
Lyft Drivers Are Burning Their Pink Mustaches - viscanti
http://www.vice.com/read/burning-mustaches-with-angry-lift-drivers-103
======
sgrove
A lot of these lyft/uber/sidecar-are-falling-apart stories remind me of
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html).
This may or may not be the case, but certainly the thought pops into my mind.

~~~
mccr8
Yeah, maybe I'm paranoid, but this story sounds like an event organized by
some anti-Lyft group for the purpose of press coverage. Most people when they
are fed up with a job just quit, they don't hold a photo-op-worthy beach
bonfire. Who bought the four pizzas in the last photo?

~~~
duaneb
It is a possibility, but I think there's also plenty of paranoia. I would
almost certainly buy pizzas for a mustache-burning event—moving away from bad
jobs is always something to celebrate.

------
bhouston
With all the dirty tricks going on, I can't help but wonder if Uber is somehow
arranging this as a PR attack on Lyft.

~~~
avree
Lyft cut prices and earnings for their drivers then posted a pretty detached
message about in in their Lounge.

Responses and messages: [http://elsewhe.re/XrEY](http://elsewhe.re/XrEY)

I think it's pretty obvious that this isn't an "Uber attack" or some
conspiracy, but the result of both companies racing to the bottom when it
comes to driver compensation and benefits.

The problem is that Uber has always made it clear they're about efficiency and
bottom line, whereas Lyft has tried to cultivate a 'community' feel. It stings
more when your 'community' option turns out to be just the same as the 'money-
grubbing' option.

~~~
viscanti
At the end of the day both are businesses. One has apparently owned that from
the beginning. The other pretended not to at the beginning so they could
bootstrap their company.

Now Lyft is large enough that the facade is over, and it's clear that they're
also just a business. But it feels like they lied to get ahead. I think that's
where the frustration here is coming from.

It amazes me to see how much client promotion work Lyft is doing. It's clear
that they're struggling to get people to ride with Lyft. Talking to Lyft
drivers who driver for both services, it sounds like they're routinely getting
more business with Uber (when they have both apps open).

------
thebrokencube
_> “But this is an elective service and our culture is taught to tip for
elective services. And yet HQ doesn’t want to offend or dissuade customers by
making the ability to tip more prominently featured for fear they may end up
going to Uber. And so no drivers get tipped even when a passenger would like
to give one. Maybe that’s more likely what’s bringing down morale.”_

I never used Lyft or Uber until last week, and this was the most surprising
part. I was trying to figure out how to tip the driver, and tbh I don't think
I was able to figure it out. I ended up tipping them after the fact through
the emails they send you, but it was very surprising as to how ambiguous that
part of the user experience is.

With Lyft and Uber starting to take off a bit in my city, I was going to
recommend it to some friends to make some extra cash. I don't think I'll
continue to give this recommendation anymore though, if tipping is
discouraged/hidden.

~~~
Doji
I've only used Uber, but my understanding is that the tip is built in. You
choose a fixed percentage when you sign up, and that's the tip every driver
gets. You can express how pleased you are with the service in your review,
there's no need to do this through money. This model is a bit part of the
reason I like Uber; tipping is an annoying, awkward, and outdated convention
that I would prefer not to deal with.

~~~
leetNightshade
I'd rather not have a built in tip as a customer. I don't want to tip someone
who doesn't do their job well. I want to tip someone who does an exceptional
job, and I may even tip them exceptionally.

Granted I've never used a service like Uber, so I can't directly understand
where you're coming from.

~~~
bitJericho
You're supposed to tip everyone unless they treated you like garbage. People
who accept tips don't make a living wage without them.

------
shalmanese
> At this point, she explained, most drivers were driving for both Lyft and
> Uber, and everyone was really just hanging on and waiting for the moment
> when Uber will inevitably emerge victorious, purchases Lyft, and raises
> their rates back up to more reasonable levels.

Since when has consolidation ever been a better deal for the counterparty? The
only reason the percentage that uber/lyft take is so low is because they're
competing. If Uber takes over Lyft, expect both higher ride prices and lower
driver compensation.

------
no_future
I don't live in a major metropolitan area, are Uber/Lyft really that big of a
deal in cities? They seem like something only yuppies would use. This article
is from a non tech/startup related publication so it would seem that they have
penetrated the public conscience.

