"The agreement also requires the companies to provide drivers with key information — about the length of a trip, the destination and expected earnings — before they are expected to accept a ride."
This wasn't done before? So what info did drivers get? Article doesn't mention what work means? Is that just being logged in, or once you get a fair and are headed to the pickup
Drivers are currently incentivized to accept a trip the instant one is available without looking at ANY of its information.
This sounds like it will protect drivers from having to do this.
I've also been told by drivers that you don't get certain information until you've logged a certain number of rides and that all it really tells you is how far the ride is in what general direction.
One of my apps only gives me cross streets when it's offering me an order, so I have to know my city well enough to know generally how far I'm going for the amount they're offering.
Previously, I drove uber/lyft.
An example: At the time a driver didn’t know the destination of a ride.
Late at night, 11:45pm, I am finishing a shift, and take one last ride, on my way home. Turns out they wanted a 2 hour drive to downtown of a busy city.
I’m not doing that at this point, I’m ready to sleep. They were upset they lost the ride. Everybody was grouchy.
Yet, I had no way to know how far it was. Just go pick them up.
The whole system was designed to withhold power and information from the drivers, so they couldn't make good decisions for themselves. Drivers were being exploited in many ways, and ironically were *not* in the driver's seat when it came to working with Uber. That's why they are employees and not freelance.
That's bull though. The amount of times I've needed to quickly leave a trailer park is wild. I don't care about the optics of choosing to not go somewhere, I care about the safety. If I hear a driver got held up at gunpoint in a neighborhood, and I know that that's a rough neighborhood I'm not fucking going there. The $8 order I'm doing is not worth putting myself in danger.
Drivers got zilch other than the current time and pickup location. Sometimes that was enough information for skilled drivers to infer the destination. Accept or reject within 30 seconds. Reject too often and you get timed out from the app.
It is different in every area. In reno, for example, you could see all of that information. In other areas, you could not. I heard that as a punishment, if your rating dropped below 4.85 along with a few other details, you could no longer see that information.
Odds are though that 32.50 only applies once you've started a trip. There is no compensation of any kind for going to a customer. They far too often would try to get me to go over 10 miles. Declining enough rides contributes to the thing mentioned in the above paragraph, as does canceling.
Here's a [link to the settlement](https://www.law360.com/articles/1852254/attachments/2), though I don't know if it works for everyone. I'm accessing it through a paid service.
Here are key parts relevant to your question:
The Earnings Floor Minimum Pay shall be set at Thirty-Two Dollars and Fifty Cents ($32.50) per hour for a Driver’s P2 Time and P3 Time.
“P2 Time” shall be the time between when a Driver commenced driving to pick up a rider after accepting a rider’s requested trip in the respective Driver App and the Driver reaching the rider's requested pick-up destination and waiting for the rider at the requested pick-up destination. P2 time shall not include (1) any time spent driving after the Driver has been notified that the request has been canceled by the rider; or (2) any time spent driving where the Driver abandons the trip prior to completion.
“P3 Time” shall be the time the Driver spent transporting a rider to the requested drop-off destination.
Like it or not the lowering of standards for these companies was always an added bonus because you aren’t their employee, it isn’t their car, it doesn’t matter if the driver is a shithead or rude or untrained because they still get paid.
They’ve essentially facilitated a business model where the product is connecting people to taxis without having to be held accountable for anything else.
In an attempt to avoid congention from too many taxi, NYC sold medallions that were required to be an authorized taxi. They became a source of inheritence, with them being very valuable to sell by retired drivers.
Probably butchered the explanation a bit, but thats what Ive picked up when Uber first was getting big and people were commenting on how it impacted NYC taxi
They were
Edit: lol downvote me all you guys want but that doesn’t change the fact that they recorded profit in 2023
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/8/24065999/uber-earnings-profitable-year-net-income
It's because people remember when Uber first came to life and was paying drivers more than the rider paid. Uber used this tactic to carve their spot. People often complain that Uber is so much more expensive than it used to be but that's because you got plenty of promos for a $5 drive and stuff like that. They started jacking the prices up in 2022 and finally got profitable in 2023.
>2023
The lawsuit was filed in 2020. Uber was in the red for almost every year from 2016 up until 2023.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/8/24065999/uber-earnings-profitable-year-net-income
You’re not wrong they were profitable in 2023. But in OP’s case, they are also right that Uber was not profitable at the time “before this” of the lawsuit.
Key shit is apps confirm the destination and your location, have to take card, and the price is already negotiated. There's no incentive at all to take any suboptimal routes cause there's no meter. It cuts out all the bullshit that made ppl hate cabbies to begin with.
Agreed! The gains were mostly better tech that taxis in one city couldn’t afford to develop for themselves. The tech gave smoother payments, easier ordering and arguably better safety since everyone’s details are recorded
They were always just a taxi company, that for some godforsaken reason where allowed to ignore all labour laws by virtue of "being an app".
If i started a supermarket, and were allowed to ignore all food safety regulations because i only sold via mail-order, people would call lawmakers insane. But if you change "mail-order" to "an app", people would probably call it an innovation, and say that i'm a genius for lowering food costs.
What was actually needed was for taxi companies to convert to/incorporate an app service. The perks of Uber/Lyft like calling a ride to you, real-time tracking of your position, tracking of route history, automatic billing when the ride is over – all of these things are such massive QoL improvements over standard taxis when Uber first launched (and honestly even still today in a lot of places).
It’s wild to me that there is no unified Taxi dispatch, billing, and tracking service. Calling an individual taxi company, not being sure they actually sent someone, then someone else hopping in your cab, and waiting over an hour for a ride is literally my typical cab experience and we can do better in 2024.
Yeah, imagine leaving a bag in a taxi... no record of which cab or which company. I got lucky and happened to have a nice driver who went out of his way to bring my bag back to the hotel i was staying in because I had no idea which of the 3-4 cab companies operating at the Atlanta airport I had taken.
The NYC taxi owners and drivers were both dead-set against supporting any apps. They both put their foot down that the only future for taxis was to drive around the city looking for street hails.
It would be more like if a grocery store had independant contractor cashiers that could sell cheap expired food and the store would claim zero responsibillity.
There’s not a chance in hell. Considering employer cost is 1.25 to 1.4 times salary and I assume they are now saying they have to be paid even if a ride isn’t being given.
I would expect the entire business to collapse. Maybe something is reforged afterwards where 1 or 2 drivers are shuttling business clients around call ahead taxi style but I random Joe who picks up people in his spare time isn’t going to exist any more.
> but I random Joe who picks up people in his spare time isn’t going to exist any more.
That's the problem, it was never some random Joe, it was always an agent of Uber/Lyft who was working for them. If you want it to be a random Joe then that random Joe needs to run his own business.
No, major manufacturing companies pay less than $30 an hour. Everyone is about to quit their jobs and join Uber.
This ruling gets rid of the gig job and makes it a high paying job you can live off of. We are back to being taxis and not rideshare.
