The Uber Files

[poindexter]

Lots of good posts here. thanks.

 

[justgladtobehere]

I love the argument of well if it sucks hard enough, just don’t do it! Solves everything.

First, I said fair wage not slave wages. It works for some and they figure it out. I imagine it isn’t a forever job, much like fast food, which I also think doesn’t pay people enough to actually live in some places. But it’s the system we have for people trying to get a few extra dollars while in school or whatever.

Second, the fair wage comment really is about my beef with big companies and others who feed people a load of crap to get them to work for them. Flexible hours, get paid right away, be your own boss! But to really get paid, you need to work 40 hours during peak times and in high traffic areas while the company gets a cut off what you make and cashing out is only going to be a few bucks unless you bank it and you have to cover all the other expenses which eat into what you make. And when California tried to correct that and force Uber and Lyft to admit these drivers were in fact employees, they spent millions to keep their labor expenses low and profits up. But capitalism; it’s how we do things.

Gig jobs and MLMs promise making a living but they leave out that only a few will see real money and to make real money, your flexibility isn’t there. MLMs are worse by far but gig jobs still suck.

Anyone who works them good on them. You do you. I don’t have to like that Uber is using them but if that’s their jam, I am not stopping them.

I was just pointing out the obvious. The pay isn’t what the promos would have you believe. I’m not advocating Uber be shut down. Nor am I going to picket Uber and all of that. But can we dispense with the argument that because people take the jobs we can’t say they suck. They suck. Drivers should be paid better. But the system isn’t changing and people like it. Good for them.

Again, you make these people to be idiots.

These jobs would not exist except for Uber and its like. And the jobs aren't sustainable with the restrictions you would like to impose. But you have the great knowledge to determine what is 'right' in people's economic interactions.

The introduction of MLMs is just ridiculous. A lame misdirection.

 

[Spartan Squad]

At the risk of sounding like I’m some sort of apologist for Uber, I gotta push back a bit on the wage issue, too. Last I remember, driving for Uber wasn’t being sold as any sort of “career,” at least not in the early days. It was more, “Hey, you’re going somewhere anyway, why not make a few extra bucks and pick some people up along the way?” The one thing that would cause Uber to buckle would be a lack of drivers. There will always be demand for rides, but if Uber doesn’t have drivers, it fails.

In Australia, for example, Uber has had to compete. The big taxi companies in Sydney all have apps. They all drive clean, well-maintained Toyota Camry hybrids. A taxi ride from SYD airport to the central business district is usually a few dollars less than an Uber. And, on occasion here, it’s hard to get an Uber because of a driver shortage. It’s never hard to find a taxi.

It is possible to compete with Uber. But you have to compete with Uber by playing its game, not by trying to play your old Yellow Cab game.

I'm going to venture into potential-GOP rhetoric but I agree, it's no mystery about what Uber was offering to drivers. How about driving someone around for some $$? You could work however long you want or not at all, its all in front of them, revenues in, costs out.

I certainly understand how people then get roped into doing it more and more, then the big picture is revealed and "damn Uber makes X for doing only Y?" But its all in front of you.

Its similar IMHO to how we legislated against "predatory financing", negative amortization loans, etc. How did you ever think you could afford the house when you're rolling in accumulated interest into the loan? Its right in front of you isn't it?

I admit I may be on Uber/Lyft's side because its made my life unbelievably better compared to the 80's & 90's and trying to find a cab.

I think this is more to my line of thinking. Uber serves a need that was being squandered by taxis. And I think much of my bias comes from the California initiative that Uber shoved through.

Ride sharing is way better than a taxi. I have my own, limited, stories. And I don’t want to see it go anywhere. Get on an app and into a car that has to meet certain safety expectations. All good. But that initiative was a load of croc. And the “earning. Chilling. Earning. Chilling.” commercials sold the work experience as something it wasn’t.

But hey, for some this is what they want and they do ok. Not for me. I don’t like the pay structure. That is also largely why I threw up deuces to my journo career. I was never going to make any real money from it. Others can and do. Me, not so much.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

Total agreement with you.

Consider this, too. In NYC, yellow taxis had a government-enforced monopoly prior to Uber and Lyft and ride sharing. You needed a medallion to operate a cab.

After the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve destroyed the debt markets to create phony prosperity on the back of mispriced money, which sent borrowing through the roof and blew the prices of anything you could speculate on into bubble territory.

That included. ... NYC taxi medallions, which reached a peak of $1.2 million in 2014 when the Fed was doing quantitative easing hand over fist to suppress interest rates. There were people who went into massive debt to buy medallions at $750,000, $900,000, a million dollars. ... that today are changing hands at less than $100,000 because of Uber and Lyft and ride sharing and what you described. I genuinely feel bad for some of those people. Some of them are immigrants who scrimped and saved and begged and borrowed. ... and went bankrupt because they didn't understand the dynamics and just how government monkeying with our markets in the name of whatever goal they announce, always comes with consequences (which don't get trumpeted the same way).

