[HN Gopher] Uber, Lyft drivers strike in Los Angeles
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Uber, Lyft drivers strike in Los Angeles
Author : okareaman
Score : 58 points
Date : 2021-07-21 17:36 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.latimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.latimes.com)
| slownews45 wrote:
| I drove for uber briefly. Wasn't impressed with their integrity
| (the promo I signed up on said get X if you drive for us, then it
| was after you do Y, then Y and Z).
|
| I drove purely for fun but that rubbed me the wrong way so I
| wrapped it up.
| okareaman wrote:
| Uber is mostly on the up and up. Lyft is the sketchier of the
| two. They use tricks on the drivers to direct them where they
| want them, such as luring a driver into a high demand area with
| a fake ride (which gets cancelled) and then suggesting, since
| you are here, why don't you wait for a ride.
| driverdan wrote:
| > such as luring a driver into a high demand area with a fake
| ride (which gets cancelled)
|
| That would be fraud. I strongly doubt they're creating and
| cancelling fake rides.
| okareaman wrote:
| Why can't it be a bug in their AI? No human at Lyft is
| directing rides. It's the paper clip problem - tell it to
| optimize profit and it finds ways.
| rocgf wrote:
| Do you have any source for this? This sounds so incredibly
| dodgy that I can't really believe it.
| okareaman wrote:
| Just personal experience. I have other examples, like
| creating fake hot zones to lure drivers away from crowded
| areas and cancelling my ride when the rider didn't show up
| right before the time when I would have been paid for
| waiting. Uber did none of these things. I still like Lyft
| though because they have a lot of government contracts and
| I like helping poor and sick people to their doctor
| appointments.
|
| Edit: I don't blame the people at Lyft. I blame their AI,
| which is designed by people, but can operate in ways they
| haven't anticipated.
| vecter wrote:
| Lyft doesn't create fake rides.
|
| Source: work there.
| okareaman wrote:
| Do you understand how your ride scheduling software works?
| I can be even more specific: I was travelling south on 280
| near Daly City sometime in the fall of 2019. I got a pickup
| in what turned out to be a cemetary. I refused to go into
| the dark cemetery figuring it was a mistake. The ride was
| cancelled then a message came up suggesting I stay and wait
| there because there was high demand in that neighborhood.
| Look it up. You keep logs don't you?
|
| Edit: It was a pickup at the Golden Gate National Cemetery
| around 10 PM. I have an alt email in my profile. Contact me
| if you need more information.
| slownews45 wrote:
| My problem with Uber is I had great records. The offer was
| get $XXX when you start driving with us. Period. I went
| through the process. No payment.
|
| So I followed up. Ohh they said, it's actually get $XXX when
| you do 5 rides or whatever.
|
| Fine, I did that. No payment.
|
| Then they said it's actually $XXX if ... at that point I was
| just like peace out. This was ages ago so they may have
| cleaned up their act, but I was not impressed.
| okareaman wrote:
| As a retired person, I used to enjoy driving for Lyft and Uber. I
| took a break during the worst of the pandemic. My car is no
| longer functional, so I expected to start driving again with a
| rental car, which a lot of people were doing before the pandemic.
| Lyft and Uber ignored me for a year despite my high rating, while
| they had driver shortages. Finally, Lyft reached out and
| qualified me to drive with a rental car. However, the suggested
| rental car options were all at normal rates, which means I'd have
| to drive 25 hours a week to pay for the rental car and more to
| pay for insurance. Totally not worth risking my life for.
|
| Now I'm looking for ways to make money off the failure of these
| companies ("brain dead" as Steve Jobs would say)
| bsder wrote:
| > so I expected to start driving again with a rental car
|
| That's on _you_ , then, for not understanding current market
| conditions.
|
| The used car market right now is _insane_ and rental agencies
| bounced off bankruptcies if they didn 't actually go bankrupt.
|
| All this means that renting a car is going to be quite
| expensive. I'd be surprised if anyone can make a profit doing
| rideshare with one.
