12 ms·

I was an undercover Uber driver

237 points by robdimarco 11y ago

krapht 11y ago
I also drove for Uber in DC for a few months while I was between jobs. I thought it would be a fun and easy way to get a few dollars for beer. My experience mirrors that of the reporter. Towards the end, I would only drive during surge pricing hours, as that was the only way to make a reasonable net hourly wage. I have no problem hailing an Uber - they are really, really cheap. However, it's a raw deal for drivers. Uber turns a blind eye to driver-contractors driving without commercial vehicle insurance. It has to, as the additional cost (which is pushed onto the driver) would cause the driver's hourly rate to plummet even further. In addition, there is no way to purchase commercial insurance on an hourly basis - therefore part-time drivers would be squeezed out. The flat-rate $1 safe rides fee causes low-distance fares to be even more unprofitable, even when many short trips are already a bad deal due to the overhead involved in each pickup and drop-off. To fix this, Uber should probably cover drivers with an on-demand commercial policy while they are logged into the app. The flat per-ride fee should go away. And while I doubt this is going to happen, Uber should probably also reduce the commission they take per ride.
- aikah 11y ago
  > It has to So basically you mean than Uber can only make money if most their drivers do not respect the law. Which gives Uber an unfair advantage over the competition (regular taxis that do respect the law ). It's like saying employer X doesn't check if his employees are legal workers, because if he did it would be too expensive to do business. But hey, even startups got to hussle to make a good living.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    This is the whole idea behind regulatory arbitrage. Find an industry that has built up "inefficiencies" due the law and then undercut by deliberately breaking the law. The only thing that amazes me about uber (apart from its current valuation) is that the taxi industry is powerful enough to prevent the issuing of more taxi medallions, but not powerful enough to get the current laws enforced against uber. Assuming uber recognised this in advance (I don't have any evidence that they did) then this was pretty clever.
    - rhino369 11y ago
      "Taxi lobby" makes it sound like Uber is disrupting some megacorporate industry who control government in smokey back alleys. Taxi corps are small, many are essentially sole proprietorships. The drivers are essentially all running their own business, but the medallion owners tend not to be huge corporations. Medallions are required because cities regulate taxis prices and policies. Doing so distorts normal market forces. So medallions are a sort of conciliation prize for taxi drivers having the business model dictated. Govenment limits price, but also lowers competition to ensure they can make a profit. Uber isn't beating some mustached villinous Taxi lobby. They are beating cities who wanted a regulated car service. I think Uber is probably better than the status quo, but it's not fighting big business, it is big business.
      - rayiner 11y ago
        Uber is nearing $10 billion in bookings, or about 50-100x as much as the largest cab companies. The need of some people to see every tech company is the underdog is ridiculous. By and large the whole point of tech entering these traditional markets is to use capital and technology to achieve scale and efficiency the small businesses playing in those spaces can't hope to match.
        cdcarter 11y ago
        You need to look at market size to make that statistic anywhere near interesting.
        rayiner 11y ago
        Uber is 2-3x the size of the whole taxi industry in SF. Remember, it's not like there is a national taxi regulatory system. It's a bunch of separate municipal systems and Uber is far bigger than any of the other players in all of them.
        cdcarter 11y ago
        Yes, of course, that's what makes the 50x-100x number so inaccurate.
  - stickfigure 11y ago
    Uber can only make money if most their drivers do not respect the law is an assumption. Keep in mind that Uber evades the cost of a medallion, which the article says runs $420-460 per week in Philly. That eliminates $1700+ per month of cost that effectively goes to the banks that fund loans on these assets. I don't see much social good in that. Uber may additionally benefit from regulatory arbitrage, but it is not obvious that their business requires it.
- pmorici 11y ago
  I drove for Uber in Baltimore last spring for a few months during weekends just for fun and I agree this article's assessment is _dead_ on. I've since stopped using Uber even as a rider. The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous and I don't want to be an enabler to that. Lyft is a bit better because at least I can leave the driver a reasonable tip through the app.
  - jaredhansen 11y ago
    >The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous I keep hearing this, and it's ... confusing. I mean maybe Uber's really nasty to drivers, I guess, but if it is, then what are all these Uber drivers doing? It takes all of ... what, like 45 seconds to download Lyft? If Uber is so bad, why don't all the drivers just switch? I don't know enough about the economics of any particular driver's situation to know how many people it works for or doesn't, but (1) believing that Uber drivers get screwed, (2) believing that, say, Lyft drivers have it much better, AND (3) recognizing that far more people choose to drive for Uber than for these other platforms, requires us to believe some rather surprising things about the subjective mental states of the many, many Uber drivers, right? I mean: Damn, I hate my job, my company treats me terribly, and a substantially identical job is about 4 taps and 2 minutes away, and ... I guess I'll just keep working for The Man. Why would anyone do that?
    - smelendez 11y ago
