Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#481

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #298

refurb wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the people leaving CA were of the far-right political persuasion, so good riddance to them. Ha! Yeah, CA is known for it’s multitude of far-right groups. And if they are so far right, why are they leaving and voting for left wing policies in other states? Suffice to say CA has some of the highest taxes of any state, yet it also has some of the worst social problems - poverty, homelessness, etc. I’d say it CA…

>> Suffice to say CA has some of the highest taxes of any state, yet it also has some of the worst social problems - poverty, homelessness, etc. I was under the impression that much of the homelessness problem is because CA is a nice place to live (with or without a home) and because the climate is temperate and thus safer to live than most other places (where a homeless person could literally freeze to death.) Sorry…

You're right on both counts. CA has a big homeless problem because of the weather, and other states exploit that to use CA as a dumping ground for their own homeless.

LA Times' Steve Lopez interviewed a number of homeless last year in a series of articles. Most of them weren't from LA. They just came because they were told the weather was great and that drugs in LA were free.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#482

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

jacobn wrote: post #28

We’re legally unequipped to deal well with gig workers. They’re arguably neither contractors nor employees, and shoe horning them into either category will inevitably lead to some absurdities.

We're very well equipped, we just don't use the laws we already have. If we did the gig economy would die overnight. Just class all of them as employees and be done with it. Gig workers existed in the past. Many harbors used them. You got paid for every piece removed or stowed in the hold of a ship. Governments the world over realized this led to all kinds of bad outcomes and outlawed the practice. Containerization did the rest. So we already know this particular demon and the solution was to make it illegal and to make all such people employees.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

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Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 7:58 PM UTC

novok wrote: post #467

deminature wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AB5 imposes an ABC test on businesses after the precedent set by Dynamex [1]. The specific point of contention the judge has is the B of the ABC - that is whether drivers 'perform work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business'. Uber argues it is a technology company first, and drives/delivers second, whereas the judge argues the opposite. Convincing arguments can be made for both sides. The mo…

So if Adorama sells on amazon.com, does adorama the corporation become an employee of amazon? If the separation on that mindfuck is 'register a corp / LLC', then what prevents drivers making an LLC to drive for uber?

[deleted]

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#484

Post by manfredo » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #393

manfredo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Uber drivers are totally at liberty to set their own hours, and drive in location of their choice ( destination are chosen by Uber, but a worker is at liberty to drive in San Jose one day and San Francisco the next). 2) The drivers are outside of Uber's business. Uber is a software and technology company, not a taxi service. 3) Drivers are independent workers, in business for themselves. 4) Same as above. With the…

1) True. But until about 1 month ago, Uber drivers didn't get to set their own rates, and they were punished for not accepting rides. Moreover, a key issue for this test is that Uber matches drivers to riders, so the normal independence that would be expected from a "platform" does not exist. 2) I laughed so hard I scared my neighbor's dog. Uber is a transportation service that happens to use technology (in the form…

So now Craigslist needs to be regulated as an automobile dealer because it hooks up people selling cars to each other? Is Apple in the business of recording music because it runs iTunes? Does DoorDash need to have their offices inspected for food safety because they run a market for food delivery. No. Craigslist operates a platform for selling cars, it doesn't actually sell cars itself. Apple doesn't actually make music (unless they runs studio they I don't know about), they run a market for artists and record companies to sell their own music. DoorDash operates a platform for restaurants to sell food, it doesn't actually sell food itself. Contrary to your insistence otherwise, running a platform that connects buyers and sellers of something is not the same thing as actually providing that good or service yourself. People say that it takes mental gymnastics to arrive at this conclusion. I see the opposite: how do you manage to convince yourself that people writing code at Uber are in the same line of business as getting behind the wheel of a taxi? How do people convince themselves that a PM at DoorDash works at a restaurant?

Also, you misstate (or rather, only partially state) the description of their business in SEC filings. They describe themselves operating a market for food delivery and personal transportation. They are in the business of transportation and food delivery, but they are a in a different layer than the people actually driving cars. This is akin to saying Expedia is in the airline business. Yes, but they sell airline tickets they don't fly planes. Calling Uber a taxi company makes a out as much sense as saying Expedia is an airline.

And for 3 & 4 this could easily be resolved by having driver set up their own LLCs. But I'm not convinced this is actually a requirement. Plenty of people are contractors and fill out 1099s without operating their own LLC or partnership or some other type of company.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#485

Post by SilasX » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

Will_Do wrote: post #247

pininja wrote: post #166

I work at Uber outside of the rides/eats business and observed many feature releases to adjust the business after AB5. What I saw released: - Enabling drivers to see where a rider is going before accepting the trip [0] [2] - Removed a main penalty for declining rides, “No More 85% Acceptance Rate Requirement For Uber Pro” [2] - Drivers get set their own fare with a multiplier [1] (the article details screenshots and…

That's pretty interesting! In my view, the set your own fare part and penalty removal definitely moves them from the "employee" zone to "self-employed" in the everyday definition. I guess AB5 is much more strict.

