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Comment by nstj | Hacker News Reader

Is there any evidence provided that the per-mile amount paid to drivers of Uber Black cars has gone down? I saw the article mention that the price to customers has gone down from $4.90 to $3.75, but is there any evidence of this actually flowing through to the drivers? Just a thought.

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Actually, this is a good point.

Uber subsidizes fares ~20% or so currently. Assuming they didn't used to do this, the payout to drivers seems like it would be about the same:

3.75 / 0.8 => 4.6875 (vs $4.90 originally)

The per-minute fees are still quite a bit lower, admittedly:

0.65 / 0.8 => 0.8125 (vs $1.25 originally)

And even then, there's 0 indication or evidence that there's any link between the price paid to drivers and the price paid by riders. For all we know Black car drivers could be receiving more right now than they were when Uber came out, but from what I've seen there's no evidence anywhere in any of these articles about what the historical and current driver rates are?

Not taking sides (and I'm more of a Lyft guy than an Uber fanboy), but there's really no way to work out whether this whole argument is valid without more information.

There's also the move where Uber Black drivers are forced to take Uber X fares. Refusing pickups has consequences after a certain number. In that case, the driver is certainly being paid less.

https://pando.com/2014/09/04/uber-continues-to-screw-its-par...

I think it's a valid complaint. He invested in the car based on a business model that changed underneath him. Uber may not be legally liable for that, and may have had valid reasons, but it still sucks. I would want to vent as well.

Oh for sure - I don't doubt the guy is upset, and clearly something caused that, there just seemed to be some kind of consensus that the actual driver receipts per mile/per minute on Uber Black had gone down given the numbers in the Bloomberg article which seemed to be drawing conclusions.

If the guy had yelled "You are making me accept Uber X fares which is making me make less money" then it would be easy to see where he's coming from if TK pushed back on that - anyways, it's just a technicality but it seems that TK may have actually been correct if all the guy was upset about was the reduction in Uber Black time/distance fees to drivers.

It appears that the Uber fare cuts do directly affect what drivers are paid.

"Lower fares mean that drivers make less per ride. Uber said lower fares will attract more riders, which should increase the number of trips per hour. 'We care deeply about driver earnings,' Macdonald said. 'We actually find that a lot of drivers understand why we do this. They’ve been through price cuts before.'"[1]

So, they try to explain it away by saying the drivers will get more rides, but pretty clear that Uber concedes it's less money per ride.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-09/uber-drop...

No mention of Black in that article though?

No. Just Uber saying that the pattern of lowered fares means lowered payouts is something drivers are used to.

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