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Comment by okareaman | Hacker News Reader

> apps like Uber and Lyft don’t give her the details of a ride, such as its distance, expected time, and pay, until after she’s accepted it – at which point she has little choice but to follow through, even if it loses her money.

> “I find out that it’s going to take me 45 minutes to go five miles, and I’m going to get about $5 for the ride. My only choice then is to either basically do volunteer work by accepting the ride, or canceling it. And we are disciplined, and threatened with being terminated, if we cancel it.

>“So don’t call me an independent contractor, because that’s not what we are.”

As a former Uber/Lyft driver I exaggerate when I say I've read a million words Gig jobs, but the above is a good summary of the problem. You're not shown in advance what the ride is and then you're penalized for cancelling it. One day you can't log in anymore but they won't say why, but you know from talking to other drivers that you get "fired" after cancelling too many rides.

There are other problems, such as not being compensated when gas prices go through the roof, but there is a hidden problem that many drivers don't take into account: Every mile on your car decreases it's value and if you do the calculations you might find out you're taking equity out of your car and putting it in your pocket, so you're not making money and you might be selling your car bit by bit for pennies on the dollar.

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I work at Uber. Opinions are my own. Etc. Here's my two cents: people in the company are acutely aware of this problem. Insiders legitimately want drivers to have flexibility without fear of penalties, and there are some major projects in the works to try to make things better for drivers.

The challenge from the company's perspective is that historically, people game the system and tragedy of commons scenarios can quickly become prevalent. For example, if you show high profit heat maps, you risk drivers flocking there and the balance of service reliability dropping elsewhere. So changes like showing drop-off locations or allowing more driver choice in the matching algorithm need to designed very carefully and tested extensively in pilot programs to avoid degenerate scenarios. Many changes are difficult to implement quickly when they affect multiple moving parts, e.g. the recent fuel surcharge. Driver payment is mind bogglingly complicated due to regulation differences in different places.

Ironically, another problem that insiders have been vocal about is the perception the Uber is bad at communicating with the public about positive changes in the platform.

I'm sure when Uber rolls out these new programs designed to make driver life better, people will find some way to criticize them, or it'll just not garner enough upvotes, because who cares about stories about companies listening to feedback for once? Not really sure what Uber can do about this, tbh.

> The challenge from the company's perspective is that historically, people game the system and tragedy of commons scenarios can quickly become prevalent.

It drives me crazy that when we talk about gig workers acting in their best interest, it's "gaming the system" but when companies like Uber operate (read: manipulates) a market in their best interests, it's just SOP.

> I'm sure when Uber rolls out these new programs designed to make driver life better, people will find some way to criticize them

This is essentially a captive market and Uber's best interests are often not aligned with that of the drivers, as you perfectly detail above. As long as that remains true, there is always going to be valid criticism against this kind of model.

Isn't that always the case? You are just treated worse when you have less money.

How's one perceived if high earner hires professional help to take advantage of every loop hole in the system and how's one perceived if they take advantage of a loop hole in the system with say food stamps. Neither is breaking the law.

It’s not about having less money. If I’m going into town from the burbs, I have the money to pay Uber and I’m willing to pay more for one. But there are not that many people in the burbs that need to use ridesharing.

I might be poorer in the inner city. But my rides are going to be a shorter distance and there are more people.

I think you're misinterpreting the parent comment. By "gaming the system" and "tragedy of the commons" they mean that features they release to help can hurt the drivers and the passengers. Tragedy of the commons is when people individually following their self interests make themselves worse off.

Eg, if you aren't careful with heat maps, drivers flock to the busy area and then can't get enough fares and passengers elsewhere can't get drivers.

But the “solution” to that potential problem arising cannot be limiting the information that drivers get. At least not as long as Uber also wants to treat their drivers as independent contractors.

The parent comment you are replying to is acknowledges this, validates what you are saying, and even goes as far as to say that "Insiders legitimately want drivers to have flexibility without fear of penalties, and there are some major projects in the works to try to make things better for drivers"

Maybe you disagree that they are actually trying but, at least according to this comment chain, everyone at uber agrees with you.

Totally disagree with you. The parent you are referring to is framing the debate desingenously. Uber, and Uber insiders, are free to ponder all the intricacies and challenges of running Uber in its current form. As long as they recognize that drivers are not in practice independent contractors, with all ensuing legal consequences.

If they still insist on saying drivers are independant contractors, none of their whining about "tragedy of the commons" is anybody's business. Just provide information to market participants.

