Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model • Hacker News Board

Re: Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model

#51

Post by caymanjim » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #39

caymanjim wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being an employee means you can unionize, you must be paid minimum wage, you have protection against arbitrary termination, and myriad other benefits. Many drivers prefer the current arrangement, but many also want to make the tradeoff.

>you have protection against arbitrary termination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

That's all fine and good on paper, but what do you think really happens when an employer fires an at-will employee, without cause, who doesn't like what happened?

Re: Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model

#52

Post by jakelazaroff » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #35

jakelazaroff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But are they truly contractors? They don't set the price for their own labor and can be fired for declining too many rides.

Not setting the price doesn't seem like a big deal. I can put an ad on Craigslist saying I'm willing to pay $100 to have my driveway pressure washed. Doesn't make any takers my employee.

I can pick and choose which driveways I wash; Uber drivers have their trips opaquely dispatched to them. Furthermore, I can decide not to wash as many driveways as I want, whereas Uber drivers have said they get "fired" for declining too many rides.

Re: Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model

#53

Post by jammygit » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

vikramkr wrote: post #10

But they aren't employees. I still dont understand why people who get to work on demand whenever they want without a boss to report to or set hours are employees. The company doesn't get the benefits of having employees (schedule them in for rush hours, reliable controllable labor base), so why should drivers get the perks of becoming an employee without having to give up their flexibility and everything?

Until there are 2-3 more large scale hailing services, they are employees, at best part-timers with 2 jobs. It isn’t really contracting if you have almost zero choice of client or the terms of your contracts

...might be a fun foss project to make a distributed alternative so people could be real contractors. GNUber or something

Re: Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model

#54

Post by woah » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #40

vikramkr wrote: post #10

But they aren't employees. I still dont understand why people who get to work on demand whenever they want without a boss to report to or set hours are employees. The company doesn't get the benefits of having employees (schedule them in for rush hours, reliable controllable labor base), so why should drivers get the perks of becoming an employee without having to give up their flexibility and everything?

This just codifies an existing California Supreme Court ruling and applies it to general employment status. Explainer of the Supreme Court ruling: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonymarks/2018/05/29/the-califo... > Under the newly adopted ‘ABC test,’ a worker is an independent contractor to whom a wage order does not apply only if the hiring entity establishes all of the following: (A) that the worker is free from the…

What if you’re a clown and you show up in jeans and a button down with normal sized shoes and no makeup?

Re: Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model

#55

Post by jammygit » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

willio58 wrote: post #3

Eh.. just charge people more money to use Uber. Yeah they would lose a lot of regular riders but will those people really go back to using cabs? Uber could double their prices and I would still use them over taxis 9/10 times.

Why do people dislike taxis so much? I’ve never had a bad experience, though I always avoided them to save money. Am I just sheltered where I live?

Same with hotels and airbnb

Re: Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model

#56

Post by jacques_chester » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42

jacques_chester wrote: post #4

A pedant might argue, and cogently one might add, that Uber's unsustainable business model is what will destroy Uber's unsustainable business model.

The story of Uber is one of how surprisingly long they can keep an unsustainable (and illegal) business model running. They were supposed to be dead for a long time now. They're still kicking.

Yes, though speculative investments can last for a long time. There's also the confluence of macroeconomic factors: the emergence of China, continuing massive savings rates in Japan with little to invest in domestically, the decision by Saudi Arabia to open a massive sovereign wealth spigot and the quantitative easing that occurred after 2008. Financial capital is incredibly cheap by historical standards.

That said, I find myself using one of the classic defences of a confident prognosticator: I am right / I will be right, except about the timing[0]. But to make more verifiable predictions I would need to start assigning probabilities to particular dates.

[0] Tetlock's Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? is still a brilliant and amusing empirical study of opinionated forecasting: https://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-Know/d...

Re: Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model

#57

Post by jammygit » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #9

Waterluvian wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live, Uber managed to force taxi services to evolve and embrace technology like mobile apps and GPS and flat estimates. And now the local taxi is much better than Uber, in my opinion. I'm not sure what the free market textbook says about this but as a consumer it's a huge win.

Where do you live? This seems like an anomaly.

Same. To get a gift certificate for a local taxi company I had to drive to their local office and use an atm to pay with cash

Re: Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model

#58

Post by jacques_chester » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

celticmusic wrote: post #32

rsweeney21 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with any independent contractor, the market sets the rate. Uber is just a really efficient marketplace since an Uber ride is a complete commodity with no specialization.

What a crock, Uber is setting those prices not the market. The market says Uber should be going out of business with the prices it sets, except investors keep dumping money into it.

Markets are still markets when subsidy is involved. In this case the market behaves as an oligopoly: it's dominated by two firms.

Re: Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model

#59

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

woah wrote: post #54

bobthepanda wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just codifies an existing California Supreme Court ruling and applies it to general employment status. Explainer of the Supreme Court ruling: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonymarks/2018/05/29/the-califo... > Under the newly adopted ‘ABC test,’ a worker is an independent contractor to whom a wage order does not apply only if the hiring entity establishes all of the following: (A) that the worker is free from the…

What if you’re a clown and you show up in jeans and a button down with normal sized shoes and no makeup?

As far as I could imagine, most clown contracts don't actually specify the exact articles of clothing down to the UPC; anything that looks reasonable is permitted. Whereas Uber has a list of specifically permitted vehicles.

Re: Bill Could Destroy Uber's Unsustainable Business Model

#60

Post by Atavism » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #12

What will it do to the taxi business model? In the US, traditionally, cab drivers are classified as contractors too, and they've also been suing companies in the last few years regarding this issue.

The taxi business model emerged relatively recently and was the inspiration for Uber’s. In all likelihood, there will be a reversion to the historical norm which actually operates more efficiently than taxi cabs (which believe it or not operate as or more efficiently than ride shares in many scenarios). But we will have to see. Anything is possible because of how many billions are at stake.