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Comment by speg | Hacker News Reader

I took an Uber home from the train station last week and it was less than $15. I'm not sure how much a taxi would've been, probably at least $25.

I don't feel good about it. How can someone provide good service if they're taking home so little? I fear that soon Uber will be overrun with poor service because all the quality drivers have been driven out by low costs.

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Talk to your drivers about it. So far they've all told me that they get more passengers thanks to the app, and the pay from Uber's base rate outweighs unpredictable tips.

[edit] NYC, and the drivers are pretty candid about still picking up rides from black car dispatchers and competitors. I have no reason to question their honesty.

I think it's worth considering whether those drivers are incentivized to tell you the truth. I can't say either way, but I wouldn't put it past Uber to instill reasons for defensive praise of the service.

I've had some lousy jobs, and it seems like the worse the job is, the less the employees complain. It's a weird form of denial, or something else?

Safeway bucks that observation. Safeway managed to irritate every employee, including my deceased father. He hated that company with a passion. In his late twenties, he became an electrician, and loved the work, and union pay.

All drivers I’ve talked to (mostly in the London area) told me they are very unhappy with their pay, but because Uber is so cheap, they can’t drive for their old cab companies anymore (all business moved to Uber).

Because those old mincab services were TERRIBLE. Calling to book late at night with unknown arrival times and being forced to ask everyone at the party "hey what's the post code here?" wasn't fun. Bye bye Swiss Cottage Minicabs. I've not had a blanket negative from London drivers though. Some complain but most seem "meh" like moving from one job to another.

Yeah, every taxi/minicab company at any city in UK on Saturday night is like "sorry, there's a 2 hour wait" - and even if you do wait, nothing turns up. In the meantime, Uber is always instant, the longest waiting time I've ever seen with Uber was 10 minutes, even on the busiest time on Saturday night.

Not quite any city. Edinburgh taxi service is legendary - typically under 5 minutes wait time. Lord knows how.

I've always assumed it was because the relatively high taxi rates in Edinburgh meant there was plenty supply and it's not hugely difficult to become a taxi driver in Edinburgh (there is a test, but its nothing like the Knowledge in London).

What shocks me is how slowly the taxi companies are responding to the Uber threat. I use Uber when I can and the price has nothing to do with it. It's better cars, better service, and friendlier drivers (usually).

Every time I get in some yellow cab that's a 5 year old Crown Vic with torn seats, rattles everywhere, and a driver that can't (or won't) tell me how much my ride is going to cost, I remember why I normally take Uber.

Feel free to explain how you think a small, regional company that actually has to, you know, turn a profit, is going to compete with a multinational losing billions a year to establish a global monopoly.

They are getting there, although slowly. They've had all the data and infrastructure necessary to get something off the ground for years, but haven't bothered because they've never had to bother.

I've had the exact opposite experience. 90% of my drivers love Uber, and I've taken ~100 rides so far.

Haven't looked in detail, but I continue to wonder about those outsized losses. Seems they are monopolizing the market using investor dollars to price below cost.

Many taxi services have been their own racket. But I don't view the above as moving to a better, sustainable model -- not at the current prices.

It seems this -- Uber drivers earning more than the profit/cost structure merits -- is a stopgap towards cornering the driverless car livery ("taxi", etc.) services, at which point labor expenses significantly decline and the old-school competition has been severely crippled if not eliminated.

P.S. I'm not a user of Uber -- or Lyft, etc. Suburban car owner. By I don't like market manipulation and monopolization -- good things don't tend to follow. Even as I watch one friend benefit quite significantly -- and essentially -- from the current Uber presence.

For their sake, as well as the larger picture, I wouldn't mind being proven wrong. But I've yet to reach any level of comfort with much of these "sharing" services/businesses.

Uber also subsidizes your ride sometimes. I had a ride that Uber paid the driver about $60 for (we were talking about the economics of the service and this came up), and I paid only $3.

Either you or the Uber driver in question completely made that up. Nobody is paying drivers $60 for $3 rides.

Last week I took Uber to work and paid only $1.22 for a 10 minute drive. Five minutes later I spent more than that on the toppings of my breakfast..

.. not sure how this is sustainable but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

I think you were misbilled, or someone forgot to turn on the "meter".

That was probably a promotion, check your receipt. Most places in the US UberX minimum fare is $5+ and even without it, I couldn't find any reasonable combination of base fare, time and distance that would come out to $1.22

http://uberestimate.com/prices/

But no, probably not sustainable (for Uber):

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-loses...

The Uber driver probably made more than the taxi driver would have because they don't have to pay the hefty daily cab rental fees or rent a medallion. It's not like taxi drivers were rolling in cash before Uber came around.

The Uber driver probably made more because Uber is spending VC money to build both sides of its market to achieve a monopoly, from which (once achieved) it can extract rents to pay investors back (at least, that's the plan.)

Use UberExec or UberBlack instead. Yes, you pay more for the car, but drivers also make substantially more (and are required to be better).

Uber Black is about 2x the price of a taxi in Oakland, and about 4x the price of Uber X. The mininum fare is $15. The wait times are usually 10-15 minutes vs 2-5 minutes for the trip I regularly take.

There might be a case for that service but the drivers are so rare that it's hard to say.

Taxi drivers used to spend a lot of time just waiting around. Doing less idling means fares can come down as income stays the same or increases.

I don't think it's my problem. The driver freely chose to do this for the pay offered. Why should I second guess that?

Where it gets weird is when people take the taxi instead. This means the Uber driver loses $15, but you don't have to see him...

What alternatives are there for unskilled laborers?

I'm pretty sure Uber drivers make more than minimum wage (barely) after expenses and it seems like much more comfortable and fun than flipping burgers or working at Walmart.

Then people will stop using it and they'll address it. A lot of drivers are part time and use it just to supplement their income.

I wish people cared about exploiting others, but they just don't seem to care, unless exploitation is so appalling it makes them look terrible. Even then--they rationalize, and go into denial.

Care to detail the exploitation in this situation?

So little? They got $15 for presumably a 15 min ride? They will probably do several trips just in that hour, and most full time drivers do 25+ trips a day. It adds up.

Already seems like it's happening to some extent. I've noticed the number of questionable vehicles and drivers creep up in the last six months or so.

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