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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

#51

Post by ThomPete »

jefflinwood wrote: post #14

The really interesting story here is that if drivers are so willing to switch networks for better opportunities, there isn't a compelling reason for Uber to have the valuation that they do. The value of Uber isn't really in the tech or the app - it's in the networks of riders and drivers in each city. If each of those can be aggregated into some other kind of service, where Uber, Lyft, etc. are just providers of paym…

Uber is going to be a logistics company. But I agree they are grossly overvalued.

Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

#52

Post by innguest »

orblivion wrote: post #37
innguest wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why am I being modded down?

Because you're making a brazen libertarian point in a thread on a tech discussion board where it's not all that warranted. If this were a discussion of public policy it could be different. I chimed in with that stuff when Net Neutrality came up, for instance. Otherwise it just gets overbearing. That said, I also got voted down there, I think libertarians are losing ground on HN.

Thanks for the reply.

The philosophical connection between the hacker culture/ethics and anarchism was much clearer to me and many others maybe a decade ago, but now I see this losing ground.

There's a fear in people when someone calls for decentralization of power. Most other types of decentralization are obviously good in the eyes of programmers, but not this one anymore.

Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

#53

Post by peatmoss »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #42

The drivers, who are mostly comprised of SUV and black car drivers, have planned a protest outside of the Long Island City Uber Office I wonder how much good the office protest will do versus just emailing Uber saying "Adios Uber! I'm headed to Lyft because of..." The on site picketing made sense for blue collar industrial and government workers because the switching cost of quitting your job and (hoping) to get hire…

The media attention that drivers get through this action help signal to consumers that they are moving to a competitor. This might make me (a rider) more likely to fire up the Lyft app instead of Uber next time I need a ride.

Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

#54

Post by calpaterson »

ForHackernews wrote: post #6

What 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…

Who would provide customer service, sales, marketing, user research and the other non-technical elements of the business? It's true of many companies that what they do is not very technically demanding (Amazon, Facebook, eBay, etc) but that very often means that you _can't_ replicate them by just replicating the technology - these successful companies are much more than just their software.

And anyway, I bet there is a surprising level of sophistication to eg: Uber's software

Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

#55

Post by viscanti »

whitej125 wrote: post #46

Wait, strike? First off...IANAUD. If you become an Uber Driver are you under any sort of contract? Are you now an employee (W-2) of Uber or free agent contractor (1099). If drivers think they can get better fares elsewhere... go nuts and do it. Yay economics! I feel like I am missing something here.

This. Although I don't understand the argument from the driver's side. They're upset about sometimes getting trips from uberx (and apparently making more doing so), so they're going to a place that pays less per trip and per hour? Something doesn't add up there.

If there was a factual claim here, I have to believe that they'd be sharing their numbers. It would be trivial for them to show a decrease in earnings (they can easily calculate gas and wear-and-tear) in the before-and-after earnings. The fact that that isn't happening makes me believe this is similar to the protests last year in SF. From the reports back then, it ended up being mostly drivers who had been banned from the uber platform who were trying to be reinstated (although that's not what they claimed).

Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

#56

Post by aetherson »

Aqueous wrote: post #45
aetherson wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely a large chunk of the rides-for-hire passenger population that is entirely mercenary in its affections. Some people are loyal Uber passengers or loyal Lyft passengers or whatever, but a lot of people are happy to go where the bargains are.

I think you're right that isn't out of loyalty that people use one or the other service. But it's de facto loyalty - also known as (extreme) laziness. Most people are using Lyft and Uber for the convenience. Thus if both are about the same level of convenience they will probably not shop around for a new app even if the competitor has a lower rate. They will go to the Lyft or the Uber app if it is already on their ph…

I work for Flywheel, a (much smaller) competitor in the same space.

Customers like you describe certainly exist, and may be the majority, but mercenary customers who switch services are a large subset of the total. For example, we don't surge, and a substantial number of our customers report that they only use us when Uber and Lyft are surging.

There's also a time-frame issue here. The number of users who check different services with every ride is low. The number of users who check different services when their primary service is surging is higher. The number of users who are open to occasionally checking out other services if they hear good things is higher yet.

Cost-insensitive users who have Uber brand loyalty may be a large rump population for Uber -- they were the original adopters of the service. But their growth has been in cost-conscious people, and they've been in deep competition for those people, in a price war. Those passengers are a large enough share of their user base that they can't do without them.

Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

#57

Post by viscanti »

ThomPete wrote: post #51
jefflinwood wrote: post #14

The really interesting story here is that if drivers are so willing to switch networks for better opportunities, there isn't a compelling reason for Uber to have the valuation that they do. The value of Uber isn't really in the tech or the app - it's in the networks of riders and drivers in each city. If each of those can be aggregated into some other kind of service, where Uber, Lyft, etc. are just providers of paym…

Uber is going to be a logistics company. But I agree they are grossly overvalued.

http://fortune.com/2014/09/11/uber-vs-lyft-the-credit-cards-... I don't know. The numbers appear to disagree. That just shows a sample of their growth in the US, but according to reports the bulk of their growth is internationally. They are likely orders of magnitude larger than their closest competition and growing rapidly. Real money is going through that system. If they can find a way to leverage that user base and become a full-on logistics company they're probably undervalued.

Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

#58

Post by viscanti »

ivraatiems wrote: post #21
smacktoward wrote: post #15

Update -- Uber reverses policy: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/09/12/uber_drivers_...

I'm genuinely surprised. I imagine this is just a policy of minimum appeasement, but it's very interesting how rapid the change was. Edit: Also, the strike is going forward - not all of their demands were met. Maybe this is just so Uber can say "hey, we tried to do what they asked?"

Or maybe the strike is closer to what happened last year in SF, where a bunch of drivers who were banned from the uber system because of low quality scores protested for other reasons. Something doesn't add up with the strike anyway (the threat to leave Uber because some trips might be on uberx, but to go to lyft where all their trips would be at that level and they'd make less doesn't make sense). The fact that the strike is still going forward makes it pretty clear it's not about having to make more money per hour by doing uberx trips.

Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

#59

Post by bitJericho »

viscanti wrote: post #55
whitej125 wrote: post #46

Wait, strike? First off...IANAUD. If you become an Uber Driver are you under any sort of contract? Are you now an employee (W-2) of Uber or free agent contractor (1099). If drivers think they can get better fares elsewhere... go nuts and do it. Yay economics! I feel like I am missing something here.

This. Although I don't understand the argument from the driver's side. They're upset about sometimes getting trips from uberx (and apparently making more doing so), so they're going to a place that pays less per trip and per hour? Something doesn't add up there. If there was a factual claim here, I have to believe that they'd be sharing their numbers. It would be trivial for them to show a decrease in earnings (they…

May I ask what you make per hour?

Re: Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

#60

Post by viscanti »

jonifico wrote: post #2

So they were fine and dandy until a better competition came around. When Lyft has its rival, same thing will happen.

http://fortune.com/2014/09/11/uber-vs-lyft-the-credit-cards-... It doesn't look like a lot of competition honestly. That probably paints Lyft in the best possible light too because it just takes into account US only trips (100% of Lyft's business and only a fraction of Uber's). But even then, that's only competition for the uberx market. These drivers are black car drivers, where uber has no competition at all.
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