Keep in mind, Sidecar went all the way with that -- drivers set their own prices and riders picked from a list of said drivers' offers, weighing their quality/time/cost. And yet I can't seem to find anyone at at the time of operation (i.e. up to EOY 2014) defending Sidecar as being substantively different from Uber with regard to the contractor distinction.

Edit: corrected the year

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#486

Post by Pfhreak » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #351

thinkharderdev wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any restrictions on what the multiplier can be? If not then they can effectively set the fare. The "standard" fare is $X per mile and I want $Y per mile. I just set the multiplier to Y/X

They say the "fare multiplier can range from 0.5x to 5.0x in increments of 0.1". Not fully free, but being able to set over 5x the regular price seems mostly academic.

That's interesting, because there's much, much more granularity above 1.0 than below it if you enforce increments of 0.1.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#487

Post by SkyBelow » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

kingnothing wrote: post #367

kirykl wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ridiculous that it takes a legal battle for Uber to offer these customer and driver friendly features

I used to work at Uber. I'll focus on one particular point: allowing drivers to see where riders are going before they accept the trip. Uber, at least when I worked there, was heavily against this functionality as it allows drivers to discriminate against riders who are going to poor neighborhoods or from cities to suburbs where they may have difficulty in getting another rider. That feature is bad for the overall ec…

The solution would be to increase the amount you are willing to pay until someone agrees to it, not trick a person into doing work they don't want to do by hiding the details of the job until after they have begun.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#488

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

newacct583 wrote: post #460

rubatuga wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is horrible for customers, the worst part is when drivers don't want to pick you up.

I think that's absolutely true, and it's one of the reasons that society benefits from the idea of an "employee" relationship, where you can rely on a single corporation, beholden to some kind of public consensus, to enforce a uniform set of rules. A world where everyone is a "contractor" is one where everyone is subject to the tragedy of the commons. (e.g. "You can't get a ride in a poor neighborhood") But part of t…

> A world where everyone is a "contractor" is one where everyone is subject to the tragedy of the commons. (e.g. "You can't get a ride in a poor neighborhood")

Well no, it's just the opposite. When everyone is a "contractor" you can get a ride in a poor neighborhood, you just have to pay the market rate for getting a ride there.

When you try to legislate it, then you get avoidance. The driver gets assigned and then suddenly has "car trouble" or becomes ill. You summon a ride but it doesn't show up for 45 minutes because all of the drivers avoid being anywhere near that area if it means they could be forced to go there.

Whereas if you just pay the market rate then a driver shows up right away because they're getting paid extra to do it. And if you don't like that rides cost more in poor neighborhoods then the government could subsidize it explicitly, instead of creating all of these perverse incentives by trying to force people to do something they otherwise wouldn't be willing to do for that amount of money.

Which also puts a dollar value on the subsidy and makes it explicit, so that we can see how much we're paying in order to get it, instead of sweeping it under the rug by making the cost implicit even though it's still there.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#489

Post by TallGuyShort » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

dtech wrote: post #442

thu2111 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But was Uber unfair and unsafe? That's very hard to argue, especially when compared to the prior reality rather than a theoretical perfection.

Safe and maybe fairer for consumers yes, not so much for the employees. That's why they are getting ruled against with employment law. I can think of quite a few other businesses who would love to toss out all employee protections and benefits. I'm sure it would slightly lower prices and improve efficiency here and there. Is that worth the cost though?...

So if Uber does shut down, how are drivers better off than if they simply chose not to drive for Uber? (or Lyft)

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#490

Post by runako » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 8:09 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #478

runako wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> specifically intended to put Uber and similar companies in a state of noncompliance with it. It would be capricious if it were more targeted, written without ample public discussion, or if the affected firms had no ability to continue operations. As I understand it, none of that is true of AB5. For example, the affected companies are free to use contingent workforces in a manner similar to the other many thousands…

If it wasn't targeted, then why are there so many exceptions written into the law? Lawmakers added exemptions for dozens of different types of businesses. If this was intended to be a generic law about worker classification they wouldn't have needed to do that. They really had Uber and similar companies in their crosshairs, and they intended to apply this law narrowly to them.

Thanks for the clarification! (I am definitely not an expert on this law.)

Just reading up on it, I see exemptions for (simplifying a bit) a) highly-paid professions and b) commercial fishers, repo agencies, and people who drive for driving clubs(?). The first category absolutely makes sense if the aim is something like "companies shouldn't abuse the 'contractor' classification to take advantage of low-paid workers". The second category smells like lobbying.

Unless I'm missing some of the dozens of types of businesses, I don't see how the exemptions are broadly anything more than a red herring here. I guess they could have left the exemptions and then put a $ figure and an inflation tie, but that has proven problematic as well.

How would you have written a law to express the goal of "companies shouldn't abuse the 'contractor' classification to take advantage of low-paid workers" ?