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Uber is dropping rates for drivers down from 80 cents/mile to 60 cents/mile

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Re: Uber is dropping rates for drivers down from 80 cents/mile to 60 cents/mile

#221

Post by dang »

ileri62 wrote: post #174
remote_phone wrote: post #5

These people are complaining that they’re not being paid enough. Isn’t the proper solution to find another job? If more people stopped driving for ridesharing companies the prices would rise to attract them back. I don’t see why they are complaining when unemployment is at an all time low and they can find a job easily elsewhere. It sounds stupid.

"just get another job bruh" holy fuck. Imagine being this big of an idiot.

We've banned this account for repeatedly posting personal attacks to HN. That's not allowed here, regardless of how wrong someone else is.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. That means posting civilly and substantively, or not at all, and particularly avoiding flamebait.

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Re: Uber is dropping rates for drivers down from 80 cents/mile to 60 cents/mile

#222

Post by adamqureshi »

ed_balls wrote: post #204
adamqureshi wrote: post #118

My brother works for uber, He is 54 years old smokes a pack day and has had 2 heart attacks. He drives a Cadillac and pays $500-month for commercial insurance and has a monthly payment for his car. He has TLC plates to work in NYC ( fees apply) he makes about $300 a day works like a dog 12-14 hours a day. All of his friends are the same (uber drivers in NYC) Here you have the typical uber driver who does this for a l…

> he makes about $300 a day works like a dog 12-14 hours a da Is this profit, revenue or in transactions?

I don't know. he just said to me" I make 300 a day" assume $90 net take home for 12-14 hours or less. Uber basically KILLED The yellow cab industry in NYC. He was driving a yellow cab and considering buying a medallion ( the American dream) for $800k but that yellow cab medallion is worth shit now since uber came on the scene and yellow cab drivers who got a mortgage to buy a medallion are committing suicide now that the medallion is worth shit. So the whole situation is toxic they are FORCED to drive with uber / lyft and its a race to the bottom AI is paying them less and less. Uber is bleeding them dry. They can't drive yellow cabs and now uber is squeezing the shit out of what they are already making, they are under so much stress in order to get some type of relief from working 12-14 hour days for shit pay ,sometimes 7 days a week they smoke / drink to forget the pain of it all to escape for just a moment from earning less and less and getting used to surviving on less. Its brutal in NYC.

Re: Uber is dropping rates for drivers down from 80 cents/mile to 60 cents/mile

#223

Post by matz1 »

malandrew wrote: post #220
matz1 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not prey, for a company, employee are cost. In extreme case, If it possible for a company to make money without employee, they should do it. It's more of a government responsibility to take care its citizen well being.

Since when do we completely absolve individuals of being responsible for their well being? The state should be support of last resort.

Yes, but I'm taking company vs state.

Re: Uber is dropping rates for drivers down from 80 cents/mile to 60 cents/mile

#224

Post by idDriven »

EForEndeavour wrote: post #214
adamqureshi wrote: post #118

My brother works for uber, He is 54 years old smokes a pack day and has had 2 heart attacks. He drives a Cadillac and pays $500-month for commercial insurance and has a monthly payment for his car. He has TLC plates to work in NYC ( fees apply) he makes about $300 a day works like a dog 12-14 hours a day. All of his friends are the same (uber drivers in NYC) Here you have the typical uber driver who does this for a l…

> He smokes a pack day and has had 2 heart attacks > The job is literally killing him I don't mean to be snide or to blame your brother (addiction is a powerful thing), but I'd say that maintaining a smoking habit despite having suffered not one but two heart attacks sounds more like putting a frog in a pot with some water, splashing boiling water into the pot twice, scalding the frog both times, and having the frog…

Ive tried to get a plethora of acquaintances and coworkers to try vape, the upfront cost of a good quality reliable one-device system can easily exceed a couple hundred dollars. The majority of people who I discuss this with are upfront-cost conscious above all, they just have $5 a day (or 2 packs a NY day being $14 a day) and have too little money to gamble, in their mind, on will vaping work.

Scholarly articles on nicotine replacement show that for every person who successful quits using that it costs around $7k, magnitudes more $$ than vape. For some people nicotine is one of the only things they have that makes them hate life less and be able to cope better. On some level I find it unfair that people should say 'well you shouldn't do that categorically' when the vast majority of people have their own individual preferences on vice.

Re: Uber is dropping rates for drivers down from 80 cents/mile to 60 cents/mile

#225

Post by EForEndeavour »

idDriven wrote: post #224
EForEndeavour wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He smokes a pack day and has had 2 heart attacks > The job is literally killing him I don't mean to be snide or to blame your brother (addiction is a powerful thing), but I'd say that maintaining a smoking habit despite having suffered not one but two heart attacks sounds more like putting a frog in a pot with some water, splashing boiling water into the pot twice, scalding the frog both times, and having the frog…

Ive tried to get a plethora of acquaintances and coworkers to try vape, the upfront cost of a good quality reliable one-device system can easily exceed a couple hundred dollars. The majority of people who I discuss this with are upfront-cost conscious above all, they just have $5 a day (or 2 packs a NY day being $14 a day) and have too little money to gamble, in their mind, on will vaping work. Scholarly articles on…

Thanks for your perspective; I didn't know any of those costs.

