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I was an undercover Uber driver

citypaper.net

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Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#151

Post by krrrh »

somberi wrote: post #96

I live between NYC and Bangalore, India. I have used Uber and its closest competitors (Lyft and Ola respectively), in both cities. I have a mental questionnaire I go through with 90% of the drivers and here is what I have learnt: Uber vs Lyft: Drivers make more money with Uber, but rules of engagement are more relaxed in Lyft. Uber & Ola (not vs): The drivers in India hone in on these three points: 1. They make 3-4 t…

I was just in Guangzhou where this is also the case; they have a non-profit/subsidized tier called "People's Uber". A 20 minute ride would come out to the equivalent of $3. The weird thing to me was that there were 5 tiers of service and while there were different cars available for UberX and People's Uber, I couldn't tell the difference in the service. Not sure why anyone would choose UberX when the VC-subsidized version was available.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#152

Post by cheald »

fx85ms wrote: post #149
danieltillett wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the whole idea behind regulatory arbitrage. Find an industry that has built up "inefficiencies" due the law and then undercut by deliberately breaking the law. The only thing that amazes me about uber (apart from its current valuation) is that the taxi industry is powerful enough to prevent the issuing of more taxi medallions, but not powerful enough to get the current laws enforced against uber. Assuming ube…

Forgive me if I sound ignorant of America's laws because I'm not from this country, but I'm really puzzled as to why Uber is able to continue to operating in the country. Why is Uber exempt from all the taxi laws that are currently in place in the states, able to make itself sound like a legitimate business despite breaking regulations everywhere? Feels to me as if you can justify breaking regulations by "satisfying…

Uber has "asked forgiveness rather than asking permission" - they've made themselves indispensable in the markets they serve, and it's politically risky to shut them down, because they are serving a very real need in the transportation industry, and people don't want to see them go away. I think that Uber correctly recognized that the taxi market was under regulatory capture, and that they weren't going to be able to break into the market through legal channels, so they took a ballsy risk and decided to give it a shot anyhow.

It seems to be paying off. Massachusetts, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia have all reversed decisions which banned Uber in their jurisdictions.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#153

Post by chrismcb »

DigitalSea wrote: post #9

A few months ago when I was in Seattle for work, I caught Uber everywhere. I had so many conversations with Uber drivers about why they drove for Uber, how much money they made and why they weren't doing something else. Needless to say, unless I felt legitimately fearful for my life (which rarely ever happened) I would always rate 5 stars. I realised a lot of these Uber drivers (usually migrants with broken English)…

I don't plan on taking uber, but if I did, I got average service I would probably dare the driver 3 stars, because that is what 3 stars mean.... Average. And yet I would unknowingly be hurting the driver. And that is just stupid

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#154

Post by fudgy73 »

grrowl wrote: post #126
guessbest wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aside: Anyone else find the article sporadically refresh? Made it very difficult to read the article. Yes. It did for me in Firefox on the desktop, but not on mobile safari. I thought I was crazy when it did it the first time but the second time, I knew it was the citypaper site.

Must be to boost their ad impressions. Really scummy, and kept interrupting the embedded Uber training video.

Ironically, I kept seeing ads at the top from uber.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#155

Post by Robin_Message »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #141
Robin_Message wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can heartily recommend a Fairphone to anyone bothered about the plight of workers in war-torn Congo. They have a new on coming out next year which I'm hoping will be Lollipop. (Current version is stuck on 4.2, which is a shame, but still totally workable.) Also I think Intel is getting is stuff conflict-free.

Thanks! I'm aware of the Fairphone, of course. I just prefer not to buy something new when I have something that's already working (kind of ;). Thing is, I'm not all that keen of being part of The Almighty Google either... If Ubuntu would run on the Fairphone, that might be a great option. Of course, the first thing is to practice restraint, and not buy lots of new stuff just because I can afford it.

Yeap, I think that's the right attitude. I only got a Fairphone after my previous phone died in a freak punting accident†.

Fairphone did have a recent announcement that was suggestive of new OSes... but personally I think them supporting Android is important, so it can be an off-the-shelf replacement for another phone, rather than a bizarro thing for beardy-weirdy yoghurt knitters.

† Not making this up.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#156

Post by pmorici »

BurningFrog wrote: post #106
pmorici wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Uber employs extremely deceptive advertising to recruit drivers and encourages them to do things like buy new cars then turns around and cuts the amount drivers get paid. This has the effect of totally screwing them over. It's a pretty exploitative situation for people who actually rely on it for income to pay their living expenses.

Can you show some examples of this advertising?

Facebook ads that say "Make $70k per year driving for Uber" When the reality is you would be hard pressed to make even half of that.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#157

Post by pmorici »

stickfigure wrote: post #115
pmorici wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just download the app and start driving. There is an application process. The issue is they are duopoly as far as smartphone hailed transportation goes and as a driver if one already has you locked into a car loan it's a very limited choice and a bit of a sharecropper like situation. It isn't like being a software engineer where there are dozens of top firms competing to hire a limited pool of talent. How w…

I don't buy this at all. Whatever the application process, it's much easier to switch between Uber and Lyft than it is to move to a different software (or almost any other kind of traditional) job. The parent's question stands.

I never said I thought Lyft drivers had it much better. I said I don't have a problem using them because I can use the tipping mechanism to make sure that I personally am not taking advantage of them. Lyft's proposition for drivers is substantially similar to Uber.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#158

Post by TeMPOraL »

rconti wrote: post #140
TeMPOraL wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day as long as the transactions are consensual, there's no need for this rhetoric of abuse. That's one of the biggest singular pieces of bullshit I see regurgitated in the discussions about market economy. For most of the people on this planet, a lot of Uber drivers included, there's little choice. They either have a job, or go hungry and homeless. The power asymmetry between an employer and emplo…

What's the idealized world you're comparing this to? An agrarian economy? Guess what, you either farm and build a shelter, or you go hungry and homeless. Sure, maybe an agrarian economy is too market-based for you. Try living on a commune and being the guy who specializes in "doing fuckall". I'm not sure how long you'll be welcome. I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make, but life isn't free or fair, and…

I'm not comparing it to any idealized world; my point is that the "voluntary trade" card is being played as justification for all types of abuse in the economy. Because it's not abuse if both participants consented, right? It's also used to support the viewpoint that if only we could further deregulate things, "remove the barriers to voluntary trade", things would be better.

Except that the ideal voluntary trade seldom exists in practice, especially when you're lower or middle class. There is so much power and information imbalance that the employee or customer rarely has any choice but to participate in the trade. Companies like Uber know this and exploit it on purpose.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#160

Post by yellowapple »

StavrosK wrote: post #30
yellowapple wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just using AdBlock Plus on this particular browser (Conkeror; Firefox-like). Haven't bothered to try with Firefox (which doesn't have Ghostery, but has a more stringent ad-blocking policy and some other privacy-ish addons that I can't recall at the moment).

Hmm, must be the site, then. I'm using Firefox (with Ghostery, why do you say it doesn't have it?) and it refreshes for me as well.

Well yeah, it's definitely the site; one of the replies to my original comment managed to identify the piece of JS that's doing it. Using a JS-blocker (or inserting a bit of JS into your developer tools to blank-out the offending function) would do the trick.
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