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Comment by Judgmentality | Hacker News Reader

> People are commenting as if app-based ride share will no longer be available. It might cost more, but it wouldn't be much more.

Uber lost $8.5 billion dollars in 2019. Think about that. Uber is losing the better part of a billion dollars every month. They are hemmorrhaging money at their current prices. It will cost a lot more for this to be profitable when you consider how much more expensive this will make the drivers.

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A quick search puts them at 6.9 billion rides in 2019, so profitability should come with a $2/ride increase.

I think their current rates are a lot, so their current rates plus $2 are also a lot, but I think most riders would tolerate it.

This is ignoring how much more expensive it will be if the drivers are employees. I don't know how much that is, but I'd imagine in addition to those $2 it would likely add another 30% or so to the total cost (someone more knowledgeable please chime in with a better estimate). Of course that's assuming you're operating at Uber's scale (there are still overhead costs), but since prices go up you aren't, so now the prices need to go up even more!

I don't know where the equilibrium point is, I just know it's higher than what Uber is charging. My extremely hand-wavy guess is rides would need to cost around 50% more.

> I don't know how much that is, but I'd imagine

There's your problem. I think you need to go and research and see how much an employee costs to the employer in CA. In terms of taxes, overhead, accounting, insurance, and everything else CA demands.

If that was only in the US or other wealthy economies, maybe. But they're an international company. Some of those rides are in places where a $2 increase doubles the price of the ride. I think it would be more revealing to compare with their total receipts and see the % change that would be required.

The proposition is California-specific. Will not change anything outside of CA.

This comment thread is discussing Uber's profitability and how much they'd need to raise prices to break even independent of Prop 22.

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