Uber may stop letting drivers see destinations and name prices | Hacker News Reader

Uber may stop letting drivers see destinations and name prices

sfchronicle.com

11 pointshardtke11 comments

If they want to alienate drivers less, why don't they just issue new rules stating that drivers must accept X% of rides in order to stay on the platform? I thought they already had such a thing in place, anyway.

I feel like the answer is obvious? Uber should create a new full time driver position which pays a fixed hourly rate.

So there would now be two classes of drivers. Those fully employed by Uber, with all the benefits normal full time work in the US entails (i.e. health insurance) and the downside being, their income is capped. The other class would be those who drive on their own schedule like it is now, with the main benefit being their income is potentially uncapped. Uber's actually in a pretty advantageous position to hire for the new position since they have data on the best drivers.

I am sure I am missing a lot here tho, like what prevents Uber from giving the most profitable rides to itself? Or how do they avoid churn in the full time work force?

Hiring full time employee would cost Uber a lot, it's exactly why they are using their current model. It saves them in taxes, insurance costs, liability, etc etc.

It's a crooked model which shouldn't be allowed.

Of note, this is specifically about California (in light of Prop 22 having passed in november)

This one is a tough one. On the one hand, one is inclined to sympathize with drivers wanting more money since they already have to put up with so much crap as unskilled workers in an industry that was ravaged by covid. But on the other, their collective behavior significantly hurts the platform that they depend on.

It seems like a tragedy of the commons situation: individual drivers want to cherrypick the most profitable rides, but if this happens to a significant enough degree, the reliability of the service as a whole gets impacted, which paradoxically leads to less customers in the long run...

Well, but “independent contractors” totally have that right! OTOH, if their behavior is regulated “for the overall health of the platform” that is starting to sound a lot like being employed with the company operating the platform.

I wonder whether the applicability of Prop-22 is dependent fixed conditions of engagement... it would be silly to apply the same rules even when the pattern of engagement has changed (substantially).

> if their behavior is regulated

That's twisting the facts a bit though, no? They can always turn off the app if they don't want to take jobs, or work for Lyft or Doordash or whatever; that's always been the case. The problem here is that a specific level of information symmetry causes a self-destructive collective behavior.

This is akin to a hypothetical scenario where plumbers somehow get hold of some magic technology that ranks jobs by pay and then proceed to only accept the most profitable ones, eventually leading to a situation where people can't get plumbers and the entire town ends up becoming youtube-watching DYIers, making plumbing an non-viable trade in the town.

Very confused. Why would a plumber need magic to be able to estimate a job? I had one come by my apartment and all he needed was a flashlight.

> Why would a plumber need magic to be able to estimate a job? I had one come by my apartment and all he needed was a flashlight.

Exactly, he needed to come to your place. That's how Uber used to operate (the destination was not known until the driver arrived to pick you up). The "magic" in this hypothetical case would be something that tells the plumber how expensive the job would be without needing to drive half way across town for something that a bottle of drano would have fixed.

The plumber can lie to you and say that the job is more complex and will need more money. Uber drivers cannot do that.

A driver-for-hire has always been able to decide not to take a job, or to lie about the cost. That's literally the two biggest complaints against taxis: "I called and they never showed up" and "my meter is broken".

If you're advocating for drivers' "rights" to pull these kinds of shenanigans at the expense of riders, the market has some bad news for you.

If they want to be classified as employees then this is what they get. Better for consumers not getting canceled on constantly too.

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