Uber, Lyft effectively popped that debt bubble by just ignoring regulations and building huge demand (i.e. public opinion) that the gatekeepers couldn't ignore. The problem with that was that anyone else who might have chosen to try to compete with a similar model had to choose between doing something illegal or staying away from that type of business, which kept a lot of people out of that business. Which is just unfair.

Then, circling back to the messed up incentives that the Fed created, in a relatively competition-free environment, Uber has not had to operate in a lean way, and like any number of businesses it loaded up on the cheap debt the Fed was saddling our economy with and has a balance sheet that looks like holy hell. Between $9 and $10 billion in long-term debt, which they used to essentially subsidized their riders, who needed to be paying more on the whole for the company to be profitable. And the company loses a lot of money. What that did was drive volume (there is more demand at the lower price point), which in turn kept competition even further away and created a survival of the unfittest atmosphere, where Uber could get bigger without EARNING it (which has the effect of stifling new competition). It's great for riders who have been subsidized for the last 10 years or so by that $9 to $10 billion in debt, but the cost of that is going to be the anchor on our economy of all of that debt (and the defaults if / when it starts to implode) in the future and the opportunity cost of how that capital would have been deployed (more competitively, more efficiently, with opportunity being open to anyone who could raise capital) in a free lending market.

There were a handful of driver suicides a few years back due to the plummeting value of the taxi medallion.

8th NYC Taxi Driver Commits Suicide, Reportedly Due To Debt

 

[Spartan Squad]

Again, you make these people to be idiots.

These jobs would not exist except for Uber and its like. And the jobs aren't sustainable with the restrictions you would like to impose. But you have the great knowledge to determine what is 'right' in people's economic interactions.

The introduction of MLMs is just ridiculous. A lame misdirection.

I make Uber out to be shady. People get into them for their own reasons. But Uber is shady.

And I mentioned MLMs as an example of the kind of work millennials have started taking along with gig work. I find it to be nonsense but to each their own.

And I’ll pause for you to put more words into my mouth …

 

[qtlaw]

I think this is more to my line of thinking. Uber serves a need that was being squandered by taxis. And I think much of my bias comes from the California initiative that Uber shoved through.

Ride sharing is way better than a taxi. I have my own, limited, stories. And I don’t want to see it go anywhere. Get on an app and into a car that has to meet certain safety expectations. All good. But that initiative was a load of croc. And the “earning. Chilling. Earning. Chilling.” commercials sold the work experience as something it wasn’t.

But hey, for some this is what they want and they do ok. Not for me. I don’t like the pay structure. That is also largely why I threw up deuces to my journo career. I was never going to make any real money from it. Others can and do. Me, not so much.

I get it, it was a load of BS but doing some labor law I see how the California law (AB5) takes away some of the flexibility of workers and companies. Now the tension point is how much "freedom" one really has but AB5 made it almost impossible to prove that anyone is anything but an employee (I know, I proved it in a trial recently for my client to be classified as an employee.)

 

[Spartan Squad]

I get it, it was a load of BS but doing some labor law I see how the California law (AB5) takes away some of the flexibility of workers and companies. Now the tension point is how much "freedom" one really has but AB5 made it almost impossible to prove that anyone is anything but an employee (I know, I proved it in a trial recently for my client to be classified as an employee.)

I think that's why the Uber fix went over so easily. AB5 was not good and had plenty of unintended consequences.

 

[justgladtobehere]

I make Uber out to be shady. People get into them for their own reasons. But Uber is shady.

And I mentioned MLMs as an example of the kind of work millennials have started taking along with gig work. I find it to be nonsense but to each their own.

And I’ll pause for you to put more words into my mouth …

So you figured out that Uber is shady, but the people driving on the app can't figure it out?

 

[FileNotFound]

I make Uber out to be shady. People get into them for their own reasons. But Uber is shady.

And I mentioned MLMs as an example of the kind of work millennials have started taking along with gig work. I find it to be nonsense but to each their own.

And I’ll pause for you to put more words into my mouth …

Uber is a lot of things, many of them less than good, but I’m not sure that “shady” is one of them. It has been extremely upfront about what its goals are. And its former CEO was so openly and unashamedly an asshole that he was too much of an asshole for asshole VCs. Every party involved with Uber, whether rider, driver, investor or legislator, knows what it's dealing with when dealing with Uber.

 

[TowelWaver]

And its former CEO was so openly and unashamedly an asshole that he was too much of an asshole for asshole VCs.

Kalanick...the "uber"-asshole, indeed...

 

[Batman]

Not sure where you are getting the "violent confrontations between there employees and the company's competitors" from. Where did you see that and when did it happen?

It's mentioned a couple of times in the Guardian story. There's an entire section devoted to it, in fact.

In one exchange, Kalanick dismissed concerns from other executives that sending Uber drivers to a protest in France put them at risk of violence from angry opponents in the taxi industry. “I think it’s worth it,” he shot back. “Violence guarantee(s) success.”

