Hacker News Reader

Comment by renewiltord | Hacker News Reader

On Reddit, drivers are claiming that Uber pays surge pricing to drivers but Lyft pays a fixed hours plus mileage and takes the surge increase for itself. Is this true?

View on HN

The one common thread is that neither Lyft nor Uber drivers have any idea how they get paid, or why they got paid $X instead of $Y even though the customer said they're paying $ZZ for the ride.

My anecdotal experience recently is that Uber is much better at communicating a lot of hand wavy reasons why it's not them that are impacting their net pay $random_government_entity taking all your money. Or I've just gotten some especially out there drivers recently.

I've had drivers who were renting cars to rideshare because their other one was totaled. These are often financially desperate people. Its a predatory situation. You need work and there's this entity handing out work on your own schedule, seems almost too good to be true because it is. Factor in that rental, factor in your car payment, factor in the tires, the maintenance, the gas, the newer model car you need to have for the job, the phone you need for the app to work, the cellphone plan to make that phone work for the job, the health insurance you need to pay for on your own, the unpaid breaks you have to take to pee or eat, and it probably doesn't look so nice.

Traditional shift work low skill labor jobs like fast food are honestly a better option. These days some fast food places are providing benefits, not to mention a path to management and therefore a higher wage. It's not like uber or lyft will ever promote you from driver.

Sounds about right from the chats I've had with Lyft drivers, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a per-ride bonus somewhat like Doordash when they need drivers.

Sounds unlikely. That wouldn’t make any sense. The surge is there because demand exceeds supply.

This supply/demand equation doesn't necessarily have to involve incentivising increased supply, maybe the increase in capacity from offering the difference to drivers isn't worth it compared to just profiting from the scarcity.

It does if you’re competing for labor and the other guy is paying high wages during surges. I just don’t see how that could work

Is it possible that the lead time for surge reaction is too high to actually react to sufficient surges and it's all demand management?

I think no but it doesn’t matter. If Uber is paying much higher wages for the same labor and you can switch over at the press of a button, why would anyone drive for Lyft during a surge?

I would assume that the reason is that no one can actually perform the ride pickup in the surge.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com