
Lyft moves San Francisco IPO roadshow as drivers protest - anigbrowl
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/lyft-moves-san-francisco-ipo-roadshow-as-local-drivers-protest
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ummonk
I'm not sure it's possible for ridesharing to be adopted en masse by consumers
at a price point that would provide healthy wages to drivers. E.g. if a rider
works 40 hours a week and uses ridesharing for 2 hours a week, for the driver
to earn as much as them, they'd need to be spending 5% of their pretax income
on the ridesharing, in addition to gas and car value, with a multiplier on top
for ridesharing inefficiencies since drivers don't magically pick up new
riders in the same time and spot that they drop off. Pool / line can help
lower this cost but in my experience I've ended up just riding alone more
often than not anyway.

Of course, that doesn't mean Uber and Lyft aren't taking an unfairly large cut
of the revenue, further reducing drivers' earnings.

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jacobolus
Is anyone expecting ride-sharing to be adopted by a majority of the population
for everyday trips? My impression is that taxi rides are inherently
transportation for the upper middle class or occasional necessities for anyone
else, not an everyday mode of transportation for the masses.

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francisofascii
I had hopes that multi-rider trips would catch on more. So 2+ passengers would
split the fare. My commute is toward the city center like most of the single
occupant traffic. And I don’t need dropped off exactly at my place. Close is
fine. (Last mile problem)

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jacobolus
> _My commute is toward the city center like most of the single occupant
> traffic._

This is the problem mass transit is ideally suited to solve. Hiring 1
professional driver per 2–3 commuters when there are thousands all going the
same place is ridiculously inefficient. A bus can easily fit 10x more
passengers.

~~~
chess93
I've only ever been impressed with mass transit in megacities like NYC. SF
public transit left a lot to be desired. The muni was not worth the hassle and
I did not have a bart station near my rented room in a house.

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pmoriarty
I used to avoid the Bay Area's buses like the plague for many years, but in
the last couple of years I came to ride them a lot and have been pleasantly
surprised.

They're really convenient, with buses being able to take me to within a five
to ten minute walk from most anywhere within the Bay Area that I want to go,
and even closer within SF proper. They're a lot quieter than the BART (where I
feel I need ear plugs to protect my hearing), it's as clean or cleaner, and
there are now apps like Citymapper which tell you exactly which bus to take
and when to get where you're going.

My main gripe is that a couple of times buses just didn't show up at all when
they were scheduled to arrive (not just late, but just skipped a bus).

NYC's subway system is definitely way better than BART in terms of having way
more stops and going virtually everywhere, but it also has its own problems
(like the stops being deadly hot in the summer and freezing cold in the
winter).

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jacobolus
Note that BART has gotten a lot quieter recently.
[https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-rides-
quiet...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-rides-quieter-
metal-why-so-loud-13419926.php)

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themark
They lost almost a billion dollars last year.

Doesn't profitability rely on eventually being able to replace drivers with
automated systems?

I feel sorry for the drivers at that hotel.

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gamechangr
It's not a great experience to work for an algorithm.

