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Uber Plans Millions in Back Pay After Shortchanging NYC Drivers

bloomberg.com

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

#81

Post by bogomipz »

ddalex wrote: post #77
bogomipz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 se…

Information asymmetry at its best, not that there is anything wrong with it. If Uber charges X for trip, and pays the driver Y for the service, it's obviously a taxi company. As such, I expect authorities to enforce the licensing laws, especially that the public support of Uber starts to diminish.

I completely agree with your points.

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

#82

Post by pjmorris »

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.

It's astounding to me that they can't make it work based on the convenience of the service. I understand the strategy of wanting to buy market share quickly, and to bet on self-driving cars. That they can't compete on the convenience of the service at a fair price and playing by the rules of the districts they operate in is just astonishingly bad management.

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

#83

Post by semi-extrinsic »

ehsankia wrote: post #59
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're both right and wrong. Uber is better than taxis for riders, and worse than taxis (in some ways) for drivers. Also consider that some Uber drivers couldn't realistically become taxi drivers in their spare time, and perhaps some of them would prefer to be underpaid by Uber rather than not working at all.

Right, when we say Uber is better than Taxis, we generally mean "the Uber model is better than Taxis". We can exchange Uber with Lyft or any other company that works with thath model. It's about the general environment that ride sharing brings. Things like how using an app makes hailing a ride easier, how having a rating system forces drivers and riders to behave better, how mobile payment removes the awkwardness of…

> There's nothing specific to Uber in there

Even further, there's nothing specific to the Uber model in there. Every one of those things could be implemented exactly the same way by an ordinary cab company. In fact, many cab companies worldwide have already implemented both the first and the third one.

The only unique thing about the Uber model as opposed to regular cabs is that it's priced lower through a combination of semi-illegal dirty tricks and setting unsustainably low (or negative) margins in order to maintain growth and capture the market.

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

#84

Post by beojan »

gaius wrote: post #61
SilasX wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Well, they also lose the right to paid holiday, sick pay, not be fired at will, and so on.

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

#85

Post by aetherson »

leggomylibro wrote: post #78
criddell wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is; they are hemorrhaging money, and only manage to stay afloat because of the billions of dollars being shoveled into the furnace by investors and nation-states. In a way, venture capital is subsidizing your rides. They're not insane, though. They're buying market share and betting that they can pull self-driving cars into their fleets while they still have the market on lock. Without having to pay drivers or…

Let's be clear that "they're buying market share and betting that they can pull self-driving cars into their fleets" thing is revisionist history. Nobody who invested billions in Uber years ago was told, "Our plan is to burn your money and win driverless cars." They didn't even have a driverless car program until about two years ago.

Uber thought that they had a viable business model based on human drivers, and that their markets would settle down into profitability once they established market share. They were wrong. They thought that they could successfully expand into a logistics business -- that was a big element of their redesign, which only landed 6 months ago, for god's sake. Now you never hear about logistics (because the only people who might conceivably want Uber-for-packages, Amazon, just went ahead and built the service in-house).

So now they're saying that they're a big bet on driverless cars.

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

#86

Post by semi-extrinsic »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #30
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #2

This company is absolutely astounding. The objects you hold up as ideals says a lot about the culture of your environment and its values. It is extremely disappointing that Uber is considered a crown jewel of Silicon Valley.

no man! its the juicero! that thing is so cool and practical!

AvE teardown of the Juicero, in all it's glory:

https://youtu.be/_Cp-BGQfpHQ

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

#87

Post by vertex-four »

jeltz wrote: post #69
burkaman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wikipedia suggests the Spotify application was launched at the same time as the announcement of deals with various major labels - is this incorrect?

Grooveshark started out with pirated music, attempted to make deals, and failed, but that was an entirely different company.

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

#88

Post by pgwhalen »

jrs95 wrote: post #70
wehadfun wrote: post #14

Uber drivers could go on strike from Uber and still earn by driving for LYFT. They could demand what ever they want.

I think surge pricing would probably prevent that from happening in practice.

Yeah, unless you get the riders involved as well. Which is of course a lot tougher.

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

#89

Post by callalex »

rajathagasthya wrote: post #80
SonicSoul wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That may be true, but I assume Uber commits to paying drivers $X per mile or hour or something similar (as stated in that article). Surely, you won't drive for Uber if you don't know exactly how much money you make and if it's always subject to changes and experimentation?

People only drive for Uber if they have to in the first place, so now they are testing exactly how much of a beating drivers are willing to take before they leave. They already know the answer is "a lot" so they'll keep on pushing.

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

#90

Post by creepydata »

SilasX wrote: post #41
gaius wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

worse than taxis (in some ways) for drivers ... and taxpayers. Someone else pays for the upkeep of those roads, without which their business could not exist. In the UK, someone else pays for the healthcare of their drivers, as they dodge Employer's NI. Etc etc. The entire business model of "disruption" is pocketing what everyone else pays for the dependencies and externalities.

>Someone else pays for the upkeep of those roads, without which their business could not exist. Everyone pays gas taxes that scale with the amount driven and therefore their use of the roads. Any unusually high driving would be made up by the higher gas consumption and the resultant taxes thereon. If anything: 1) Taxi routes are concentrated in cities, where they have lower miles per gallon and thus pay more taxes pe…

Gas taxes do not even come close to covering road maintenance. My property taxes were raised last year to pay for some road maintenance. That's also assuming you're buying gas where you're Ubering. If you're a suburbanite it's very unlikely you are.
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