If they're going to the trouble of pre-arranging the ride, why don't they just use cash/Venmo/Square, and keep Uber's cut of the fare?
A) Who's insuring the ride? If it's not insured and the driver is at fault in a collision, there could be no one to pay for injuries to you -- Lyft/Uber certainly wouldn't owe anything for stuff booked outside their platform.
Usually when they drive for a TNC, the TNC provides the insurance for the driver in the course of using the app. It's really unlikely for the driver to have a policy that covers them for non-TNC freelance rides -- especially since the big insurers haven't caught up to the realities of this use case and seriously overprice them.
(AIUI, they just have policies that assume you drive full time commercially, nothing that works on a per mile basis -- and even if they do have such policies, that would defeat most of the purpose of cutting out middlemen, as there would now be a written record of the transaction that can't be hidden on taxes.)
B) In order to get enough information to re-book out-of-band you'd have to accept it and then cancel. Do that a lot and it will be grounds for being kicked off the platform.
(The same applies to the people in the anecdotes in the sibling comments.)
Most drivers have a "Rideshare Rider" from their auto insurance provider...but not sure if it extends to off-service rides
The calculus is simple: liabltiy has increased and you have responsibility due to the commercial transaction.
Point (B) doesn't make sense to me. Why do you have to accept and then cancel? You just get the driver's phone number and talk to them directly.
In fact, if this is not common already, I think it undermines the contention of these companies that they are merely a service being provided to independent contractors. If drivers are independent contractors, of course they should be trying to build their own brand and dedicated clientele.
Point (A) is a good one, though. Sounds like there should be independent insurance providers that these independent contractors can use.
If you're instead saying that drivers are employees of these companies, then maybe you're right about all the rest of it. But you can't have it both ways!
Their service was connecting drivers and riders -- allowing them to find each other for the transaction. They connected you. That was their service. (They provide other related intermediary services, but the "finding" function is the big one.)
Same issue as when a recruiter finds leads and the employer makes an offer to the employee directly and cuts out the recruiter, which is why they set up a bunch of contractual barriers to stop it.
EDIT: Sorry, I misunderstood the use case -- that wouldn't apply to future bookings after the first one's been completed and they've exchanged information. But the "moat" there is the difficulty of iterating through your network of past uber drivers for each future ride.
>Point (B) doesn't make sense to me. Why do you have to accept and then cancel? You just get the driver's phone number and talk to them directly.
AFAIK, they don't give you any way to contacting each other until the ride is accepted. Am I mistaken here?
>If you're instead saying that drivers are employees of these companies, then maybe you're right about all the rest of it. But you can't have it both ways!
No. You can have a legitimate claim to compensation for connecting two people without the seller thereby being your employee -- see the recruiting example (though it's a bit confusing in that there is another employment relationship in the picture but I'm sure you see the mapping -- a recruiter can legitimately claim that they're owed a cut while not saying that their the employer of the, er, hiring manage or the candidate).
EDIT: As above, that wouldn't apply to future rides or job offers after that contract.
Also, it seems anyone could replicate this feature by using Stripe Connect. It's cool, but expect rapid commoditization of preplanned ride coordination.
Edit: comment recinded due to OPs edit.
Sorry, you're right, I misunderstood -- see the edit.
You're not mistaken, but the implication from the parent was that the rider had ridden with the drive before...
> I know many people around where I live who use local Uber drivers whom they trust to schedule early-morning rides to the airport and things like that.
Paying the average amount means you're paying more than some fares.
By paying cash, you lose out on all insurance in cash of an accident.
What a world we live in. Most of the country (and planet) is so broke they are just scraping by, while programmers have "drivers" and personal shoppers. Wouldn't want to distract those people who have to get to work every day to figure out how to sell the poor people ads!
The rest of the time, if you need a ride at a time/place that isn't regular, the driver you know might be far away, might not be driving at that time and might be driving someone else, so it will generally be worth it to pay a premium.
The difference with Uber/Lyft is that these drivers don't have a business outside of the app. Therefore, once you eliminate the app, you eliminate their commercial insurance and it becomes a really interesting situation if there were ever an accident.
Doesn't this discredit Uber's argument that drivers are independent contractors?
I hadn't done it as I usually don't need Uber / Lyft much but most of the people I know who have used Uber / Lyft have also gotten similar offers so it must be pretty common I would think.
Not saying this is legal/ethical, just that it would come to mind in that situation.
Not sure I'd base my livelihood on fraud.