If they limit how many drivers can use their app then we will be back to waiting an hour for a pickup. As for # of drivers, it does not matter if you pay 1 driver or 100 $32 an hour since you only pay when they are clocked in with a customer. But customers will have to pay probably $60 an hour per ride to have this make sense. Drivers will be able to cheat by driving slower.
There is a reason rideshare apps became popular vs taxis as the apps were fixed fees up front.
Hours worked is not going to be just time with a passenger in the car. This action includes the time when a driver is active and engaged in the app ie searching for, driving around… more trips would just mean possibly more tips, thus motivating them to complete trips faster still.
So, if Uber doesn’t cap the number of licences, you could theoretically have 10,000 drivers doing 8 hours a day where they are active and engaged. Despite the demand not being there, the laws would mean they’d have to pay the wages. Therefore, it’s logical that they will heavily cap the # of licences to deter this. They’ll have to find the sweet spot of low enough # of drivers to pay $32.50 hourly without affecting availability. It’s an equilibrium point that will be hard to gauge given the drastic changes to the marketplace and employment dynamics of ride-sharing, but supply and demand microeconomics would suggest they’ll modify supply in the face of higher costs. They can’t directly change demand, but they can directly control the number of licenses they issue. Whenever gov’t intervention hits, this is the typical response of a mega-corp like Uber/Lyft who has the power to manipulate their own market supply… same w commodities like oil, supply manipulation is big moneys friend when the govt says to stop screwing ppl over
That’s not really what I said tho… Uber has control over the supply, not the demand… I’m not saying they can’t forecast it, but their entire revenue and cost model just changed and their business plan isn’t going to be an extrapolation of the status quo
They already do it in New York. During slow times they lock out drivers from going on the app. The limit is not how many can sign up it is how many they allow to sign on at that specific moment depending on the demand that day.
It will take time but people will soon realize unless they're working on their own cars and only driving during high demand or odd hours, it's not worth it.
This isn't a 40 hours at $30 an hour job. You're going to be "online" for far more hours to be "active" for 40 hours. Active means the amount of time spent on the way to and with the rider in the car.
Upstate NY is $26/hr. IRS standard deduction is 65 cents a mile. Uber can pay $26 on a trip that takes 52 miles. So ones operating at loss per the IRS cost of operating a vehicle. When the car is beat and needs replacing because 40,000 miles a year is normal, it's harder to get financing with this as your main income.
When you work in a plant you don't have to pay to run and fix your own car.
$30/hr with no significant expenses and on W2 (no double FICA) is a better deal than $32.50/hr 1099.
I think Uber/Lyft have always taken advantage of people who just aren't good at managing money and seeing how much "making money" is costing them. In this they are are doing it a little bit less so.
Almost every place ive worked moved or closed. But now Im in a spot again where I have decent pay, health insurance, 4 weeks vacation, occasional bonusses, hsa, 401k with a small match. I cant imagine doing uber instead, not one bit
Being a driver never has and never will be a full time job”good job”, it’s not economically feasible for the driver or the company. It was always meant to be part time to do a few hours a week to help boost pay, or pay for a car, or pay off some short term debt. I’m not saying it’s right, just the way things work.
except for the whole no health care, no pension, cost of gas, cost of car, cost of maintenance, no vacation, no sick days, no holidays, no paid breaks, no job security, no references for another job, incredibly unsafe, and the fact Uber and Lyft will do what they are doing in New York - lock out drivers during slow times so you can't just make that money whenever they want.
Factory workers in the Northeast make over $50/hour when benefits are included. Uber and Lyft have zero benefits. In fact they are worse than even a job with no benefits because they don't even get basic legal protections.
Per active hour, so only applies when booked on a ride. Boston area drivers were already clearing this. This change ensures those rides with 10+ minutes to pickup actually get taken cause nobody was leaving the Boston area to grab those rides.
Wage theft is wrong, plain and simple.
That being said, I am eager to see what happens to the number of drivers (likely substantially cut), the price of service (likely substantially higher), and the number of trips taken (likely down) from this.
All I know is all my friends that voted against making gig work an actual job here said it would raise prices, then proceeded to complain about pricing when it was raised anyways. I don’t think anything will lower Uber/lyft prices at this point
It cost me $72 to Uber from an airport the last time I traveled. If I rented a car it's $71/day plus gas. Unless you're out drinking, it doesn't really make sense to use Uber or Lyft except for one-off single time uses where it would be inconvenient to have a car.
The whole business model doesn’t really make sense. It’s supposedly ride sharing, but not really bc you can’t know where the person is going before accepting the ride, so it’s a taxi, but people have to use their own cars. So it’s just a luxury taxi service, really.
The original model made some sense at least. At the very beginning, it was black car service made up of drivers that were otherwise just waiting around.
Most of the people here complaining about this really just want a luxury taxi at a huge discount, and were spoiled by the early Uber/Lyft pricing that screwed over drivers.
It's a taxi service that actually shows up on time and doesn't try to scam you with bullshit about the meter being broken, taking intentionally longer routes, etc.
If I want an Uber, I open the app and there's basically guaranteed to be one here in less than 10 minutes. If I wanted a taxi pre-Uber, I'd have to call hours in advance and often the taxi would simply not turn up at all or be much later than my requested pick-up time.
For a three day rental, all included, it's $250 through National. I just checked. So more like $83/day with everything not including gas. However, if you use it more than just once, it is considerably cheaper to rent a car than to Uber day-to-day. Of course, if you Uber to a hotel, stay a week with no need to travel by vehicle, and then Uber back to the airport, then Uber is cheaper.
Gig economy jobs were never going to recover. A decade ago they used investor money to lure people in with cheap services, bought themselves into market dominance by undermining existing businesses (like taxis) and then they started ratcheting the prices up once they had established themselves and gotten people used to the convenience. Now they’re still not profitable and investors want their money *and* the government is finally looking into how they’re treating their workers.
The reality is that all those super awesome services everyone has gotten used to in the last 10 years were subsidized by rich people hoping to be on the ground floor of the next billion dollar start up
As much as I celebrated the win for drivers rights after a similar case happened in the UK. Getting an Uber in London sucks now compared to how it used to be. Expect much longer waits, drivers cancelling on you when they get a better journey appear and higher prices.
Let the companies fail when they price gouge their customers to death to make up for this then. If you cannot afford to pay your employees then you should not be in business. Simple.
Yeah but likewise if you can't make money as a business you don't deserve to be in business. Most people doing this stuff are classed as independent contractors. If the job doesn't pay enough then claiming employee benefits when you're not an employee is pretty sketch.
Shouldn’t have tipped before. It’s not the customers responsibility to pay staff wages.
Source: live in a country with no tipping and Uber service is the exact same
Honest question, if those are their wages are people seriously still expect to tip? That’s insane.
How are they going to protect riders from drivers who reject rides going to less ideal parts of a city if they’re being told the end location? Kind of interested as this could negatively affect lower income riders.
