
Lyft invests $100M in its drivers - obahareth
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/23/lyft-invests-100-million-in-its-drivers/
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rectang
Lyft is still outsourcing risk to those drivers.

Lyft is certainly well aware of how much money it saves by ensuring that when
expensive tragedies happen, they are borne by individuals. As to how well the
drivers are prepared, well it's going to vary by individual, but it's safe to
say that _none_ of them understand the risks they are taking on as well as
Lyft does, and in the aggregate most are unprepared, not even having proper
rideshare insurance.

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crsv
This was my first thought as well - it seems like a thought out risk
mitigation strategy that plays well from a PR perspective.

It's a savvy move, and to your point likely escapes the typical drivers
awareness. So at what point does regulation get in the mix as Lyft or other
ride sharing companies take direct action that signals risk acknowledgement or
indemnification?

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jdavis703
Alternative headline: "Lyft invests $100 million in self-driving car
maintenance hubs." By centralizing cleaning and routine maintenance to it's
centers Lyft is laying the ground work to provide a place for self-driving
vehicles to return to between revenue service.

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cm2012
People keep saying the Lyft and Uber endgame is self driving cars, but there
are not going to be fully autonomous self driving cars for at least 10 years.
It's not a realistic business plan and I very much doubt that's actually the
strategy at these companies.

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sebleon
Where does the number “10 years” come from? 5 seems plausible to this non-
domain expert

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yawz
10 is optimistic IMHO. The popular 80/20 rule is at work here. It's going to
take a lot of time to get the rest 20% right. For example, how long it's going
to take to solve the driving on the snowy roads?

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rconti
I, for one, have never taken a Lyft from San Francisco to Tahoe.

"On the roads" doesn't mean "Every single road in every single market around
the globe"

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jaredhansen
The headline could stand alone as a succinct master class in the value of the
"relations" part of PR. Imagine Uber getting a headline like this from TC in
2018, _assuming it did exactly the same substantive thing._

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alex_young
1.4M drivers now, they are doubling to 2.8M over 5 years.

100M / 2.8M = $35 each. Or about one oil change.

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lalos
Interesting the last bit, this will technically subsidize Uber's work. Most of
the drivers are on both unless they add a minimum driven hours per week to get
this perk.

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jnordwick
This is no better than a press release. How does this absolute crap make it to
the HN front page? Is it hatred of Uber? I don't get why such a fluff piece
can get so many upvotes.

Even the title "Uber invests in its drivers" sounds like a press release.

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leroy_masochist
The only item in this that strikes me as "investing in its drivers" is the tax
education. Everything else would be better described as cost subsidies
intended to incentivize drivers to continue to work for Lyft as independent
contractors.

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martinald
This sounds like yet more cost on an unsustainable business model. Just like
Uber announced today (iirc) that the are paying a bunch more quasi-benefits to
their drivers in the EU.