~~~
ilaksh
Much faster than a cab and Lyft at least is cheaper than a cab too.

I don't have a car right now. Most people though use it in place of a cab for
a ride after drinking.

~~~
no_future
Idk, parking and traffic may suck but I couldn't justify shelling out out my
hard earned cash any time I needed to get somewhere. Once in a while is fine,
but only people with lots of disposable income who don't care about saving
money I'd think would use them daily. In cities there are buses and subway
systems, SF which seems to be where Uber gets the most usage has the BART
which is great, and you can always walk.

Seems to be the same case with Airbnb, I don't see any normal people using it,
it seems to be rich people who want to make some extra cash off their nice
condo/vacation home.

I'm sure people ask this all the time, but why do these companies have such
high valuations? ($17 billion for Uber - really now?). I mean they already
generate revenue and are profitable, so shouldn't the value of them be
proportional to their profit?

~~~
ilaksh
I thought I just said this, but I will say it again in a slightly different
way.

Lyft and Uber have taken a huge percentage of the _entire taxi cab and black
car service industries_. To the point where they may very possibly entirely
replace them.

That is why those companies have large valuations.

The reason people use Lyft and Uber is the same reason people use taxi cabs.
They went out drinking and can't drive home, or never planned to drive home.

Its true that people with disposable income are also a large user base.

Also in my area of southern California and many other areas, the buses are
horrible and only students, homeless or poor people use them. Almost
literally. And their routes are limited. Everything is massively spread out
around here.

Personally, I had to sell my car, and I have zero disposable income. I just
use Lyft now because it is cheaper than a taxi and arrives much more quickly.
I also very rarely go anywhere far. Last two times I went to the store I
walked.

------
bluesnowmonkey
_one of their complaints is that there 's an overabundance of cars on the
road_

This one sentence contradicts everything else in the article. If driving for
Lyft is such a bad deal, why are too many people doing it?

~~~
menssen
I don't know if this is the true for Lyft, but the recent articles about UberX
strikes suggest a bait-and-switch tactic (or at least a perceived bait-and-
switch tactic). The amount of money you make _used_ to be high enough that
people made investments in new car; now the amount of money is _significantly_
less, but people are stuck doing it to pay the auto loan.

~~~
thrill
Bait and switch? The amount I was able to bill when I first started
teaching/building websites in "the early days" was whole lot more than it was
once everyone else got interested in the well paying gig. Did the market bait
and switch me?

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razster
So they're burning essentially plastics? FK them all.

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xux
>Most drivers were driving for both Lyft and Uber, and everyone was really
just hanging on and waiting for the moment when Uber will inevitably emerge
victorious, purchases Lyft, and raises their rates back up to more reasonable
levels.

This is why one of Lyft / Uber should die already and let the other take over
the industry. Ride sharing is such an amazing idea, but the competition is
nasty. This is a perfect example of why a monopoly is infinitely better than
having competition: [http://online.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-
is-fo...](http://online.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-
losers-1410535536)

~~~
ary
> This is a perfect example of why a monopoly is infinitely better than having
> competition

This is a grossly over simplified assumption that does not stand on its own.
The type of monopoly that Google has was not handed to it, but resulted from
"nasty" competition. Google (currently) is literally too competent to beat in
the search engine space. Perhaps Lyft will die off or by purchased by Uber,
but it's not a given that it should, or even that it will.

More importantly, what happens when there is no competition between companies
for drivers? Are we assuming that once (Uber|Lyft) has the market wrapped up
they're going to benevolently maintain favorable driver pay rates? Are we
really assuming that in the absence of incentives to do so that (Uber|Lyft)
will favor drivers or riders instead of its own bottom line? Since this flies
in the face of common sense and a mountain of empirical evidence to the
contrary, _why in this case is a monopoly preferred to competition?_

~~~
xux
Every monopoly in history got there by cutthroat competition, because guess
what... competitions are cutthroat by nature.

So the answer isn't to prolong or encourage more competition, but to expedite
the process going from competition to monopoly. There's no difference between
a Lyft or Uber monopoly, but there's a huge difference between one of them
winning, and both of them surviving.

No consumer wants to use two apps. No driver wants more pay cuts. Just like no
advertiser wants to run campaign on two different search engines.

Hence why I said, one of them should win already.