      I've had drivers in a couple of different cities tell me they're on both apps, but there are generally more fares on Uber, since it's a more famous brand. In some cities, the base fares are notably higher on Lyft, too, making more money for the drivers but driving more customers to Uber. I'm not sure about other apps (Sidecar, etc.). But basically, the drivers can get a cheap fare fast on Uber, or they can wait longer to get a slightly better fare on Lyft.
      - hkmurakami 11y ago
        I have found that the two services are comparable in supply side liquidity in SF, but that Uber far outpaces Lyft in that regard near Stanford. I wonder if it's possible to stave off this issue.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  So how much does commercial insurance cost? And since you have experience maybe you can answer this: What if you accept the insurance argument that having the app open is commercial, and shut it off to find a parking space after every ride. How long would that take, is it feasible?
- Tycho 11y ago
  maybe the insurance industry could innovate and solve this problem
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Why would they? If they don't have to pay out money to people who get screwed by Uber, they profit.
    - rhino369 11y ago
      Because they'd make a profit by selling it for more than it costs, which is their entire business. I'm pretty sure they do provide this insurance, Uber drivers just don't pay for it.
  - dragontamer 11y ago
    https://www.geico.com/getaquote/ridesharing/ https://www.geico.com/getaquote/ridesharing/
diminoten 11y ago
> Uber reassures drivers that they've got them covered, but their vaunted $1 million policy is secondary for collision — that is, drivers must try to get their own insurance companies to pay the claims first. If the claim is rejected because the insurer figures out it's Uber-related, then Uber's policy kicks in — but the driver's almost certainly going to have his personal insurance policy cancelled, and in some cases be investigated for fraud. What? Has this ever happened before? Surely by now there would be specific examples of this taking place, if it were indeed a real thing. > CP: Yeah, not really — when they take UberX into a new market like Philly, they start off by paying drivers a lot. So in the beginning, you get a lot of drivers who look like the drivers in Uber ads, like, suits and bottled water and no accents. And everyone gets the idea that Uber drivers have suits and make a ton of money. Then after a while, usually when a competitor comes in — you know Lyft just started up a couple weeks ago, right? (CP is the person who wrote the article, not anyone being interviewed) -- How impressively unprofessional. The entire section that quote comes from is just the person writing the article yelling at someone she's ferrying around as an UberX driver. A more obvious hit piece could not have been written. Also, the site keeps refreshing on me, losing my place in the article. I think it's related to the graphs, but I can't be sure. They randomly go into "loading..." mode when this happens.
- JoblessWonder 11y ago
  FYI- My page kept refreshing as well. Really annoying. I can't imagine it is on purpose to drive up pageview counts... but... I've seen shadier tactics.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- danso 11y ago
  There have been quite a few stories regarding the insurance policy, though more about the ambiguity/controversy in general than specific incidents...which isn't surprising...when do car accidents make it into the national news? Rarely, unless a whole bunch of people die. For an Uber-related accident and subsequent legal fight to make national news, one of the parties has to pitch that angle to the media...though with the way things are, media outlets generally have little problem jumping on an Uber (or Airbnb) mishap when they hear about it. That said, here are a few examples I found: 2013-09: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/09/real-future-ride-sharing-may-all-come-down-insurance/6832/ http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/09/real-future-ride-shar... > As you might imagine, the front of the Dodge was badly damaged. The driver is now suing the driver of the Town Car, a vehicle with livery plates operated under the company SF Limo Car Service. The pedestrian, who broke her leg and injured her back, is suing both drivers. She is also suing – and this is what makes this crash particularly interesting – the transportation-tech company Uber. 2014-12: "Rideshare Drivers Still Cornered Into Insurance Secrecy" http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/12/18/uber-lyft-driver-insurance/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/12/18/uber-lyft-d... > The don’t-ask-don’t-tell strategy usually works until there’s a crash. Ian, a Bay Area Uber driver, was off duty when his car was hit by another car in October. While he was filing a claim with Geico, they asked him if he ever worked for Uber or Lyft. “I panicked,” he said. “They put me on the spot. So I just answered honestly and said yes, but that I wasn’t working when this happened.” 2014-01 http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/should-car-services-provide-insurance-whenever-their-driver-app-is-open/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/should-car-services-provide... > Uber posted a “Statement On New Year’s Eve Accident” on its blog, offering condolences to the victim and her family, but also distancing itself from any cuplability. 2015-03 http://www.insurancebusiness.ca/news/toronto-uber-crash-reignites-insurance-debate-189501.aspx http://www.insurancebusiness.ca/news/toronto-uber-crash-reig... > After initially being told by an Uber representative in Chicago that he had to pay a $1,000 deductible, this was later recanted. Since he was not at fault, his personal car insurance fronted the entire bill. But because he lacks commercial coverage, questions arise as to who would be responsible if he had been responsible for the collision.
yellowapple 11y ago
Is there some reason why the page keeps refreshing automatically? It's annoying and makes it difficult to, you know, read the actual article.
- rconti 11y ago
  Especially when it refreshes to "too many database connections" mid-read. Great work, citypaper.
  - Eric_WVGG 11y ago
