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Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

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Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#421

Post by ericd »

SahAssar wrote: post #237
ericd wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where does that "enough money to live off of" come from? Unless the company has a lot of fat to trim, it has to come from customers in the form of higher prices, or from investors throwing more cash onto the bonfire. What happens when customers would rather not use your service than pay the amount whatever you're proposing takes? It's very possible that this market only exists at the size that it does at a price…

> It's very possible that this market only exists at the size that it does at a price that doesn't support what people in the US think of as "a wage they can live off of", and that by mandating more compensation, then there will be a whole lot of drivers for whom this just isn't an option anymore. And that's different from many other hypothetical services how? If we accept that the floor should be lowered it should b…

You're right, I don't think they should exist in their current form, they don't seem to be viable without near-monopoly pricing power anyway. I'm just saying this because people act like we can just mandate that companies pay more, without mentioning that it's probably going to mean that those jobs just won't exist. There's a reason taxis were a niche service in most parts of the country - people haven't historically wanted to pay what they cost outside of eg going to the airport. Which means that almost all those people everyone is claiming to act on behalf of are probably going to have to find something else to do for money if Uber is forced to take them on as employees with full benefits and high wages.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#422

Post by OCASM »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #371
treeman79 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good insight. Coming together is tricky when there is no common grounds. One side wants wealth to be fairly Evenly distributed to help the poor. The other side helps the poor by creating so much wealth that that most poor people have a lot of wealth. These days you can be considered poor and have housing, ac, heat, tv, video games, maybe a car, and weight problems because food is so cheap. This only leaves those who…

More likely that you'll have weight problems because healthy food and lifestyles are much more difficult to acquire and maintain without sufficient wealth.

No shortage of healthy, yet poor people. Then again we go back to the problem of defining "healthy". Not even the ultra-wealthy are completely illness-free.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#423

Post by lhorie »

coldpie wrote: post #183
ericd wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where does that "enough money to live off of" come from? Unless the company has a lot of fat to trim, it has to come from customers in the form of higher prices, or from investors throwing more cash onto the bonfire. What happens when customers would rather not use your service than pay the amount whatever you're proposing takes? It's very possible that this market only exists at the size that it does at a price…

> Unless the company has a lot of fat to trim, it has to come from customers in the form of higher prices, or from investors throwing more cash onto the bonfire. Nope, there's lots more options than that. Cut executive pay. Tax high earners more and provide social services like healthcare and public transit, to reduce cost and demand on these services. And yes, prices would likely go up, because they're no longer bei…

> Cut executive pay

This doesn't really work when Uber has something like 3 million drivers worldwide. Distributing the CEO's entire salary among drivers would yield them only a handful of coins worth of extra income per person per year. There's simply no way to translate exec pay into meaningful comp for drivers at this sort of scale.

I do, however, believe it's possible for the government to establish better social services (e.g. universal healthcare at similar tax rates exists just north of the border) if only the US govt adjusted its spending priorities.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#424

Post by EpicEng »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #129
serjester wrote: post #99

Completely anecdotal but I bring this question up every time I drive in an Uber and overwhelmingly the drivers tell me they want to stay independent. No one is forcing drivers into their jobs. I really struggle to understand why we need bureaucrats imposing their idea of what a market should look like on an fairly efficient market. From my experience the drivers are perfectly aware of the costs that go into driving s…

They want to stay independent, fine. Then actually treat them like independent contractors. Let them set rates. Let them decline rides without facing penalties by the platform. Make the changes necessary to fit the independent contractor model. And not just the rideshare company, but the state too: these workers need unemployment insurance, as Covid has shown, and somebody needs to pay for it: be it the workers or th…

>Let them set rates. Let them decline rides without facing penalties by the platform...

As a contractor I can set my rate, but the company can also simply not hire me. As a contractor I can act as I wish, but the company can terminate my contract. As a contractor, I pay for my unemployment insurance if I want it.

So... What's the practical difference? How is this any different than someone who decides to make a living by selling goods on eBay?

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#425

Post by paulcole »

Judgmentality wrote: post #226
yunderalls wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I laughed at this, but I do think I should point out that in a democracy it's good for people to have opinions about things that aren't their profession.

