
Australian drivers accuse Uber of wage theft - empressplay
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-26/uber-drivers-allege-upfront-wage-theft/10025908
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prolikewh0a
Uber's entire business model is wage theft [1]. In Seattle they send out
propaganda to their massive mailing lists of riders to defeat and crush any
regulation the city wants to put on Uber/Lyft to pay their drivers fairly and
give them any semblance of rights.

[1] [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-
now/2018/03/02/ub...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-
now/2018/03/02/uber-lyft-drivers-actually-earn-less-than-minimum-wage-mit-
survey-suggests/389230002/)

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8100676727
This only happens in a subset of markets [2] where legally the driver fare is
“coupled” to rider fare. In other markets drivers always get time-distance
fare.

Ironically journalists will also say that upfront fare is too high and rips
off riders [1]. And in these coupled markets there is a selection bias since
no driver is going to complain if the upfront fare predicted traffic (or on
average accounts for traffic) but there was none.

My impression is that Uber is at a first approximation indifferent to whether
the price is high or low; it earns the same commission off one trip for $100
as ten trips for $10. If Uber sets the price too low then no drivers will
drive. If it sets too high no riders will take trips. It’s incentivized to
maximize the dollars flowing through the system, which Econ 101 implies* is
whatever the market clearing price is. There might be knock on effects for
higher volume such that 10x$10 is better than 1x$100 but those are difficult
to measure.

[1]: [https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/974892/ubers-upfront-
pri...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/974892/ubers-upfront-pricing-is-
helping-it-overcharge-passengers-on-uberx-and-other-private-rides/amp/)

[2]:
[https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/05/2...](https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/05/20/uber-
new-pricing-angry-drivers)