    I used to think Safari “Reader View” was sort of daft but I’ve been indispensable lately…
- eosrei 11y ago
  I ended up reading the article in Print Preview. No way for them to screw that up.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Yet.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  I'm glad it wasn't just me, but I had this happen with (what I think is) another site earlier. Are you guys using Ghostery too, perhaps?
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    I'm just using AdBlock Plus on this particular browser (Conkeror; Firefox-like). Haven't bothered to try with Firefox (which doesn't have Ghostery, but has a more stringent ad-blocking policy and some other privacy-ish addons that I can't recall at the moment).
    - lotharbot 11y ago
DigitalSea 11y ago
A few months ago when I was in Seattle for work, I caught Uber everywhere. I had so many conversations with Uber drivers about why they drove for Uber, how much money they made and why they weren't doing something else. Needless to say, unless I felt legitimately fearful for my life (which rarely ever happened) I would always rate 5 stars. I realised a lot of these Uber drivers (usually migrants with broken English) probably didn't have many other options to earn money. An almost consistent sentiment amongst those drivers was they were working long hours and support family (not just a wife and children but parents/relatives). My reasoning for this was I am paying like half the cost of what a taxi would cost me, so why not 5 stars? I think Uber is great for a certain subset of people. While most people who frequent HN on six figure tech salaries would definitely struggle to live on an Uber salary, a lot of people rely on it. In all honesty, I couldn't do it and I have a certain level of respect for those willing to earn so little and work so much to support their families. As a passenger Uber is great, but you can't deny that drivers get absolutely shafted unless they're driving through surge pricing periods and areas. I always rate 5 stars when I get an Uber unless of course the driver is swerving all over the place, speeding or doing dangerous things to endanger my life (which has happened like twice in all of the time I have used Uber). Aside: Anyone else find the article sporadically refresh? Made it very difficult to read the article.
- yesbabyyes 11y ago
  How magnanimous of you, to award imaginary points instead of enough money to support somebody. I think Uber is great for a certain subset of people. While most people who frequent HN on six figure tech salaries would definitely struggle to live on an Uber salary Seriously? I guess it's good for you guys so you only have to spend half of what it costs. Oh, and for the Uber owners of course. A certain subset of people, indeed. Here, have some imaginary points for your inner goodness.
  - ossreality 11y ago
    Man, learn to pick the right fight with the right person.
  - dethstar 11y ago
marincounty 11y ago
I see people buying 2008 plus four door vechicles(that Uber approves of--on the ever changing list) and not making money and stuck with a four door car. Four door cars are harder to sell than two door cars.(I can't point to a link to prove this, but I used to sell cars, and four door cars were a tough sell.) My problem with Uber is the requirement for a 2008 or newer car, and Uber decides if it's cool enough to represent their company. This is not an independent contractor Uber? Let the driver use any registered vechicle? Your brilliant app will let the consumer look at the vechicle before before the hire? If you are worried about safety--just because a person has an older car doesn't mean it's less safe. Bring every vechicle in for a safety check if worried? Maybe then, when the Uber driver finds out it's not the opportunity your company claims; they aren't stuck with a car they can't sell, or take a huge loss when selling your "acceptable" vehicle, or worse claim bankruptcy? People are desperate for jobs--don't exploit them! I liked your company in the beginning(before I looked into the requirements of Uber).
- gcr 11y ago
  The "Sidecar" app may be more appropriate for drivers who want to take customers for a ride in their go karts/tractor trailers/dune buggies/mopeds/cat busses/... :)
  - marincounty 11y ago
    Besides the Moped--they aren't quite street legal? What is the point of the App if you can't see the vechicle? Do you happen to work in a climate controlled Uber office--with stock shares? My point is don't claim Independent Contractor status when you're obviously not. This link makes fun reading. Maybe you can explain automotive aesthetics to me, Honda, Chevrolet, or Volkswagen? http://www.driveubernyc.com/vehicles/full-list/ http://www.driveubernyc.com/vehicles/full-list/
    - prostoalex 11y ago
      Passenger can see the vehicle when choosing a ride in Sidecar. What the original comment was implying is that Sidecar is less picky on its vehicle requirements.
Dujdovnik 11y ago
Off-topic, but what the hell is wrong with the website? It kept refreshing every minute or so for some reason.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Yeah, had the same issue here. It refreshed like almost 10 times before I manged to finish the article. Incredibly annoying.
itgoon 11y ago
While I like the improvements to regular taxi service that the competition has brought, I don't like Uber. They're just shady all around. The "We're not a taxi service, we just sell software" is a load of crap. How many apps take a piece of the gross? Purchase a license? Ok. A monthly fee for ongoing service? Sure. A chunk of all the money made from using it? I don't think so.
- NegativeK 11y ago
  Doesn't the App Store take a cut of in-app purchases?
  - dylanjermiah 11y ago
    If it's a 'digital' product by Apple's definition they get 30%. If it isn't there is no cut.
maceo 11y ago
