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Uber Plans Millions in Back Pay After Shortchanging NYC Drivers

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Re: Uber Plans Millions in Back Pay After Shortchanging NYC Drivers

#61

Post by gaius »

SilasX wrote: post #46
gaius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the government collects income taxes from everyone to provide universal health care through the NHS. Uber's drivers pay the social insurance taxes on their income. You've clearly not researched just how much Employer's NI is. It's a lot more than an employee pays. It's clearly not a subsidy if a company is paying their fair share in taxes. Also here in the UK we have workers on income support (welfare) because th…

>You've clearly not researched just how much Employer's NI is. It's a lot more than an employee pays. If it works anything like the US, there is a portion[1] assessed to the employer and to the employee. If you report income as an independent contractor/self-employment, you pay both sides of it (since otherwise people would artificially class themselves as contractors to pay less). Are you saying Uber drivers in the…

since otherwise people would artificially class themselves as contractors to pay less

That is exactly what they do do. IT, media, even public sector, it is rampant. The Inland Revenue keep trying to crack down on it but contractors are very sly about it and always find a loophole to technically meet the requirement as if they were a genuine small business.

Re: Uber Plans Millions in Back Pay After Shortchanging NYC Drivers

#62

Post by nradov »

mrbabbage wrote: post #40
cgag wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what about uber/lyft is worse for the roads than taxis?

At least in San Francisco, there's far more of them. The extra wear and tear on the roads ends up as a road repair bill that taxpayers pick up. If the TNCs were a 1:1 replacement for traditional taxis, this wouldn't be a legitimate argument, but the evidence out there suggests that TNCs have grown the size of the car hail market at the expense of off-peak transit, so the TNCs really are putting more cars on the stree…

Road wear is exponentially proportional to vehicle weight. Almost all of the wear is caused by large commercial trucks and other heavy vehicles such as buses. Passenger cars cause very little road wear. TNC drivers are mostly using lighter vehicles.

https://www.vabike.org/vehicle-weight-and-road-damage/

Re: Uber Plans Millions in Back Pay After Shortchanging NYC Drivers

#63

Post by bogomipz »

potatolicious wrote: post #10
chipgap98 wrote: post #3

That's a huge "bug" not to notice for presumably a long time. I recently had a Lyft driver in NYC talk to me about how he quit uber after doing the math on what his fare should have been when a passenger told him how much they were being charged. He brought it up to uber and then quit when they didn't fix it. Anecdotal story but seems extremely relevant now

What your driver was talking about may not be a bug/math error like stated here. After rolling out guaranteed whole-ride pricing (as opposed to metering) Uber is allegedly testing algorithms to bid different prices for rides to both driver and passenger. i.e., passenger sees a fare of $X, while driver sees a fare of $Y, where presumably $Y Passengers' fares can be "optimized" by estimating a specific passenger-trip's…

Thanks for your link. I hadn't heard of this.

So there will basically be no transparency to anyone involved in the transaction except Uber if this is adopted?

The company seems to be guided by a culture of manipulation - manipulate the drivers with erroneous information, the riders with surge pricing, regulatory agencies with different screen views and now the possible manipulation of the bid ask spread.

Uber just seems rotten to the core.

Re: Uber Plans Millions in Back Pay After Shortchanging NYC Drivers

#64

Post by mathattack »

criddell wrote: post #48
potatolicious wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What your driver was talking about may not be a bug/math error like stated here. After rolling out guaranteed whole-ride pricing (as opposed to metering) Uber is allegedly testing algorithms to bid different prices for rides to both driver and passenger. i.e., passenger sees a fare of $X, while driver sees a fare of $Y, where presumably $Y Passengers' fares can be "optimized" by estimating a specific passenger-trip's…

When I read about stuff like this and also how Uber is losing a lot of money, I have to wonder if maybe there's a fundamental problem with their business model.

Their value isn't in the driver business, because eventually they'll just have to pay for the marginal cost of damage to the car. If they can optimize pricing between locations better than others, they'll win in the driverless world. (This drives the value, not the spread between what they pay and collect)

Re: Uber Plans Millions in Back Pay After Shortchanging NYC Drivers

#66

Post by SonicSoul »

rajathagasthya wrote: post #65

> While drivers’ pay is determined according to the time and distance they travel, Uber has begun to experiment with how it calculates the price for riders. I don't get this. How can you "experiment" with price calculations?

aren't all prices determined via some sort of market testing?

Re: Uber Plans Millions in Back Pay After Shortchanging NYC Drivers

#68

Post by ben_jones »

potatolicious wrote: post #10
chipgap98 wrote: post #3

That's a huge "bug" not to notice for presumably a long time. I recently had a Lyft driver in NYC talk to me about how he quit uber after doing the math on what his fare should have been when a passenger told him how much they were being charged. He brought it up to uber and then quit when they didn't fix it. Anecdotal story but seems extremely relevant now

What your driver was talking about may not be a bug/math error like stated here. After rolling out guaranteed whole-ride pricing (as opposed to metering) Uber is allegedly testing algorithms to bid different prices for rides to both driver and passenger. i.e., passenger sees a fare of $X, while driver sees a fare of $Y, where presumably $Y Passengers' fares can be "optimized" by estimating a specific passenger-trip's…

Isn't this the future? Machine learning for everything? Just wait until some algorithm says 50:50 culture and diversity ratios aren't optimal [1].

[1]:https://m.xkcd.com/1838/

Re: Uber Plans Millions in Back Pay After Shortchanging NYC Drivers

#69

Post by jeltz »

burkaman wrote: post #17
ythn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vs. "We have an idea for a disruptive app. Let's do this 'the right way' and make sure we have the approval of the industry we are disrupting and local government before we get started" -- apps that never come into existance

Amazon? Spotify? Square? Grubhub? Robinhood? And probably lots more. You can have respect for people and laws and still succeed.

Spotify may not be the best example. They started out with pirated music without the approval of the record companies and then later cleaned up their act. But they are not douche bags like Uber.
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