
Lyft No Longer Showing What Individual Passengers Pay on Trips - throwaway413
https://jalopnik.com/i-wonder-what-they-are-hiding-lyft-drivers-can-no-long-1839224300
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whack
Relevant detail that I'm sure most commenters have not read:

> _drivers are directed to a web link that shows a weekly breakdown of their
> fares, how much Lyft took, and how much all of their riders paid during that
> time period in aggregate_

> _Lyft explained how the decoupling of driver and rider payments influenced
> their decision to no longer show the driver what the rider paid. “Because
> driver pay is decoupled from what a rider pays, we wanted to highlight
> aggregate earnings content and basic insights like total hours & booked
> hours which can encourage drivers to rely less on individual ride details,
> which can be misleading, and more on the larger weekly earnings picture.”_

Ie, drivers can still see what passengers pay on trips, and what Lyft's take
is. The only thing they can't see is what _individual_ passengers paid on
_individual_ trips.

I don't have a strong opinion on this change, but the above detail seems very
relevant to the discussion on why this change is bad for drivers.

~~~
stefan_
Why would that be relevant? What Lyft and Uber have been telling us all along
is that they are not a ride-hailing company, they are just a marketplace
bringing together riders and drivers. In that scenario, it is all about the
up-to-the-minute price that riders are happy to pay, and drivers happy to
accept.

Imagine a stock exchange where you can't see the market price, and after a
week the exchange tells you "heres what buyers paid, sellers received, the
difference is our subject to change take we don't let you know". Imagine a
stock exchange that proclaims "stock price is decoupled from what sellers
offer and buyers pay".

~~~
PopeDotNinja
They're not marketplace, are they?. I can't shop different drivers and pick
the one I want.

~~~
felipelemos
Neither can the drivers choose how much they will charge.

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dawnerd
As a rider, I'm for this. I've had on more than one occasion a driver complain
about how little I paid and checking their earning right in front of me. Maybe
they were trying to guilt trip me into a higher tip, I don't know.

Side note, ended up using a taxi in Orlando for the first time in years and it
was surprisingly a much easier, cheaper, and faster ride (plus the driver knew
the area and didn't need nav).

Edit: I know they're doing this to screw drivers ultimately and that's not
cool.

~~~
mykowebhn
I understand I will be downvoted for this, but don't you think you should tip
more? I don't know where you live, but I do know in the US drivers depend on
tip income and when you don't tip sufficiently it really hurts them.

~~~
SamReidHughes
I had an Uber driver, who I know outside of Uber, tell me 95% of passengers
don't tip. I don't know how accurate that is.

~~~
rightbyte
If I remember correctly Uber made a thing of "You don't need to tip!" in the
start, right?

~~~
Rebelgecko
I don't think the app even supported tips until a year or two ago. Part of
their shtick was that you don't need to mess with cash, and the price in the
app is all you need to pay.

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mastre_
I literally got asked what I will tip by my Lyft driver, and was reminded
multiple times during the trip about the tip. Now, I understand, and I did
tip, but I did not enjoy the experience. This is after I got stringed along by
a no show for almost 30 min (at 11:30 PM), someone who had no intention to
show. The aggressive tip dude that took me basically told me that my fare was
"too short" and nobody wants to take it, but how he's such a good guy and
doesn't play that game and that's why I should tip him well. He also gave me
some insight into how they game it -- they adapt (as they should) to whatever
changes Lyft makes and find a way to game it; my first driver, the no show
guy, used me and my time as part of his gaming the system to get a better
fare. I ended up wasting 30 minutes of my life waiting for somebody that was
never going to show; I was tired and 30 minutes of extra sleep that night
would have been great.

This was a few months ago from LAX to Venice. Last year ('18) was the last
good year of ride sharing from LAX, 2-3 years ago it was actually great, I
literally remember thinking how well the services work, how useful and
pleasant they are for the customer, from the timeliness, to the cars, to the
drivers and convos. Then in all went downhill, quick. Right now I loathe using
UberLyft.

~~~
ilikehurdles
Why tip at that point? One of the major draws originally for these services
was that the price you see is the price you pay, and drivers were discouraged
from accepting tips. I tipped for a bit when that changed because of some
imagined social infraction I was committing, but I got over it and now I tip
pretty much never unless the driver goes out of their way to do something nice
for me. I still get exclusively 5-star drivers from nearby locations, so I’m
not sure what consequence I’m supposed to pretend to face by not tipping.

But I’ve also not once been asked about my tip or my fare so maybe it’s
different in your part of the country.

~~~
marzell
There's incentive to always tip well because you also get rated as a rider,
and I suspect that drivers also can see your average tip.

~~~
lozaning
I dont think drivers can see how much you tip on average, and you get rated
before they see how much you tipped for the trip.

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ping_pong
If the drivers are paid by distance and time, why doesn't it matter how much
the customer paid? It might have mattered when they were taking a cut of the
original fare, but now that it's fixed to time and distance, it really is none
of their concern.

------
40acres
I learned yesterday that Uber maxes out tips at $10. My Uber driver returned
my lost phone and I wanted to thank him with a big tip, unfortunately after
giving $10 Uber suggests that you tip the driver further in cash. I'm confused
about the rationale for this is..

~~~
ngoel36
Uber automatically charges you $15 (to be awarded to the driver) for a lost
item return: [https://help.uber.com/riders/article/contact-driver-
about-a-...](https://help.uber.com/riders/article/contact-driver-about-a-lost-
item?nodeId=53539bde-f6f4-4909-85de-fa0b99f82be0&state=uGZUj-
kj32mX4vcec9IbxxgQQKT2dWB-gRIvlmok2Qs%3D#_)

~~~
tomjakubowski
What's Uber's cut of that fee?

~~~
icebraining
"The entire fee is passed on to the driver."

[https://help.uber.com/riders/article/lost-item-return-
fee-?n...](https://help.uber.com/riders/article/lost-item-return-
fee-?nodeId=633c684e-1d4b-426a-bd4f-6bee488dac6a)

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kbos87
This feels like an important distinction between a platform that contractors
can come and offer their services on and a business that has full fledged
employees. When Lyft controls pricing and all of the information about
pricing, it’s laughable for them to make the argument that “we are just a
platform, people come here and operate their own businesses on their own
terms!” Action by lawmakers to right this wrong will be less painful now than
it will be the longer we wait.

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simonebrunozzi
I guess this way it would be easier for Lyft to claim these are not real
employees but just contractors?

IANAL so correct me if I'm wrong.

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tempsy
It's incredible how aggressively Lyft "woke-washed" their brand...and that
people actually fell for it.

If you had problems with Uber's business model, then Lyft is the exact same
thing, though would argue Uber has built much more comprehensive safety
features directly into their app than Lyft.

~~~
pstuart
I fell for it with eyes intentionally closed, just like I have to do in so
many other instances where I know that my luxuries have negative impacts on
the world.

~~~
lmpostor
I got this blue pill I want to sell you :)

~~~
pstuart
It's certainly a delicate dance, isn't it?

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otterley
Flagging for misleading headline. Passengers, of course, still get to see what
they paid. It’s the driver who no longer gets to see it after the trip has
completed; but they do get an aggregate report.