Human labor is not a commodity. This was the common sense amongst all working people for most of the 20th century. Samuel Gompers, maybe the most conservative labor leader of his time, said "You cannot weigh the human soul on the same scales as piece of pork." And working people, along with the management class for the most part, understood this to be an undeniable truth. In fact, this piece of common sense was enshrined into US law with the Clayton Act of 1914, which stated "The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce." But in the last 20 years, as capital has gained the firm upper hand, the common sense understanding has shifted towards the idea that labor is in fact a commodity. The ideas behind the so-called "on-demand workforce" further solidify the notion that labor is a commodity. After all, you can order an uber ride just as easily as you can order vitamins online. It's so pervasive that even I, someone born into a union family and a firm believer in the idea of worker solidarity, have to force myself to believe that labor is not a commodity. Why? The business class treated labor as expendable in 1915, just as they do in 2015. Why did working people understand this truth in 1915 but not today? I don't know. I read a recently released sociology book earlier this year (going crazy looking for the title/author, can't find it), that posits millennials are far more likely than any recent generation to blame themselves for the problems they face. It's part of the reason that the self-help industry is bigger business than it's ever been. It's not always your fault. Our modern economy is built on rotten ideas like labor = commodity. If we want to do something about inequality, it's time that we subject fundamentally unjust ideas like these to a serious critique.
- smil 11y ago
  That labor is a commodity is not an "idea", but in the case of Uber drivers and the Foxconn workers who assemble iPhones, a fact. It is a fact because that's how those jobs and service/production processes have been designed. The work has been broken down into their smallest parts, so that it will require no special skill or intelligence to perform them. As anyone can do those jobs, they have been de facto commoditized. For someone who cares for the wellbeing of people at the bottom of the enterprise pyramids, the goal should be to design new organizations, with jobs that have latitude for learning and development, that is multi-disciplinary and creative. And many of the worst jobs today should be automated because they are not fit for human beings.
platz 11y ago
Not a bad investigation of Uber-like companies from an economics perspective, Michael Munger on the Sharing Economy: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/07/michael_munger.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/07/michael_munger.html
hudell 11y ago
offtopic, but that website kept refreshing over and over, it was hard to read on mobile
- fideloper 11y ago
  Literally just threw my phone across the room in frustration over this.
phamilton 11y ago
This site refreshed itself 6 times as I read it on my mobile device. Each time it lost my location on the page. Quite a frustrating experience.
- darkstar999 11y ago
  Same here on desktop.
- javert 11y ago
  Same here on laptop. "Hey Boss, I know a way to increase visits to our site by 6x..."
Systemic33 11y ago
Link to a version that does not autorefresh constantly: https://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http://citypaper.net/uberdriver/ https://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http://citypaper.net/uberd...
somberi 11y ago
I live between NYC and Bangalore, India. I have used Uber and its closest competitors (Lyft and Ola respectively), in both cities. I have a mental questionnaire I go through with 90% of the drivers and here is what I have learnt: Uber vs Lyft: Drivers make more money with Uber, but rules of engagement are more relaxed in Lyft. Uber & Ola (not vs): The drivers in India hone in on these three points: 1. They make 3-4 times the money they would if they were employed as a driver in a upper-middle class household (very common in India). 2. They feel respected and think of themselves as "Business owners" now. It is heartening to see how much the "feeling respected" theme repeats itself. 3. They know the good times won't last. Unlike US, in India, Uber and Ola are do not take a cut from the ride. In fact it is the opposite - They keep the per kilometre cost to the end consumer lower than Auto Rickshaws and compensate the drivers the difference. In fact Uber has taken a "not-for-profit" model in India (and in Beijing). Citation for not-for-profit: http://blog.uber.com/the-government-way http://blog.uber.com/the-government-way
- krrrh 11y ago
  I was just in Guangzhou where this is also the case; they have a non-profit/subsidized tier called "People's Uber". A 20 minute ride would come out to the equivalent of $3. The weird thing to me was that there were 5 tiers of service and while there were different cars available for UberX and People's Uber, I couldn't tell the difference in the service. Not sure why anyone would choose UberX when the VC-subsidized version was available.
jolan 11y ago
Kind of disappointed that the author neglected to discuss how the $9.34/hr she earned as an Uber driver compares to her salary as a "senior staff writer".
lechuga 11y ago
Travis sounds exactly like a Disney villain. I bet somehow dead puppies are also involved.
bayesianhorse 11y ago
Driving people from A to B individually would be a "perfect competition" kind of situation without regulation. Some of the motivation behind regulating this market was that some taxi drivers just started robbing their customers. Now Uber is doing away with the regulation, and it's "perfect competition" again, the state of affairs when prices have to be so low that there is almost no profit for the suppliers. Uber will always make the most overall profit with their drivers just on the edge of survival. Uber may actually set the fares just below the profitability point, because new drivers or those "driving for fun" actually put money on the table rather than being paid.
olalonde 11y ago
I found it interesting that many customers were complaining about drivers with accents. I wonder if, would Uber implement per-driver pricing, those people would really pay a premium for drivers with no accent.
joshjkim 11y ago
Here's what I do: take lyft, and tip your drivers well!