When faced with opposition, Uber sought to turn it to its advantage, seizing upon it to fuel the narrative its technology was disrupting antiquated transport systems, and urging governments to reform their laws.
As Uber launched across India, Kalanick’s top executive in Asia urged managers to focus on driving growth, even when “fires start to burn”. “Know this is a normal part of Uber’s business,” he said. “Embrace the chaos. It means you’re doing something meaningful.”
Kalanick appeared to put that ethos into practice in January 2016, when Uber’s attempts to upend markets in Europe led to angry protests in Belgium, Spain, Italy and France from taxi drivers who feared for their livelihoods.

Amid taxi strikes and riots in Paris, Kalanick ordered French executives to retaliate by encouraging Uber drivers to stage a counter-protest with mass civil disobedience.
Warned that doing so risked putting Uber drivers at risk of attacks from “extreme right thugs” who had infiltrated the taxi protests and were “spoiling for a fight”, Kalanick appeared to urge his team to press ahead regardless. “I think it’s worth it,” he said. “Violence guarantee(s) success. And these guys must be resisted, no? Agreed that right place and time must be thought out.”
The decision to send Uber drivers into potentially volatile protests, despite the risks, was consistent with what one senior former executive told the Guardian was a strategy of “weaponising” drivers, and exploiting violence against them to “keep the controversy burning”.

It was a playbook that, leaked emails suggest, was repeated in Italy, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
When masked men, reported to be angry taxi drivers, turned on Uber drivers with knuckle-dusters and a hammer in Amsterdam in March 2015, Uber staffers sought to turn it to their advantage to win concessions from the Dutch government.
Driver victims were encouraged to file police reports, which were shared with De Telegraaf, the leading Dutch daily newspaper. They “will be published without our fingerprint on the front page tomorrow”, one manager wrote. “We keep the violence narrative going for a few days, before we offer the solution.”

 

[Spartan Squad]

Uber is a lot of things, many of them less than good, but I’m not sure that “shady” is one of them. It has been extremely upfront about what its goals are. And its former CEO was so openly and unashamedly an asshole that he was too much of an asshole for asshole VCs. Every party involved with Uber, whether rider, driver, investor or legislator, knows what it's dealing with when dealing with Uber.

I mean there’s 120,000 leaked documents pointing to things Uber has done to gain an advantage on the market. Even if I’m off base with the shady comment, I’m not off by much.

In fairness to your side, the CEO was if nothing else shady which doesn’t automatically extend to the whole business.

Regardless of how you characterize it, the business has some questionable aspects to its business and not so much the drivers which was why I characterized the business negatively rather than the drivers.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

Uber paid off academics to support their business model (allegedly). There’s got to be a word for that somewhere. Hmmm.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

He disclosed the relationship with Uber on the first page of the paper, apparently. I hate Twitter sometimes.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Uber paid off academics to support their business model (allegedly). There’s got to be a word for that somewhere. Hmmm.

Maybe the word is. ... common?

Companies commission "studies" that purport to give imperical evidence in support of something that benefits the company.

That study actually told people that the study was commissioned by Uber (despite what he tweeted).

The company tries to get media outlets to report it, and if you find some good lazy reporters and editors, they will do your bidding perfectly by blasting a headline (all people take away anyhow) that conclusively states what you want people to believe, with the study that you commissioned offering support.

There might certainly be dishonesty at work. But the flip side of that is that just because Uber commissioned it doesn't necessarily mean that the conclussions of the study are wrong.

 

[sgreenwell]

As someone who drove for Uber on-and-off for about two years... My biggest issue with the company itself is that it does want it both ways, when it comes to IC and employee status. It is constantly pushing that you can make $X per hour - in my market, it was $20 to $30/hour - but really, that only applies during the busiest times, and if someone actually takes a surge ride. In my experience, it was more consistently $10 to $15/hour, unless you were willing to go to areas that nobody likes driving in. (Downtown Boston was pretty much always surging, but it's also a huge pain in the ass to drive down there.) If you don't drive for a certain period of time, they also send you texts and emails encouraging you to drive. Also, in pretty much any driver vs. rider conflict, they side with the rider, unless it's something you could have gotten a photo of (i.e. if they threw up in your car). That's why so many Ubers now have dash cams.

Using Uber part-time as part of my daily commute though? That was all gravy. I lived near the airport in Rhode Island, and I worked in Newport, a big coastal destination. I'd leave about 30 minutes early than I needed to, pick someone up from the airport, drop them off somewhere in Newport, and then once I was done with my editorial assistant shift for the day, hang out for 30 minutes. Most days, someone would be going from Newport to the airport. Each way, I'd pocket $30 to $50, depending on surge vs. no surge, tip vs. no tip. (This was before tips were integrated into the app.) Pretty good, since it was a ride I was making anyway, and because I was making roughly $14/hour at my journalism job.