> If they still insist on saying drivers are independant contractors, none of their whining about "tragedy of the commons" is anybody's business

You're confusing things a bit. Uber itself doesn't "whine" about tragedy of the commons, the other stakeholders (drivers and riders) are the ones who do.

Also, for everyone going on about how Uber doesn't provide info upfront, and parroting the old drivers-should-be-employees clueless hot take, perhaps they missed this other recent article[0]:

> The company says the new feature provides drivers with more transparency. They [drivers] see more details of a prospective ride before accepting it, such as the fare and pick-up and drop-off locations, which is something drivers say they’ve been asking for. In the past, most drivers wouldn’t receive this information until after they accepted a ride.

So yes, Uber knows what drivers want and it wants to provide it to them, and it obviously has a vested interest in avoiding scenarios where drivers cannibalize themselves to death. What's not obvious to y'all outsiders is that Uber has to figure out all of the unspoken complexity and cleverness required to enable changes like this to be rolled out in a way that basically looks like what all the armchair analysts were saying it should have been done, without running into the previously known risks of rolling out such a thing. And even then, there's always some cherrypicky over-simplified scenario to bitch about (as the very article I linked to does).

Everyone who keeps making statements that "Uber wants drivers to be employees it can rip off" fundamentally do not understand what they are talking about. As an insider, I don't owe it to anyone to "argue" with them. I can just inform them that I've heard from many other insiders that they think independent contractor status is a good thing (i.e. McDonalds FTE already exists and more options on top of that are always a good thing), that the implementation still has room for improvement, and that they want to make it better.

[0] https://themarkup.org/working-for-an-algorithm/2022/03/01/se...

Wait, they are hiding the route for the benefit of all? Uber doesn't want the driver to know how far they have to travel but forced them to take a route after they accept.

This runs counter to the principle that more/better information makes for better markets.

Much to the chagrin of economists we do still operate in the physical world and if everyone flocks to the same space and clogs up the intersection idealized scenarios about markets don't tend to do well

A driver wants unmet demand. A heatmap of demand that ignores supply is more but not better information.

A tragedy of the commons requires a commons, a commonly owned resource. Uber is certainly not one.

>The challenge from the company's perspective is that historically, people game the system and tragedy of commons scenarios can quickly become prevalent

Well yes, that's what every business does. Ultimately that's the fundamental problem. Uber wants employees that act in the business' best interest but does not want the regulatory burden that comes with it.

No, Uber wants gig drivers that do not create a Tragedy of the Commons situation by all acting in their own short-sighted self-interest.

Then their drivers shouldn't be all independent contractors.

I think you're both right.

If Uber gives a driver a ride at a price that's a guaranteed loss for the driver (like in the example) but never shares in that loss then none of Uber's actions are motivated by care for riders or drivers but exclusively for the bottom line.

The solution for the $5, 45min ride that comes out of the driver's pocket is to guarantee the trip price covers a profit for the driver and let the rider choose if it's worth it. But that would mean fewer trips and lower guaranteed profit for Uber.

Anything else is abuse and a lot of rationalizations to put your mind at ease.

And if you think I'm wrong, tell me you'd be OK being treated like this as a customer: never knowing what the price will be and not being able to cancel without being taxed or punished. Wait, that's more or less the taxi industry that Uber is ostensibly fixing by turning the tables and putting the drivers and the wrong end of the shit stick. So what was wrong in the past is ok now because you work for the company who affords your salary because of these practices?

> The solution for the $5, 45min ride that comes out of the driver's pocket is to guarantee the trip price covers a profit for the driver and let the rider choose if it's worth it. But that would mean fewer trips and lower guaranteed profit for Uber.

IMHO, a $5, 45 min trip should just never happen. Algos should price that properly and drivers should get more transparency so they can choose to not accept bad terms before it ever becomes about cancelations.

The absolute bottom cost of a trip should be 58.5 cents per mile, which is what the IRS allows you to deduct for driving for business purposes.

And that should be after Uber's cut, not before.

We don't need to subsidize car travel any more than it already is, especially by tricking vulnerable workers to slowly trade their asset value for cash.

That'd be having the driver earn nominally $0 per hour, which seems a bit low to me.

I'm glad you wrote this comment, but I have a slightly different solution: Uber should just subsidize the ride. Uber brings in billions of dollars in revenue – not every trip needs to be profitable for them. (Of course, not without limits; if a driver is regularly unprofitable, Uber should stop offering them trips or fire them.)

Aren't Ubers algorithmically priced per mile / per minute, whichever is higher? Not sure how you could possible have a $5 45min ride.

