Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay • Hacker News Board

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

#641

Post by anonunivgrad » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

orclev wrote: post #587

anonunivgrad wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mode is a preposterous and arbitrary measurement to use. Median is what you’re looking for, but it doesn’t support your narrative as well.

Median is just the arbitrary mid point between the two extremes, that doesn't actually mean anything useful to the average person. If you picked someone at random from the subset of the US population that reports an income (presumably the working population) and asked them what their income is, the most likely answer is the mode value, or in 2014 about $22,000. That's reality. That's why that is important. The median…

Median is significant because half make more and half make less. That over half of America makes over 50k is very meaningful.

Mode is just the exact number that appears most often in the distribution. Salaries are a continuous range, except for the various minimum wages. That is why the mode is so low. It doesn’t tell you anything.

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

#642

Post by mattmcknight » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 6:25 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #479

mattmcknight wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because they are possible in an employee relationship, setting your own hours is typically not representative of an employee relationship. Doing the same job for multiple customers is typical of an independent contractor relationship. I see no evidence of misclassification where this person was employed by multiple employers. Which of the leagues do you believe was his employer?

Working 2 to 3 part time jobs is extremely common in the US for low level staff and has been for decades. These people say when their available and then get scheduled in.

Of course, but that is not what make them employees, but is actually the part of the criteria for being able to claim independent contractor status. If you work one game for a soccer league, it is highly inefficient to have to create an employment relationship.

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

#643

Post by senderista » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #376

chillwaves wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are poor because they live on a knife's edge, one accident away from financial insolvency or lack of sufficient access to necessities like health care and education opportunities. Also having to work multiple jobs to break even. The problem isn't "inequality" it is that the floor in the US is so low compared to other wealthy nations.

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…

Yes, we always have to think about perverse incentives and the resulting unintended consequences. But some of these problems can be remedied with more government involvement. E.g., instead of allowing BigPharma to reap windfall profits (via artificial IP monopolies) to finance R&D (which they spend less on than they do on advertising), why not treat drug development as a public good and finance it accordingly? (We might see less investment in Viagra and more in anti-malaria drugs.)

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

#644

Post by anonunivgrad » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

ccktlmazeltov wrote: post #632

anonunivgrad wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a myth. Tipped employees typically do way better than the minimum wage. Tipping encourages good service. Go to your average European restaurant and you can see what the alternative is: lazy and often outright rude waitstaff who resent their customers.

in the US every 5 min your waiter comes to ask you if you're OK, I fucking hate that

And as a result, whenever you want something, you get it quickly. Be it drink refill, sauces, an extra order, the check if you’re in a hurry to leave, etc. A skilled waiter can make himself available without interrupting too, by being on the lookout for eye contact and walking around his tables. I find it very pleasant.

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

#645

Post by sixstringtheory » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

sida wrote: post #573

sixstringtheory wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe a driver viewing the available riders is “working” any more than someone looking at prices in the apps to ride are “riding” until they accept a fare. People interview at many jobs simultaneously, bid on multiple contracts simultaneously, but they are not _working_ them simultaneously until an agreement is made. So unless a driver has a rider from lyft and a rider from uber in the car at the same time,…

Right so your point is that the driver is only an employee while on a trip. And while waiting for a trip, the driver is not an employee? I am sure uber/lyft will be more than happy to pay minimum wage if the wage only counts when a trip begins. But the reason the companies are against the law is because the law requires minimum wage while the driver is not driving too. Which means that a driver could actually get 2 m…

> Right so your point is that the driver is only an employee while on a trip. And while waiting for a trip, the driver is not an employee?

I think I agree with this. Seems like you could still have the traditional, if not archaic, model where they are paid by hour of work, and simply track the time they spend en route to pick up and while driving, in place of or combination with however it's worked out today.

_How much_ they pay per hour of driving I think will still be subject to the usual market forces. Same for restrictive covenants. Uber and Lyft aren't just competing for customers, they're also competing for labor. But this is all I think orthogonal to the question of "what is the true nature of the relationship between the companies and the drivers," you're talking about outcomes of possible answers that should not have bearing on what the answer is.

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

#646

Post by neap24 » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

Nacdor wrote: post #635

neap24 wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, well. I think I can make this circular. It is perhaps exploitative to demand these laws. It's unfair treatment of Uber/Lyft employees to imposing regulatory regimes against their wishes (claiming it actually benefits them) to satisfy the political benefits/desires of an outside group. Society should not allow that exploitation to exist whether or not the outside group realizes it is exploitation.

