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I was an undercover Uber driver

citypaper.net

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Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#31

Post by lotharbot »

yellowapple wrote: post #26
StavrosK wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad it wasn't just me, but I had this happen with (what I think is) another site earlier. Are you guys using Ghostery too, perhaps?

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).

It happened to me without any adblockers or other add-ons (Chrome, in its default form.) The refreshes were partly obnoxious due to not always scrolling back to the same place on the page.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#32

Post by aikah »

krapht wrote: post #2

I also drove for Uber in DC for a few months while I was between jobs. I thought it would be a fun and easy way to get a few dollars for beer. My experience mirrors that of the reporter. Towards the end, I would only drive during surge pricing hours, as that was the only way to make a reasonable net hourly wage. I have no problem hailing an Uber - they are really, really cheap. However, it's a raw deal for drivers. U…

> It has to

So basically you mean than Uber can only make money if most their drivers do not respect the law. Which gives Uber an unfair advantage over the competition (regular taxis that do respect the law ). It's like saying employer X doesn't check if his employees are legal workers, because if he did it would be too expensive to do business. But hey, even startups got to hussle to make a good living.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#33

Post by jasonisalive »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #10
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)…

How magnanimous of you, to award imaginary points instead of enough money to support somebody. I think Uber is great for a certain subset of people. While most people who frequent HN on six figure tech salaries would definitely struggle to live on an Uber salary Seriously? I guess it's good for you guys so you only have to spend half of what it costs. Oh, and for the Uber owners of course. A certain subset of people,…

The entire economic system is built around people trying to get the best deal possible for themselves. You can try and paint that as inhumane and abusive if you're commited to emotionalising economic dynamics, but it really doesn't make any sense. At the end of the day as long as the transactions are consensual, there's no need for this rhetoric of abuse. Uber drivers know the deal and they can take it or leave it. No one's holding a gun to their heads. Likewise, it's not Uber or anyone else's job or responsibility to guarantee anyone or anybody a certain standard of living.

You might as well vilify people for choosing the potatoes which are 10c/kg cheaper at the supermarket, isn't that a case of those wealthy enough to buy potatoes victimising helpless potato farmers?

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#34

Post by jasonisalive »

zorpner wrote: post #25
BurningFrog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can't deny that drivers get absolutely shafted Actually you can. I think the simplest argument is the best one: They choose to do this voluntarily, every single day they drive.

The idea of "choice" is significantly more complex than you present it to be, particularly within the context of people providing for themselves and their families, and the information asymmetry Uber leverages in order to convince people to work for them.

So what, some people have urgent needs, different parties in economic transactions have access to different information. Welcome to the free market. They're still choosing to work for Uber. No one is forcing them. Uber isn't forcing them. Uber is just offering an opportunity that they are deciding to accept.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#35

Post by jasonisalive »

marincounty wrote: post #12

I see people buying 2008 plus four door vechicles(that Uber approves of--on the ever changing list) and not making money and stuck with a four door car. Four door cars are harder to sell than two door cars.(I can't point to a link to prove this, but I used to sell cars, and four door cars were a tough sell.) My problem with Uber is the requirement for a 2008 or newer car, and Uber decides if it's cool enough to repre…

Uber offers a certain deal to potential drivers, they either like it enough to accept it or they think they can get a better match for their skills and circumstances and they keep looking. Uber has no responsibility to try and offer a deal which matches your sense of fairness. No one is being coerced and no one is being exploited.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#36

Post by jaredhansen »

pmorici wrote: post #24
krapht wrote: post #2

I also drove for Uber in DC for a few months while I was between jobs. I thought it would be a fun and easy way to get a few dollars for beer. My experience mirrors that of the reporter. Towards the end, I would only drive during surge pricing hours, as that was the only way to make a reasonable net hourly wage. I have no problem hailing an Uber - they are really, really cheap. However, it's a raw deal for drivers. U…

I drove for Uber in Baltimore last spring for a few months during weekends just for fun and I agree this article's assessment is _dead_ on. I've since stopped using Uber even as a rider. The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous and I don't want to be an enabler to that. Lyft is a bit better because at least I can leave the driver a reasonable tip through the app.