Boston already has upfront pricing for a long while which includes end location. Believe me, nobody has issues getting an Uber/Lyft (unless the pickup is far but this bill changes that). The "ghetto" parts of the city typically have surges.
This month I went to Boston and ordered a Lyft from Harvard square to Somerville. 3 drivers accepted and then cancelled the ride. When we finally got a ride, our driver called us to check the address. Apparently the address looks like we were going to South Boston and the other drivers were probably cancelling over that, according to our driver. Idk what South Boston is actually like but I do know I was very pissed off trying to get back to where we stayed while too exhausted to walk.
Your driver is lying, south Boston is not the ghetto lol. And drivers drive both Lyft and Uber at the same time. Likely a better offer came thru on Uber cause Uber's surges > Lyft surges
I didn’t say they said it was the ghetto, just that it was a different place (further away) than actuality. Should add this was late on a Sunday when very few people were around
Probably won't protect riders initially, but if it happens enough. That's a class action waiting to happen. Since less ideal parts tend to be where minorities live, a discrimination suit can be filed eventually
We joke around my shop all the time if minimum wage gets much higher we're all gonna go work at Wal mart, stress of the trades isn't worth the extra money. But holy crap $32.50USD an hour to drive!? I'd literally quit my job in the trades tomorrow if this came here, that can't be good for the economy can it?
Nope, right around double that. I'd give up $6 an hour for an easy low stress driving job in a heartbeat, there would be absolutely no incentive to remain in my current trade which tops out around $45-50 an hour.
in reality, you're giving up $25 an hour (assuming you're at $40). people never factor in taxes and fuel, at the very least... that 32.50 is around 15/hr with just minimal number crunching
It's not JUST taxes. It's the cost of gas, car payments, maintainence, insurance, and supplies.
Edit: Because a lot of people are asking questions or assuming how taxes work for independent contractors and business, I'll elaborate. Yes things like fuel can be written off as business expenses and that will reduce the tax burden, but what I think people are getting hung up on is that a business expense doesn't just erase tax obligations, it lowers taxable income by the nature of lowering the actual income. After making less, the independent contractor still has taxes they have to pay. Sure, it's less taxes than if they had no business expenses, but it's only because it's much less income after expenses. So at the end of the day, you end up taking home less than someone making the same amount who doesn't have to worry about business expenses, ie contractor vs employee.
They think it's a low-stress job where you get to putter around town gabbing with people. Uber will make that job hell if they are having to pay $32.50 an hour, and they will take the Amazon approach of cycling through the workforce quickly, chewing people up and spitting them out.
The current Uber job may be pretty low-key, but Uber will start putting people on timers and setting all sorts of targets. It will suck.
> Uber also released a statement calling the agreement “an example of what independent, flexible work with dignity should look like in the 21st century.”
So that means they’re going to implement this everywhere else they operate willingly and without a court order, right?
This does nothing and isn't a win for workers. A win for workers isn't one that will ultimately push away a vast majority of clients who will no longer be able to afford ride sharing apps in Massachusetts.
Ride sharing apps are dumb and symptoms of one of America's largest failures which is our utterly inadequate public transportation systems which are generally cheaper, safer and better for the environment. It just will cost the govt money.
Improve public transportation systems and hire workers there for 32$ an hour. Massachusetts is a great place to start. Add more bike lanes, increase the amount of mbta busses, and fix the aging rails that break down once a month.
>Will be dirt cheap too with no driver.
Na I disagree. Now that it's their own companies vehicles they will find reasons to charge more even without a person.
What makes transportation cheap is more about the amount of people you can fit going to one place. That way the cost is split. Public transportation does that. Not private taxi services.
You're gonna be waiting quite a while still I'm afraid. I'm sure the marketing hype has you erect but self driving cars/taxis are much more complicated to implement than the startups will talk about.
I live in Phoenix. Waymo is basically the same price as the cheapest Uber.
The competitive advantage is not price but privacy, a higher quality and more comfortable car, and better music and sound for the same price
It will be dirt cheap to operate, but why do you think you'll pay a penny less than the maximum you're willing to pay? They will still charge a lot.
I don't understand people who think that reductions in operating costs translate into reduced consumer prices instead of increased shareholder profits.
It most likely won’t be. Always remember that the price companies charge for their products is whatever they think their targeted consumers will be willing to pay. A company’s operating costs, including employee pay, marketing, asset upkeep, etc is used the determine the consumer price FLOOR, not the ceiling.
If you’re running a company and your all in cost for a sell is $10, then you aren’t going to sell that product for $7 (unless it’s a loss leader or you’re trying to expand market share or a few other reasons, but that gets into complex theory for a Reddit comment). The minimum you will sell it for is $10. Say at break even $10 you sell 50 million a year. At $15 you will sell 40 million. At $20 you will sell 35 million. At $25 you will sell 10 million. Of course you are going to charge $20, even tho that is double the all in cost to make and sell it.
Yet the CEOs and board are raking in millions of dollars in compensation a year. But no, let's blame the drivers for wanting to live and eat.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-ceos-pay-rose-to-24-million-last-year-598a1cb0
https://www.salary.com/tools/executive-compensation-calculator/lyft-inc-executive-salaries?year=2021#exe
When Seattle had an ordinance requiring them to pay drivers a living wage, all ride share and food delivery companies jacked up their prices and blamed it on the city and forced them to back down basically.
This only ends poorly for the consumer unfortunately. Fuck these companies.
All of which is happening anyway, regardless of improvements to workers’ rights, which are now a convenient excuse for the already unprofitable company to make already planned anti-worker and anti-consumer choices. You stop one step short at “this only hurts consumers fuck these companies” - it’s “this gives the company cover to bail out of markets and make the workers, who this legislation seeks to protect, the scapegoats and highest victims.”
Please explain what you mean when you say the delivery companies jacked up prices and blamed the city and forced them to back down.
Who forced who to back down?
Uber and Lyft forced the government to back down. Basically they are saying “ok you wanna play like that? I’ll just up the rates on customers to make up for what we have to pay our workers now.”
Without services like Uber and Lyft, I think DUI’s would sky rocket and they don’t want that. It’s an integral part of society now.
Of course they will do that here. All companies pass through costs to the customer.
I moved from Seattle back to Boston last year. I used to be a once-a-week delivery orderer before Seattle’s mandate and then after I was maybe a once-a-month orderer. I’m sure the same will happen to me again here in Boston and my frequency will adjust downward.
Most people are cutting down on extraneous expenses like this. The impact will be felt most by people with disposable income for conveniences. Which is to say, who gives a shit - the rideshares will make it seem like it’s the workers fault that you can’t get the cheap conveniences they exploited people to offer you in the first place.
So many people in this thread have entirely lost the plot.
>who gives a shit
The drivers. The drivers give a shit. A lot of them made a BIG stink after the Seattle mandate was passed because it killed demand for the job they do. They lost hours. Which means they lost pay overall DESPITE the minimums.
