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Comment by ZainRiz | Hacker News Reader

Good catch.

This means the driver is no longer an employee of Uber (not even a freelance one) so he wouldn't be eligible to unionize or receive worker's rights

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What would stop the driver starting or joining a union? You can be self employed and still be in a union. You can even be unemployed or a student and still be in a union. (May be UK-speficic)

certain powers of unions are protected by the government -- i.e., by default you can't band together with a bunch of people and set a minimum wage you'll all work for (that's price fixing).

The race to the bottom continues. The bottom for the driver, that is.

If a million people were driving cars twice daily with no passengers, and now they have the option to fill their cars, then I'd say the former situation was "the bottom" for them. So it depends who your archetypal "driver" is -- the /true/ average driver, or the career driver.

Maybe there's no room for a career driver anymore.

fwiw, I don't like Uber the company, but this dynamic will continually resurface, with or without them.

I was thinking from the point of view of a part-time driver who was driving to work already and using features like destination filter, and picking up the full fares that Uber/Lyft currently pay for UberPool/Line.

Now there appears to be a lower tier that Uber is pushing for to drive down payments even more.

From the passenger point of view, it's similar to an UberPool and slightly discounted. Based on previous Uber behavior, it will probably be significantly less pay for what was a career driver, and, as you pointed out, better than nothing for those drivers who had empty seats.

More importantly, are there really any Uber drivers out there who see it as a long-term job for themselves?

I'm curious how many are aware of Uber's plans to automate everything and completely kill the need for drivers. That might be here sooner than we all expect.

Many may not employment options, but I sure as heck wouldn't tie my boat to a company that has stated their strategic mission is to remove the need for my job entirely from their org.

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