I think it's less about people having opinions and more about people being so self-righteous about something they don't understand as well as they think they do.

> people being so self-righteous about something they don't understand as well as they think they do

There it is. We can wrap up this year’s Accidental HN Slogan Contest early.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#426

Post by kyle_martin1 »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #129
serjester wrote: post #99

Completely anecdotal but I bring this question up every time I drive in an Uber and overwhelmingly the drivers tell me they want to stay independent. No one is forcing drivers into their jobs. I really struggle to understand why we need bureaucrats imposing their idea of what a market should look like on an fairly efficient market. From my experience the drivers are perfectly aware of the costs that go into driving s…

They want to stay independent, fine. Then actually treat them like independent contractors. Let them set rates. Let them decline rides without facing penalties by the platform. Make the changes necessary to fit the independent contractor model. And not just the rideshare company, but the state too: these workers need unemployment insurance, as Covid has shown, and somebody needs to pay for it: be it the workers or th…

I worked for SuperShuttle developing their driver mobile app.

I can tell you for a fact that a big reason SuperShuttle failed is because the drivers were independent. They would consistently reject low cost trips and wait it out until they got one "mega" trip so that they only need to actually work for about 3 hours/day. Some days they wouldn't take any trips, just hang out in the van playing Flappy Bird.

This was a main issue for the SuperShuttle because they couldn't get their drivers to do adapt when Uber came around, including accepting work that more resembled Uber pool workloads.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#427

Post by [deleted] »

EpicEng wrote: post #424
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want to stay independent, fine. Then actually treat them like independent contractors. Let them set rates. Let them decline rides without facing penalties by the platform. Make the changes necessary to fit the independent contractor model. And not just the rideshare company, but the state too: these workers need unemployment insurance, as Covid has shown, and somebody needs to pay for it: be it the workers or th…

>Let them set rates. Let them decline rides without facing penalties by the platform... As a contractor I can set my rate, but the company can also simply not hire me. As a contractor I can act as I wish, but the company can terminate my contract. As a contractor, I pay for my unemployment insurance if I want it. So... What's the practical difference? How is this any different than someone who decides to make a livin…

[deleted]

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#428

Post by jocker12 »

grandmczeb wrote: post #420
chairmanwow1 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will use Uber and Lyft less because of this. I don’t really want to go through the process of negotiating the rate. This is much more tedious.

Do you live in CA? Because this has already been rolled out for a while. If you don’t, you don’t have to worry about it.

> you don’t have to worry about it.

...yet!

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#429

Post by logicchains »

gamblor956 wrote: post #353
mardifoufs wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much the total opposite of what's happening right now. Uber (and the recent group of "tech but not really" unicorns in general) have if anything burnt hundreds of billions of VC/PE money thus directly subsidizing the costs of hundreds of millions of users, for very slim profits at best. Yes, it's because they are expecting future returns on their "burnt" money. But considering the risks, the enormous am…

Where do you think VC funding comes from? VC's get their money from everyone else: pension funds, college endowments, charitable foundation endowments, and insurance companies. It quite literally is a case of our children funding this.

Which pension funds are investing in VCs? Pension funds generally prefer less risky investments..

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#430

Post by Consultant32452 »

shanhaiguan wrote: post #414
Consultant32452 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great example of having the right ideas but not understanding workable systems with real people. Let's take just one industry and I can show you how it's not as simple as you make it out to be: socialized/single-payer medicine. This is a system which reduces incentives (profits) in exchange for some equity. This is a great idea because we don't like it when people suffer. But what are the costs? Basic econo…

It seems that your claim of infinite harm is based on the idea that the future is infinite. If the current subpar healthcare situation continues indefinitely, is the harm that it inflicts on its victims not also infinite? Is the benefit provided from removing this source of harm not also infinite? Then by your own reasoning, the question is not nearly as simple as infinite > finite. Being in favour of single-payer, I…

Cheap healthcare advances at the same rate as expensive healthcare, it just lags some years. That's why Walmart famously has dozens of prescriptions it can offer at a price of only $4/mo. Those drugs were once very expensive and were only available to the relatively wealthy.
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