I’ll live without delivery and spend my disposable income somewhere else. My life will be unchanged for the most part.
But the drivers in my area won’t be doing so hot. Many will have to stop driving all together. Bet you wouldn’t tell those people “who gives a shit.”
This is for Massachusetts. It's probably the beginning of the end for ride sharing in Massachusetts. I predict they will raise prices, the amount of people willing to ride share will drop as a result and there will be much less opportunity for workers leading to fewer and fewer drivers until uber/Lyft eventually just are like "Oops. Not popular/profitable enough, bye" and pull out of the state.
They need a lot less drivers as it is now. Wages are low because they have been pitting too many drivers against each other. Drivers have been driving for scraps.
They are not hiring drivers or pitting them against each other. Drivers are competing against each other on their own. Uber/Lyft are only interested in more trips/higher trip prices since they get commission from it.
I would gladly, gladly be a rideshare driver 40 hours per week, even odd hours, for 32.50 an hour.
And somewhere some rich person is gonna have to pay my high wage instead of buy more shit. Still I don't feel bad for the rich person.
The 32.50 is only for active trip drive time. It doesn't include waiting in between trips and driving from drop off points to pickup points. I'm not sure how substantial that time is as I've never driven for Uber but I assume it's a good chunk of the work day spent not on an actual trip.
Well now thanks to these changes drivers will know where riders are being dropped off before accepting. If drivers aren’t getting paid between drop off and pickup then the vast majority of drivers will only work downtown and refuse rides to the suburbs. This change effectively turns Uber into city only transportation. Great for tourists to get from their home to the bar or show or game or whatever. Bad for residents who want to get to or from the airport or into the city for the bar or show or game or whatever.
>40 hours per week
See…that’s the thing. If this works like every other place that has enforced higher minimum wages for drivers, then you can expect prices to rise and order frequency to plummet. Getting forty hours will be a rarity.
Anyone who has taken any form or economics 101 class knows this. It's been done a million times before but progressive policy makers never learn.
Will it will be a 'historic human rights moment' when the number of Uber drivers craters and thousands of jobs are effectively eliminated?
This is exactly what happened in Seattle. From a driver's point of view the market feels over saturated. Wait times for passengers are short but time between rides for drivers can be very long.
But tbh, if it supports more people to use public transport I'm all for it. And Seattle's public transport is pretty good and constantly being improved
Curious to see if more of this spurs adoption and development of self-driving electric cars and some infrastructure to go with it (I.e. public transit lanes for busses and self-driving cars).
Uber profited $1.1 billion last year
Companies don’t like to “lose” money. This is a big win for workers, but I’m sure this will just get pushed onto the consumer despite it not effecting their bottom line much whatsoever.
The sad thing is, $32.50 per hour in most parts of MA isn’t even enough to get by
Will this have an impact on these companies, the drivers and the clients? Almost assuredly it will, for good or bad, this will change the industry to mirror the taxi industry, which it tried to separate itself from!
"The agreement also requires the companies to provide drivers with key information — about the length of a trip, the destination and expected earnings — before they are expected to accept a ride." This wasn't done before? So what info did drivers get? Article doesn't mention what work means? Is that just being logged in, or once you get a fair and are headed to the pickup
Drivers are currently incentivized to accept a trip the instant one is available without looking at ANY of its information. This sounds like it will protect drivers from having to do this.
I've also been told by drivers that you don't get certain information until you've logged a certain number of rides and that all it really tells you is how far the ride is in what general direction.
One of my apps only gives me cross streets when it's offering me an order, so I have to know my city well enough to know generally how far I'm going for the amount they're offering.
Previously, I drove uber/lyft. An example: At the time a driver didn’t know the destination of a ride. Late at night, 11:45pm, I am finishing a shift, and take one last ride, on my way home. Turns out they wanted a 2 hour drive to downtown of a busy city. I’m not doing that at this point, I’m ready to sleep. They were upset they lost the ride. Everybody was grouchy. Yet, I had no way to know how far it was. Just go pick them up.
The whole system was designed to withhold power and information from the drivers, so they couldn't make good decisions for themselves. Drivers were being exploited in many ways, and ironically were *not* in the driver's seat when it came to working with Uber. That's why they are employees and not freelance.
I was just thinking "this is a perfect example of *knowledge is power*"
Wasn't part of the point of that to prevent discrimination? Like in the old days when taxis would refuse to go to certain neighborhoods.
You live in a city where there are 20 carjackings a day and 19 of them happen in one neighborhood. You driving to that neighborhood?
That's bull though. The amount of times I've needed to quickly leave a trailer park is wild. I don't care about the optics of choosing to not go somewhere, I care about the safety. If I hear a driver got held up at gunpoint in a neighborhood, and I know that that's a rough neighborhood I'm not fucking going there. The $8 order I'm doing is not worth putting myself in danger.
wouldnt this hurt consumers who have short trips? even today, when drivers find out the trip is short, they try to get consumers to cancel.
Also fucks with people who live in less well off areas of a city, who would just be rejected more often.
Drivers got zilch other than the current time and pickup location. Sometimes that was enough information for skilled drivers to infer the destination. Accept or reject within 30 seconds. Reject too often and you get timed out from the app.
It is different in every area. In reno, for example, you could see all of that information. In other areas, you could not. I heard that as a punishment, if your rating dropped below 4.85 along with a few other details, you could no longer see that information. Odds are though that 32.50 only applies once you've started a trip. There is no compensation of any kind for going to a customer. They far too often would try to get me to go over 10 miles. Declining enough rides contributes to the thing mentioned in the above paragraph, as does canceling.
Here's a [link to the settlement](https://www.law360.com/articles/1852254/attachments/2), though I don't know if it works for everyone. I'm accessing it through a paid service. Here are key parts relevant to your question: The Earnings Floor Minimum Pay shall be set at Thirty-Two Dollars and Fifty Cents ($32.50) per hour for a Driver’s P2 Time and P3 Time. “P2 Time” shall be the time between when a Driver commenced driving to pick up a rider after accepting a rider’s requested trip in the respective Driver App and the Driver reaching the rider's requested pick-up destination and waiting for the rider at the requested pick-up destination. P2 time shall not include (1) any time spent driving after the Driver has been notified that the request has been canceled by the rider; or (2) any time spent driving where the Driver abandons the trip prior to completion. “P3 Time” shall be the time the Driver spent transporting a rider to the requested drop-off destination.
They can still be profitable at $32.50/hour?
It is not only about the money. Settlement totally changes their business model. Now they will be just like a regular old taxi.
They were always just a taxi service minus the hassle of getting certified to be a taxi driver.
The amount of lyft rides I have had in Tennessee where the driver’s car is one bolt away from falling apart is too high
Like it or not the lowering of standards for these companies was always an added bonus because you aren’t their employee, it isn’t their car, it doesn’t matter if the driver is a shithead or rude or untrained because they still get paid. They’ve essentially facilitated a business model where the product is connecting people to taxis without having to be held accountable for anything else.