I've certainly never got such a fantastic deal as a rider.

The general idea is that any business will try to optimize for revenue within the law and certain moral hang-ups (or at least the fear of moral hang-ups being captured by the press). The idea, just like with any business, is that if drivers are unhappy then they can choose another job. If enough of them do, Uber will make a change once the number of resignations start affecting the bottom line. I don't know of many companies that would change a policy just to make the driver's happy in a move that might stymie business.

> Driver payment is mind bogglingly complicated due to regulation differences in different places.

Are you expecting us to pat Uber on the back for managing to solve the impossibly difficult problem of actually paying their workers, as if that's a unique problem no other company has ever had to solve? Come on...

If you didn't want to handle the regulatory hassle of paying people in 50 countries, you didn't have to expand to 50 countries. You chose to expand to more locations, and that means you get to deal with the consequences of being in those locations.

Yes, it's complicated to build infrastructure to dispatch and pay your workers. But, come on, as middlemen, that is literally your only job. You don't even have to do the driving part!

I might be very wrong, but in my humble opinion Uber drivers are their workers as much as iOS app developers could be considered Apple employees or Youtubers could be considered Google employees. Just because you provide a service through someone's platform doesn't mean you're automatically their worker.

I agree. They should be considered employees, and be given the same benefits as employees. However, Uber doesn't agree, it says all of its drivers are contractors. So I'll continue saying that Uber's employees aren't the ones doing the driving, at Uber's own admission.

I think you misread the comment you replied to. They were saying they’re not employees, same as content creators for YouTube or independent iOS devs.

Parent agreed with your equivalence, but not your conclusion. Your conclusion was that they were both not employees, while the parent's conclusion was that they were both employees.

The legacy taxi industry blazed the trail (at least in the US) with their own arrangements with drivers. Drivers would lease the cab by the day and receive non-binding (but useful!) dispatch instructions. And taxi companies argued they were independent contractors too.

> non-binding (but useful!) dispatch instructions

This gave the entire industry a bad reputation for not showing up. I know when I drove airport shuttles we often rescued people who had tried to get a taxi.

Precommitting to an SLA can earn more customers’ trust, but it only works when every driver is confident about coming out ahead on average. $5 was too low for that job.

Uber drivers are meant to be interchangeable cogs. I know this because I used to be an Uber driver myself.

We couldn't set our own rates. We couldn't make our own decisions about the rides we were willing to take. We didn't have our own brand. And there was no way for customers to request us specifically, even if they preferred to be driven by us. This was all by design. Uber drivers are treated as an interchangeable commodity, not as brands.

I couldn't even wait for pings within the warmth of my own home without getting a letter graded report for not having my phone in my cradle. And it's not just the cradle that was a factor. If you drove too "aggressively", or if you drove too fast, their idiotic AI would scold you (and before someone says it, yes, that functionality is turned off now, but know that it was only turned off around the time that Uber was trying to make the argument in court that Uber drivers were not employees. Also note that even thought that particular functionality is turned off, Uber still tries to micromanage drivers in many other ways, even to this day).

This isn't to say that app creators and youtubers don't have their own set of problems with the app store and youtube, they certainly do. But compared to Uber drivers, they still have a thousand times more freedom than Uber drivers.

There’s a huge difference. App developers given no ”jobs” by Apple and have to source and grow their own customer base as well as set their own rates.

Employees of a company or even contractors, generally don’t get to do this.

I'm not personally on any mission to "convert" anyone. If you don't care about an insider's perspective as a data point for informing your opinions, that's totally up to you.

I'm merely pointing out the irony of people on a forum full of programmers talking about Uber as if changes to complex systems with live SLOs can magically be done with a snap of fingers.

It doesn't seem that hard to show drivers the expected payout for a ride. They hide that information for a reason, but of course they don't say the reason is "fuck you, pay me" - they'll find a way to justify it as good for the stakeholders.

GC literally gave you a reason for that which isn't "fuck you, pay me" – if you just want to ignore that then fair but... ok?

You know, I suppose I was a bit overly reductive. Would it be more accurate to say no one wants to pay the market rate for this ride, not the rider, and not us, so we'll just lie to you through omission? If your employer didn't tell you how much they paid out for your work, would you think of them as an honest company?

How was the statement not "fuck you, pay me"?

He did give us a reason, and I'm sure he's correct to a degree, but as a former Uber driver, I don't want you to completely discount the "fuck you, pay me" attitude of Uber's management either.