| gruez wrote:
| >Now I'm looking for ways to make money off the failure of
| these companies
|
| short them and/or buy puts. it's risky though. the market can
| remain irrational longer than you can involve solvent, and as
| the recent meme stocks have shown, the market can be _very_
| irrational.
| okareaman wrote:
| I am not a particularly financially savvy person, but I can
| learn. I found this thread about shorting Uber in 2019 that
| seems more compelling today:
|
| Is Uber the perfect short? https://old.reddit.com/r/stocks/co
| mments/br6hl1/is_uber_the_...
| staticman2 wrote:
| Shorting stocks is always risky. Taking stock picking
| advise from anonymous people on the internet is a bad idea
| in general unless you don't care if you lose money.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Shorting even an obvious piece of shit like Lyft is risky in
| this environment. We're talking about a company that has
| never earned a profit, has no prospects of ever making a
| profit, has a huge and rapidly accelerating annual loss on
| shrinking revenues, the share price of which has doubled in
| the past year (up 5% today alone). You're going head-to-head
| with all the lunatics in the world.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Nikola Motors is another obvious PoS that has had
| significant retracements up and down in share price for not
| any particularly sound fundamental reasons. I've been short
| it since the Hindenburg Research post came out and have
| made money, but it's been nail-biting at times.
|
| I think buying puts is too expensive given that you've got
| to get the timing _just right_ (and your upside is capped)
| and shorting Uber /Lyft is too fraught with "as the COVID
| recovery story changes good and bad, transportation
| companies are going to whipsaw some".
|
| Bet with the macro trend, not against it.
| dhbanes wrote:
| That would be called betting against the fed. Excess
| liquidity trumps subpar fundamentals.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Rental car companies don't have enough cars for their normal
| customers, I doubt they're in a hurry to rent them out at a
| discount for rideshare drivers.
|
| It's not that Lyft is brain dead, they aren't a car
| manufacturer and they can't wave their hands and make more cars
| available. Even car manufacturers can't make enough cars
| available.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2021/07/16/rental-car-...
| Ajay-p wrote:
| This only appears limited to Los Angeles. Uber and Lyft appear to
| be working as usual in other major cities.
| okareaman wrote:
| Similar problems in the Bay Area where I am. San Francisco and
| Los Angeles are huge markets and leading indicators. Uber bet
| on the idea the self-driving taxis would be a thing and they
| didn't have to make many concessions to human drivers. Self-
| driving cars is not working out the way it looked a few years
| ago, so I am pessimistic about their business model.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| Is there anything really stopping drivers from not striking?
| Unlike a union strike, Uber/Lyft drivers are striking on their
| own terms.
|
| Presumably if everyone else is striking, rates will be really
| high and the drivers not striking will be making decent wage
| (ironically part of the reason to strike).
| tehjoker wrote:
| That's called scabbing.
| Bostonian wrote:
| If I am willing to work for less than someone else, it is
| wrong to insult me for that with terms such as "scab". I own
| my labor and other people own theirs. I would not take a job
| unless it were the best available to me.
|
| "Scab" is a hate term that has been used to justify violence
| against so-called scabs. Epithets for gays have served a
| similar purpose in the past and are now considered to say
| more about the speaker than the target.
| gurleen_s wrote:
| It's incredibly irresponsible to compare homophobia to a
| worker not cooperating with a strike.
| Bostonian wrote:
| Why? "Scab" is a term meant to dehumanize. Something like
| "replacement worker" or "picket line crosser" or "strike-
| breaker" should be preferred.
| 8note wrote:
| Replacement worker is just as dehumanizing.
|
| "Worker" is treating people as resources and not people
| graeme wrote:
| Don't scabs usually come from outside the company? Like if
| uber hired new drivers at high rates.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| It's not scabbing. The contractors "striking" aren't
| employees. And it's not a strike as defined by the law.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| This kind of pedantry reminds me of people who want to call
| prisoners "detainees" and who want to call torture
| "enhanced interrogation".
