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Comment by rich_sasha | Hacker News Reader

If true (I'm not sure), this is kind of economics in action. There's a monopolistic market maker, screwing every last cent out of providers, with enormous power imbalances. The market maker is semi monopolistic, the labour is low-skilled, with little bargaining power and few better options. The "winners" are shareholders of the company and to some extent the end customers (who, other things being equal, would have to pay more for the labour).

In other words, I see this not a special greed of this particular company, but a logical conclusion of the economic system it operates in.

(I'm not saying it is good either. Only that raging against the symptom is a bit misplaced, and instead you should focus attention at the causes).

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> There's a monopolistic market maker

But there isn't? Doordash and Uber Eats compete nationally. Most cities have a litany of local competitors. And that's before we get to restaurants that handle delivery in house.

Sure, they "compete", but would you be surprised if they have some kind of under-the-table agreement to keep prices high and payments low...?

Yes. There isn't any need for collusion to keep driver wages at subsistence level in this market. Driving takeouts around is a nearly zero skill required job. Anyone who can pass a driving test can do it. Labor supply is nearly unlimited. Basic economics: lots of supply, limited demand = low prices. Why would it require collusion?

That's also a reasonable argument—comes to the same thing in the end, though. DoorDash and Uber still keep their payments low while retaining their dominant positions in the market.

You're right of course, there are more companies hiring drivers casually.

For their conditions to improve based on competition for their labour, youd need genuine competition between the companies for the labour and some scarcity of supply. Neither seems present.

> In other words, I see this not a special greed of this particular company, but a logical conclusion of the economic system it operates in. (I'm not saying it is good either. Only that raging against the symptom is a bit misplaced, and instead you should focus attention at the causes).

I think this is conceptually sound take but at the same time it's way too kind towards the people who are on the field making these decisions. Accepting to behave like a despicable human being and justify it with "well this is the system I operate in" is not acceptable for me from a moral standpoint.

The economic system is awful, sure. But deciding to go along and play the same awful game and drag everybody else down with it is a personal choice.

There is no such thing as "corporations". It's people. From top to bottom. And people are responsible for their own actions.

> But deciding to go along and play the same awful game and drag everybody else down with it is a personal choice.

True but misleading. If the system promotes being an asshole, then you'll have assholes at the top, no matter how much effort you put into moralizing everyone.

If the system promotes being an asshole, and you decide to play along, you’ll have to accept the fact that you are, in fact, an asshole. It’s not a matter of moralizing anyone. It’s just a matter of accepting consequences.

> it's way too kind towards the people who are on the field making these decisions.

So I guess, nicer taxi corporations existed, and got turfed out by Uber and Lyft who managed to reduce prices or increase convenience, and are reaping the fruit of their investment. Capitalism in motion.

I guess my fundamental point is, you can't fix this by putting pressure on companies to be nicer, because the ones being less nice will ultimately win due to better economics. If you want to fix it, change the law. Anything else is kind of shouting at clouds.

I remember people welcoming Uber not because of the app, but because the idea "you'll know exactly how much the ride will cost you before you take it" was revolutionary at the time. Over here, what used to happen was that you order the taxi, the guy says "yeah I'll take you there it'll cost you $10" and then the bill was $20 and there was nothing you could do about it except pay. It was completely normal for taxis to scam people. So when Uber came and started scamming drivers, everyone cheered.

The point is, you're essentially right. It's just that before Uber customers were most likely victims of scams, while with Uber it's the drivers. As in, in a capitalistic market the scamming is always present, the question is who scams who.

Scam is too generic of a word... its information asymmetry. Also for the most part everyone is trying to get some service/product for the lowest price while at the same time trying to earn as much as possible for some labor.

There was no such thing as a nice taxi before Uber. Not only did you have to schedule rides in advance, they were also incredibly unreliable. Prices were much higher and people routinely got scammed because you didn't know how much it would cost until you arrived.

Uber/lyft is miles better than the old taxis.

Taxi's were never nicer. They were very unpredictable if you would ever get one.

Outside of NYC (in the US), you may never see a taxi driving with the light on indicating you can hail it.

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