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Comment by harshalizee | Hacker News Reader

I've used Uber in various countries over the years and redlining is a huge problem they had to tackle. It was very common for drivers in Asia to call up a customer and ask for their destination and force them to cancel if they didn't feel like it. If you didn't, they report you as no show which would auto charge you and getting reimbursed was a hassle. Fortunately, Uber shut that down pretty hard. Contractor or not, if a driver agreed to drive for Uber, then they tacitly agreed to drive to any destination in their set range. I think that's fair.

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In the UK at least that's one of the major differences between employees/workers/self employed. If I'm an employee I'd have to take the work offered, but if you're self employeed you should be free to decline work. It's a spectrum trading rights of the employee for freedoms.

If Uber don't want to take on the role of employer, they aren't allowed as much control over how tasks are completed or what tasks are accepted.

> but if you're self employeed you should be free to decline work.

And Uber is free to not offer you any more work

That is an overly simplistic view. It's worth reading the tribunal conclusions for the case in the UK that concluded the drivers are workers.

Edit- a quick example of why it's not so simple:

If this is the case, all employers could say their employees are just contractors as they are free to have all the contractor freedoms however if the contractor uses them then the company is free to stop offering them work.

This would skirt pretty much all employment law.

There are places that are really risky to drive to. In Buenos Aires, ie, it was reported that multiple Uber drivers got physically attacked by taxi drivers when they got identified on downtown. In some countries, like Brazil, there are some really risky areas where driver could potentially put his/her life at risk. Areas where not even police can access.

>>Contractor or not, if a driver agreed to drive for Uber, then they tacitly agreed to drive to any destination in their set range. I think that's fair.

This is a difference of how people view the platforms, I dont believe that is either fair or correct.

If I sign up for say a Freelancing site that offers a wide range of services I have not "tacitly agreed to" offer every service the site offers, I have not "tacitly agreed to" do the same thing that everyone else on the site offers

That is what uber is a Freelance Driver site, where a customer can select a Driver to perform a service (take me from a to b), just like when I take a Freelance programming job I have (and uber drivers should also have) the ability to set the terms of who they accept as clients, and where they want to go

That is the very nature of Freelance work.

A Taxi Service however would be different, as it would be if Uber was a "Car Service" that employs the drivers directly, and to be clear there are Car Services out there with company employed drivers they are $$$ but they exist

What is the length of this contract? Isn't a freelancer usually signing up for a well defined piece of work, not some arbitrary unknown bundle lasting an arbitrary amount of time?

How is "Take me from Point a to Point B" not a well defined piece of work or how do it last an arbitrary amount of time?

Each Trip is a "Piece of Work", is a contract, is a Freelance Job.

Not specifying what A and B are is a problem. Can I ask you to write some program A that I tell you later?

Except you already know the rules of the contract, i.e. you get A but not B until you accept the contract. If you don't like the rule, you can opt out of the contract (in this case decline the ride).

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