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Setting aside the implication you are trying to make that
| following employment law equals to agreeing with torture,
| it's not the same at all.
|
| There's a legal definition of a strike, union and
| employment vs contractor. Just like there's a legal
| definition for prisoners and torture.
|
| You can't get the rights associated with an unionized
| strike (anti scab laws) without the consequences of being
| unionized (dues for instance).
| cloudfifty wrote:
| You're a scab if you are undermining the strike. No legal
| pedantry will suddenly wash that away. This is just
| common sense.
| 8note wrote:
| A scab is a scab, regardless of what legal trickery the
| owning class has engaged in to make striking illegal
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I think it is actually happening now, at least in my area.
| There are less drivers, and rides cost more because of it.
| dave5104 wrote:
| I wonder which way the financials tip for Uber/Lyft. If
| Uber/Lyft are losing money over fewer riders willing to pay
| the higher price? Or if people need to go where they're going
| anyway and will pay the premium during the (limited time)
| strike?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| If this was the case, Uber/Lyft would likely simply charge
| the higher price all the time, paying the drivers the same
| amount they pay normally, and pocket the difference.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| In my case, it was not because of the strike, but just
| fewer drivers. I assume because covid meant less rides, and
| that meant less drivers signing on.
|
| I was willing to pay a premium to drink without risking a
| DUI. I don't know how many others would make the same
| decision, but with things opening up I suspect the number
| will be growing. Conversely, In the begining of the
| pandemic I had many medical visits that were super cheap
| and fast because the only people on the road were uber
| drivers.
|
| I think surge pricing is almost perfect free market, and
| the only thing that could be better is more competitors in
| the app side of it. Most drivers already drive for uber and
| lyft, and choose whichever they think is the best deal for
| them at the moment. If there were 4 or 5 viable competitors
| then it would be perfect. Not as great from a user
| perspective, but also not awful. Many people I know have
| uber and lyft and check prices/times on both before picking
| one.
|
| I am really surprised all of the traditional taxi companies
| have not got together and made an app yet. Uber made things
| so much better in every way that matters from a rider's
| perspective. They didn't even need to compete on price, all
| they needed was a way to get a ride, and know how long it
| was going to take to get to you, and trust that the price
| was the price. Anyone who ever needed a taxi in anywhere
| but a classy urban area hates taxis.
|
| That said, I think operating at a loss on purpose to drive
| out competition should be illegal. I'm not sure how that
| could be enforced while it's happening, but it's usually
| obvious after the fact. In which case I think jail time is
| warranted.
| tylersmith wrote:
| I'm in an Uber right now and the rate was noticeably cheaper
| than it has been. I had no idea about this strike until now. I
| asked my driver and wasn't aware of it either.
| advisedwang wrote:
| This is the same with a union. Unions' only sanction against
| people ignoring the strike is social pressure. Ultimately
| strikes will only work when enough people have decided to work
| together and take the action together, whether there is a union
| or not.
| [deleted]
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| It's interesting how it's now fashionable to bash on Uber and
| Lyft. Seems everyone conveniently forgot about the medallion
| system Uber and Lyft disrupted.
|
| Pre-Uber, either the driver rented the car to a middleman who
| rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling
| and financing (most banks won't touch these medallions!) a
| medallion at a ridiculous interest rate to a driver that planned
| to use it as his retirement savings (an extremely volatile asset
| and not very liquid).
|
| The more I spoke to cab drivers the more it seemed their industry
| was a pyramid scheme aimed at helping established rent-seeker
| take advantage of often poor new immigrants. Uber brought a
| breeze of fresh air: Someone could simply buy a car, calculate
| the depreciation and it's value on the market (since unlike
| medallions cars are relatively liquid assets!) do rideshare and
| calculate their profits or loss. They can get out of the game at
| anytime, and they know exactly how much they are going to get for
| the car they have should they sell it.
|
| And I'm not even touching the usual pain points and often
| discriminatory practices of medallion drivers (refusing card
| payments, refusing rides to non-white passengers and to non-white
| neighborhoods...).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > The more I spoke to cab drivers the more it seemed their
| industry was a pyramid scheme aimed at helping established
| rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants.
