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The Drivers Cooperative

drivers.coop

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Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#221

Post by brbrodude »

jasode wrote: post #78
zxexz wrote: post #15

I hope this takes off. Ride-hailing apps always seemed like a model that was extremely conducive to a cooperative, worker-owned model. I would gladly (and will try to next time I'm in NYC) use this service over Uber or Lyft. Power to the drivers!

>Ride-hailing apps always seemed like a model that was extremely conducive to a cooperative, worker-owned model. It's only the surface-level of an ride-hailing app that seems easy for worker-owned cooperatives to create. In reality, the extra expensive programming dollars required to tame the hidden complexity so that the app can present a seamless experience to the customers/passengers is a huge factor that works ag…

If the app was open source/free in some way, and coops forked some of the money into development, maintenance, infrastructure, etc, then maybe it could really undercut the big guys, have quality, innovate fast and etc and also distribute capital fairly. So instead of having a big guy owning everything and dealing all the cards, the development people would get paid for the service provided to the coops, who in turn provide service for consumers. I've actually had conversations with a friend on doing this exact kind of thing.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#222

Post by missedthecue »

killbot5000 wrote: post #150
agloeregrets wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I never got how Uber was still unprofitable for so long. Sure you have a bunch of Silicon Valley salaries to pay but realistically speaking, one could build an Uber/Lyft for under $1M and basically can operate with two or so devs fixing issues. Yet, they are blowing hundreds of millions of dollars yearly all over the place while shorting drivers who can’t make a living wage and are basically trading vehicle exp…

The Uber business model is: Undercut competition. Use borrowed money to sell rides under cost. Wait for all competitors to die. Jack up prices. AFAIK they’re still living on borrowed money. It reminds me of the airline deregulation of the 90s. New airlines would use borrowed money to sell seats at below cost to attract customers, driving established carriers out of business. The funny thing is that this smells a lot…

That's not their business model. Uber knows very well how low the barrier to entry is in ride hailing.

It's not like they're building railroads here. It's an app.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#223

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

beckingz wrote: post #192
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, market forces are at work: if Uber/Lyft provide no additional value over drivers' work (and treat drivers as disposable assets), they themselves will get "disrupted" and the drivers will get rid of them We shall see if that ends up being the case. It's an open question to me. I could see this being as effective as Uber. But I could also see an industry association implementing some anti-consumer policies that…

Just give it back to the taxi drivers to operate, but hold them to a higher standard of quality.

TBH Uber has led to dramatically better consumer outcomes. Without them operating in the market, and given the power the taxi lobby seems to have over local lawmakers, I am skeptical that any taxi-only scenario will be good for consumers.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#224

Post by [deleted] »

sandworm101 wrote: post #166
jwr wrote: post #79

This is doubly ironic and amusing if you think about how Uber/Lyft were "disrupting" the existing markets. Well, market forces are at work: if Uber/Lyft provide no additional value over drivers' work (and treat drivers as disposable assets), they themselves will get "disrupted" and the drivers will get rid of them :-) Happy to see this happening, and I wonder how this will develop.

I applaud the effort, but the problem with a collective is that they are, legally speaking, a soft target. Uber can afford to break laws, run at a local loss, and generally throw its weight around a new market. Cooperatives don't have such deep pockets. They will leave town as soon as a some local interest resists. They aren't going to survive multi-year fights with cities or organizations like the London cabs.

[deleted]

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#226

Post by msoad »

I tried downloading and signing up for the driver app on iOS. The quality of the apps are very very low. There are some grammar mistakes in the labels that makes me think the app is made by non English speakers. The phone number placeholder was specially weird. It was using a phone number from Iran in the placeholder!

I hope this works out but as all of us in the software industry know, making good software is time consuming and expensive. I'm not sure with low ride volume and not VC money they can afford building a good iPhone app.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#227

Post by TheCoelacanth »

gher-shyu3i wrote: post #144
Draiken wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to what? Cheap is not an absolute term. I agree with another comment here, it's absurdly cheap compared to almost anything else.

If the goal is to run infrastructure like Uber or Lyft (or any other big company), it's going to be in the tens or even hundreds of thousands USD per month at least.

Hundreds of thousands to run infrastructure like Uber? That's absurdly cheap.

That's probably less than the cost of setting up one restaurant.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#228

Post by [deleted] »

aerosmile wrote: post #217

I would rather be dead in a ditch than set foot in one of their cars. Because I expect it would be basically the same thing. Their website has thousands of words about how horrible Uber and Lyft are, but not one word about how they are going to approach trust and safety. I really hope there's an experienced labor marketplace executive in the room who knows anything about this business, rather than a bunch of drivers…

[deleted]

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#229

Post by aerosmile »

agloeregrets wrote: post #212
mindvirus wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of those two devs will be responsible for ensuring taxes are properly charged and keeping up to date with the tax code? Which will maintain parking and map zones? Who will work on routing and matching? Who's working on fraud? On safety? Who is working on payments, both from riders and paying drivers? Who is generating required tax reports for drivers? Who's doing driver onboarding? Which will ensure that driver…

My numbers were talking app expenses, obviously a company of Uber's scale would need 100+ employees. I broke down below that if they worked at their current scale and charged just a penny, they could pay their employees an average of $100K per year and still make millions in profit after spending millions on Infrastructure. Uber bills on average more than 100-200 times that and spends insane numbers on unprofitable p…

Nope, your words were clear - you were flat out wrong, and are now trying to save face. I don't have a tendency to call people out, but blindly applying the "two devs in a garage" axiom is not only wrong when it comes to labor marketplaces, but it also unnecessarily spreads discontent to the point that we have to stop this silliness. I don't care one bit about your recalculated math from now on - for me, you're just another armchair quarterback who speaks before he thinks.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#230

Post by AlwaysRock »

njoubert wrote: post #180
kbos87 wrote: post #176

It's always surprised me that we haven't seem more attempts at co-op like models in spaces like this, and I'm happy to see it. Uber/Lyft strike me as thin businesses in the value that they actually provide both to riders and drivers. Yes, they were responsible for some initial innovation, but now the cat is out of the bag, and the concept could absolutely be applied in a business structure that is more profitable and…

The single benefit of Uber having a global presence likely already outweighs the value of these local coops. You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value.

A huge value for a relatively small amount of people and uber customers.

It's also not really very true. Its been a year since I traveled outside of the USA but on my last two international trips Uber was not available in those countries.

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