Obviously this is still a better job for some people then there alternative. Lyft will market to new drivers with the higher rates and ease of renting a Hertz vehicle.
Most people with cars are already making a car payment or lease agreement payment, taxes, insurance, etc. Having a car is typically not cheap.
Hard to say if this will really be a good deal for anyone. That always depends on a lot of details. But I am wondering if you were perhaps not counting your car payment and other expenses because you had to make those anyway, whether you drove for Lyft or not.
Perhaps there is only a big difference if you compare it to someone whose car is paid off, not to typical car owning costs.
This -- along with Uber's car financing plan -- really raises my "ick" factor in that they seem to be taking advantage of those who don't see the full expense or risk that they're taking on, and it may end up similar to the GM situation: "we're a finance company that happens to give rides too".
Someone who is a college student or relatively poor for some reason might view this as a chance to get access to a car for themselves and also make enough money to cover it and perhaps a bit more than that. It might not be a paradigm that would occur to you because your situation is different from that. But I think we need to not turn our noses up at giving people the chance to make what looks to you like a poor wage.
A quick google suggests Nevada's minimum wage is either $7.25/hour or $8.25/hour, depending upon what benefits they have. If you are only making $7.25/hour, then $10/hour is more than a 33% increase in income. That extra $2-$3/hour may seem piddling to you, but for people who have very little, it can be huge and make a big difference in their quality of life. Furthermore, if it also gets them access to a car that they wouldn't otherwise have, this may be hugely life changing. Living without a car in America can be quite challenging.
And this is why uber can only currently provide their high margins because they provide no insurance between rides (only during rides), because they don’t follow laws, etc.
It’s unfair competition, and sadly, people expect Lyft to offer the same.
They have a lot of room to raise prices before it outweighs those advantages. Remember, people were using UberBlack (as "UberCab" way back then), which simply took existing, fully-insured car service drivers, which had no regulatory advantage, long before UberX/Lyft.
At least that's my experience.
Never been to San Francisco. But in Chicago or NYC I generally use Uber just because most taxi drivers seem to only drive at 99% of their limits and it's stressful. The Uber drivers are much more sedate generally. IME.
You are ignoring the speed of getting a ride. I mean, all those things would help a lot for cabs, but if I had to wait half an hour, even if I knew it would only be half an hour, while that would be better than my previous cab experience, it still wouldn't be very useful.
If you want me to use the cab regularly, your average wait time needs to be 5 minutes or less. This means you need a lot of cabs on the road... a lot more than were in my area before this.
I'll put up with a lot of other bullshit, but if you make me wait, I'm not going to use your service, full stop.
I'm not sure that would be possible under the previous regulations. Improving dispatch only takes you so far; at some point you need more cabs on the road.
>They have a lot of room to raise prices before it outweighs those advantages. Remember, people were using UberBlack (as "UberCab" way back then), which simply took existing, fully-insured car service drivers, which had no regulatory advantage, long before UberX/Lyft.
Now, here's where we need to stop and remember that the average HN user makes a lot more money than the average person. Yes, for you and me? it's about convenience.
That's the thing, I'd be fine paying uber black rates; but waiting is not a luxury experience. At the same price, I'd much rather ride in a ratty honda that shows up in four minutes than take a limo that takes twenty minutes.
But there are a lot of people for whom the price matters a whole lot. There are more of them than there are of us, by a lot. If Uber only wants to keep me as a customer, yes, they can double prices for me. but their customer base is massively larger if they are cheaper than cabs, and the larger their customer base, the more cars they will have wandering around, and the less time I need to wait for a car.
I suspect that if uber doubled their prices, their ridership (and thus drivers on the road) would fall to the point where my wait times would increase to the point where I would no longer find the service interesting.
"Breaking Laws" is maybe a bit strong, as regulation is extremely bulky and a monolithic unequippted government isn't in the position to adapt. The laws vary on every level but what I think it comes down to, in a society that teies to be democratic, is whether people are comfortable with this existing. It seems they are.
* Have commercial insurance
* Have a "people-driving drivers license", which allows you to drive commercially taxis, busses, trams, etc. Costs 55€.
Uber is even refusing to follow the insurance part – they only insure during rides, but not when the person commercially drives with their car to the start of a ride.
I would have zero problem calling a cab, even with the regulated cab prices, if they had a Lyft/Uber-like app. Hit the button, accepted in 60 seconds, tracked to your door. The fact that the cab companies simply won't do this grinds my gears.
This is also why Lyft/Uber grind my gears. JUST BE A COMPETENT CAB COMPANY and people would love you. Uber/Lyft doesn't have to flout the existing laws while lobbying to get them changed.
I literally have like 5 different taxi apps here offering me paying via app, rating, calling a taxi per button press, etc.
And they existed before uber did.
Taxi service, provides rating, has app, can pay and rate via app, fully insured, hired and trained drivers, transparent rate (rate set by law and shown in app), guaranteed arrival, etc.
And it costs 5€ less than uber.
And it existed since 2008.
What I am wondering is why this only caught on in some european cities, but never worldwide?
And they never really expanded over Europe and South America.
But you have to know: My region had a dozen of these apps, all competing with each other.
So, the only reason why people used uber was that sometimes it was cheaper. But that only because they ignored the laws.
German Taxi market is a seriously free market, and uber can’t compete fairly.
Italy, France, etc still have insanely overprotective markets.
In a city like SF, $10/hour is actually less than minimum wage, yet there is no shortage of Uber/Lyft/Etc drivers.
After that stretch I drove periodically when I wanted some extra money. It's very flexible on hours.