|
| Uber (and Lyft) simply took over as the established rent
| seeker. At least with medallions, there were caps to prevent
| overcapacity in the system and your urban cores flooded with
| rideshare drivers. There is no such restriction with Uber and
| Lyft, so their revenue comes on the back of the externalities
| of underpaid drivers and unregulated congestion.
| ben940830298432 wrote:
| Not really. Drivers have the choice if they want to drive or
| not. If it is busy at certain times and rates are lower than
| don't drive at that time. If you don't want to have urban
| cores flooded with rideshare drivers find a way to improve
| busing or other competition in that space.
| bin_bash wrote:
| has overcapacity ever been a significant problem? I know
| drivers want more money but that doesn't mean customers would
| be willing to pay for it.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://news.mit.edu/2021/ride-sharing-intensifies-urban-
| roa...
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20756945/uber-lyft-tnc-
| vmt...
|
| https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/5/eaau2670
|
| https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/uber-lyft-traffic-
| congest...
| jlmorton wrote:
| > At least with medallions, there were caps to prevent
| overcapacity
|
| That's a really interesting way of describing an artificial
| monopoly specifically designed to increase earnings for a
| specific group of rent-seeking, wealthy medallion owners.
|
| It's sort of like describing the De Beers corporation as
| ensuring the world is not littered with relatively-abundant
| diamonds. I suppose it might be true, but it certainly is not
| the point of the arrangement.
| 8note wrote:
| A nice reform would be to make medallions non transferable,
| and have them expire if you don't prove certain amounts of
| rides over time
| xsmasher wrote:
| There is already an incentive to provide rides - the
| payment you get for giving the ride.
|
| What does your system improve about the incentives?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Besides medallions or a similar registration program, how
| would you balance vehicle capacity with limited street
| capacity? The "artificial monopoly" is a physical system,
| as two vehicles cannot occupy the same space at the same
| time.
|
| I don't support medallions, by any means, but I do support
| a fair quota system to balance transportation availability
| with congestion management.
| californical wrote:
| Offering higher pay at times of high capacity
| requirements, and lower pay at times when there is a
| surplus of drivers seems like a great solution to balance
| out when drivers should take shifts, while still letting
| people choose their own schedules and priorities. Which
| is exactly what the rideshare companies do
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > but I do support a fair quota system to balance
| transportation availability with congestion management.
|
| The alternative is people using their cars and having to
| park it. Or taking their business elsewhere in more
| parking-friendly locations.
| ardit33 wrote:
| Completely naive view of the situation, or you are just too
| young.
|
| You don't need be 500k in debt to get started for uber as you
| needed to get a yellow cab medallion
|
| Once you made that decsion (to mortgage you house to get a
| yellow cab medallion), you are bound to that job as a
| serf.... Modern day serfdom, that's what the yellow cab
| medallion system became to the large cities.
|
| the only way out, was bankruptcy, or hope another person will
| pay just as much for that medallion. Often local mafiosi
| types were entangled with the system, and you had to deal
| with them as well.
|
| Please, lets not glorify the pervious system, as it was much
| worse.
|
| We can work and make this new system better, and force the
| large corps to provide more (benefits wise), but returning to
| the old medallion system is two steps back.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > and force the large corps to provide more (benefits wise)
|
| They would need to make more money for that, and I'm not
| sure the consumer is ready to pay. Taxi fares in many
| cities used to be way higher with the medallions and
| ridership was abysmal.
| CheezeIt wrote:
| Uber and Lyft hare both non-profitable organizations. Even if
| rides were matched by some zero cost magic oracle, drivers
| would be making almost the same amount of profit, because
| that number's defined by the next best alternative.
|
| Really, what you find objectionable is not the presence of
| Uber or Lyft, but the fact that people are running
| independent businesses, competing with each other.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The rating system was one of the major innovations. In the taxi
| system, bad behavior had no direct consequence for the
| individual drivers, and so it was rampant.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| It's funny how random people on the internet pretend Uber and
| Lyft were magnanimous companies on a mission to reform the
| exploitative taxi industry for the benefit of drivers and
| riders.
