
Uber is a tinder box - haasted
https://twitter.com/nicoemoe/status/1141889128620888064
======
berkes
> We drivers have zero rights. Zero. Uber/Lyfts' idea to start a driver
> association is going to do nothing for us. The culture of these co's is that
> we don't matter, that we are junk, replaceable, & deserve nothing. We have
> to fight together to win this.

Lots of those platforms have a simple business model: Outsource the risk to
individual partakers, with that, lowers the price for consumers, but market it
as"disrupting".

As long as the individuals to whom the risk is deferred to, are either locked
in, or can cover their risks easy enough, there is no problem.

In this, Uber seems to be really pushing the envolope on the amount of risk
they can externalize, before their individual risk-takers form a union or walk
away.

------
andrew_
We've all heard stories. Some journalists have even been able to get people on
record. And still I have to ask why an anecdotal Twitter rant, something the
user seems to specialize in, holds any water whatsoever and how it made it to
the front page.

~~~
praneshp
> something the user seems to specialize in,

I think this is why.

------
Miner49er
In this case, a union doesn't make much sense. If a strong union was formed,
the drivers would then be organized enough to form their own co-op. Uber
doesn't really own the means of production here. The drivers do. It's not like
a Walmart or something where the drivers would need a lot of capital to start
a co-op. Wouldn't the capital they need be pretty minimal?

~~~
ForHackernews
> Wouldn't the capital they need be pretty minimal?

Hard to say. Uber seems to employ large numbers of extremely expensive silicon
valley engineers doing god-knows-what. Maybe those are necessary to run a
successful ride dispatching app?

On the other hand, groups like Lyft, Ride Austin, and Curb seem to have cloned
Uber's main app.

~~~
jjwhitaker
If other firms are started like a co-op with an app clone like Ride Austin, it
could lead to drivers wearing a dozen hats or "employers" and flipping between
platforms depending on pricing which may benefit Uber/Lyft who can subsidize
costs to undercut competition. Investors may then choose to go with an
established firm like Uber as they already are in this cycle and may projects
in the works that become the real money maker like self driving technology.

~~~
ForHackernews
AFAIK, many (most?) drivers already do this. They carry two or more phones for
Uber + Lyft + Curb...

------
notus
It will never get better for gig economy. They are basically mturks until
automation is ready. It sucks and it is sad, but the problems are bigger than
any one company in the US and ultimately the responsibility of the government.
Gig economy jobs were never meant to be people's bread and butter. Also if the
price went up much people wouldn't pay for it anymore.

~~~
malandrew
> ultimately the responsibility of the government

Why do so many people always default to "the government will fix it" instead
of expecting people to take responsibility for themselves?

Everyone has the same 168 hours each week. Even with 12 hour days, 8 hours of
sleep, 3 hours for meals, 7 days a week, that still leaves 21 hours to do
things to change your circumstances. You only need to keep that up long enough
to get into better circumstances that buy you more time.

I worked a few years under similar circumstances. It's totally doable, but you
have to plan and have to budget your time.

~~~
EliRivers
You also need health, genuine opportunity and limited other drains on your
energy - don't have anyone sick that needs you, and don't have any children.
If you've already lost your health, or have someone relying on you as a carer,
or are living somewhere without real opportunity (or perhaps very vulnerable
to something that'll get you fired or deeper in inescapable debt - one car
maintenance issue, one missed bus, one day off sick), well...

Also, you need the ability to plan and budget your time. These are real
skills, and if you don't have them, nobody's going to teach you, so you're
also out of luck there.

~~~
malandrew
Fair enough. I'm as atheist as they come, but I honestly think things worked
better when we left those cases you mentioned to the church instead of to
government. At least the church operates on the model of "god helps those that
help themselves" so there is a genuine effort from those providing relief to
get people off the relief instead of letting them become dependent. When the
government does it, they are just administering a narcotic, often
indefinitely.

community > government

------
lemcoe9
While I certainly wish for better conditions for these drivers (and in a
grander sense, the entire gig economy), I also worry about the price
sensitivity of riders when they go to use these apps: There are tons of users
that will make their Uber vs. Lyft decision based on <$1.00 in fare
difference. If these drivers get everything they want, I cannot imagine a
scenario where fares do not go through the roof, which will likely lead to a
decrease in demand, which will have a negative effect on take-home pay for
drivers.

The drivers certainly deserve better, however, I think the toothpaste is out
of the tube when it comes to what consumers expect and are willing to pay.