237 points by robdimarco 11y ago

I also drove for Uber in DC for a few months while I was between jobs. I thought it would be a fun and easy way to get a few dollars for beer. My experience mirrors that of the reporter. Towards the end, I would only drive during surge pricing hours, as that was the only way to make a reasonable net hourly wage. I have no problem hailing an Uber - they are really, really cheap. However, it's a raw deal for drivers. Uber turns a blind eye to driver-contractors driving without commercial vehicle insurance. It has to, as the additional cost (which is pushed onto the driver) would cause the driver's hourly rate to plummet even further. In addition, there is no way to purchase commercial insurance on an hourly basis - therefore part-time drivers would be squeezed out. The flat-rate $1 safe rides fee causes low-distance fares to be even more unprofitable, even when many short trips are already a bad deal due to the overhead involved in each pickup and drop-off. To fix this, Uber should probably cover drivers with an on-demand commercial policy while they are logged into the app. The flat per-ride fee should go away. And while I doubt this is going to happen, Uber should probably also reduce the commission they take per ride.

aikah 11y ago
> It has to So basically you mean than Uber can only make money if most their drivers do not respect the law. Which gives Uber an unfair advantage over the competition (regular taxis that do respect the law ). It's like saying employer X doesn't check if his employees are legal workers, because if he did it would be too expensive to do business. But hey, even startups got to hussle to make a good living.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  This is the whole idea behind regulatory arbitrage. Find an industry that has built up "inefficiencies" due the law and then undercut by deliberately breaking the law. The only thing that amazes me about uber (apart from its current valuation) is that the taxi industry is powerful enough to prevent the issuing of more taxi medallions, but not powerful enough to get the current laws enforced against uber. Assuming uber recognised this in advance (I don't have any evidence that they did) then this was pretty clever.
  - rhino369 11y ago
    "Taxi lobby" makes it sound like Uber is disrupting some megacorporate industry who control government in smokey back alleys. Taxi corps are small, many are essentially sole proprietorships. The drivers are essentially all running their own business, but the medallion owners tend not to be huge corporations. Medallions are required because cities regulate taxis prices and policies. Doing so distorts normal market forces. So medallions are a sort of conciliation prize for taxi drivers having the business model dictated. Govenment limits price, but also lowers competition to ensure they can make a profit. Uber isn't beating some mustached villinous Taxi lobby. They are beating cities who wanted a regulated car service. I think Uber is probably better than the status quo, but it's not fighting big business, it is big business.
    - rayiner 11y ago
      Uber is nearing $10 billion in bookings, or about 50-100x as much as the largest cab companies. The need of some people to see every tech company is the underdog is ridiculous. By and large the whole point of tech entering these traditional markets is to use capital and technology to achieve scale and efficiency the small businesses playing in those spaces can't hope to match.
      - cdcarter 11y ago
        You need to look at market size to make that statistic anywhere near interesting.
        rayiner 11y ago
        Uber is 2-3x the size of the whole taxi industry in SF. Remember, it's not like there is a national taxi regulatory system. It's a bunch of separate municipal systems and Uber is far bigger than any of the other players in all of them.
        cdcarter 11y ago
        Yes, of course, that's what makes the 50x-100x number so inaccurate.
- stickfigure 11y ago
  Uber can only make money if most their drivers do not respect the law is an assumption. Keep in mind that Uber evades the cost of a medallion, which the article says runs $420-460 per week in Philly. That eliminates $1700+ per month of cost that effectively goes to the banks that fund loans on these assets. I don't see much social good in that. Uber may additionally benefit from regulatory arbitrage, but it is not obvious that their business requires it.
pmorici 11y ago
I drove for Uber in Baltimore last spring for a few months during weekends just for fun and I agree this article's assessment is _dead_ on. I've since stopped using Uber even as a rider. The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous and I don't want to be an enabler to that. Lyft is a bit better because at least I can leave the driver a reasonable tip through the app.
- jaredhansen 11y ago
  >The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous I keep hearing this, and it's ... confusing. I mean maybe Uber's really nasty to drivers, I guess, but if it is, then what are all these Uber drivers doing? It takes all of ... what, like 45 seconds to download Lyft? If Uber is so bad, why don't all the drivers just switch? I don't know enough about the economics of any particular driver's situation to know how many people it works for or doesn't, but (1) believing that Uber drivers get screwed, (2) believing that, say, Lyft drivers have it much better, AND (3) recognizing that far more people choose to drive for Uber than for these other platforms, requires us to believe some rather surprising things about the subjective mental states of the many, many Uber drivers, right? I mean: Damn, I hate my job, my company treats me terribly, and a substantially identical job is about 4 taps and 2 minutes away, and ... I guess I'll just keep working for The Man. Why would anyone do that?
  - smelendez 11y ago
    I've had drivers in a couple of different cities tell me they're on both apps, but there are generally more fares on Uber, since it's a more famous brand. In some cities, the base fares are notably higher on Lyft, too, making more money for the drivers but driving more customers to Uber. I'm not sure about other apps (Sidecar, etc.). But basically, the drivers can get a cheap fare fast on Uber, or they can wait longer to get a slightly better fare on Lyft.
    - hkmurakami 11y ago
      I have found that the two services are comparable in supply side liquidity in SF, but that Uber far outpaces Lyft in that regard near Stanford. I wonder if it's possible to stave off this issue.
Dylan16807 11y ago
So how much does commercial insurance cost? And since you have experience maybe you can answer this: What if you accept the insurance argument that having the app open is commercial, and shut it off to find a parking space after every ride. How long would that take, is it feasible?
Tycho 11y ago
maybe the insurance industry could innovate and solve this problem
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Why would they? If they don't have to pay out money to people who get screwed by Uber, they profit.
  - rhino369 11y ago
    Because they'd make a profit by selling it for more than it costs, which is their entire business. I'm pretty sure they do provide this insurance, Uber drivers just don't pay for it.
- dragontamer 11y ago
  https://www.geico.com/getaquote/ridesharing/ https://www.geico.com/getaquote/ridesharing/