It's pretty silly to say that protecting workers is exploitative. You're essentially trying to redefine the word "exploitation" be reversing its meaning.

It's pretty silly to make an absolute claim that one is protecting workers when that is far from obvious.

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

#647

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #623

Consultant32452 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Once upon a time, I bought my expensive asthma inhalers from Walmart because it's the most convenient pharmacy. Then they stopped carrying it. In fact, every one did. The manufacturer's patent ran out and they stopped making it. It was several years before the drug came back on the market by which time I had moved on to another expensive inhaler.

I too was affected by this. The root cause was the CFC bans [1] to save the ozone layer. The old inhalers used CFCs and therefore could not be used anymore. New technology had to be created that used a different delivery mechanism. Profit incentive is what caused that new delivery mechanism to be created.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon#Regulation

Regardless, even if you can find some legitimate counter-examples it doesn't negate my premise in the same way that anecdotes are not data.

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

#648

Post by sixstringtheory » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #570

sixstringtheory wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work multiple jobs at different restaurants, where I’d do a morning shift at one and an evening shift at the other. They could be considered competitors. What is the difference between what I did and what drivers do, besides the frequency of and duration of shifts? I don’t know what kind of laws might govern requirements here. Could be different between cities/states/countries, too. Now, maybe they’d dictat…

Sure, and in a world where Uber & Lyft drivers are employees, drivers would be forced to work shifts in the same way. They’d have to clock in a certain number of hours as part of the condition of “employment”, be it full time or part time. What they would not be able to do is drive on both simultaneously. There’s virtually no low skilled minimum wage job that affords you the flexibility of setting your own hours at d…

I agree that may be an outcome. But don't put the cart before the horse (in this case, the horse is the question: "what is the nature of the relationship between Uber and Lyft" and possibly even "what should the nature of the relationship between a company and an employee and/or contractor even be").

I think it might be helpful to define what "simultaneous" means in the context of drivers. I stated that I believe it would only be simultaneous if a driver had passengers from multiple rideshare companies in the car at the same time. I agree that this would be unacceptable. I don't believe it's unacceptable for drivers to canvas multiple rideshare apps for fares as long as they drive them separately.

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

#649

Post by bhupy » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

sixstringtheory wrote: post #648

bhupy wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and in a world where Uber & Lyft drivers are employees, drivers would be forced to work shifts in the same way. They’d have to clock in a certain number of hours as part of the condition of “employment”, be it full time or part time. What they would not be able to do is drive on both simultaneously. There’s virtually no low skilled minimum wage job that affords you the flexibility of setting your own hours at d…

I agree that may be an outcome. But don't put the cart before the horse (in this case, the horse is the question: "what is the nature of the relationship between Uber and Lyft" and possibly even "what should the nature of the relationship between a company and an employee and/or contractor even be"). I think it might be helpful to define what "simultaneous" means in the context of drivers. I stated that I believe it…

In the status quo, drivers are able to turn off their dispatch whenever they want. They can drive 20 hours one week, 2 hours the next, take an indefinite break, then drive 40 hours. There's no boss, there's no clocking in. There's no getting "fired" for flaking.

An employment contract would allow Uber/Lyft to enforce hours and contiguous schedules. On top of that, it's extremely trivial for Uber/Lyft to include exclusivity clauses in employment agreements. It's in their best interests to do that, since they have entire projects dedicated to handling "multi-appers".

Keep in mind that traditional taxicab drivers were able to go "off-duty" whenever they wanted because they, too, were independent contractors.

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

#650

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

kyle_martin1 wrote: post #639

nogabebop23 wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> because the drivers irrationally refused to work more for the same pay How is this irrational? You offer me $X for Y hours of work. If X/Y gets too small I say "no" and do something with higher utility, even if that's playing flappy bird. I don't really care that my actions destroy the source of this opportunity because I've already rejected it. You are right that this is simple, just not in the way you're interpr…

Because if you don't take trips then you don't make any money. They felt entitled and refused to adapt when the market demanded it. That's irrational.

In discussions like these I like to start from a basic premise: people aren't stupid.

It's obvious to the drivers that if they don't take trips, then they don't make money. Clearly then, they've decided that below a certain dollar amount, it make more sense to them to play computer games than take a fare. How they arrived at that conclusion, I don't know. But I have faith that it made sense to them.

I do very small software projects for people I find online. I have a minimum fee. If I take on projects below that minimum, I'd have more work, but I have determined that it's in my best interest to hold out for that minimum rate. If this means that I don't make money on that side gig a particular day or week, so be it. I have my reasons for doing that and they won't necessarily make sense to anyone looking in from the outside.