|
| Just because the taxi industry wasn't perfect in your eyes -
| who are you by the way? What skin in the game do you have? -
| doesn't mean that Uber and Lyft aren't orders of magnitude more
| exploitative.
| philwelch wrote:
| I don't think anyone pretends Uber and Lyft are
| "magnanimous". They saw that the existing taxi industry was a
| bad deal for both drivers and riders and figured they could
| make money by giving drivers and riders a better deal.
|
| I think you're assuming a zero-sum rule of the world where
| the only way Uber or Lyft can benefit is by taking away from
| their riders and drivers. That's not how any of this works.
| dntrkv wrote:
| What skin do you have in the game?
|
| My father drove a taxi before Uber/Lyft and that shit was way
| more exploitative. He was paid shit ($600/week was considered
| good), didn't get any flexibility (once you're on the clock,
| you're on the clock), he didn't get to choose his hours (they
| would assign times and fares by seniority, he mostly worked
| from the evening well into the night), he had to drive the
| company's disgusting cars that were constantly falling apart
| (which were also assigned by seniority and then he had to
| clean them, before and after his driving, usually because the
| previous driver left the car trashed), he had no recourse for
| shit customers that either wouldn't pay or would trash the
| car, and the taxi company gave zero shits about any of this
| because they had their medallions and that's all that
| mattered.
|
| It was the worst job he ever had to subject himself to and
| this is a man that grew up in the Soviet Union (where he
| actually drove taxis part time to make extra money).
|
| I'm sure it was nice if you were a taxi driver that happened
| to acquire your own medallion, got to work for yourself,
| providing dog shit service, and for rates of your choosing
| since the competition was artificially constrained. But that
| is a minority of the taxi drivers out there.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| Skin in the game...I represented an Uber driver that Uber
| solicited out of 1 county where it was legal into another
| county where it was illegal, and the driver was arrested.
| Uber knew of the illegality, did not disclose the criminal
| nature to the driver and solicited the driver to break the
| law with a monetary incentive.
|
| Uber has left numerous drivers in its wake with criminal
| records as a result of their illegal and sometimes criminal
| operations. As bad as it was for your father it doesn't
| sound like the taxi driver paid him to commit criminal acts
| he was otherwise unaware he was committing.
|
| > I'm sure it was nice if you were a taxi driver that
| happened to acquire your own medallion, got to work for
| yourself, providing dog shit service, and for rates of your
| choosing since the competition was artificially
| constrained. But that is a minority of the taxi drivers out
| there.
|
| Yes and I'm sure being an investor in Uber pre-IPO without
| ever having to actually work much less drive and dump that
| dog shit on the public to cash out was very nice. But that
| is a minority of people under US capitalism.
| dntrkv wrote:
| > As bad as it was for your father it doesn't sound like
| the taxi driver paid him to commit criminal acts he was
| otherwise unaware he was committing.
|
| Just like 99.999% of Uber drivers haven't experienced
| that situation either. Do you really think that taxi
| companies of the past aren't guilty of even worse crimes?
| At least Uber is a big enough target that you can seek
| some sort of justice, good luck getting any sort of
| justice from the scumbag taxi companies.
| cloudfifty wrote:
| > What skin in the game do you have?
|
| The average HN user - usually in the upper middle class - are
| certainly on the beneficial side of this. They've received a
| cheap private chauffeur service, albeit decentralized, that
| they use to a greater extent than they would ever use taxi
| because of its affordability (ofc made possible by VC money
| and offloading costs to the drivers). The self-interested
| confirmation bias in HN threads about the gig/ride taxi
| industry must be seen in that light.
| sschueller wrote:
| So we replaced something that sucked with something that sucks
| just as bad but it has an app.
|
| What ever happened to creating something great, sustainable and
| that makes more than enough money but doesn't exploit for
| maximum profit.
| bboylen wrote:
| Don't Uber and Lyft lose money? I doubt there is an easy way
| to operate much more ethically and also make enough money to
| be sustainable
| watwut wrote:
| If your business lose money despite you not operating
| ethically in pursuit of money, maybe there is something
| wrong with economic system that don't let you crash.
