Am I nuts, or is the heart of this issue really the fact that our healthcare system is built on tying benefits to full time jobs?
Rideshare operations are being suspended in California
31–40 of 1001 posts
Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California
#32I don't know if you're genuine or not but the way you wrote this post sounds so utterly inauthentic[0].
You're whimsically sad you can't get more fun money to invest in stock, while the reason that ride sharing is being shut down is because it takes advantage of the lower class it depends on.
[0]edit: unauthentic->inauthentic
Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California
#33> Instead, what Sacramento politicians are pushing is an employment model that 4 out of 5 drivers don’t support. Is that stat accurate? If so, what is the argument for imposing a model that the vast majority of drivers don't support?
100% of the thousands of Uber drivers I've talked to over the past 8 years have said work flexibility is their greatest advantage. Many of them already have other commitments and drive for extra income. If they wanted a FT driving job, they would've gotten one.
Thinking through this more. I've noticed that a lot of drivers work both Uber and Lyft (flexibility allows this). Would that go away in the employee model?
Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California
#34When Tesla/Waymo/Uber/Lyft roll out actual self-driving technology in the future and people complain "robots are taking our jobs!" we can point to this legislation and say "actually, no, it was the politicians"
Well, actually it was the margins that did it, but finance can be a little abstract when you're populist.
Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California
#35So this is basically an admission that the ridesharing business model is not viable without worker exploitation?
No, I think it’s two fold. One it means they believe increasing rates would make their business less viable and second it’s likely a tactic to force the government to reconsider.
The gov will have to weigh the benefit of people having affordable rides on demand plus people who want “side money” vs higher fares plus people who now are either out of a job or out of side money.
Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California
#36This seems lazy by CA.
We either have "full time = forty hours of work and tons of benefits that have been shoehorned into employment because our government doesn't provide it" or "part time = less than forty hours and you get abused"
I'm not privy so I won't pretend to have the right idea, but it seems like there should be a middle ground.
Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California
#37So this is basically an admission that the ridesharing business model is not viable without worker exploitation?
People freely working is not exploitation. Full time driving jobs already exist if you wanted that instead of freelance rideshare driving.
They exist, but those opportunities exist not in as numerous quantities because they are undercut by Lyft/Uber, which are only able to do so because they are operating unsustainably. The latter just need to either increase their prices to make the rideshare job more profitable and acceptable or, if that’s truly impossible as they suggest, I guess we’ll have to go back to cab rides.
Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California
#38Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California
#39So this is basically an admission that the ridesharing business model is not viable without worker exploitation?
The State of California doesn't care about workers, they care about the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars they want from payroll and unemployment taxes, in addition to revenue from automatic withholdings for people whom would otherwise be below the reporting limit.
Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genuine question: what state government would you look to for a better model?
Not many states are in the position California is. No matter how poorly run the state might be, people are unlikely to leave due to existing business and weather. Hard to compare.
Exactly Californians will succeed no matter what the government does.