software, where you're just a tiny cog doing what you're told to do.
Decrease labor costs. Increase productivity per worker. Decrease food prices / increase profit with savings. *Footnote: Make working just attractive enough so that people will apply in sufficient numbers
I think about what kind of life that would be every time I see someone post-teen working in a BurgChickeBoxMcKingBell. Try going through one sometime out in the country, when you're far enough away from a city that there aren't any other jobs. See who's being employed there.
.... What a disgusting system we've created. Writer is right about the tech haves and the have-nots.
PS: BasicIncome
Minimum wage is afaict a "below this wage a person cannot support themselves" barrier.
But we really don't have a "below this level of boredom a human shouldn't be doing the job" metric. (And moreover, I'd cynically quip that it's probably in capital owners' interests to ensure that never happens, thus affording them a cheaper alternative to investing in automation -- even if the price is a substantial portion of a person's life)
This has occasionally been an issue for me with contracting... hey I got a gig 8 hours/one day per week. Um, ok, great hourly pay, but how am I supposed to feed my family working only 8 hours/week, even if the hourly pay is 2x what I get now?
That's why writing is a good second gig for the article author. No way to make $45 between 10am and 11am Sunday, well, go write something, its not like you're losing fares...
No. Especially outside Bay Area. More like $10-$20/h.
He said he didn't make that much.
> According to my weekly reports from Uber emails, I average anywhere from $40 to $50 an hour doing this shit—by my count, it's less.
You know, when I read that I thought he meant "it's less" in the sense of "It's not worth that much to me" rather than literally, "Uber's average wage statistics are incorrect." But I'm probably totally wrong.
If I'm wrong, it's weird that Uber's calculations are wrong there. I wonder if they're like, not calculating time spent waiting for a fare?
Uber just adds up the transactions that you've been a part of.
Then they take their 25% fee, then the driver has to subtract whatever they paid in insurance + gas + tolls + maintenance + amenities (food or water). For most (who can't buy a car outright) they have to pay their car loan/lease payments.
Then to really calculate "take home pay", like the rest of us, you have to subtract taxes. Another 25%-35% depending on state+federal tax brackets.
P.S. Hopefully they do their taxes correctly. I imagine if you did it as a "small business" you could subtract all of your expenses first and even subtract depreciation of your capital (depreciation of your car), then do your taxes on the far smaller amount rather than on $50 per hour gross income. Honestly, if they weren't curious enough to educate themselves about their taxes, I don't even know how it would be profitable.
Also relevant https://www.yahoo.com/autos/s/uber-ceo-tesla-sell-half-milli...
The best creative people make a lot more than the best tax drivers.
"Society" does reward them.
Anyways, I had no idea that Uber drivers made so much money. $40-$50 an hour! That's incredible. I make the low end of that working as the tech lead of a ~15-person tech startup. I bet that car maintenance takes a big chunk out of his pay but still.
My first reaction to this piece was "what the fuck are you whining about? You make more than most people, and even more than me and my job is way harder than yours!"
Then again, I totally empathize with his alienation from his own job. It's hard, spending the precious hours of your short life on things other than what you're really passionate about. It sucks that our society rewards being a taxi driver more than creative things -- like this guy's amazing writing. I don't know what to do about that, and I feel his pain there.