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Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

theguardian.com

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Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#61

Post by throwaway0255 »

astronautjones wrote: post #54
throwaway0255 wrote: post #50

This doesn't surprise me at all and it's because of hidden costs incurred by the driver, combined with an implicit bidding system that drives down wages. Hidden costs: 1. Vehicle wear and tear (cars cost you money when you drive them) 2. Vehicle depreciation (cars cost you money even when you aren't driving them) 3. Interest and fees associated with auto loans and leases 4. Insurance premiums 5. Gas 6. Unexpected/unp…

The insurance point deserves further discussion - in many states your normal coverage is voided by driving for profit. So if you get into an accident where they can prove you were working, you aren't going to get anything. I know many people who are driving for Uber and Lyft and have no idea about this

Oh yeah, insurance and financial products in general are just silent murderers of people's finances. Families get wrecked financially for generations to pay for this stuff and they don't even realize it's happening.

And in order to even be eligible to become an Uber or Lyft driver, you first must navigate through that minefield of auto loans and auto leases and insurance companies. And Uber and Lyft is the opportunity that convinces you that it's a good idea to do that (more similarities to Herbalife).

I say all this as someone who uses Uber and Lyft almost every day. The drivers think I'm paying them to drive me somewhere, but what I'm actually doing is paying for them to take on the liabilities/debt/depreciation associated with owning a vehicle. That's where the value is for me, it has nothing to do with them driving.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#62

Post by rweichler »

simonw wrote: post #26
seibelj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 years ago I was told the same thing, and 5 years before that. Maybe 5 years from now, but it’s been the same story forever.

You saw a driverless car (with a safety driver) drive past you five and ten years ago?

Yeah, I did 5 years ago.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#63

Post by Sam-C »

throwaway0255 wrote: post #50

This doesn't surprise me at all and it's because of hidden costs incurred by the driver, combined with an implicit bidding system that drives down wages. Hidden costs: 1. Vehicle wear and tear (cars cost you money when you drive them) 2. Vehicle depreciation (cars cost you money even when you aren't driving them) 3. Interest and fees associated with auto loans and leases 4. Insurance premiums 5. Gas 6. Unexpected/unp…

To add in to that, Uber itself seems to offer a lot of "helpful" services for their drivers, such as the cellphone they provide that only runs the driver app and nothing else, that uber charges $10 a week to lose.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#64

Post by tony101 »

astronautjones wrote: post #54
throwaway0255 wrote: post #50

This doesn't surprise me at all and it's because of hidden costs incurred by the driver, combined with an implicit bidding system that drives down wages. Hidden costs: 1. Vehicle wear and tear (cars cost you money when you drive them) 2. Vehicle depreciation (cars cost you money even when you aren't driving them) 3. Interest and fees associated with auto loans and leases 4. Insurance premiums 5. Gas 6. Unexpected/unp…

The insurance point deserves further discussion - in many states your normal coverage is voided by driving for profit. So if you get into an accident where they can prove you were working, you aren't going to get anything. I know many people who are driving for Uber and Lyft and have no idea about this

Both Uber and Lyft have insurance policies that cover drivers and passengers during rides, and in most cases the maximum coverage per accident is $1 million.

https://www.uber.com/drive/insurance/

https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/115013080548-Insuran...

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#66

Post by astrodust »

maxharris wrote: post #59
astrodust wrote: post #2

Uber is losing billions and their drivers are making peanuts. That sounds sustainable.

It's sustainable because we're on the cusp of the autonomous vehicle revolution. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/technology/driverless-car... This is similar to how the huge army of people stuffing DVDs into envelopes at Netflix is going away. It might be slow, but I don't think there will be tons of people watching DVDs from them in 2030... https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/23/netflix-dvd-business-still-a...

I hope you realize that ripping DVDs and putting them up for streaming is pretty easy, everyone was doing it before Netflix was, compared to having a fleet of autonomous vehicles that can safely operate in a multitude of urban environments, something nobody has ever done before.

You have to question the leadership of a company that's willing to throw untold billions and counting on a long-shot bet that they'll eventually have these magical cars and everything will be fine.

Once Uber can do it, soon afterwards everyone can, and what makes you think Uber will do it better when they've already had to give up so much to invent their own self-driving car solution?

Their business model is completely ridiculous.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#68

Post by astrodust »

staticassertion wrote: post #10
seibelj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driverless cars in urban areas are decades away

I saw one yesterday. There was a driver but like... come one, decades?

The Falcon Heavy took five years to develop and it's basically just a bigger version of the same Falcon 9 rocket they've been sending up for years.

Even if you have a driverless solution today it'll take years to test it and get it certified.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#69

Post by prewett »

jahaja wrote: post #49
seibelj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driverless cars in urban areas are decades away

I find it interesting how the same people that have no problem accepting that the last 10% of a random software project accounts for a significant portion of the total time spent, can at the same time be so unreasonably optimistic that a whole sphere of tech can go from like 70% to 100% (where 100% is also the minimum amount required) in a really short period.

Probably for the same reason software developers can't estimate tasks. At least for me the problem is that I figure out the algorithm at a high level and base my estimate around how long that will take me. But inevitably there are platform gotchas, or the API doesn't work the way I expect, or I forgot/didn't know about edge case. (I've done this enough that I have an idea of what kind of things can go wrong now)

I think the optimists are thinking "oh, the high-level problem of image recognition and building a 3D model of the area around the car is pretty much a solved problem, great, done!" But in fact, it's all the edge cases that will kill you. What happens when it is dark and rainy and the car in front of you is black, with no license plate? What happens when the car in front of you hits something in front of them unexpectedly? What happens when the car gets a flat tire? What happens when someone doesn't look in their mirrors before changing lanes? What happens when your "there's a problem" solution (like, say, stopping or slowing down) is actually not a good solution?

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#70

Post by Steeeve »

maxharris wrote: post #59
astrodust wrote: post #2

Uber is losing billions and their drivers are making peanuts. That sounds sustainable.

It's sustainable because we're on the cusp of the autonomous vehicle revolution. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/technology/driverless-car... This is similar to how the huge army of people stuffing DVDs into envelopes at Netflix is going away. It might be slow, but I don't think there will be tons of people watching DVDs from them in 2030... https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/23/netflix-dvd-business-still-a...

> It's sustainable because we're on the cusp of the autonomous vehicle revolution.

We still have drivers on subway trains. When those drivers lose jobs to autonomy, maybe we can think about being on the cusp. Until then, I see it as a fantastic story that can be used to milk VCs for cash.

At <$4/hour, it's a better investment to automate a fast food restaurant like McDonald's or Burger King. They pay twice as much for labor. Pouring a coke and cooking burgers and fries should be a pretty straightforward challenge. They've already done Pizzas.

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