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Comment by Jasper_ | Hacker News Reader

> 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!

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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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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"?

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