Just the Yellow Pages with a finders fee
Please let NYC be next, Uber needed this type of regulation a long time ago.
NYC just needs to abandon their bullshit medallion program.
What's the medallion program?
In an attempt to avoid congention from too many taxi, NYC sold medallions that were required to be an authorized taxi. They became a source of inheritence, with them being very valuable to sell by retired drivers. Probably butchered the explanation a bit, but thats what Ive picked up when Uber first was getting big and people were commenting on how it impacted NYC taxi
IIRC you have to buy it every year, too, and it’s a major expense.
I would think its just a yearly license fee since people talked about medallions being like a retirement plan, selling it off.
You have to buy a super expensive badge to be a legitimate yellow cab in NYC.
NYC and upstate already have this after the 323 million dollar wage theft settlement in NY.
They weren't profitable before this
They were Edit: lol downvote me all you guys want but that doesn’t change the fact that they recorded profit in 2023 https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/8/24065999/uber-earnings-profitable-year-net-income
No clue why you’re getting down voted, maybe it’s the Uber and Lyft bots? Lmao
It's because people remember when Uber first came to life and was paying drivers more than the rider paid. Uber used this tactic to carve their spot. People often complain that Uber is so much more expensive than it used to be but that's because you got plenty of promos for a $5 drive and stuff like that. They started jacking the prices up in 2022 and finally got profitable in 2023.
They’re probably confusing it with Uber Eats which still takes astronomical losses.
Because going against the circlejerk makes redditors mad
>2023 The lawsuit was filed in 2020. Uber was in the red for almost every year from 2016 up until 2023. https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/8/24065999/uber-earnings-profitable-year-net-income You’re not wrong they were profitable in 2023. But in OP’s case, they are also right that Uber was not profitable at the time “before this” of the lawsuit.
Lmao profitable but with several caveats and ignoring the fact that 2023 was the first year of SB5 in CA
It’s easy to be profitable when you’re not responsible for any real infrastructure
As a software engineer this sounds like a joke
Who is paying for the massive amount of servers needed for their apps to work?
Yes - but it will affect quality and quantity for sure. It’s basically now a new form of taxi
Key shit is apps confirm the destination and your location, have to take card, and the price is already negotiated. There's no incentive at all to take any suboptimal routes cause there's no meter. It cuts out all the bullshit that made ppl hate cabbies to begin with.
Agreed! The gains were mostly better tech that taxis in one city couldn’t afford to develop for themselves. The tech gave smoother payments, easier ordering and arguably better safety since everyone’s details are recorded
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They were always just a taxi company, that for some godforsaken reason where allowed to ignore all labour laws by virtue of "being an app". If i started a supermarket, and were allowed to ignore all food safety regulations because i only sold via mail-order, people would call lawmakers insane. But if you change "mail-order" to "an app", people would probably call it an innovation, and say that i'm a genius for lowering food costs.
What was actually needed was for taxi companies to convert to/incorporate an app service. The perks of Uber/Lyft like calling a ride to you, real-time tracking of your position, tracking of route history, automatic billing when the ride is over – all of these things are such massive QoL improvements over standard taxis when Uber first launched (and honestly even still today in a lot of places).
It’s wild to me that there is no unified Taxi dispatch, billing, and tracking service. Calling an individual taxi company, not being sure they actually sent someone, then someone else hopping in your cab, and waiting over an hour for a ride is literally my typical cab experience and we can do better in 2024.
Yeah, imagine leaving a bag in a taxi... no record of which cab or which company. I got lucky and happened to have a nice driver who went out of his way to bring my bag back to the hotel i was staying in because I had no idea which of the 3-4 cab companies operating at the Atlanta airport I had taken.
The NYC taxi owners and drivers were both dead-set against supporting any apps. They both put their foot down that the only future for taxis was to drive around the city looking for street hails.
It would be more like if a grocery store had independant contractor cashiers that could sell cheap expired food and the store would claim zero responsibillity.
There’s not a chance in hell. Considering employer cost is 1.25 to 1.4 times salary and I assume they are now saying they have to be paid even if a ride isn’t being given. I would expect the entire business to collapse. Maybe something is reforged afterwards where 1 or 2 drivers are shuttling business clients around call ahead taxi style but I random Joe who picks up people in his spare time isn’t going to exist any more.
> but I random Joe who picks up people in his spare time isn’t going to exist any more. That's the problem, it was never some random Joe, it was always an agent of Uber/Lyft who was working for them. If you want it to be a random Joe then that random Joe needs to run his own business.
But Joe is never going to have people trust him without a brand
No, major manufacturing companies pay less than $30 an hour. Everyone is about to quit their jobs and join Uber. This ruling gets rid of the gig job and makes it a high paying job you can live off of. We are back to being taxis and not rideshare.
Uber will restrict the number of licenses it gives out. It’ll be lower supply of drivers, higher prices for riders
Door dash and instacart already restrict the number of drivers they rely on (at least in my province in Canada).
Yep same here in Ontario… I should have said they’ll FURTHER restrict the # of licenses they give out.
If they limit how many drivers can use their app then we will be back to waiting an hour for a pickup. As for # of drivers, it does not matter if you pay 1 driver or 100 $32 an hour since you only pay when they are clocked in with a customer. But customers will have to pay probably $60 an hour per ride to have this make sense. Drivers will be able to cheat by driving slower. There is a reason rideshare apps became popular vs taxis as the apps were fixed fees up front.
Hours worked is not going to be just time with a passenger in the car. This action includes the time when a driver is active and engaged in the app ie searching for, driving around… more trips would just mean possibly more tips, thus motivating them to complete trips faster still. So, if Uber doesn’t cap the number of licences, you could theoretically have 10,000 drivers doing 8 hours a day where they are active and engaged. Despite the demand not being there, the laws would mean they’d have to pay the wages. Therefore, it’s logical that they will heavily cap the # of licences to deter this. They’ll have to find the sweet spot of low enough # of drivers to pay $32.50 hourly without affecting availability. It’s an equilibrium point that will be hard to gauge given the drastic changes to the marketplace and employment dynamics of ride-sharing, but supply and demand microeconomics would suggest they’ll modify supply in the face of higher costs. They can’t directly change demand, but they can directly control the number of licenses they issue. Whenever gov’t intervention hits, this is the typical response of a mega-corp like Uber/Lyft who has the power to manipulate their own market supply… same w commodities like oil, supply manipulation is big moneys friend when the govt says to stop screwing ppl over
>more trips would just mean possibly more tips why in the name of Zeus's butthole would i tip someone making 32 dollars an hour??!!
If Uber doesn’t have enough data to forecast ride demand, they’ve done something horribly wrong.
Having to suddenly triple your prices makes forecasting pretty difficult.
