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Comment by jimmar | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm too libertarian-leaning, but doesn't the author of the article have the option of NOT driving for Uber? If California is truly one of the wealthiest economies, the author should be able to find a different line of work.

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That's a valid point. The question is why all other Uber/Lyft drivers are not changing jobs for something fancier if that is so easy.

Some plausible reasons the drivers don't change jobs are (1) that RideCos offer the drivers paying work they prefer to their other realistic options, and (2) relatedly, that RideCos are more willing than other companies to offer the drivers work. Perhaps the drivers would have more good options if employment in other professions were not so heavily regulated. But (absent significant price controls) it seems like this is the sort of profession we should expect to attract marginal, low-skilled employees whose lives may inspire some sympathy, through no particular fault of the RideCos.

Well, maybe it's because the flexibility of work is important to those people, and they don't want a full-time job.

Nearly 75% of all Uber drivers in CA drive <25 hours per week. More than 40% of all trips in CA are driven by those drivers.

Maybe I'm too left-leaning, but doesn't it feel wrong to deny people the possibility of seeing a doctor, calling in sick if they don't feel good or earning enough money to afford more than Ramen at the end of the month, no matter their line of work?

It's great that the HN crowd is primarily privileged from an income point of view, but I find it hard to fathom that people lose sight of the fact that not everyone is this fortunate, and those less fortunate also deserve to live a life without fear of getting sick.

> Maybe I'm too left-leaning, but doesn't it feel wrong to deny people the possibility of seeing a doctor, calling in sick if they don't feel good or earning enough money to afford more than Ramen at the end of the month, no matter their line of work?

It does feel wrong to deny people the possibility of seeing a doctor.

It does feel wrong that some people can't afford basic necessities.

Why do you insist on drawing a line around people who have found employment and saying that they deserve these things, but if they don't have employment they deserve a second, lesser system?

If people don't have healthcare and you think they should - provide healthcare, don't try to make someone else do so.

If people don't have money and you think they should - give them money, don't require others to pay more to those people who can get a job.

Maybe tying benefits to employment and subsistence levels of cash to employment are a bad way to solve the problems you claim to care about.

I fully agree with you. In a society where people would not have any existential fears, employed or not, Uber would not get away with what they're doing anyway. But I think the argument is orthogonal to what I meant.

In context of the system that Uber drivers are living in right now, Prop22 is a step in the wrong direction: it gives affirmation to companies that actively deprives gig workers of the rights we talk about above.

Of course it'd be better to solve this problem at a higher level, but I'm happy to argue against proponents of steps in the wrong direction (e.g. Prop22).

My understanding was that both yes and no on prop 22 are net positives compared to the status quo ("yes" providing 120% minimum wage guarantees and some benefits, vs no obligations currently), and I recall reading Uber saying these will indeed incur extra costs that will get passed onto consumers.

I feel that prop 22 is often incorrectly characterized as either an attempt at maintaining the status quo or a step backwards, but it's neither.

It's easy to say "well I support everyone making more money", but that is an idealistic position that ignores the basic fact that there's a limited amount of money that needs to be distributed among a lot of people. If you were in charge, you might be of the opinion that only some stakeholders should get that money and others get nothing in order to allow at least some people to meet some arbitrary minimum threshold (the "no" in prop 22), or you could choose to distribute evenly across all existing stakeholder even if it doesn't meet the threshold for anyone (the "yes").

I don't think there's necessarily a right/wrong stance here; they're just different philosophies, and it makes sense to then vote on which people prefer. The people voted, and I imagine they did so with understanding of the propositions.

I think it's dangerous to insinuate that people can easily be manipulated to vote one way or another. If that were indeed the case, then what exactly is the merit of a democracy over a dictatorship? I'd rather believe that people do indeed take their civic responsibility seriously and vote in an informed manner.

What do you make of the fact that most Uber drivers advocate for prop 22?

https://www.reddit.com/r/uberdrivers/comments/i9awkm/my_fell...

Sure, reddit comments are anecdotes, but have you asked Uber drivers what they want? Do you think it's fair to deprive someone the right to work?

(I drive for Uber part time and I am happy being an IC. I do not want to be an employee. I drive for Uber because of the flexibility).

I’m a salaried worker and I don’t want the Uber model to spread further. I like that I can’t be forced to work more than 8h a day, 40h a week. The gig economy sidesteps these laws in a way that could impact what I like in the future should my employer decide it’s fair and make business sense, and if enough people also decide that, they all lose collective bargaining power and instead of people they become resources.

> What do you make of the fact that most Uber drivers advocate for prop 22?

That Uber was using their apps to shovel huge volumes of pro-Prop 22 propaganda at their drivers.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/15/21517316/uber-spamming-u...

