Comment by taxicabjesus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by taxicabjesus | Hacker News Reader

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> I think Uber should immediately offer the following services to its drivers:

The taxi industry pioneered the 'independent contractor' business model. Some of the services you suggest cross the line between 'contractor' and 'employee', especially 'healthcare subsidy'.

The owner/operator whom I drove for says that the company only provides liability insurance (to cover the cab company's liability) as a part of her contract with the cab company. If she wanted collision coverage, she had to buy that separately, because insurance == employment.

When I signed up I was told that I should buy my own worker's compensation policy, but I never did this.

Most people don't want 'on demand' employment, they want stability. Because of outsourcing and automation, the economy doesn't need as many workers anymore. Uber's business model is entirely dependent on this phenomenon.

Drivers -- taxi drivers, 'rideshare drivers', trucking drivers, etc -- would benefit from a union. Arizona is not a union-friendly state; I don't know if taxi drivers elsewhere have unions.

Most people don't want 'on demand' employment, they want stability. Because of outsourcing and automation, the economy doesn't need as many workers anymore. Uber's business model is entirely dependent on this phenomenon.

Do you see this phenomenon going away anytime soon? My grandparents' generation worked at a single company for life. My parents switched companies maybe 3 times in their careers. I have worked for 9 companies in the last 12 years. The trend has been toward shorter and shorter stints, with less and less benefits. My daughter's generation probably won't remember a time where people spent years working for companies, and it will seem natural to string together a series of gigs and odd jobs.

> Do you see this phenomenon going away anytime soon?

The economic paradigm has to change. I think something will shift, eventually.

Searching for 'john gatto livelihood' just now brought up this link:

http://www.wtp.org/archive/transcripts/john_taylor_gatto.htm... - John Taylor Gatto (1991 New York State Teacher of the Year) Interview By Jerry Brown, March 25, 1997

It's probably worth reading the whole thing, but if you're pressed for time just search for '[break]', and read his take on two groups who have been able to implement mostly 'independent livelihoods' for virtually all of their members.

> My grandparents' generation worked at a single company for life.

And their grandparents were probably much more independent.

> it will seem natural to string together a series of gigs and odd jobs.

"You see that house on the hill? If you work hard enough, some day I'll live there." (This was not said by Travis Kalashnikov).

'Gigs and odd jobs' are not the path towards a fulfilling life.

Edit: My friend recently pointed out to me that I value freedom more than anything else, which is why I stuck with taxi driving for so long... But the whole time I was working on something bigger...

And their grandparents were probably much more independent.

My grandparents' grandparents were slaves. On my dad's side in North Carolina, on my mom's side in the Caribbean. Not too much independence there.

"Oh." Thanks for letting me know - it's an antidote for my being overly confident/arrogant.

> Most people don't want 'on demand' employment, they want stability.

Why can't they have both? Broadly speaking, the forces of supply and demand are quite stable. Right now it's difficult to find jobs for 10 hours per week or 80 hours per week, if you happen to want one.

While I appreciate the historic role of unions, labor laws are unfortunately the reason that Uber has not made drivers W2 employees. It's sad that one of the most innovative and promising startups has to exert so much effort to claim that its employees shouldn't meet the W2 definition and thus shouldn't be eligible for the protections it affords. If the protections were more reasonable, Uber (and all startups) would be much less likely to try to circumvent them.

That ignores common sense. If Uber is more profitable by circumventing W2 regulations it will do so. There is no morality in capitalism, only worship of the bottom line. Businesses don't care about "reasonable" regulations, they care about profit. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. A corporation is not a person, it can't be expected to think like one. Instead people must elect representatives that impose laws that force business to operate in a way that is compatible with our collective morality.

+1

replied to the parent.

> If Uber is more profitable by circumventing W2 regulations it will do so.

Without defining the time horizon you are referring to for profitability, you are making a non-statement, one that is easily demonstrated to be both trivially true and trivially false.

Firms forego profit all the time when they invest in uncertain R&D rather than returning profits to shareholders in the form of a dividend.

Similarly, firms often invest in building their brand even though it is very difficult to quantify brand marketing ROI.

My argument is that Uber is making a foolish choice by trying to get away with 1099 status for employees... or in other words, Uber is betting on the wrong horse, or investing poorly in its future. The same folly would apply to any short-sighted business decision.

This is where time enters. Uber's strategy makes its financials look better in the short term at the expense of a sustainable long-term strategy.

Market forces don't get much chance to help discipline this decision, since the only actors are Uber's investors and board and those of Uber's competitors. Regulators haven't done anything to force the issue yet. So like any other decision that might be made in a shortsighted way or a more appropriate long-term-value-based way, Uber is simply making a suboptimal business decision.

It is not a foregone conclusion that regulators must be the ones to nudge Uber into the "right" decision. Firms make mistakes all the time, and other firms are ready to step in to correct the mistake and generate profit in the process.

So only if you view Uber as a permanent fixture does regulatory involvement seem necessary. Uber is far from a permanent fixture. In my view, Uber underestimates the importance of winning over high quality drivers vs paying drivers fractionally less simply to make its books look better in the short term.

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