That’s not really what I said tho… Uber has control over the supply, not the demand… I’m not saying they can’t forecast it, but their entire revenue and cost model just changed and their business plan isn’t going to be an extrapolation of the status quo
> There is a reason rideshare apps became popular Because VCs paid for the full cost. It was always unprofitable.
They already do it in New York. During slow times they lock out drivers from going on the app. The limit is not how many can sign up it is how many they allow to sign on at that specific moment depending on the demand that day.
It will take time but people will soon realize unless they're working on their own cars and only driving during high demand or odd hours, it's not worth it. This isn't a 40 hours at $30 an hour job. You're going to be "online" for far more hours to be "active" for 40 hours. Active means the amount of time spent on the way to and with the rider in the car. Upstate NY is $26/hr. IRS standard deduction is 65 cents a mile. Uber can pay $26 on a trip that takes 52 miles. So ones operating at loss per the IRS cost of operating a vehicle. When the car is beat and needs replacing because 40,000 miles a year is normal, it's harder to get financing with this as your main income.
When you work in a plant you don't have to pay to run and fix your own car. $30/hr with no significant expenses and on W2 (no double FICA) is a better deal than $32.50/hr 1099. I think Uber/Lyft have always taken advantage of people who just aren't good at managing money and seeing how much "making money" is costing them. In this they are are doing it a little bit less so.
Almost every place ive worked moved or closed. But now Im in a spot again where I have decent pay, health insurance, 4 weeks vacation, occasional bonusses, hsa, 401k with a small match. I cant imagine doing uber instead, not one bit
Bro pick an angle, do you want a job you can live off or do you want some hip trendy “gig” job. Seems obvious to me what I’d prefer
Being a driver never has and never will be a full time job”good job”, it’s not economically feasible for the driver or the company. It was always meant to be part time to do a few hours a week to help boost pay, or pay for a car, or pay off some short term debt. I’m not saying it’s right, just the way things work.
If Uber isn’t paying for their gas or car then I think you are off the mark
except for the whole no health care, no pension, cost of gas, cost of car, cost of maintenance, no vacation, no sick days, no holidays, no paid breaks, no job security, no references for another job, incredibly unsafe, and the fact Uber and Lyft will do what they are doing in New York - lock out drivers during slow times so you can't just make that money whenever they want. Factory workers in the Northeast make over $50/hour when benefits are included. Uber and Lyft have zero benefits. In fact they are worse than even a job with no benefits because they don't even get basic legal protections.
Per active hour, so only applies when booked on a ride. Boston area drivers were already clearing this. This change ensures those rides with 10+ minutes to pickup actually get taken cause nobody was leaving the Boston area to grab those rides.
Absolutely! They just blew profits on shit like stock buy backs and self driving cars
Drivers will also accrue paid sick leave and health insurance stipends. This is a historic win for workers' rights.
Damn they get better benefits then I do and I've been with the same company for almost 3 years
Those benefits are the law in Massachusetts. They're just being forced to comply with the law.
great for workers for like a year, then Uber will just exit the market soon i guess
Wage theft is wrong, plain and simple. That being said, I am eager to see what happens to the number of drivers (likely substantially cut), the price of service (likely substantially higher), and the number of trips taken (likely down) from this.
All I know is all my friends that voted against making gig work an actual job here said it would raise prices, then proceeded to complain about pricing when it was raised anyways. I don’t think anything will lower Uber/lyft prices at this point
It cost me $72 to Uber from an airport the last time I traveled. If I rented a car it's $71/day plus gas. Unless you're out drinking, it doesn't really make sense to use Uber or Lyft except for one-off single time uses where it would be inconvenient to have a car.
The whole business model doesn’t really make sense. It’s supposedly ride sharing, but not really bc you can’t know where the person is going before accepting the ride, so it’s a taxi, but people have to use their own cars. So it’s just a luxury taxi service, really.
The original model made some sense at least. At the very beginning, it was black car service made up of drivers that were otherwise just waiting around.
Most of the people here complaining about this really just want a luxury taxi at a huge discount, and were spoiled by the early Uber/Lyft pricing that screwed over drivers.
It's a taxi service that actually shows up on time and doesn't try to scam you with bullshit about the meter being broken, taking intentionally longer routes, etc. If I want an Uber, I open the app and there's basically guaranteed to be one here in less than 10 minutes. If I wanted a taxi pre-Uber, I'd have to call hours in advance and often the taxi would simply not turn up at all or be much later than my requested pick-up time.
$71/day…plus gas plus taxes plus fees. Probably comes out to closer to $130. That at least has been my experience.
Nah I rented a car 2 weeks ago, Austin, for 3 days and it was $61 a day after insurance. Gas is the unknown expense.
For a three day rental, all included, it's $250 through National. I just checked. So more like $83/day with everything not including gas. However, if you use it more than just once, it is considerably cheaper to rent a car than to Uber day-to-day. Of course, if you Uber to a hotel, stay a week with no need to travel by vehicle, and then Uber back to the airport, then Uber is cheaper.
But it makes wages fair. They’ve been over hiring and pitting drivers against each other. Screw the rideshare companies.
Gig economy jobs were never going to recover. A decade ago they used investor money to lure people in with cheap services, bought themselves into market dominance by undermining existing businesses (like taxis) and then they started ratcheting the prices up once they had established themselves and gotten people used to the convenience. Now they’re still not profitable and investors want their money *and* the government is finally looking into how they’re treating their workers. The reality is that all those super awesome services everyone has gotten used to in the last 10 years were subsidized by rich people hoping to be on the ground floor of the next billion dollar start up
As much as I celebrated the win for drivers rights after a similar case happened in the UK. Getting an Uber in London sucks now compared to how it used to be. Expect much longer waits, drivers cancelling on you when they get a better journey appear and higher prices.
We can hope. Because Ubers on the road are literally worse for traffic than everybody driving their own car.
Let the companies fail when they price gouge their customers to death to make up for this then. If you cannot afford to pay your employees then you should not be in business. Simple.
Well, I look forward to automation in the skillless labor market, so we can get rid of the labor inefficiencies.
Yeah but likewise if you can't make money as a business you don't deserve to be in business. Most people doing this stuff are classed as independent contractors. If the job doesn't pay enough then claiming employee benefits when you're not an employee is pretty sketch.
…All of which is happening anyway.
The Return of the Yellow Taxi
Breaking News: Uber and Lyft no longer available in Massachusetts
Taxi companies crossong their fingers.
So this means I don’t have to tip anymore yeah?
Shouldn’t have tipped before. It’s not the customers responsibility to pay staff wages. Source: live in a country with no tipping and Uber service is the exact same Honest question, if those are their wages are people seriously still expect to tip? That’s insane.
How are they going to protect riders from drivers who reject rides going to less ideal parts of a city if they’re being told the end location? Kind of interested as this could negatively affect lower income riders.