| willyg123 wrote:
| > So we replaced something that sucked with something that
| sucks just as bad but it has an app.
|
| Genuine question: have you ever lived in NYC?
| feudalism wrote:
| Not even remotely close. The last time I had to call for a
| cab to come to my relatively nice neighborhood to get a ride
| somewhere I had to wait over an hour for them to show up.
|
| With Uber it takes maybe 10 minutes max and the fare is 1/4
| of the price of a traditional cab. Uber/Lyft have been a
| godsend compared to what was available before.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > So we replaced something that sucked with something that
| sucks just as bad but it has an app.
|
| I don't know that it sucks just as bad. If a medallion driver
| wanted to get out of the game he had to find a buyer. And
| often drivers considered their medallion their retirement
| naively thinking it could only go up in value. Then the city
| decides to emit 500 additional medallions and theirs stays on
| the market for years because if they match the city's price
| they'll lose money.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I believe it really does suck less. You just have to
| understand the enormous scale of suck that we are dealing
| with.
|
| It went from super extreme suck to extreme suck.
| radus wrote:
| > What ever happened to creating something great, sustainable
| and that makes more than enough money but doesn't exploit for
| maximum profit.
|
| capitalism, eventually: creating something great, sustainable
| and that makes more than enough money but doesn't exploit for
| maximum profit.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > The more I spoke to cab drivers the more it seemed their
| industry was a pyramid scheme aimed at helping established
| rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants
|
| Only made possible by the local government who created an
| artificial scarcity in the medallion system. Sure there is
| probably a legitmate need for some government regualtion of
| taxi services, but what they did just set the table for that
| kind of predatory behavior to exist.
| jeffbee wrote:
| In some American markets the taxi driver experience was fairly
| standardized. The driver paid a gate fee to rent a heavy-duty,
| professionally maintained, insured Crown Victoria for a fixed
| fee per shift, and earned regulated tariffs on fares. Those
| drivers had as much flexibility as any TNC driver, with less
| risk because they didn't need to use their own car. The nearest
| analog is the TNC programs where you rent a Corolla by the day.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| If anyone think renters were making above minimum wage, I
| have a bridge to sell them.
|
| The cost of renting was often so high the car had to stay on
| the road for 24h a day for it to maybe make a profit.
| bogota wrote:
| Its honestly not worth arguing about it. I have personally
| benefited with driving for uber as well as lots/most of drivers
| i have talked to. Its not perfect but it works great when you
| have kids and other things you have to worry about. The job was
| never meant to solve wealth inequality but it sure has helped a
| ton of people. Jesus my life would have been 100x better if i
| could have driven uber in college instead of working absolutely
| shit job with managers who hate you because you aren't going to
| be stuck working this crap job until your 60 like them.
|
| However if you go online you would think uber was killing
| peoples first born child. Internet forums are getting rather
| stupid over the past 5 years. You are mostly forced to use a
| few big ones that all have a hive mind of downvotes on anything
| contradictory to what the majority thinks. Unfortunately being
| the majority doesn't make you right or even smart. Often times
| its the opposite. But i like to write up these posts so someone
| can downvote me and feel a little power.
| clairity wrote:
| sure, but the reason it's not worth arguing over is because
| large organization are exploitative by design. i'd argue it's
| the whole point of becoming big, as it's certainly not about
| being more service-oriented.
| okareaman wrote:
| I don't understand your logic. We can't talk about problems
| with new things that are an improvement over old things?
| bogota wrote:
| Sounds like this just incentives the drivers who don't care to
| hop on and make more money then they normally would.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| I wonder if it's possible to write an Uber-like app for union
| membership.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| People make an account, and when there are enough people in
| that area and in that industry to make it feasible to do a
| union vote, you get a notification and can organize a vote
| quickly so that there's less time for anti-union propaganda to
| go out.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Yet people always assume that a tech union will look exactly
| like the AFL-CIO of yesteryear, without any new ideas.
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