diminoten 11y ago

> Uber reassures drivers that they've got them covered, but their vaunted $1 million policy is secondary for collision — that is, drivers must try to get their own insurance companies to pay the claims first. If the claim is rejected because the insurer figures out it's Uber-related, then Uber's policy kicks in — but the driver's almost certainly going to have his personal insurance policy cancelled, and in some cases be investigated for fraud. What? Has this ever happened before? Surely by now there would be specific examples of this taking place, if it were indeed a real thing. > CP: Yeah, not really — when they take UberX into a new market like Philly, they start off by paying drivers a lot. So in the beginning, you get a lot of drivers who look like the drivers in Uber ads, like, suits and bottled water and no accents. And everyone gets the idea that Uber drivers have suits and make a ton of money. Then after a while, usually when a competitor comes in — you know Lyft just started up a couple weeks ago, right? (CP is the person who wrote the article, not anyone being interviewed) -- How impressively unprofessional. The entire section that quote comes from is just the person writing the article yelling at someone she's ferrying around as an UberX driver. A more obvious hit piece could not have been written. Also, the site keeps refreshing on me, losing my place in the article. I think it's related to the graphs, but I can't be sure. They randomly go into "loading..." mode when this happens.

JoblessWonder 11y ago
FYI- My page kept refreshing as well. Really annoying. I can't imagine it is on purpose to drive up pageview counts... but... I've seen shadier tactics.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
danso 11y ago
There have been quite a few stories regarding the insurance policy, though more about the ambiguity/controversy in general than specific incidents...which isn't surprising...when do car accidents make it into the national news? Rarely, unless a whole bunch of people die. For an Uber-related accident and subsequent legal fight to make national news, one of the parties has to pitch that angle to the media...though with the way things are, media outlets generally have little problem jumping on an Uber (or Airbnb) mishap when they hear about it. That said, here are a few examples I found: 2013-09: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/09/real-future-ride-sharing-may-all-come-down-insurance/6832/ http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/09/real-future-ride-shar... > As you might imagine, the front of the Dodge was badly damaged. The driver is now suing the driver of the Town Car, a vehicle with livery plates operated under the company SF Limo Car Service. The pedestrian, who broke her leg and injured her back, is suing both drivers. She is also suing – and this is what makes this crash particularly interesting – the transportation-tech company Uber. 2014-12: "Rideshare Drivers Still Cornered Into Insurance Secrecy" http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/12/18/uber-lyft-driver-insurance/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/12/18/uber-lyft-d... > The don’t-ask-don’t-tell strategy usually works until there’s a crash. Ian, a Bay Area Uber driver, was off duty when his car was hit by another car in October. While he was filing a claim with Geico, they asked him if he ever worked for Uber or Lyft. “I panicked,” he said. “They put me on the spot. So I just answered honestly and said yes, but that I wasn’t working when this happened.” 2014-01 http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/should-car-services-provide-insurance-whenever-their-driver-app-is-open/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/should-car-services-provide... > Uber posted a “Statement On New Year’s Eve Accident” on its blog, offering condolences to the victim and her family, but also distancing itself from any cuplability. 2015-03 http://www.insurancebusiness.ca/news/toronto-uber-crash-reignites-insurance-debate-189501.aspx http://www.insurancebusiness.ca/news/toronto-uber-crash-reig... > After initially being told by an Uber representative in Chicago that he had to pay a $1,000 deductible, this was later recanted. Since he was not at fault, his personal car insurance fronted the entire bill. But because he lacks commercial coverage, questions arise as to who would be responsible if he had been responsible for the collision.

yellowapple 11y ago

Is there some reason why the page keeps refreshing automatically? It's annoying and makes it difficult to, you know, read the actual article.

