https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-may-stop-letting-drivers-see-destinations-16078491.php Skip to main content Currently Reading Uber may stop letting drivers see destinations and name prices * Subscribe Subscribe * e-edition * Sign In * [ ] * Subscribe * Season of Sharing * Local + San Francisco + Bay Area + Coronavirus + Crime + Wildfires + Politics + Obituaries * Sports + Giants + Warriors + 49ers + A's + Sharks + High School + College * Politics * Biz+Tech + VisionSF * US & World * Opinion * Datebook + Movies & TV + Music + Theater + Art & Exhibits + Dance + Classical + Books + Festivals + Bad Reporter * Food + Top Restaurants + Inside Scoop + Restaurants + Recipes + NorCal Brewery Map + Beer & Wine * Culture Desk + Outdoors + Travel * Vault: Archive + Chronicle Covers + Our San Francisco + From the Archive + Portals of the Past + Archives Search * Podcasts + The Doodler + Extra Spicy + Fifth & Mission + Total SF + It's All Political + A's Plus + Warriors Off Court + Giants Splash * Investigations * In-Depth * Newsletters * Quizzes * Membership + About Membership + Exclusive offers + Join Now + e-edition + App + Manage my account * Store * Privacy Notice / Notice At Collection * Do Not Sell My Personal Info * Terms of Use * Comics & Puzzles Most Popular * Clinical Laboratory assistant Mamdouh Sibai, pools eight samples into one testing tube to be process at Stanford Clinical Virology Lab in Palo Alto, California, on Thursday, July 23, 2020. 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Friday, February 19, 2021. Alameda County Office of Education is hosting the first FEMA mobile COVID-19 vaccination site in the country on Friday and Saturday in Hayward. Coronavirus live updates: Bay Area new infections on the rise, but... Biz & Tech Uber may stop letting drivers see destinations and name prices Carolyn Said April 5, 2021Updated: April 5, 2021 3:09 p.m. Facebook Twitter Email Comments 2 1of2 Uber driver Omer Iltas prepares to pick up a customer at SFO in August. Uber said airport acceptance rates are down in California because drivers can see destinations upfront and reject rides. Yalonda M. James / The ChronicleShow MoreShow Less 2of2 Uber driver Jorge Torres, 29, looks at his phones for ride pickups at a Shell gas station near the Oakland International Airport in October. Uber may end a feature that let drivers see destinations upfront and set pricing for rides. Yalonda M. James / The ChronicleShow MoreShow Less * * A year ago, Uber let its California drivers see ride destinations before picking up passengers and let them set pricing in an effort to prove that the drivers were truly independent contractors. It was an effort to block drivers from being reclassified as employees under AB5, California's gig-work law. Now, Uber is acknowledging that the move has hurt business and is considering axing its visible destinations and price-naming policies, The Chronicle has learned. The see-saw may disappoint drivers who appreciated that extra control over their work. Too many drivers cherry-pick lucrative rides and decline other requests, making the service unreliable, the San Francisco company said on Monday. Uber no longer has to worry about proving that drivers are independent contractors, because Prop 22 -- the November ballot measure that Uber and fellow gig companies spent $220 million to pass -- enshrines their non-employee status. "Uber is re-evaluating past changes we made in California so we can make Uber more reliable," the company told The Chroncle. In January 2020, days after AB5 took effect, Uber made the changes, saying they were "due to new state laws" and warning riders that they might have a harder time finding a ride. AB5 makes it harder for companies to claim that workers are not employees. It relies on a test that says workers are employees unless they work free from a company's control, do work not central to a company's core business, and have their own independent enterprises in that line of work. Uber's goal was to show that drivers had more freedom and flexibility and fit those requirements. Drivers could set their own price as a multiple of an Uber base price, could see where riders were going, and could reject ride requests without penalties. Riders no longer saw pricing before a ride. A third of California drivers declined more than 80% of their ride requests, making the service unreliable, Uber said this week. About a fifth of potential passengers in California now end up not finding a ride, a sevenfold increase from previously. The pandemic further constrained the number of drivers, who must now grapple with the risk of the virus. The changes disproportionately hurt airports, Uber said. Airport rides have long been a profitable backbone of the service, and that's where the company hopes to see increased demand as more Americans start to travel as they become vaccinated. More for you * Biz & Tech Uber, wary of AB5, is giving California drivers more... By Carolyn Said * Biz & Tech Uber makes major changes to California rides as gig-work... By Carolyn Said Weekly ride completion rate for San Francisco and Los Angeles airports is less than 60%, by far the lowest for major airports in the country, Uber said. Harry Campbell, a Los Angeles Uber and Lyft driver who runs The RideShare Guy blog and podcast, said that drivers who work full time liked having the additional controls so they could reap the maximum profit. Interactive Vaccine Tracker: Latest developments Detailed information about the coronavirus vaccines as it becomes available. "To make it work as a full-time driver, you have to be very strategic," he said. "Many drivers (previously) were shocked to find out that they didn't know where a passenger was going until they accepted the ride. When Uber added the destination feature, it was a game changer for a lot of drivers." But as a passenger, Campbell said he's noticed that the service is worse. Overall, he thinks the flip-flip could alienate drivers, even as Uber is now dangling incentives to draw more people back to work. "It's been a pattern, a bit of a tease for Uber to give drivers features they want and then take them away," he said. "This type of feature was something drivers always wanted. I think drivers will be pretty pissed off" to lose it. Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid Fifth & Mission The Chronicle's flagship news podcast. Listen and subscribe on your favorite app. Click the player below for the latest episode. * Interactive Vaccine Tracker: Latest developments Detailed information about the coronavirus vaccines as it becomes available. Written By Carolyn Said Reach Carolyn on Carolyn Said covers the on-demand economy (new marketplaces such as Uber, TaskRabbit and Airbnb that let people rent their time, goods and services), the impacts of automation and AI on labor, and the world of autonomous vehicles. Previously she covered the housing market and foreclosure crisis, winning awards for stories that shed light on the human impact of sweeping economic trends. As a business reporter at The Chronicle since 1997, she also has covered the dot-com rise and fall, the California energy crisis, the corporate malfeasance scandals, and the fallout from economic downturns. View Comments Top of the News * L.A. joins S.F. in orange tier. How their COVID data and restrictions... Los Angeles County has moved to the orange tier and is loosening restrictions Monday. Its key coronavirus indicators remain somewhat higher than San Francisco's, however, and some of its... By Kellie Hwang * S.F. loses status as most expensive U.S. office market By Roland Li Kamala Harris: Oakland Coliseum vaccination site will stay open By Joe Garofoli In California, political leanings predict vaccination rates better than... 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