For instance, collecting a "$1 safe ride fee" per passenger was a very big fuck you to the drivers. We didn't see a penny of that fee. And it wasn't even counted in the calculation of our commission structure, which they bragged about constantly.

The same goes with many of the other payments it collected from passengers. Eventually, after Uber lost a court case, Uber made every driver sign an agreement that the commission structure had nothing to do with the payments given by passengers.

I can't comment on the safe ride fee as it predates my tenure at Uber (i.e. we're talking about stuff from 5+ years ago), but from what I'm gathering, it does appear to have been a BS fee.

I'll acknowledge that there was a wide perception of leadership not giving two fucks under Travis. I heard many people internally were unhappy about many things, hence him being ousted.

Anyways, just to give some context: When I talk about efforts to improve things for drivers, I'm talking about things I've heard about very recently (like within the last six months). Many aren't live yet.

Prior to it, I'd say other aspects received a lot more attention, for example the safety center on the rider app was a big big focus at one point.

The shift of focus to drivers only really became visible to me within the last year or so. My two cents is this focus is happening as part of the effort to attract drivers back after their exodus due to the pandemic.

Regardless of the motivation, I'm glad the company is at least trying to listen to drivers. Cynicism aside, I personally think drivers should be treated well, period.

> The challenge from the company's perspective is that historically, people game the system and tragedy of commons scenarios can quickly become prevalent. For example, if you show high profit heat maps, you risk drivers flocking there and the balance of service reliability dropping elsewhere.

The challenge from the company's perspective is that they operate under and sell the delusion that app magic dust makes considerations about which neighborhoods you work in and which neighborhoods you don't disappear into smoke. This isn't a tragedy of the commons, it's a bunch of people who are working hard trying to maximize their efficiency. Uber tries to thwart them through deception and punishment.

Taxis didn't work unprofitable neighborhoods, and avoided dangerous ones. It wasn't personal.

If you really want to solve the problem, you make all the drivers employees, and guarantee their hourly income when they work. Then you send them out as inefficiently as you want, but you pay for that inefficiency.

> Not really sure what Uber can do about this, tbh.

I don't see why Uber can't show the pick up location and drop off location before choosing to accept the job.

That is the fundamental of being an independent contractor. You have to know what the job is.

From your comment, now I know why Uber will never solve this problem. Uber employees don't want to solve it, basically.

Wouldn't the simple solution be to guarantee a minimum hourly rate from the time a driver accepts the ride to the drop-off? Uber would have an incentive to be efficient (find closer drivers, get more drivers on the road) and drivers wouldn't worry about the 45min-$5-ride problem. If the ride is profitable on its own, there's no change. If there are no close drivers for a short ride, the ride would (and should) cost more.

Wouldn't this encourage slow driving to increase ride prices?

Send me resume@fure.cab founders equity..

> For example, if you show high profit heat maps, you risk drivers flocking there and the balance of service reliability dropping elsewhere.

Isn’t that the entire purpose of the market based, algorithmically generated pricing?

If a certain area gets congested, the prices will go down and the rates should equalize based on prices.

> I work at Uber. Opinions are my own. Etc. Here's my two cents: people in the company are acutely aware of this problem. Insiders legitimately want drivers to have flexibility without fear of penalties, and there are some major projects in the works to try to make things better for drivers.

This is laughable. The reality is that no one at Uber gives a two cents about "making it better for drivers" because of the sweet sweet paychecks that they are getting by screwing those drivers ( and since most of drivers look like the taxi drivers of NYC no one really gives two cents that they are being screwed).

Fish rots from the head. Uber has a rotten CEO. If he could sell his mother into slavery for a buck he would. Rotten CEOs attract other rotten people. Costco demonstrated that it is possible to even compete with the bottom feeder like Walmart without screwing people who work there.

At least Travis did not pretend like Dara does. Watching SV view Dara as a Jesus walking on water is wild.

Thanks for making this comment. Comments like yours are why I like HN so much. Where else on the internet could you possibly go to get this level of insight?

This reads like some bad and sloppy PR blurb. You can talk about "playing the system" if you pay the drivers a basic salary, otherwise why the hell would they go to places where there is no money to be made if that's their only way to get money?

Awful company and people working for it that could work elsewhere are awful people.

Portraying Uber, with its enormous resources and wealth - not to mention an incredible lobbying and a PR machine, as deployed in news op-eds, and through astroturfing all over social media (though not so much now) - as a struggling victim of circumstance and bad press, and implicitly comparing the company to drivers struggling to make ends meet, is a bit much.

