11–20 of 131 posts
Your dad does have one social net: even 1099's must opt into SS and Medicare (paying both employer and employee shares, unfortunately), at least.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It means Lyft and Uber are terminal and their insolvency is not about if but when. There are only so many $2 bills to sell for $1.
I never understood why anyone thought otherwise, unless you believed self-driving cars would be ready by now. I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of Lyft and Uber and their experiments with food delivery, carpooling, and other endeavors. But scaling up does not solve the problem of paying your contractors more than they're making you - in fact it only scales up the problem. Granted, I've thoroughly…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It means Lyft and Uber are terminal and their insolvency is not about if but when. There are only so many $2 bills to sell for $1.
I never understood why anyone thought otherwise, unless you believed self-driving cars would be ready by now. I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of Lyft and Uber and their experiments with food delivery, carpooling, and other endeavors. But scaling up does not solve the problem of paying your contractors more than they're making you - in fact it only scales up the problem. Granted, I've thoroughly…
If they had to worry about owning and maintaining all their cars, suddenly they're in a new and very capital-intensive line of business. I'd expect at least one of the established rental car chains- which have physical infrastructure like motor pools, mechanics and relationships with local auto shops, and logistics experience with all of the above- to eat Uber's lunch!
Every way I look at it, work on self-driving technology by rideshare companies is 100% smoke and mirrors to drive investment, and not a serious business plan.
Anyone else see these and think about how maybe there should be some other type of worker other than employee or contractor? Those are hard definitions, and creating laws to reflect this type of worker is incredibly difficult considering people and companies figure out loopholes, but really feels like there should be another category to go with this type of work that's going to become more and more common.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It means Lyft and Uber are terminal and their insolvency is not about if but when. There are only so many $2 bills to sell for $1.
I never understood why anyone thought otherwise, unless you believed self-driving cars would be ready by now. I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of Lyft and Uber and their experiments with food delivery, carpooling, and other endeavors. But scaling up does not solve the problem of paying your contractors more than they're making you - in fact it only scales up the problem. Granted, I've thoroughly…
Of course, that depends on a large barrier to entry, and I can't see how the barrier to entry on that market could be large. But well, VCs clearly disagree with me.
If we assume this is correct what does it mean for the company and it’s employees? They are going public which means there will be pressure to make a profit. How does it bode for their recruitment and in general well being of the company? Also I cannot imagine Uber to be in any different situation.
It means Lyft and Uber are terminal and their insolvency is not about if but when. There are only so many $2 bills to sell for $1.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It means Lyft and Uber are terminal and their insolvency is not about if but when. There are only so many $2 bills to sell for $1.
Unless they raise prices and accept lower volume. A contraction of profit seems inevitable, but I don't expect insolvency, at least not for the whole field.
I'm kind of torn on this. My father has been truck driver his entire life and for the last 20 years worked as a contractor, while driving his own truck and trailer, since it gives him more $$$ than average driver who works as employee. However, he has non-existent social net. No health insurance, no pension benefits. If he out of work or has serious health issues that ground him for months, he has to dig into savings…
He can buy health insurance, pension, group income protection, everything you mentioned.
I know poor people can't do that, and that's the issue, but why can't a well-paid truck driver do it?
Ride sharing is generally supply constrained (meaning there's plenty of demand but drivers are in limited supply). If they stopped paying driver bonuses to expand in new markets or maintain share of drivers in mature markets, then the number of drivers would likely start plateauing or declining (due to high turnover) -> prices would increase and/or rider wait times would increase -> rider demand would fall -> growth would stall.
In short, they're choosing growth over profitability because that's what investor want to see. As soon as they choose profitability (which they might have to after IPO), their growth will come to a halt and their share price will tank. Watch.