Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions
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Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions
#2So they were fine and dandy until a better competition came around. When Lyft has its rival, same thing will happen.
Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions
#3This is how capitalism works, survival of the fittest. If someone comes along that allows the drivers to make more money, prudent drivers will likely switch to that service.
It is a no brainer.
Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions
#4Statists, take notice of how improvements in work conditions come from competition and not from regulation. They're better off now than through the monopoly of taxi medallions.
Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions
#5Statists, take notice of how improvements in work conditions come from competition and not from regulation. They're better off now than through the monopoly of taxi medallions.
And anti-statists should take notice of how many improvements in working condition did require regulation, and how the Uber/Lyft market has special features (particularly, the fact that the primary service being provided to the end customer is provided entirely by one worker using their own capital and that the fact that what Uber/Lyft provide is essentially a matchmaking service where there is very low friction for a driver to switch services and for the other service to absorb new drivers -- which is not true in many other industries regardless of how competitive they may be on the consumer end.
Even in a competitive market for autos, the capital dependence of the industry -- and potentially geographical separation between plants -- means that if the workers in Alan's factory are upset with their working conditions, they very likely can't just walk over to Bob's factory en-masse and sign up to work there. The ability to do that with certain services that are 1:1 and where the middleman is just providing matchmaking gives the individual service providers more power to set working conditions with the middleman in a market where there are competing middlemen then would be the case in many industries.
Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions
#6What would it take for somebody to just build a free, open-source matchmaking service for drivers and riders? It doesn't seem like what Lyft or Uber offer is very technically demanding (perhaps doing it at scale is), and presumably you could attract a lot more drivers by offering them the chance to keep ~99% of the fare.
The existence of Lyft demonstrates that Uber's first-mover advantage isn't insurmountable, so who's to say the third-mover shouldn't be a free utility that provides matchmaking at cost?
Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions
#7What would it take for somebody to just build a free, open-source matchmaking service for drivers and riders? It doesn't seem like what Lyft or Uber offer is very technically demanding (perhaps doing it at scale is), and presumably you could attract a lot more drivers by offering them the chance to keep ~99% of the fare. The existence of Lyft demonstrates that Uber's first-mover advantage isn't insurmountable, so who…
Interesting consequence of the lower cost of technical resources. I'm guessing the higher cost would be in marketing the service to get initial critical mass.
Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions
#8Statists, take notice of how improvements in work conditions come from competition and not from regulation. They're better off now than through the monopoly of taxi medallions.
And anti-statists should take notice of how many improvements in working condition did require regulation, and how the Uber/Lyft market has special features (particularly, the fact that the primary service being provided to the end customer is provided entirely by one worker using their own capital and that the fact that what Uber/Lyft provide is essentially a matchmaking service where there is very low friction for…
What's happening right now to Uber and Lyft is a metaphor for how the free market works. You've touched on a few interesting points yourself:
"provided entirely by one worker" : this is like admitting that the problem comes from injecting hierarchy into the system, which in a free market can only happen voluntarily if both parties benefit from it, but in a statist society is imposed or restricted by the economy planners through regulation.
"essentially a matchmaking service where there is very low [switching] friction" : every market is a matchmaking service between the seller and the buyer, and the way to sustain low friction is to have as little regulation as possible (you will see the Uber/Lyft_fuelled prosperity (e.g. happy workers) disappear if the government steps in, and it will decrease wages to the point that it will be equal to the taxi market which is heavily regulated)
"which is not true in many other industries" : how can we know? "many other industries" are mostly regulated, and heavily so.You're saying deregulation doesn't work in other industries because they're already regulated.
The problem of workers and factories, as far as I know, is solved by unions. However, historically governments have regulated unions as well. Cf. Bangladeshi garment workers, their poor working conditions and their torturing of labor organizers.
Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions
#9What would it take for somebody to just build a free, open-source matchmaking service for drivers and riders? It doesn't seem like what Lyft or Uber offer is very technically demanding (perhaps doing it at scale is), and presumably you could attract a lot more drivers by offering them the chance to keep ~99% of the fare. The existence of Lyft demonstrates that Uber's first-mover advantage isn't insurmountable, so who…
I think Sidecar lets each driver set their own rate. It would take a whole lot more than 1% of the fare to keep the system running though.
Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions
#10This is how capitalism works, survival of the fittest. If someone comes along that allows the drivers to make more money, prudent drivers will likely switch to that service. It is a no brainer.
It's amusing because fewer drivers online will trigger multiplier, thus increasing their pay.