>The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous I keep hearing this, and it's ... confusing. I mean maybe Uber's really nasty to drivers, I guess, but if it is, then what are all these Uber drivers doing?

It takes all of ... what, like 45 seconds to download Lyft? If Uber is so bad, why don't all the drivers just switch?

I don't know enough about the economics of any particular driver's situation to know how many people it works for or doesn't, but (1) believing that Uber drivers get screwed, (2) believing that, say, Lyft drivers have it much better, AND (3) recognizing that far more people choose to drive for Uber than for these other platforms, requires us to believe some rather surprising things about the subjective mental states of the many, many Uber drivers, right?

I mean: Damn, I hate my job, my company treats me terribly, and a substantially identical job is about 4 taps and 2 minutes away, and ... I guess I'll just keep working for The Man.

Why would anyone do that?

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#37

Post by jwolgamott »

yellowapple wrote: post #7

Is there some reason why the page keeps refreshing automatically? It's annoying and makes it difficult to, you know, read the actual article.

The offending code that reloads the page every 3 minutes [0]. Terrible. The author told me on twitter [1] it's because of traffic, but... no. it's the js code. Ironically, the forced reload is making the traffic problem worse.

You can add a "function contentRefresh(){}" in your devtools js console to get rid of this. It was the only way I could finish the article.

[0] https://gist.github.com/jwo/720edc9fedbbafc87a10

[1] https://twitter.com/emilygee/status/596102787198492672

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#38

Post by danieltillett »

aikah wrote: post #32
krapht wrote: post #2

I also drove for Uber in DC for a few months while I was between jobs. I thought it would be a fun and easy way to get a few dollars for beer. My experience mirrors that of the reporter. Towards the end, I would only drive during surge pricing hours, as that was the only way to make a reasonable net hourly wage. I have no problem hailing an Uber - they are really, really cheap. However, it's a raw deal for drivers. U…

> It has to So basically you mean than Uber can only make money if most their drivers do not respect the law. Which gives Uber an unfair advantage over the competition (regular taxis that do respect the law ). It's like saying employer X doesn't check if his employees are legal workers, because if he did it would be too expensive to do business. But hey, even startups got to hussle to make a good living.

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 uber recognised this in advance (I don't have any evidence that they did) then this was pretty clever.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#39

Post by rhino369 »

marincounty wrote: post #12

I see people buying 2008 plus four door vechicles(that Uber approves of--on the ever changing list) and not making money and stuck with a four door car. Four door cars are harder to sell than two door cars.(I can't point to a link to prove this, but I used to sell cars, and four door cars were a tough sell.) My problem with Uber is the requirement for a 2008 or newer car, and Uber decides if it's cool enough to repre…

Are four doors really harder to sell? They are like 80% of all the cars in America. I've only seen people prefer coupes in sports cars.

Re: I was an undercover Uber driver

#40

Post by smelendez »

jaredhansen wrote: post #36
pmorici wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I drove for Uber in Baltimore last spring for a few months during weekends just for fun and I agree this article's assessment is _dead_ on. I've since stopped using Uber even as a rider. The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous and I don't want to be an enabler to that. Lyft is a bit better because at least I can leave the driver a reasonable tip through the app.

>The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous I keep hearing this, and it's ... confusing. I mean maybe Uber's really nasty to drivers, I guess, but if it is, then what are all these Uber drivers doing ? It takes all of ... what, like 45 seconds to download Lyft? If Uber is so bad, why don't all the drivers just switch? I don't know enough about the economics of any particular driver's situation to know how ma…

I've had drivers in a couple of different cities tell me they're on both apps, but there are generally more fares on Uber, since it's a more famous brand.

In some cities, the base fares are notably higher on Lyft, too, making more money for the drivers but driving more customers to Uber. I'm not sure about other apps (Sidecar, etc.).

But basically, the drivers can get a cheap fare fast on Uber, or they can wait longer to get a slightly better fare on Lyft.

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