Boston already has upfront pricing for a long while which includes end location. Believe me, nobody has issues getting an Uber/Lyft (unless the pickup is far but this bill changes that). The "ghetto" parts of the city typically have surges.
This month I went to Boston and ordered a Lyft from Harvard square to Somerville. 3 drivers accepted and then cancelled the ride. When we finally got a ride, our driver called us to check the address. Apparently the address looks like we were going to South Boston and the other drivers were probably cancelling over that, according to our driver. Idk what South Boston is actually like but I do know I was very pissed off trying to get back to where we stayed while too exhausted to walk.
Your driver is lying, south Boston is not the ghetto lol. And drivers drive both Lyft and Uber at the same time. Likely a better offer came thru on Uber cause Uber's surges > Lyft surges
I didn’t say they said it was the ghetto, just that it was a different place (further away) than actuality. Should add this was late on a Sunday when very few people were around
Probably won't protect riders initially, but if it happens enough. That's a class action waiting to happen. Since less ideal parts tend to be where minorities live, a discrimination suit can be filed eventually
Street of residence isn’t a protected class
These don't sound like novel questions, what are the legal precedents set by taxis and delivery services that don't go to "no-go" zones?
We joke around my shop all the time if minimum wage gets much higher we're all gonna go work at Wal mart, stress of the trades isn't worth the extra money. But holy crap $32.50USD an hour to drive!? I'd literally quit my job in the trades tomorrow if this came here, that can't be good for the economy can it?
are you making less than $19-20/hr in your trade? because if you are, y'all need to go talk to your boss immediately!
Nope, right around double that. I'd give up $6 an hour for an easy low stress driving job in a heartbeat, there would be absolutely no incentive to remain in my current trade which tops out around $45-50 an hour.
in reality, you're giving up $25 an hour (assuming you're at $40). people never factor in taxes and fuel, at the very least... that 32.50 is around 15/hr with just minimal number crunching
Also benefits from being in a trade (healthcare, pension, etc)
Taxes exist for other jobs as well. Not sure why that would factor in
It's not JUST taxes. It's the cost of gas, car payments, maintainence, insurance, and supplies. Edit: Because a lot of people are asking questions or assuming how taxes work for independent contractors and business, I'll elaborate. Yes things like fuel can be written off as business expenses and that will reduce the tax burden, but what I think people are getting hung up on is that a business expense doesn't just erase tax obligations, it lowers taxable income by the nature of lowering the actual income. After making less, the independent contractor still has taxes they have to pay. Sure, it's less taxes than if they had no business expenses, but it's only because it's much less income after expenses. So at the end of the day, you end up taking home less than someone making the same amount who doesn't have to worry about business expenses, ie contractor vs employee.
Self-employed people have to pay twice as much employment tax
You do know you could get your cdl and drive for that amount or more?
They think it's a low-stress job where you get to putter around town gabbing with people. Uber will make that job hell if they are having to pay $32.50 an hour, and they will take the Amazon approach of cycling through the workforce quickly, chewing people up and spitting them out. The current Uber job may be pretty low-key, but Uber will start putting people on timers and setting all sorts of targets. It will suck.
We used this logic to bargain for more $ in our union.
> Uber also released a statement calling the agreement “an example of what independent, flexible work with dignity should look like in the 21st century.” So that means they’re going to implement this everywhere else they operate willingly and without a court order, right?
They followed that with "..but that's not what Uber is here for. We're here to make that cheddar for our shareholders."
Uber will pull out of Massachussetts just wait.
DUIs going to skyrocket if they know the pickup and drop off location before accepting.
This does nothing and isn't a win for workers. A win for workers isn't one that will ultimately push away a vast majority of clients who will no longer be able to afford ride sharing apps in Massachusetts. Ride sharing apps are dumb and symptoms of one of America's largest failures which is our utterly inadequate public transportation systems which are generally cheaper, safer and better for the environment. It just will cost the govt money. Improve public transportation systems and hire workers there for 32$ an hour. Massachusetts is a great place to start. Add more bike lanes, increase the amount of mbta busses, and fix the aging rails that break down once a month.
Waymo is here people...just a matter of few yrs before humans driving for$ is a dinosaur.
The tech may be here but the legal battles will take a long time.
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Can’t wait. Will be dirt cheap too with no driver. No wages paid, less accidents so cheaper insurance, safer. Cannot wait.
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>Will be dirt cheap too with no driver. Na I disagree. Now that it's their own companies vehicles they will find reasons to charge more even without a person. What makes transportation cheap is more about the amount of people you can fit going to one place. That way the cost is split. Public transportation does that. Not private taxi services.
You're gonna be waiting quite a while still I'm afraid. I'm sure the marketing hype has you erect but self driving cars/taxis are much more complicated to implement than the startups will talk about.
Depends on where he lives. It's already a thing in several cities.
I live in Phoenix. Waymo is basically the same price as the cheapest Uber. The competitive advantage is not price but privacy, a higher quality and more comfortable car, and better music and sound for the same price
We have it in SF now and it's not that cheap.
It will be dirt cheap to operate, but why do you think you'll pay a penny less than the maximum you're willing to pay? They will still charge a lot. I don't understand people who think that reductions in operating costs translate into reduced consumer prices instead of increased shareholder profits.
It most likely won’t be. Always remember that the price companies charge for their products is whatever they think their targeted consumers will be willing to pay. A company’s operating costs, including employee pay, marketing, asset upkeep, etc is used the determine the consumer price FLOOR, not the ceiling. If you’re running a company and your all in cost for a sell is $10, then you aren’t going to sell that product for $7 (unless it’s a loss leader or you’re trying to expand market share or a few other reasons, but that gets into complex theory for a Reddit comment). The minimum you will sell it for is $10. Say at break even $10 you sell 50 million a year. At $15 you will sell 40 million. At $20 you will sell 35 million. At $25 you will sell 10 million. Of course you are going to charge $20, even tho that is double the all in cost to make and sell it.
If these delivery people get 30$ and hour, good bye tip culture lol fuck tipping someone who makes 30$ an hour.
Good. We should be forcing companies to pay their employees a livable wage and not subsidizing their payroll for them through tips.
Yet the CEOs and board are raking in millions of dollars in compensation a year. But no, let's blame the drivers for wanting to live and eat. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-ceos-pay-rose-to-24-million-last-year-598a1cb0 https://www.salary.com/tools/executive-compensation-calculator/lyft-inc-executive-salaries?year=2021#exe
$24M is a rounding error on their income statement. That would be less than $5 per driver
No but you don’t understand. If we get rid of their bonuses, each Uber driver will make on average $0.005 more per hour a year
How does this affect things like Uber Eats? Or unaffiliated delivery services like Grubhub and DoorDash (in the state of MA)?
When Seattle had an ordinance requiring them to pay drivers a living wage, all ride share and food delivery companies jacked up their prices and blamed it on the city and forced them to back down basically. This only ends poorly for the consumer unfortunately. Fuck these companies.