It's up to Uber to solve its problems and deliver, and be responsible in the community. You have all the power and resources.

The problem appears to be that a $5, 5 mile, 45 minute ride does not break up even for the driver.

Gaming the system, cancellations, poor distribution of drivers, etc seem like attempts to resolve the impacts of the problem, not the problem itself.

Hey Driver X,

You’ve a ride request from “Person Y”

Pickup is “M km” from your current location.

Estimated ride distance is “N km”

Projected/min/approx cost for ride is “$ D” for total “N+M km”.

Do you accept or reject? You’ll not be penalised for any choice!

How the hell is this difficult and relates to all the jargon gymnastics you’ve done in your comment, other than just to keep the driver in the dark and without any kind of choice or freedom!

It makes for a bad user experience for the rider. The customer wants to know that they can certainly get a ride, not get rejected because their destination isn't profitable.

> if you show high profit heat maps, you risk drivers flocking

What's the point if increasing fares if those aren't being used to incentivize drivers to take those routes?

It's not a real question. It's obviously to gouge the customer.

On the other hand, in India canceling of rides by drivers is creating huge pain to riders.

Commuters are up in arms over the increasing number of cancellations on app-based services such as Ola and Uber. More often than not drivers, after accepting a ride, call up the passenger to ask about his or her destination before cancelling. They are unwilling to come to certain destinations and are not ready to pick up passengers in residential areas located away from main roads, said one regular user of Ola and Uber.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/bengaluru-com...

If they showed the driver the ride details beforehand, drivers could not accept the ride and passengers would never know. That's what would happen if drivers were truely independent. But by forcing the driver to cancel and irritating customers, Uber and Lyft are able to use this as a stick to discipline "independent" drivers.

Note that drivers wouldn't cancel profitable rides, only rides that don't make them or cause them to lose money. I'm not sure why anyone has a problem with this.

Not necessary. In India there is law that if you are running cabs on govt license then you cannot refuse passengers. If you as a cab driver do refuse (for whatever reason) then traffic police can take action (article mentions this).

There must be reason that this condition has been put into place.

My gut instinct is that it is a protection from caste discrimination, that is really just a wild guess on my part.

Absurd.

It is about passenger safety. The article itself mentions that people are stranded late night and one driver after another refusing to pickup the rider. Think women, emergency,.. etc.

Then offer to pay more. There is always a price point where someone is ready to provide the service. This should be in the system, maybe provide all details up front and then include extra payment which the rider can agree to pay to get their service, free market.

None of that is false, but the higher-order effects are socially unacceptable.

Please stop making everything about caste without any evidence.

> My gut instinct is that it is a protection from caste discrimination

You’re probably right. Not even a decade ago in New York I had to call cabs for my Ivy-league educated, well-dressed black roommate because they would curiously blow past him.

NYC had a law for decades that a licensed cab must take a passenger to any location in the five boroughs. In practice, late night cabbies would never take you to the boonies as the ride back is unprofitable dead time.

They’d ask you, “where you going?”, before you got in the cab and drive off if they didn’t like the destination. Experienced riders would ignore the cabbie, enter the cab, and then explain the destination. Then when the cabbie argues with you, you’d cuss them out and tell them to drive before you call the taxi commission to get their medallion revoked.

While many of us do miss the fun of those arguments, not having to deal with that is one big plus that Uber blessed the world.

And this is why the system really should be reverse. The riders provide all details and then drivers provide the price. Forming binding contract on both sides for agreed upon price. And there should be absolute no limit on the price. Be it 1 dollar or 1 million. And the company offering this should take action to enforce any contract in court.

In a pure market system, sure. I’m about as free market as they come, but the intention here is not just to maximize GDP. A functioning transit system with known costs makes a city more livable. That’s a sustainability issue for the city as a whole.

> There must be reason that this condition has been put into place.

It's because it's a democracy. That's the reason. And the majority of people don't like the idea of potentially being stranded in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Now, I can appreciate that reason. And I totally understand it myself. And I also understand that drivers can be shit.

But as a former Uber driver myself (not in India, but in California), please try understand it from my perspective as well. Uber doesn't pay for elevation changes. If your car gets damaged on a windy rocky dirt road, or on a road with no lighting whatsoever (Santa Cruz hills, I'm talking to you). Uber won't pay for damages or loss of income. Or if Uber calls you to a neighborhood where drivers get carjacked and pistol-whipped, as a driver, you're the one who has to bear most of those consequences, not Uber (we're not cops, we don't get paid leave, workers comp, or even medical benefits). The same goes if you get called to an area notorious for handing out traffic tickets or parking tickets. Uber pays for none of that, but it will penalize you for refusing the ride (and in San Francisco, it took them almost 10 years from finally blacklisting Market St for pickups, the part that's downtown).