rconti 11y ago
Especially when it refreshes to "too many database connections" mid-read. Great work, citypaper.
- Eric_WVGG 11y ago
  I used to think Safari “Reader View” was sort of daft but I’ve been indispensable lately…
eosrei 11y ago
I ended up reading the article in Print Preview. No way for them to screw that up.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Yet.
StavrosK 11y ago
I'm glad it wasn't just me, but I had this happen with (what I think is) another site earlier. Are you guys using Ghostery too, perhaps?
- yellowapple 11y ago
  I'm just using AdBlock Plus on this particular browser (Conkeror; Firefox-like). Haven't bothered to try with Firefox (which doesn't have Ghostery, but has a more stringent ad-blocking policy and some other privacy-ish addons that I can't recall at the moment).
  - lotharbot 11y ago

DigitalSea 11y ago

A few months ago when I was in Seattle for work, I caught Uber everywhere. I had so many conversations with Uber drivers about why they drove for Uber, how much money they made and why they weren't doing something else. Needless to say, unless I felt legitimately fearful for my life (which rarely ever happened) I would always rate 5 stars. I realised a lot of these Uber drivers (usually migrants with broken English) probably didn't have many other options to earn money. An almost consistent sentiment amongst those drivers was they were working long hours and support family (not just a wife and children but parents/relatives). My reasoning for this was I am paying like half the cost of what a taxi would cost me, so why not 5 stars? I think Uber is great for a certain subset of people. While most people who frequent HN on six figure tech salaries would definitely struggle to live on an Uber salary, a lot of people rely on it. In all honesty, I couldn't do it and I have a certain level of respect for those willing to earn so little and work so much to support their families. As a passenger Uber is great, but you can't deny that drivers get absolutely shafted unless they're driving through surge pricing periods and areas. I always rate 5 stars when I get an Uber unless of course the driver is swerving all over the place, speeding or doing dangerous things to endanger my life (which has happened like twice in all of the time I have used Uber). Aside: Anyone else find the article sporadically refresh? Made it very difficult to read the article.

yesbabyyes 11y ago
How magnanimous of you, to award imaginary points instead of enough money to support somebody. I think Uber is great for a certain subset of people. While most people who frequent HN on six figure tech salaries would definitely struggle to live on an Uber salary Seriously? I guess it's good for you guys so you only have to spend half of what it costs. Oh, and for the Uber owners of course. A certain subset of people, indeed. Here, have some imaginary points for your inner goodness.
- ossreality 11y ago
  Man, learn to pick the right fight with the right person.
- dethstar 11y ago

marincounty 11y ago

I see people buying 2008 plus four door vechicles(that Uber approves of--on the ever changing list) and not making money and stuck with a four door car. Four door cars are harder to sell than two door cars.(I can't point to a link to prove this, but I used to sell cars, and four door cars were a tough sell.) My problem with Uber is the requirement for a 2008 or newer car, and Uber decides if it's cool enough to represent their company. This is not an independent contractor Uber? Let the driver use any registered vechicle? Your brilliant app will let the consumer look at the vechicle before before the hire? If you are worried about safety--just because a person has an older car doesn't mean it's less safe. Bring every vechicle in for a safety check if worried? Maybe then, when the Uber driver finds out it's not the opportunity your company claims; they aren't stuck with a car they can't sell, or take a huge loss when selling your "acceptable" vehicle, or worse claim bankruptcy? People are desperate for jobs--don't exploit them! I liked your company in the beginning(before I looked into the requirements of Uber).

gcr 11y ago
The "Sidecar" app may be more appropriate for drivers who want to take customers for a ride in their go karts/tractor trailers/dune buggies/mopeds/cat busses/... :)
- marincounty 11y ago
  Besides the Moped--they aren't quite street legal? What is the point of the App if you can't see the vechicle? Do you happen to work in a climate controlled Uber office--with stock shares? My point is don't claim Independent Contractor status when you're obviously not. This link makes fun reading. Maybe you can explain automotive aesthetics to me, Honda, Chevrolet, or Volkswagen? http://www.driveubernyc.com/vehicles/full-list/ http://www.driveubernyc.com/vehicles/full-list/
  - prostoalex 11y ago
    Passenger can see the vehicle when choosing a ride in Sidecar. What the original comment was implying is that Sidecar is less picky on its vehicle requirements.

Dujdovnik 11y ago

Off-topic, but what the hell is wrong with the website? It kept refreshing every minute or so for some reason.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Yeah, had the same issue here. It refreshed like almost 10 times before I manged to finish the article. Incredibly annoying.

itgoon 11y ago

While I like the improvements to regular taxi service that the competition has brought, I don't like Uber. They're just shady all around. The "We're not a taxi service, we just sell software" is a load of crap. How many apps take a piece of the gross? Purchase a license? Ok. A monthly fee for ongoing service? Sure. A chunk of all the money made from using it? I don't think so.