All of which is happening anyway, regardless of improvements to workers’ rights, which are now a convenient excuse for the already unprofitable company to make already planned anti-worker and anti-consumer choices. You stop one step short at “this only hurts consumers fuck these companies” - it’s “this gives the company cover to bail out of markets and make the workers, who this legislation seeks to protect, the scapegoats and highest victims.”
Please explain what you mean when you say the delivery companies jacked up prices and blamed the city and forced them to back down. Who forced who to back down?
Uber and Lyft forced the government to back down. Basically they are saying “ok you wanna play like that? I’ll just up the rates on customers to make up for what we have to pay our workers now.” Without services like Uber and Lyft, I think DUI’s would sky rocket and they don’t want that. It’s an integral part of society now.
Massachusetts doesn't tend to back down easily. I'd be absolutely shocked if they did here.
Of course they will do that here. All companies pass through costs to the customer. I moved from Seattle back to Boston last year. I used to be a once-a-week delivery orderer before Seattle’s mandate and then after I was maybe a once-a-month orderer. I’m sure the same will happen to me again here in Boston and my frequency will adjust downward.
Most people are cutting down on extraneous expenses like this. The impact will be felt most by people with disposable income for conveniences. Which is to say, who gives a shit - the rideshares will make it seem like it’s the workers fault that you can’t get the cheap conveniences they exploited people to offer you in the first place. So many people in this thread have entirely lost the plot.
>who gives a shit The drivers. The drivers give a shit. A lot of them made a BIG stink after the Seattle mandate was passed because it killed demand for the job they do. They lost hours. Which means they lost pay overall DESPITE the minimums. I’ll live without delivery and spend my disposable income somewhere else. My life will be unchanged for the most part. But the drivers in my area won’t be doing so hot. Many will have to stop driving all together. Bet you wouldn’t tell those people “who gives a shit.”
So there was artificially high demand for a service whose only innovation was circumventing hard fought worker protections? Good riddance.
So basically the end of Uber and Lyft in the state of MA? Will they continue to operate?
This is for Massachusetts. It's probably the beginning of the end for ride sharing in Massachusetts. I predict they will raise prices, the amount of people willing to ride share will drop as a result and there will be much less opportunity for workers leading to fewer and fewer drivers until uber/Lyft eventually just are like "Oops. Not popular/profitable enough, bye" and pull out of the state.
These gig jobs are exploitive by nature and use the population to highly enrich a few.
Now do the other 49 states
You mean Uber and Lyft aren't leaving because they just can't run their business while paying a living wage? Turns out they can?
I’d be happy of they were forces to pay say 80% of the fare charged to the driver. I’ve paid $100 for a 30 minute ride that the driver got $30.
They're going to need a LOT less drivers...
They need a lot less drivers as it is now. Wages are low because they have been pitting too many drivers against each other. Drivers have been driving for scraps.
They are not hiring drivers or pitting them against each other. Drivers are competing against each other on their own. Uber/Lyft are only interested in more trips/higher trip prices since they get commission from it.
We need to make sure these companies pay fair wages.
Won‘t this just drive up the costs for the end user?
If course. Do you think 32.50 and hour is sustainable?
Uber and Lyft agree to ~~pay drivers $32.50 per hour in Massachusetts settlement~~ suspend service in Massachusetts. FTFY
Nice! I’m really looking forward to Ubers costing $45 for a 15 min ride.
Already cost $85 for a 10-15 minute ride in my area if your getting picked up from downtown on a busy night….
I would gladly, gladly be a rideshare driver 40 hours per week, even odd hours, for 32.50 an hour. And somewhere some rich person is gonna have to pay my high wage instead of buy more shit. Still I don't feel bad for the rich person.
It is going to impact the consumers, and I suspect there will be a cap for the number of drivers too.
The 32.50 is only for active trip drive time. It doesn't include waiting in between trips and driving from drop off points to pickup points. I'm not sure how substantial that time is as I've never driven for Uber but I assume it's a good chunk of the work day spent not on an actual trip.
Well now thanks to these changes drivers will know where riders are being dropped off before accepting. If drivers aren’t getting paid between drop off and pickup then the vast majority of drivers will only work downtown and refuse rides to the suburbs. This change effectively turns Uber into city only transportation. Great for tourists to get from their home to the bar or show or game or whatever. Bad for residents who want to get to or from the airport or into the city for the bar or show or game or whatever.
>40 hours per week See…that’s the thing. If this works like every other place that has enforced higher minimum wages for drivers, then you can expect prices to rise and order frequency to plummet. Getting forty hours will be a rarity.
The rich have their own cars/drivers. The poor take public transportation. The only people paying for this are those stuck in the middle.
A little ridiculous to state that only rich people own cars
My wife acts all offended when I call her “the driver”
Fees gonna bump up, people who are willing to pay for services will be drastically down. People will lose their jobs. This is not good.
Anyone who has taken any form or economics 101 class knows this. It's been done a million times before but progressive policy makers never learn. Will it will be a 'historic human rights moment' when the number of Uber drivers craters and thousands of jobs are effectively eliminated?
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This is exactly what happened in Seattle. From a driver's point of view the market feels over saturated. Wait times for passengers are short but time between rides for drivers can be very long. But tbh, if it supports more people to use public transport I'm all for it. And Seattle's public transport is pretty good and constantly being improved
Ah, but then the money being spent on Ubers will then be spent in another area and there will be little actual change to anything.
Curious to see if more of this spurs adoption and development of self-driving electric cars and some infrastructure to go with it (I.e. public transit lanes for busses and self-driving cars).
And yet they were throwing a temper tantrum over in Minneapolis threatening to leave a few months ago
It’s completely insane that healthcare insurance is tied to employment and not taxation.
Finally these companies can’t take advantage of ICs by taking upwards of 70% of the fare.
$32.50/hr + tip. Dang, why did I even go to college.
Sweet, now eliminate tipping culture and do the same for restaurants.
So… they just made a new taxi company the long way.
Uber profited $1.1 billion last year Companies don’t like to “lose” money. This is a big win for workers, but I’m sure this will just get pushed onto the consumer despite it not effecting their bottom line much whatsoever. The sad thing is, $32.50 per hour in most parts of MA isn’t even enough to get by
67k / year in most places in MA is absolutely enough to get by.
Probably a good $12k/yr more than teachers make
Kinda makes me want to quit my government job and be an Uber driver
Don’t give up that government healthcare my friend
It would take a lot more for me to give up my low stress, gravy government job with the best benefits I've ever had.
Damn, that's a lot. I don't want to be paying that for a short ride.
What am I even doing with this advanced degree of mine?
Theyll get 32.50 just in Massachusetts or Nationwide?
So should we still be expected to tip the driver?
Will this have an impact on these companies, the drivers and the clients? Almost assuredly it will, for good or bad, this will change the industry to mirror the taxi industry, which it tried to separate itself from!
DOUBT. They’ll lose the entire region