And people can be shit. They'll call you just for getting down a windy dirt road that they don't want to walk down themselves because it's too steep. Or they'll call you just to dump their semi-conscious intoxicated friend into your car. I could tell you a thousand stories.

But my point is, the situation is more nuanced than you think.

A driver won't just chose profitable over unprofitable, but also more profitable over less profitable, and this ends up hurting some passengers on less profitable / less desirable routes.

If you wanted a cab to Brooklyn from Manhattan 20+ years ago, you had to get in the back of the car before telling the driver where you wanted to go. Otherwise the driver would just drive off without you. The ride was definitely profitable, but they knew they'd pick up another Manhattan ride on the next block and so on - a more profitable option that to risk not having a fare back from Brooklyn. Many drivers wised up and wouldn't let you into the cab until you told them where you were going. It was a major PitA.

> If they showed the driver the ride details beforehand, drivers could not accept the ride and passengers would never know

Then you go back to the taxi problem of there being no rides from or to predominantly black neighbourhoods.

>apps like Uber and Lyft don’t give her the details of a ride, such as its distance, expected time, and pay, until after she’s accepted it

Is it the same in Europe? Feels very American thing to me, I recently learnt that many shops don't show prices of products, like grocery, and gas stations also hide price when inconvenient. It's beyond my imagination to go to Lidl to buy a cake and learn at checkout how much it costs

What stores in the US don't show prices? I think you're conflating that with taxes not being included in advertised prices. That is common, but it's not like the tax rate is arbitrary, you can calculate exactly what you'll pay from the prevailing tax rate and the price on the shelf.

That’s the entire purpose of supply and demand based pricing. If enough drivers see it isn’t worthwhile to drive for Uber, prices should adjust dynamically.

Or the ride-sharing company should match customer to providers. On provider based pricing. Let them to evaluate the case and bid on it what they feel is reasonable. At right price there is always someone providing a service.

How is what you are describing different than what Uber is doing?

Personally, under the circumstances when I take Uber, I don’t care about how much they charge and I tip the maximum amount allowed by our guidelines - 20%.

90% of the time when I take Uber, it’s for business travel and I’m getting reimbursed (consulting). The other 10% of the time I’m on vacation where I expect to spend stupidly or going into town from the burbs for “date night” and we don’t want to worry about parking or DUIs.

I live in a very car dependent metro area so I don’t have a clear picture of when most people use Uber for day to day use.

Well, I guess there was the couple of years we were spending $350/month on Uber for our son to get back and forth to work and go friends because it was cheaper than car+insurance.

Uber dictates the price and hides the ride details. It is not the driver seeing the mass they need to transport and from where to where.

Two clear details that should affect pricing.

In system I am describing the driver could make offer after the rider has provided pick-up location, the drop location and how much mass or passengers they want to move. They could include in offer terms like cancelation fees, per kilometer cost, per time cost. Or just lump sum offer. And potential penalty fees if the rider doesn't provide all information, or miss represents something. Also could be included any fees such as cleanup.

I see no reason why Uber should have anything to say about how the drivers price their service. And it is up to rider to either accept these terms, wait for better terms or use alternative transport such as walking.

There are a few issues with that.

1. What if I want to be picked up from or go to a “bad neighborhood” - ie a “neighborhood with too many Black people that don’t tip well”? Uber drivers would cancel just like taxi drivers use to refuse to service the area.

2. That’s way too complicated compared to “choose my pick up spot and choose my destination “.

Two other comments.

Before the woke police downvote me or flag me for being racist because of the first comment, I am Black.

If drivers are complaining about the distance/time/cost, Uber has enough people on the road to tell drivers how long a trip will probably take based on the time it will take to get to the pick up spot, traffic patterns, and the time it will take to get to the destination. But telling them those two spots will automatically make it more expensive for minorities to get an Uber. The driver shouldn’t care where they are going, just how long will it take them to make the trip. The algorithm will price the rides based on supply and demand.

I do feel bad when a driver has to come way up north to pick me up and take me to the airport on the other side of town. I schedule my rides in advance so they know going in before they accept.

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/23/...

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-metro-cabbies-fines-...

1. Then you pay more. Someone will eventually set a price at level they are willing to provide this service. Nothing wrong with free markets operating as they are intended.

