Hacker News Reader

Comment by jazzyjackson | Hacker News Reader

Talking to a driver about this I was told that the platform is always re-routing drivers to maximize revenue for lyft, so when the app says "finding you another driver", it's not the driver that canceled, it's the platform decided that driver was better off, revenue wise, to complete a different fare.

The fact that this is opaque to the end user just means we get mad at the workers and not the corporation, classic.

View on HN

The fact that OP can see "finding another driver" 8 times suggests that perhaps there is some prioritization system, and OP was low priority - such that if any other request came in before him, then the driver would be re-routed.

It's much simpler than that. Drivers accept and then they cancel the ride themselves if they don't like the destination or the earnings. Normally you would penalize those drivers but I imagine with Lyft losing market share they likely can't afford to penalize drivers all that much.

No, drivers don't see the destination until they arrive and the trip begins.

I'm often on one side of the Bay Area trying to get to the other and had many drivers pull up, then cancel or try to get me to cancel when they see I'm going across the Bay.

That's at least not true for Lyft as of October last year. But there are many factors, like other apps, traffic, getting offered something better from another app, etc.

> With upfront pay, drivers can now see ride information and what they’ll earn before accepting a ride. Drivers will have access to trip details including the pickup and drop-off locations, estimated time and distance to complete the ride, and a map view of the full ride in addition to the fare.

https://www.lyft.com/blog/posts/upfront-pay-and-the-next-cha...

My assumption was that most drivers are using 3+ different apps, so if they get an Uber request while they're driving a Lyft route they just don't accept it, hence the bouncing around "finding another driver" because all the drivers are already busy

Also, riders are using two or three different apps, so if Uber promises a 2-minute wait and then confirms with a 6-minute wait and Lyft is promising a 3-minute wait, cancel the Uber ride and now that driver is available again.

Doesn’t that incur a cancellation fee?

Usually not in my experience, as long as it’s within a short time (5 minutes?) since booking.

I don't know about lyft but with Uber this depends on the country (gov regulations might force to be transparent with the drivers beforehand).

Possible that those shitty tips you've been leaving are adding up in other ways? I live in a neighborhood that borders a part of town that is accepted as a "bad" part of town and is often confused as being part of that part of town. I have only ever not had the "finding another driver" twice from my house, and originally assumed it was location location location. I had a guest stay with me last summer, and they never received that treatment which led me to believe it was an account thing. We'd test by requesting a car at the same time. Their rates were cheaper, and they never had a new driver issue.

It would make perfect sense to have some ML model which predicts which customers will be most profitable, and treat those guys well to improve retention amongst that client set.

(Regarding Uber, not Lyft, but...) It would also make perfect sense to predict which customers are investigators in areas Uber is illegal, and avoid them. Which they did [0]. I would be shocked if they weren't giving more profitable customers higher priority and better treatment.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/03/uber-secr...

Forget ML, Lyft can tell if you are a more profitable / more engaged customer through your usage of Lyft Pink, which explicitly offers Priority Pickup. They are transparent about getting you a driver sooner, for cheaper, and I guess the subscription you pay for drives the value.

Uber used to never allow drivers to rate the riders after the tipping was complete. Not sure if that's still the flow.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com