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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

#131

Post by anigbrowl »

smt88 wrote: post #124
chimeracoder wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't strike without a union This is absolutely, completely false. Both legally and practically.

Small groups who can identify and contact each other can strike without a union. Uber drivers can't because Uber is the only party who can identify all of them. Furthermore, scabs might sign up without even knowing they're scabs, or drivers might refuse to strike. There would have to be some legal/organizational mechanism to force all current drivers to strike.

I'm sure that information could be...acquired. After that it's just social engineering.

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

#132

Post by Consultant32452 »

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…

>To be clear, I find this entire concept incredibly abhorrent

It's not clear to me why it's abhorrent. Doesn't every company optimize their vendors and customers separately?

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

#133

Post by microtherion »

Balgair wrote: post #92
aetherson wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can't find the post, but there was a 'UBER finance guy' (self-claimed) on HN a few weeks back that 'spilled the beans' and quit on what Uber is actually: a sub-prime auto loan company. Again, this is my recollection, take it with salt. It goes like: Driver (D): I want to drive for Uber! Uber (U): Sure! Do you have a car that is safe and less than 5 years old? (I have no idea what the car reqs. are) D: No U: Ok, wel…

As far as I know, Uber car loans are fairly different from typical subprime car leases in that you can get out of them with little or no penalty.

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

#134

Post by anigbrowl »

nradov wrote: post #75
rbobby wrote: post #57

Uber's management team seems to stumble from one mistake/mess/self-inflicted-injury to another. I can't help but wonder why Uber VCs have kept them in place.

It's pretty simple. The VCs don't have enough voting shares to control the board. They could make some noise but their actual legal power is very limited.

Greed leads to stupidity.

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

#135

Post by tomkit »

I'm breaking a 4 yr HN commenting-hiatus to post this: it's a bit disappointing to see how the quality of HN comments has deteriorated over the years. Virtually all the comments I'm seeing here are sensationalist sentiments/anecdotes, backed with no facts, reverberated in an echo chamber. This is a plead to the HN moderators to continue to iterate on your product to improve the quality of the comments.

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

#136

Post by memmcgee »

bonzini wrote: post #16
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…

It would not be abhorrent if it were the only source of income for Uber, which would basically be earning the bid-ask spread. Adding fees on top of that, though...

Except they also penalize drivers for not accepting many rides. So if you want to continue driving for Uber, you have to "sell" your driving services at some point, even if the price isn't good for you.

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

#137

Post by notyourwork »

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…

> abhorrent

Is this not a business trying to maximize profit for itself? If you find this abhorrent than you must also despise capitalism because that is all this is. I may not personally like it as a consumer of their product but I find this to be a clever way to maximize profits for a middle man.

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

#138

Post by chasing »

tomkit wrote: post #135

I'm breaking a 4 yr HN commenting-hiatus to post this: it's a bit disappointing to see how the quality of HN comments has deteriorated over the years. Virtually all the comments I'm seeing here are sensationalist sentiments/anecdotes, backed with no facts, reverberated in an echo chamber. This is a plead to the HN moderators to continue to iterate on your product to improve the quality of the comments.

Maybe this is also an opportunity to correct some of the untruths you've observed instead of simply complaining about their purported existence?

Be the improved comment quality you wish to see in the world.

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

#139

Post by j_s »

Balgair wrote: post #92
aetherson wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can't find the post, but there was a 'UBER finance guy' (self-claimed) on HN a few weeks back that 'spilled the beans' and quit on what Uber is actually: a sub-prime auto loan company. Again, this is my recollection, take it with salt. It goes like: Driver (D): I want to drive for Uber! Uber (U): Sure! Do you have a car that is safe and less than 5 years old? (I have no idea what the car reqs. are) D: No U: Ok, wel…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13764994 -> https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/5wrdk2/car_that_uber_...

It's their xchangleasing leasing program. It's basically a sub prime car loan like from the housing bubble days.

if Uber cuts it's rates they still have same payment but less fare money each month. They did this to a lot of people and it's well known within the company that a lot of Uber black drivers were screwed when this happened.

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

#140

Post by goldenkey »

tomkit wrote: post #135

I'm breaking a 4 yr HN commenting-hiatus to post this: it's a bit disappointing to see how the quality of HN comments has deteriorated over the years. Virtually all the comments I'm seeing here are sensationalist sentiments/anecdotes, backed with no facts, reverberated in an echo chamber. This is a plead to the HN moderators to continue to iterate on your product to improve the quality of the comments.

Why do you call it a product?
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