~~~
CydeWeys
It's probably for the best if there's fewer people driving for rideshare
companies, who individually make more money. The negative externalities from
all those extra cars on the road are fierce, and if those single occupancy
trips were charged appropriately then more trips would be taken by alternate
methods.

~~~
Shorel
> The negative externalities from all those extra cars on the road are fierce

It's better to have an Uber idling at some corner than a traditional taxi
driving furiously while trying to find a new ride.

That's what the Uber drivers do in the cities I have lived or visited.

Taxi drivers are the most aggressive and dangerous drivers ever. Almost all
crashes I have seen involve one or two taxis.

You can't ignore that externality when discussing the only alternative to
taxis we have now.

~~~
CydeWeys
You're still in a car-centric mindset. What I have in mind are non-car transit
alternatives, like walking, biking, e-biking, e-scooters, light rail, heavy
rail, etc.

Even if the cars are fully electric, they're still dangerous as you point out
(until the time they become fully self-driving). So it's best to eliminate as
many of them as possible. And a simple tool to do so is to increase taxes on
all for-hire vehicle rides, thus targeting taxis and rideshares equally.

~~~
Shorel
That sounds ideal.

It also requires to rebuild some cities, something that is way too expensive.

~~~
CydeWeys
And yet plenty of cities worldwide predominantly use public transit to get
around (including NYC). So it can and is done, thus it's not "too expensive".
Once the transit is there, all that remains is to continue deprioritizing
cars, which is quite cheap.

------
zbentley
The stories linked sound a lot like the stories of people trying to get
support from Google for ... well, anything except big-money GCP issues,
really.

------
anovikov
Well, anyway the whole thing of having drivers there is temporary. They are
just there to hold market share for these companies to let them start making
money properly when the self-driving taxis arrive and drivers are all
terminated in the end (maybe Uber Black will still have them). They aren't
just expendable - they are a stopgap solution as a whole.

------
rinze
It's not a tinder box. It's a meat grinder. It's an optimized capitalist
instrument: extract labour from people at the lowest cost possible to keep
expanding.

------
HiroshiSan
I have trouble taking stories seriously when the person mentions they were
almost in tears, I don't know why but it seems disingenuous.

~~~
jerf
I have no trouble. People who make bad financial decisions... not necessarily
_catastrophically_ bad, just bad... tend to make other ones, like trying to
pay off their debts by becoming an Uber driver because they bought Uber's
propaganda lock, stock, and barrel. Being unable to pay off the car could very
well be merely an exemplar of a larger problem.

I've had a couple friends of the family I've been watching on similar paths.
It's not like they're "handing their money over to scammers" or anything
_catastrophically_ stupid, but they make a kinda bad decision, then compound
it with some other kinda bad decisions about what jobs to take, and then make
some more kinda bad decisions, and before you know it, they're losing their
house and declaring bankruptcy. The tears might not just be about this
particular thing, but the increasingly undeniable recognition they're on a
snowball's path down a slope they've done everything in their power to make
avalanche-prone.

The people I know aren't screwing up by thinking they can make lots of money
by being Uber drivers without running the math for themselves (that is, it may
work for some people but you really have to run the math and be sure before
doing it), but it's the sort of thing that would fit right in to their life
story right now.

------
radcon
I'm really glad I saw this. These are the types of things that I think the
media should cover. Instead, we get the same weather, traffic and political BS
every day.

Unfortunately, it looks like few other people will see this on HN -- it's
already flagged to the second page even though it should easily be the #1 post
right now.