Everyone has their own individual vice preferences, but some vices are demonstrably worse for health than others. I'm not one to tell a person to quit smoking, but it seems likely that in this case, the guy's two heart attacks did just that.

Re: Uber is dropping rates for drivers down from 80 cents/mile to 60 cents/mile

#226

Post by EliRivers »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #178
EliRivers wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will always be the hopelessly desperate just waiting to be taken advantage of. The market will not magically stop this happening. We must make the choice; maybe we'll choose to allow exploitation of the hopelessly desperate, maybe we won't, but praying to the market to magically fix it won't do a thing.

No, there won’t. Wages are rising for all levels of employees. Driving a vehicle without dealing with coworkers or a “boss” just happens to be something many, many people can do so as a supplier, you have tons of competition, therefore the prices you can charge are lower. Work towards a position that requires you to be differentiated from others and see your ability to charge more go up.

Do you have any evidence that one day there will no longer be hopelessly desperate people? The evidence so far indicates otherwise. Where is your posited utopian future coming from?

Wages are rising for all levels of employees.

It's my understanding that the evidence indicates this isn't true (for example, https://globalriskinsights.com/2018/01/us-economy-workers-di... , and many other such). What are you basing this assertion on?

Work towards a position that requires you to be differentiated from others and see your ability to charge more go up.

This is the standard trite, middle-class advice towards people who are hopelessly desperate and trapped in poverty. The hopelessly desperate cannot do this on their own. They don't have the time, the health, the regular hours, the safety blanket of cash, the lack of children, the support network, even the simple knowledge of how to gain skills, on and on - all the things people need to take your advice. They don't have that. That's what being hopelessly desperate is.

Re: Uber is dropping rates for drivers down from 80 cents/mile to 60 cents/mile

#227

Post by lotsofpulp »

EliRivers wrote: post #226
lotsofpulp wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there won’t. Wages are rising for all levels of employees. Driving a vehicle without dealing with coworkers or a “boss” just happens to be something many, many people can do so as a supplier, you have tons of competition, therefore the prices you can charge are lower. Work towards a position that requires you to be differentiated from others and see your ability to charge more go up.

Do you have any evidence that one day there will no longer be hopelessly desperate people? The evidence so far indicates otherwise. Where is your posited utopian future coming from? Wages are rising for all levels of employees. It's my understanding that the evidence indicates this isn't true (for example, https://globalriskinsights.com/2018/01/us-economy-workers-di... , and many other such). What are you basing this…

https://www.frbatlanta.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker.aspx

Wages are rising, at least nominally, of course. I know they the wage and wealth gap is increasing, and the top 10% are running away with almost all the spoils, and is not a good situation.

However, the context of my response was to the person you had responded to had said that Instacart would have to pay more if people stopped running food for them, to which you had responded that Instacart wouldn't since there was an endless supply of hopelessly desperate people that Instacart can pull from.

Getting from point A to point B, especially with the help of navigation software, is something everyone can do, hence the bottom of the barrel wages. You're competing with almost everyone. Expecting to earn more than the very minimum in that kind of market is unrealistic. Before, the bottom of the barrel jobs were retail/restaurant/hotel/service jobs, but now with Instacart and Uber and whatnot, those are the new bottom of the barrel jobs, and retail/restaurant/hotel/service jobs have had to raise their wages.

I understand some people might not have a good education, some might not know the right language, have a stable home, and that is something society needs to work at fixing, but that's not the reason Uber/Instacart can afford to pay little. It's because the type of work (unscheduled, be your own boss, no language skills necessary, no customer service skills, etc) is desirable compared to other jobs that have a large supply of labor.

Re: Uber is dropping rates for drivers down from 80 cents/mile to 60 cents/mile

#228

Post by EliRivers »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #227
EliRivers wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence that one day there will no longer be hopelessly desperate people? The evidence so far indicates otherwise. Where is your posited utopian future coming from? Wages are rising for all levels of employees. It's my understanding that the evidence indicates this isn't true (for example, https://globalriskinsights.com/2018/01/us-economy-workers-di... , and many other such). What are you basing this…

https://www.frbatlanta.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker.aspx Wages are rising, at least nominally, of course. I know they the wage and wealth gap is increasing, and the top 10% are running away with almost all the spoils, and is not a good situation. However, the context of my response was to the person you had responded to had said that Instacart would have to pay more if people stopped running food for them, to which y…

Wages are rising, at least nominally, of course.

At risk of sounding trite, nominal is cold comfort when the real is dropping.

Re: Uber is dropping rates for drivers down from 80 cents/mile to 60 cents/mile

#229

Post by russdpale »

jtms wrote: post #205
russdpale wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeh but so is loading 1000 packages into 4 or 5 trucks. Or 2500 packages into an 18 wheeler.

Hard, yes, but you should start a business paying people developer salaries to load and unload boxes and we will see how well that works out for you. Also that job is soon to be an anachronism - robots are perfectly suited to replace humans for this task.

I actually doubt they will replace the loader. Not until they having something as dexterous as a human hand. Some functions, such as belt splitting is already replacing humans but there are no plans to replace the loaders. It requires too much human intuition at the moment for the machines to handle.
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