~75% of Uber drivers in CA drive < 25 hours per week.

If I could drive 25 hours per week and get a better-than-ramen wage plus full health benefits then sigh me up. I’m sure there are millions like me.

This only seems like part of the story, though. What do we know about other work these people do? Is Uber maybe a supplemental job because the primary one doesn't pay the bills?

Also please provide sources if you make such claims :)

Many don't have the luxury of changing their line of work or company. Organizing the workers and potentially unionizing is an option for those people.

Uber is still bleeding money, unionizing would essentially put Uber out of business.

If a company can't both sustain itself and its employees financially, surely that's a failed business? If the only way you can survive is by exploiting the poor, maybe you should be rethinking your strategy.

| exploiting the poor

I think a lot of those people wouldn't have jobs otherwise, is something better than nothing?

Also it's not just the poor, I've had many friends use uber as a stop gap between jobs. One of my drivers had a masters in Finance - I don't see anything wrong with gig work as long as both sides know what they are signing up for.

Why would they be out of a job? Surely bleeding money in Uber’s case is a self-inflicted wound, because they provide a service below cost? Raise prices, problem solved.

Oh wait there are other companies that also follow the same model and Uber would lose all customers the moment it raised prices? Looks like something in the rules doesn’t add up unless VC money doesn’t stop flowing.

You could say that to miners complaining about their work conditions in the 19th century, too.

This is gig work. You can change whenever you want. You can move across the country. This isn't the 19th century.

Have you tried finding work when your education is not in demand? Please don’t minimize other’s lived experience.

That's a fair point, but if your education is not in demand, I don't see a reason to think that driving a car, something that 80+% of American adults are capable of doing, should provide a full household income on 40 hours per week of effort.

That initial condition (your education is not in demand) definitely represents a tough position, but it's not clear that it's ride-sharing's "fault" in any way. Instead, it seems to me like ride-sharing is providing them with a better alternative than whatever their next-best alternative is; in other words, it's helping them not harming them.

Sorry, are you saying that working a 40 hour week shouldn't earn a living wage if it's a non-specialised skill?

I'm saying that if there is not enough demand for that work to support a wage that will provide a living wage on 40 hours/week, that you can't legislate up enough excess demand to make the equation solve the way you might like it to.

In most (maybe all) markets, there is not enough consumer demand at the prices that would be required to support a living wage for everyone for whom flexible ride-share driving is the most lucrative work readily available. Now, iff that's true, what should the legislature do? Prevent that work from being done at all? Ration the supply (medallions or companies refusing to let drivers choose when/if to work)? The people said no, including a lot of current ride-share drivers.

I think you need to give the parent poster a little more credit. People have all kinds of preferences for employment that go into determining a market-clearing wage.

e.g. it is probably the case that loading garbage onto a truck doesn't require more skill/specialization than driving a car for hire

However, the overwhelmingly vast amount of people prefer to do the job that they can do while sitting down, in an air-conditioned vehicle, vs. the one they have to do surrounded by stinking detritus, outside in all weathers.

Based on my own prejudices, driving a car for hire sits in a relative sweet-spot of low skill, low physical demand, low discomfort. I agree there are undoubtedly personal safety factors that you're more exposed to than, say, flipping burgers at McDonalds.

wages are a market. "should" or "shouldn't" is irrelevant

To be fair to @pixelbash, I was the one who sloppily used "should". I meant it to imply that there's a market/economy effect that dominates, but it was sloppy/possibly ambiguous. I'm going to leave my comment unedited, but I wish I'd used "would" instead of "should" there to suggest that it's an outcome of economic inputs rather than a personal value judgment.

Thanks for the clarification, this is essentially what I was querying!

A little off topic, but where does this now commonly used phrase "lived experience" that lefties love to use so much come from. Doesn't the word "experience" cover the idea? Is it to differentiate from their reading or television "experiences"? I think the redundant "lived" part is added for dramatic effect.

Why do you think Uber/Lyft will remain accessible if drivers have to be employees?

Sure. But can anyone honestly argue that driving for Uber/Lyft is the only employment option they have? I mean, what would they have done before those companies existed?

The problem with this line of thinking is that a state is not a person is not a company is not an x. (Let's put aside any tangential Citizens United rebuttal.)

Or more simply, why is California one of the wealthiest economies? Is it because a typical California resident is one of the wealthiest people (on certain scales I wouldn't be surprised if this were actually true)? Or are there several subsets of people who are very wealthy due to California's unusually successful industries with global reach (I can think of two obvious giants.)? And how large are these subsets? If we answer all of these questions, we should answer your original question or at least come close.

Edit: Changed "every California resident" to "a typical"

Weather. Much of California has such awesome weather.

I don’t want want to go back for many reasons, but man I miss the mild temperatures.

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