2. Contracts are inherently complicated. In the end you probably only need to check the total price or ask for such offer.

Drivers absolutely care where they are going. And have all the rights to set price accordingly risk on their lives and livelihoods they perceive. After all there should be risk premium for going to areas where they might have to risk their vehicles or lives.

Really? Let Black people pay more because of racism? I just cited two articles where Black business men in the middle of the city have a hard time catching a cab because of their color.

Isn’t that the same thing people said about segregation and Jim Crow laws? Before you think that is ancient history. My still living parents grew up in the Jim Crow south.

I travel for business across the US as a consultant. I work for a company worth $1.6 trillion dollars last time I checked. My expense reimbursements can easily go to over two grand for a week trip. I’m glad I know I can just click a button to be guaranteed a ride in 2021, instead of the dealing with taxis the first time I went to NYC in 2012 for a vacation.

And to your second point. This is why engineers make horrible product designers.

So you are saying that someone should not be able to set higher price to let's say move goods to eastern Ukraine? But would be mandate to go there at same price level as let's say Spain?

Or they should make delivery of goods to remote place in Alaska for same price as between two highly interconnected hubs? Taking that distance between is the same...

No, I specifically said that the drivers should be able to choose a ride based solely on cost/benefits - how much in time and money will the ride cost - distance to the pick up spot, distance to the destination, and traffic congestion. You can determine all of that in aggregate based on gps.

If you want to add another variable - rider ratings - that’s fine. Judge people based on their individual behavior - shocking I know.

And despite all of the fear. The chance of a random Uber driver being harmed in a “bad neighborhood” are infinitesimal. Most of the reports of people being harmed on Uber rides was on the part of the driver directed at the passenger.

Exactly. There are always going to be low profit or unprofitable areas and it's unreasonable to expect an individual driver to subsidize those rides. That should fall on the company that's profiting in aggregate (ex: Uber). Unfortunately I think I'm in the minority with my belief that companies like Uber have a social obligation to serve economically depressed areas.

Everybody should be asking themselves where the line is when it comes to not being a profitable enough customer because, as wealth disparity increases, the odds of being on the wrong side of that line are going up for everyone in the bottom 50%.

> If you want to add another variable - rider ratings - that’s fine. Judge people based on their individual behavior - shocking I know.

Yes. Uber has all the info needed to obfuscate ride details to the point where they could reduce discriminatory biases and have drivers selecting rides based primarily on economics and rider reputation.

> Exactly. There are always going to be low profit or unprofitable areas and it's unreasonable to expect an individual driver to subsidize those rides.

I’ve said it twice now. Give the drivers the information they need to know the cost of the trip - distance to pick up, distance to drop off, and the estimated time to get there. Let the algorithm decide how to appropriately charge based on supply and demand. I have no problem paying more to get from my house in the northern burbs to the airport in the south 60 miles and two hours away in traffic. I’m the epitome of the none price sensitive customer - I’m not paying for it. Either my company is paying for it or my company’s customer is paying for it.

When I am price sensitive on personal trips, I get an Uber to the closest train station that is much closer and less traffic.

> Unfortunately I think I'm in the minority with my belief that companies like Uber have a social obligation to serve economically depressed areas.

I disagree. The only responsibility that Uber has is to make a profit and let drivers use their own free will to decide whether it’s worth it. Uber shouldn’t even be responsible for benefits. If we as a society decide that everyone has the right to healthcare (I do), add a per ride government fee and let the government pay for it.

If you want affordable transportation, the government should either provide it themselves via mass transit or subsidize Uber rides for those who can’t afford it and if it’s more cost effective. That’s already happening in some places - via a “Universal Fund” tax added to each Uber ride.

If it isn’t obvious, I’m a pro capitalist, bleeding heart liberal big government pig. I should (or at least my company should) pay for the societal benefits of the ride share drivers.

You don't want to have the NYC taxi issue of drivers refusing to drive to the Bronx, so I'd do things like

- Have a "end my shift soon" button that can be used once every 24 hours that will only connect you with riders that get you closer to your home

- Allow drivers to define ~1-hour radius "work zones" where fares have to pay for the return trip, a la EWR to NYC taxis. This surcharge is fed into driver selection ranking.

- Pay for miles + time. I'm not sure how to structure it because Uber wants to show the fee to riders up-front and commit to it, pay the actual cost to drivers, but keep the contractor relationship. Maybe structure it as "fare insurance?" The idea is for both riders and drivers to get the price they expected, and for Uber, with its massive ride volume, to provide a good p95 experience on both sides.

