Explainer of the Supreme Court ruling: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonymarks/2018/05/29/the-califo...
> Under the newly adopted ‘ABC test,’ a worker is an independent contractor to whom a wage order does not apply only if the hiring entity establishes all of the following:
(A) that the worker is free from the control and direction of the hirer in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of such work and in fact;
(B) that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and
(C) that the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed for the hiring entity.
A is debatable at best, given that make and model of car is heavily restricted, particularly for the 'UberBlack' service. https://www.uber.com/drive/new-york/get-started/eligible-veh...
If your contractor gets to dictate how you present yourself and how you do your job rather than just being happy with the end product, that looks a lot less like contracting as understood by laypeople.
> (A) that the worker is free from the control and direction of the hirer in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of such work and in fact;
For example, under the current UberBlack rules for NYC, you couldn't drive a BMW 6 series, any Porsche, a Toyota Sequoia, a Nissan Armada, any Dodge, and this is just comparing cars listed on Blue Book with similar ratings and starting prices: https://www.kbb.com/car-finder/5/?pricerange=65000-max&inten...
If you need a whitelist because some of these cars under arbitrary rules won't meet your criteria even though they're comparable, that's less "contracting for the job" and more "specifying the terms of how you work."
When you ask for a plumber, you ask that they show up with tools, you don't tell them only Black&Decker, Craftsman, etc. are acceptable and any deviation from the list won't do. (I know nothing about tool brands and quality, this is just a hypothetical example.)
(Pardon my ignorance if these are dumb questions...)
> And why shouldn’t we consider investors part of the market?
We can, but there are rules of "fair play" to the market that are supposed to be followed. What Uber is doing with SV money is, in saner sectors, called dumping, and generally considered illegal. Somehow it isn't, and even if it was, it probably wouldn't do much, as Uber's whole "rideshare" operation is illegal almost everywhere they run it.
They keep undercutting Uber, should Uber ignore that? Besides, Uber doesn't set prices significantly below the competitors, it relies on being a superior service with lower wait times and higher vehicle utilization. If you open Uber and Lyft you will typically see very similar prices, with the main difference that Uber can be lower because they are a more efficient service, but Lyft will make up for this by subsidizing rides even more than Uber (something you can see very clearly in their S-1 and quarterly earnings reports).
I won’t address the rest except to say that’s more a factor of them expanding into other markets or maintaining category position than efficiency.
>The market says Uber should be going out of business
The market isn't saying Uber should go out of business or it would have gone out of business. The market is saying Uber should be aggressive about pricing until Uber's competitors stop subsidizing their rides. Investors are part of the market too.
They kinda do, by not accepting rides under a certain price and forcing a raise, like it has been reported.
> Furthermore, prices are driven down artificially by investors who are willing to take a loss until other "markets" are forced out of business, at which point Uber will presumably raise its prices to actual taxi market rates.
This will never happen. Anyone can start a ride-sharing service with a tiny investment. There's no way bankrupting current companies will give Uber an unassailable market.
Yes, kinda. My understanding is that once they're "on the clock", they get penalized for declining too many rides.
> This will never happen. Anyone can start a ride-sharing service with a tiny investment. There's no way bankrupting current companies will give Uber an unassailable market.
Except any startup will be forced to either price their rides above the cost of service, or find investors willing to take a loss in order to undercut the former.
Uber may not ever have an unassailable market, but they will have to eventually raise their prices or lower the cost of providing rides.
Also "markets" doesn't necessary mean ride-sharing markets, they can also destroy public transport and other new ways of transportation that doesn't fit well to Uber model.
Uber drivers absolutely have a boss to report too. Can they drive for other services? (I know that in Brazil they can, but Uber only started to allow it after a court ruled that exclusivity implies in employment.) Does Uber require a stable relationship? (Even the ranking system may imply in stability.)
Seems weak. Are restaurants employed by Yelp? Ranking systems abound nowadays, they imply little.
...might be a fun foss project to make a distributed alternative so people could be real contractors. GNUber or something