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Comment by zilti | Hacker News Reader

Calling Uber and Lyft "ridesharing" is one hell of an euphemism. They're just taxi services. Where the "independent" drivers don't pay taxes.

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The drivers 100% pay taxes. Everything is reported to the government. Not sure why you think someone paid by a major corporation would avoid having their income reported.

Because that's exactly what most Uber/Lyft drivers did for many years, which led to them getting banned or forced to properly employ their drivers. They held their drivers in a pseudo-self-employed-contractor state so they also wouldn't have to pay social security, unemployment insurance, etc., why else do you think they were able to be so cheap? If that is different now in California, that's very recent.

They are still required to pay taxes, and Uber/Lyft are required to send 1099s to the IRS to declare the income. Nobody was hiding anything.

>why else do you think they were able to be so cheap?

I thought it was because they were avoiding paying taxi taxes and avoiding medallion restrictions. And maybe also because the Uber/Lyft themselves were operating at a loss, and drivers might have been overlooking the money lost due to car depreciation.

I don't think you understand how 1099's work.

Unfortunately the "official" taxis at SFO have been reduced to using the prime pick up real estate they've been given to scam people who don't know any better. I tried taking a taxi home from there and they quoted me a price more than double the cost of an Uber. I showed the driver the Uber price and told him I'd be willing to pay a little more than that, but his price was ridiculous. He didn't care and wouldn't budge on the price.

I'd guess this consumer-hostile arrangement is maintained via some kind of kickback up the ladder. It's pretty funny to see a long line of empty, desolate taxis sitting right outside the arrival doors, while if you walk 15 minutes to the far side of the terminal where rideshare has been relegated, it's bustling to the point that it's difficult for drivers and passengers to find each other.

So yeah, my view is you can say what you want about rideshare; taxis are far worse.

>> I'd guess this consumer-hostile arrangement is maintained via some kind of kickback up the ladder.

or VC-subsidized rides, or shifting private costs onto the public, or not paying their drivers a sustainable wage, or this is not typical and you rarely find (I've never seen it) the taxi rate double the Uber rate.

So yeah, must be shadowy cabal between high ranking city administrators and fat-cat taxi drivers.

Uber has been free cash flow positive in markets like San Francisco for years. "Shadowy cabal" to describe the taxi industry isn't speculation or fear mongering. It's more or less an accurate description of how that market worked prior to disruption.

Airport taxis in general (and probably at SFO) usually have a long FIFO queue just to get to that prime real estate. Not worth cutting a deal when they've had to waste an hour of their time.

And in a lot of places, an airport taxi doesn't have a taxi license in the city, so they're largely stuck in that system.

I don't think they offer shared rides anymore either? Maybe they don't in any cities anymore?

I always loved the randomness of the ride sharing option, the potential extra time before drop-off easily outweighed the potential for an interesting conversation.

Uber Pool is back after a pandemic-induced hiatus. The main draw isn't the potential for an interesting conversation but the fact that it's cheaper.

Absolutely the prime driver.

It is kind of amazing how random conversations give you a window into how other people think. I remember talking to a radiologist who in the middle of a conversation dropped this nugget - if we knew when people in chronic health problems were going to die and end treatment six months before that and simply try to make their last days as comfortable as possible, we would save a lot of money on healthcare in the US.

Whats wrong with this? This is a true statement.

It is just something I would have never thought about otherwise.

The issue is when that line of thinking becomes warped or pathologized - like seems to be happening here in Canada with the MAID program (assisted death).

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