In my opinion that's a perfectly sensible policy for employees, but makes a mockery of the idea of an independent contractor.

Is it crazy to suggest that taxi drivers should be paid hourly rather than by fare? I know it’s a radical departure from the business model but what are the downsides?

If it drives faster it uses more gas so it should be taken into account. Duration only based price would not take that into account. As a side effect it would be an incentive for drivers to drive slower. Would be a net win for the planet and for safety but maybe not for the customer :)

I think the economics might work, as we already know he demand and the costs we should be able to ballpark the average hourly pay and simply switch to it.

It would alter the experience, probably for the better for the most part. The taxi drivers wouldn't be acting like a-holes on the roads since they wouldn't need to squeeze as much as miles in the workday. However, I'm sure that it would create a lot of unintended disruption too, that might be good and bad.

It might turn out that you can't find drivers for the job. AFAIK, this job is preferred by many people who need lots money fast or people who are between jobs, already having a job or people who wouldn't be able to get a proper job for one reason or another.

It can be tricky.

Off-topic, but can you check the booking.com thread again? Or perhaps give me your contact information?

Let me check

Citymapper tried this in London, but they had to shut it down.

It's crazy because a lot of uber drivers don't make minimum wage. The money just isn't there

Cancelling a ride destroys the entire system. It can’t be allowed otherwise what’s the point if drivers can pick and choose their rides? The point is they should be compensated fairly for it. If they simply don’t want to drive someplace then they should stop driving for the platform.

Taxi drivers have the exact same rule. Taxi drivers aren’t allowed to reject rides once you’re inside.

On the face of it, I agree with you. Customer experience suffers when drivers can cherry pick rides. That's how Uber would put it. I wasn't making a living wage so I no longer driver for them.

And that's the way it should be. But many stick it out like their life depends on it, because somehow it usually does, and getting any other job is apparently out of the question. Good on your for deciding enough is enough.

The point is that if drivers have to drive where Uber tells them for the money Uber wants to pay, or quit for good, then they are employees. Contractors can read a contract and refuse it if they don't like it, on a contract-by-contract basis, or negotiate more money for difficult or unpleasant contracts. If Uber drivers can't do those things and must drive the place the company wants them to go for the money the company wants to pay, they are employees by another name and deserve employee protections and rights.

> "It can’t be allowed otherwise what’s the point if drivers can pick and choose their rides?"

The point would be that the driver chooses to do work which is profitable to them and ignore work which is not. Isn't that what contractors would do with work contracts?

The fact that normal people drive other normal people around, and Uber the company extracts enough money from being the middleman in this to fund lobbying against the driver's interests, and does so, is so twisted.

The contract isn't working each job though, is it? It's a higher level contract allowing them access to a pool of jobs, one of the requirements for which is that you don't get to see certain details about a job before accepting it. If that's not something a person is willing to do they can choose not to accept the contract allowing them access to the job pool.

Then you're describing a normal job. A contract which allows me to access to a pool of company work, I don't get to see individual task details in advance, cannot pick and choose it except for an overall option to leave the job.

> A contract which allows me to access to a pool of company work, I don't get to see individual task details in advance, cannot pick and choose it except for an overall option to leave the job

The contractor working on my house has a general impression of the work he must do. But the specifics are far from ironed out.

The contractor working at your house, I assume, knew what the work was and quoted a price to you. They didn't pick the house name off a list, and were then told the work to be done, and the price they would be paid for it.

If they aren’t ironed out then you made a foolish decision. I would never let the contractor decide the materials, how things look, the color, etc.

In your case the specifics should be ironed out for your safety. In the Uber example, you are the rider and you agreed to pay to arrive somewhere but let them decide the route.. and you pay for time/distance.

That is an extremely primitive definition of employee and wouldn’t work in many or most jurisdictions.

They can elect to turn the app off whenever they want. When they want to drive then don’t have a choice. This is more flexible than taxi drivers who lease their taxi at the beginning of their shift so they start owing money to the taxi company. And they still can’t choose where to go if their customer tells them.

Having a system that is profitable only for the driver and a miserable experience for the customer is a terrible system. It won’t work. It has to be a fair compromise. Pay the driver a fair rate and have the customer choose where to go.

I agree, but I think the solution is that Uber should pay their drivers a liveable hourly wage.

Canceling rides does destroy the system. The solution is to employ the drivers so that they have garantes and protections. Then you can tell them “you must take this ride”.

The issues with Uber is that they are trying to have it both ways. They want employees without paying for employees.

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