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Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

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Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#211

Post by sokoloff »

antisthenes wrote: post #208
sokoloff wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I couldn't figure out what the lesson was being taught here. I can easily see myself setting my kids up with something like that to teach them the value of time, structure, and work. It's no different to me than buying them a chemistry set, an Arduino, or making baking soda/vinegar volcanoes with them. I can even work through the math with them to show them that what they did was more expensive than me just handing…

> I can even work through the math with them to show them that what they did was more expensive than me just handing them $5000 and telling them to watch TV all summer to save wear and tear on the car. Who are you to say they wouldn't have found a better use of $5000 than blow it on video games and drugs during a summer? Presumably, if they already have good work ethic, they may come up with a business or a venture w…

> Who are you to say they wouldn't have found a better use of $5000

In this hypothetical future scenario: I am both a) the parent of a minor child and b) the guy with the $5000 and a Jaguar.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#212

Post by tom_mellior »

AlphaSite wrote: post #115
tom_mellior wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Driving for Uber/Lyft/etc is not a full time job [...] They consistently report to me that they make between $40k and $55k/yr. Is this 55k from part-time Ubering, or is this 55k in total, most of which comes from their "real" full-time job and a small fraction from Ubering, or is it 55k from full-time Ubering in direct contradiction of what you said, or what?

I was talking to a guy and he said he gets around 30usd/h from full item Ubering.

Assuming this is comparable to the above figures of 40k to 55k per year, and assuming 50 weeks worked per year, that comes out to 27 to 37 hours driving per week. Maybe not full time, but hard to argue that it's just a small side thing.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#213

Post by s73v3r_ »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #209
s73v3r_ wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every state in the union requires you to register your vehicles in the state they're in. You're not going to be able to register the cars in Deleware or South Dakota and have them driving in California.

Yes you can. What I described is incredibly common in the rental vehicle business.

For vehicles that routinely travel across state lines. Driverless Uber isn't going to be doing that.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#214

Post by TuringNYC »

csomar wrote: post #126
TuringNYC wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber does minute-to-minute dynamic pricing, so any one ride isn't indicative of the actual cost. It may well be more expensive, but one or two ride anecdotes would not prove it.

Their lowest range was 40% higher than the Taxi. That's quite an amount.

I've seen dynamic prices to be 200% base, I've heard it can be even higher, like 300%. With regular taxis during rush hour, or a concert, or during a snowstorm, or during drivers' dinnertime, the price stays the same but availability disappears. With Uber, availability stays but prices go up, manyfold sometimes.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#215

Post by spaceflunky »

csomar wrote: post #154
spaceflunky wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, what do you mean by "renting"? Renting your car? Apartment? Rental property?

Was referring to real estate.

as in renting your own apt? airbnb-ing? or renting out property that you own?

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#216

Post by subhobroto »

nbadg wrote: post #186
taneq wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the U.S. but in Australia there are strict rules about 'sham contracting'. To be treated as an independent contractor you can't get more than 80% of your income from any one source. If you 'contract' to just one employer you're an employee for both tax purposes and protections.

I'm curious -- how does this work with, for example, a professional Youtuber? Are they considered Youtube employees?

This is a great question and a pretty common misconception.

No, because the revenue test is one of the criteria the judge/IRS looks at. There are other criteria like where and how the "contractor" wants the job done and the relationship between the parties.

Youtube does not tell these Youtubers how to present their videos

Youtube does not tell these Youtubers how long their videos should be

Youtube does not tell these Youtubers when they should release the video

Youtube does not tell these Youtubers what target audience they should be making videos for

Youtube does not tell these Youtubers what income they will get per video made regardless of how popular the video is (surge pricing anyone?)

Uber does.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#217

Post by aianus »

Brakenshire wrote: post #130
aianus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely false, I pay nothing extra to drive for Uber and my personal insurance knows exactly what I'm doing: https://www.intact.ca/on/en/personal-insurance/vehicle/car/u... The relevant quote that applies to me: "When Uber drivers are using their vehicle for personal use, Intact Insurance, Novex, Jevco and belairdirect customers are protected as usual under their personal auto insurance policy at no additional cos…

They talk about two distinct policies here, a personal policy (which still has to permit ridesharing, according to the illustration), which applies at any moment the driver is using the car for personal use (i.e. not logged into the Uber app to accept trips), then another policy, provided by Intact, which covers the Uber trips. This page seems to be more about a kind of interface between the two policies, not that Ub…

Yes there are two distinct policies, both offered by Intact or their subsidiaries:

1. A commercial policy paid for by Uber which covers all Uber drivers while online.

2. A personal policy paid for by the driver which covers them while offline and explicitly permits ridesharing at no extra cost. This personal policy is the same price as the competitors without ridesharing, so it is not an added expense.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#218

Post by danans »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #172
_zachs wrote: post #90

Good thing no one is being forced to drive for Uber. If your main source of income is from being a ride-share driver, the problem isn't with Uber.

That's not a valid argument. Technically no one is forced into prostitution either.

That's a bad example to use. A lot of people have been forced into prostitution, especially trafficked minors.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#219

Post by richardknop »

csomar wrote: post #95
mseebach wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber has deals with car rental agencies in several places that doesn't "allow" you to "eat out" your vehicle equity (I've seen Enterprise in CA and, I think, one other place, and Otto in London). The viability of such deals suggests that the numbers work out even without spending your equity.

Uber was more expensive than a Taxi for me in Paris. Uber gave me a 10-14 euros quote. And for the same distance the taxi took only 7 euros. I'm pretty sure the math might be working on some places. I'm only suggesting that it is possibly not working on other places and users are not aware of that.

I've been using Uber and similar apps for years mostly in Europe and Asia and 80+% of the time the price would be substantially cheaper than taxis (often 50% cheaper in places like London). They use dynamic pricing though based on supply/demand so it is very possible to have higher price than taxi based on parameters (i.e. if you booked a ride in central Paris during rush hour the price would spike up). But from my experience you cannot use those anecdotes because if you use Uber a lot (like hundreds of rides) you will statistically see they they are cheaper in big majority of cases.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#220

Post by liamhawkins »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #176
liamhawkins wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not defending Uber/Lift here, I completely agree that there is a mismatch between the perception of being an Uber driver and reality, but I don't fully understand this argument. If they have "literally no other choice" were they starving before Uber/Lift existed? These companies haven't existed that long, and the majority of Uber/Lift drivers are not former/current taxi driver that now need to use these apps beca…

You've not made a convincing argument for why this kind of fraud should exist.

With respect to your original comment about drivers being forced to drive or else they will starve, where is the fraud?

If I put up a sign that says "Sit on my lawn and get 3$/hour", and people see that sign and choose to sit on my lawn, am I committing fraud for not paying them more? I still don't understand the argument.

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