NegativeK 11y ago
Doesn't the App Store take a cut of in-app purchases?
- dylanjermiah 11y ago
  If it's a 'digital' product by Apple's definition they get 30%. If it isn't there is no cut.

maceo 11y ago

Human labor is not a commodity. This was the common sense amongst all working people for most of the 20th century. Samuel Gompers, maybe the most conservative labor leader of his time, said "You cannot weigh the human soul on the same scales as piece of pork." And working people, along with the management class for the most part, understood this to be an undeniable truth. In fact, this piece of common sense was enshrined into US law with the Clayton Act of 1914, which stated "The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce." But in the last 20 years, as capital has gained the firm upper hand, the common sense understanding has shifted towards the idea that labor is in fact a commodity. The ideas behind the so-called "on-demand workforce" further solidify the notion that labor is a commodity. After all, you can order an uber ride just as easily as you can order vitamins online. It's so pervasive that even I, someone born into a union family and a firm believer in the idea of worker solidarity, have to force myself to believe that labor is not a commodity. Why? The business class treated labor as expendable in 1915, just as they do in 2015. Why did working people understand this truth in 1915 but not today? I don't know. I read a recently released sociology book earlier this year (going crazy looking for the title/author, can't find it), that posits millennials are far more likely than any recent generation to blame themselves for the problems they face. It's part of the reason that the self-help industry is bigger business than it's ever been. It's not always your fault. Our modern economy is built on rotten ideas like labor = commodity. If we want to do something about inequality, it's time that we subject fundamentally unjust ideas like these to a serious critique.

smil 11y ago
That labor is a commodity is not an "idea", but in the case of Uber drivers and the Foxconn workers who assemble iPhones, a fact. It is a fact because that's how those jobs and service/production processes have been designed. The work has been broken down into their smallest parts, so that it will require no special skill or intelligence to perform them. As anyone can do those jobs, they have been de facto commoditized. For someone who cares for the wellbeing of people at the bottom of the enterprise pyramids, the goal should be to design new organizations, with jobs that have latitude for learning and development, that is multi-disciplinary and creative. And many of the worst jobs today should be automated because they are not fit for human beings.

platz 11y ago

Not a bad investigation of Uber-like companies from an economics perspective, Michael Munger on the Sharing Economy: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/07/michael_munger.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/07/michael_munger.html

hudell 11y ago

offtopic, but that website kept refreshing over and over, it was hard to read on mobile

fideloper 11y ago
Literally just threw my phone across the room in frustration over this.

phamilton 11y ago

This site refreshed itself 6 times as I read it on my mobile device. Each time it lost my location on the page. Quite a frustrating experience.

darkstar999 11y ago
Same here on desktop.
javert 11y ago
Same here on laptop. "Hey Boss, I know a way to increase visits to our site by 6x..."

Systemic33 11y ago

Link to a version that does not autorefresh constantly: https://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http://citypaper.net/uberdriver/ https://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http://citypaper.net/uberd...

somberi 11y ago

I live between NYC and Bangalore, India. I have used Uber and its closest competitors (Lyft and Ola respectively), in both cities. I have a mental questionnaire I go through with 90% of the drivers and here is what I have learnt: Uber vs Lyft: Drivers make more money with Uber, but rules of engagement are more relaxed in Lyft. Uber & Ola (not vs): The drivers in India hone in on these three points: 1. They make 3-4 times the money they would if they were employed as a driver in a upper-middle class household (very common in India). 2. They feel respected and think of themselves as "Business owners" now. It is heartening to see how much the "feeling respected" theme repeats itself. 3. They know the good times won't last. Unlike US, in India, Uber and Ola are do not take a cut from the ride. In fact it is the opposite - They keep the per kilometre cost to the end consumer lower than Auto Rickshaws and compensate the drivers the difference. In fact Uber has taken a "not-for-profit" model in India (and in Beijing). Citation for not-for-profit: http://blog.uber.com/the-government-way http://blog.uber.com/the-government-way

krrrh 11y ago
I was just in Guangzhou where this is also the case; they have a non-profit/subsidized tier called "People's Uber". A 20 minute ride would come out to the equivalent of $3. The weird thing to me was that there were 5 tiers of service and while there were different cars available for UberX and People's Uber, I couldn't tell the difference in the service. Not sure why anyone would choose UberX when the VC-subsidized version was available.

jolan 11y ago

Kind of disappointed that the author neglected to discuss how the $9.34/hr she earned as an Uber driver compares to her salary as a "senior staff writer".

lechuga 11y ago

Travis sounds exactly like a Disney villain. I bet somehow dead puppies are also involved.

bayesianhorse 11y ago

Driving people from A to B individually would be a "perfect competition" kind of situation without regulation. Some of the motivation behind regulating this market was that some taxi drivers just started robbing their customers. Now Uber is doing away with the regulation, and it's "perfect competition" again, the state of affairs when prices have to be so low that there is almost no profit for the suppliers. Uber will always make the most overall profit with their drivers just on the edge of survival. Uber may actually set the fares just below the profitability point, because new drivers or those "driving for fun" actually put money on the table rather than being paid.

olalonde 11y ago

I found it interesting that many customers were complaining about drivers with accents. I wonder if, would Uber implement per-driver pricing, those people would really pay a premium for drivers with no accent.

joshjkim 11y ago

Here's what I do: take lyft, and tip your drivers well!