This site refreshed itself 6 times as I read it on my mobile device. Each time it lost my location on the page. Quite a frustrating experience.
Same here on laptop.
"Hey Boss, I know a way to increase visits to our site by 6x..."
I was an undercover Uber driver
81–90 of 170 posts
Re: I was an undercover Uber driver
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. N…
> At the end of the day as long as the transactions are consensual, there's no need for this rhetoric of abuse. That's one of the biggest singular pieces of bullshit I see regurgitated in the discussions about market economy. For most of the people on this planet, a lot of Uber drivers included, there's little choice. They either have a job, or go hungry and homeless. The power asymmetry between an employer and emplo…
What we need is an equitable distribution of wealth starting with equal access to land. These guys can't make a living for themselves because they don't have any land.
That was why they called the USA the land of opportunity. In the expansionary phase people could get land near others and generate wealth from it. Now people must exist in the service economy waiting for trickle-down that isn't going to come, spending most of their wages on rent.
Re: I was an undercover Uber driver
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
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,…
Ouch. That hurts. You have taken such a small part of what I have said and used it to paint me as someone who is taking advantage of the fact that Uber offers cheaper fares than a taxi service. And then to add salt to injury, you throw in that last line. While I agree somewhat with your point, your comment was just plain rude. There are so many other ways you could have said what you wanted to say without launching a…
The people making shoes, iPhones, TVs---they don't have to do that. They could do whatever they were doing before that factory came to town. But working in that factory is preferable.
The same thing is true for Uber drivers.
You don't have to feel guilty for any of these purchaes---you should only feel good about them, if anything.
That guy was very rude, but you are just accepting his argument and trying to use it against him. It's not a valid argument.
Re: I was an undercover Uber driver
#84Earlier 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.
I disagree. Uber employs extremely deceptive advertising to recruit drivers and encourages them to do things like buy new cars then turns around and cuts the amount drivers get paid. This has the effect of totally screwing them over. It's a pretty exploitative situation for people who actually rely on it for income to pay their living expenses.
I think people need to ask themselves - if it's half the price of a regular cab how can this be?
Either tax drivers are being exploited by their employers who are pocketing most of the wealth generated, or uber drivers are underpaid. Or taxi firms are insanely inefficient and uber has undercut them with their web 3.0 brilliance.
Re: I was an undercover Uber driver
#85Human labor is not a commodity. This was the common sense amongst all working people for most of the 20th century. Samuel Gompers, maybe the most conservative labor leader of his time, said "You cannot weigh the human soul on the same scales as piece of pork." And working people, along with the management class for the most part, understood this to be an undeniable truth. In fact, this piece of common sense was enshr…
> Why did working people understand this truth in 1915 but not today? I don't know.
Because of Ayn Rand. You think I'm joking, but she's the only intellectually serious defender of capitalism in the 20th century, and her influence is snowballing. When Rand was alive, members of her circle would rejoice at the extremely occasional mention of her name in print. Now, you can't turn on the TV or go anywhere online without hearing about her.
As a side note, human labor is not a commodity. However, "capital" (as you call it---you use a lot of Marxist terms in your post that do not reflect the reality of society) does not have an obligation to hire you on your terms, either. Labor is about a voluntarily trade.
Re: I was an undercover Uber driver
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Likewise, it's not Uber or anyone else's job or responsibility to guarantee anyone or anybody a certain standard of living." Actually, since Uber is the one giving them a job, it IS their responsibility.
why?
Because we decided as a society that it is. That's why say, the concept of minimum wage exists, and plenty other labor laws. The remaining question, legally, is whether Uber is offering drivers a "job", as opposed to a software platform that they can use to be self-employed as drivers (which is Uber's argument).
If Uber is offering jobs to drivers, then certain standards must be met to avoid illegal employment practices. Then the next question is whether or not Uber actually violates those standards. The answer might be that it doesn't, life can be pretty thought for people in many professions that we have actually deemed 'fair enough' work. But if the answer is that it does, then Uber needs to change.
If 'the sharing economy' is not actually creating employer-employee relations, then it might still need to be regulated (perhaps under different regulations than labor laws), depending what society thinks of the mechanism as a whole. For example, if drivers are self-employed contractors rather than employees, then what gives Uber the rights to fix their wages? Is there such a thing as minimum wage for independent contractors? Who is responsible for things like health insurance for Uber drivers? We have plenty of answers for these questions for the kind of independent contractor that makes $50 an hour, not for the kind that makes $17 a ride. But again, it might well be that the deal as it is can be actually considered fair, compared with for example being a street market vendor or a temp worker at a convenience store. I certainly have met plenty of part-time/retired drivers in the South Bay that consider the deal a fair enough source of extra cash. The point is that we haven't figured out whether or not it is exploitative and that is the sort of question modern developed societies can afford to ask themselves and weight against the benefit of 'it creates some value for some people and pays the bills for some others'.
Edit: I'll add that I use ride-sharing services often, want them to continue to exist in some useful form and am firm believer of 'default allow' as it comes to new business models. But that doesn't mean nobody is allowed to look into whether some new business practices are exploitative or not or that there can be no harm in allowing any voluntary economic transaction.
Re: I was an undercover Uber driver
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Uber employs extremely deceptive advertising to recruit drivers and encourages them to do things like buy new cars then turns around and cuts the amount drivers get paid. This has the effect of totally screwing them over. It's a pretty exploitative situation for people who actually rely on it for income to pay their living expenses.
I think people need to ask themselves - if it's half the price of a regular cab how can this be? Either tax drivers are being exploited by their employers who are pocketing most of the wealth generated, or uber drivers are underpaid. Or taxi firms are insanely inefficient and uber has undercut them with their web 3.0 brilliance.
The correct answer is "all of the above".
Re: I was an undercover Uber driver
#88Earlier 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…
You can't just download the app and start driving. There is an application process. The issue is they are duopoly as far as smartphone hailed transportation goes and as a driver if one already has you locked into a car loan it's a very limited choice and a bit of a sharecropper like situation. It isn't like being a software engineer where there are dozens of top firms competing to hire a limited pool of talent. How would you feel if your home loan for example was tied to your employer and your salary was adjusted by your employer every 4-6 months based on what they felt was fair.
Re: I was an undercover Uber driver
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Please tell me more about this free market. Can you point to an example?
Re: I was an undercover Uber driver
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 ube…
"Taxi lobby" makes it sound like Uber is disrupting some megacorporate industry who control government in smokey back alleys. Taxi corps are small, many are essentially sole proprietorships. The drivers are essentially all running their own business, but the medallion owners tend not to be huge corporations.
Medallions are required because cities regulate taxis prices and policies. Doing so distorts normal market forces. So medallions are a sort of conciliation prize for taxi drivers having the business model dictated. Govenment limits price, but also lowers competition to ensure they can make a profit.
Uber isn't beating some mustached villinous Taxi lobby. They are beating cities who wanted a regulated car service.
I think Uber is probably better than the status quo, but it's not fighting big business, it is big business.