For drivers, there are only short term gains to be had. Fully autonomous vehicles are the centerpiece of the ride share roadmap (for Uber, Lyft and even Tesla). Drivers might as well capitalize on short term opportunities while they still exist. There is no long term game for them.
If it doesn't happen sometime soon, Uber and Lyft will go out of business. They need fully autonomous driving in order to achieve profitability.
So Uber and Lyft either achieve self driving capabilities and get rid of the human drivers or go out of business and let the human drivers go. Either way human ride share drivers have no future. If anyone is looking at this occupation as anything other than temp work, they need a reality check.
If full autonomous driving is achieved that I believe the Tesla approach seems it would be more successful. Car owners would send their cars out to drive customers around for money. Tesla would handle transactions and take a cut of the profit. Uber and Lyft don't need to be in this picture.
> They need fully autonomous driving in order to achieve profitability.
Why is this inherently true? Taxi services were profitable and Uber/Lyft are better than they ever were. I don't see why Uber/Lyft raising fares a bit would lead to an entire market collapse.
Wall Street profitability is different than taxi driver profitability. Uber/Lyft have many highly paid employees too. Most taxi services are probably just ramen profitable except in a few lucrative areas.
Autonomous driving wasn't even part of their original business plan. They only relied on it once they came to realize they werent making money, The whole company's a shit show
and that's what's going to bring self driving taxis to market sooner than we think. car drives itself to your location, you drive it wherever you wanna go and leave it curbside. then the car drives itself wherever the next customers wants it to be. no need for drivers and 0 passenger liability.
no the customer will be driving the car to their destination and since the self driving function will be off, the crash will drivers responsibility just like it is with rental cars
> What new system will we use to ensure those people have a life they find agreeable
After blue collar jobs are eliminated, people will need to skill up in order to create an agreeable life. The best that the state can do is UBI, but that's not an agreeable life - it should be at best, just life.
I wonder how long it will be until people realize that “fully autonomous vehicles” in the context of an unmanned taxi service means complete human level brain-replacing AI.
It has literally nothing to do whatsoever with Uber or Lyft’s current business environment.
Can you think of another way for an autonomous vehicle to handle a stadium parking lot after a game, or a narrow street with lots of double parked cars after a snowstorm?
These aren’t edge cases they happen all the time and they require something pretty similar to full AI.
I’m not saying there won’t be semi-useful niche cases where “autonomous” vehicles are implemented before that, but “fully autonomous” taxis are like eleven steps away and there are no relevant prototypes at all today for that use case.
Big emphasis on "arguably". I think what gets missed in these discussions are the people that don't want to be employees. The "just making a bit of side cash" driver that all of their marketing is directed towards, that a full employement relationship and all the bureaucracy that entails, would preclude.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens once all the workers in the gig economy recognize the power they have to just destroy these companies. Uber can’t really retaliate people organizing against them because they aren’t employees.
They have the power to vote, arguably much more influential then money.
> They are too poor and too desperate to be unemployed for long
If they are too poor, they also qualify for food stamp and a bunch of other benefit that YOU are paying for ! Its a transfer of wealth from your work / pocket to rich Uber shareholders like Saudi Arabia.
> and many will be replaced with robots.
Unlikely, especially for last mile, and in cities ( where most people live )
> The gig economy is an underclass. They are serfs.
Most of us are "serfs" to somebody, unless you are retired or are living off your investments.
> Unless they rise up violently nothing will change.
Not really, they just need to vote, DJT is an example, Bernie maybe next.
unfortunately everyone has bills and bills don't care that you are on strike. most of american lower class has close to no savings to fall back on. a month without a pay means getting really close to becoming homeless.
Uber can’t really retaliate people organizing against them...
All Uber has to do is raise the wages of the drivers who don’t strike. This will encourage other drivers to give up the strike and start driving again. Once enough drivers are back, Uber will lower their wages again.
They do. It's called surge pricing. If there are not enough drivers prices go up. And yes, drivers definitely notice and go drive when they see surge pricing is in effect.
It's already automated. That's the whole point of surge pricing: to raise prices when they need more drivers and lower prices when there are too many drivers.
If these drivers actually think striking is going to do anything, they have no understanding of economics.
And why would they want to destroy those companies?
Uber gives them income they otherwise would not have (if they had better employment options they would use them - especially in the current excellent economy).
So why would they want to destroy their source of income?
They wouldn't necessarily want to destroy the company, but it certainly helps them negotiate. Especially since there doesn't seem to be anything particularly special about Uber anymore. They did the hard work of breaking down bureaucracies and getting people used to the idea of non-professional drivers.
When Uber and Lyft left Austin, a bunch of companies popped up very quickly to fill the gap. It isn't clear to me what you are investing in if you were to buy Uber shares.
Negotiate for what, a larger share of Uber's losses? You can't negotiate for more money with a company that loses hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Sorry but if taxi drivers are committing suicide due to losses on medallion value, they should be protesting city hall, not Uber. If the government wants to create rent seeking monopolies then it needs to have a plan to unwind them when things change.
> Sorry but if taxi drivers are committing suicide due to losses on medallion value, they should be protesting city hall, not Uber.
Taxi drivers aren't protesting, it's the ride-share drivers who are protesting. Ride-share drivers have grievances with Uber outside of what's happening to traditional taxi drivers.
I'm very capable of reading the article, and have.
If you had read and comprehended my post, and the post I responded to, you would have seen that the OP was taking offense to the idea that taxi drivers were protesting Uber.
Having read the article, it is clear that the OP is mistaken, because taxi drivers are not protesting.
Wait...so if the government (or any other company) sets up a bad deal for an individual...that entity is responsible for cleaning up a mess created after the other party willing agrees?
Where does the other party's personal responsibility come in, exactly?
From my pov one's playing by the market rules: get a license even if it's not a great deal, the other is just providing a similar service without the license shorting the established process completely.
They can bring their grievances to whomever they want, you make it sound like they're disturbing the fragile balance of the universe because they dare criticise some corp, especially one that's known for playing dirty and skirting rules itself.
Things didn't "change", Uber barged in, elbowing left and right, burning VC money and failing to turn a profit. One could argue this is one more chapter in the ancient story of money and greed.
Fair enough, the driver may not have perceived it that way though. Just because it's a fancy neighborhood doesn't mean it's a desirable drop-off location for the driver's purposes. Just because there is a Lyft pickup spot out front doesn't mean it is easy to get there from where the driver currently is.
Another possibility is that your ride wasn't subject to a primetime fare and they thought that they had a good chance of getting one that was by canceling and waiting for the next request. That doesn't justify poor driver behavior, but I'm just being realistic.
Apologies for implying that you were doing anything wrong, I only meant to give a driver's perspective of the valid reasons for avoiding rides.
That said, I've gotten the impression that I'm more 'honest' than most drivers so it's possible there are some scams or strategies which create weird incentives/behavior that I'm not aware of.
Because Uber's drivers are "independent contractors", there's a legal argument that could be made that this sort of coordinated activity to raise the cost to employ ride-share drivers is illegal under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Just as an FYI if we do start taking antitrust seriously again there are a lot more important and consequential targets than some low paid car service drivers.
Isn’t Uber giving drivers up to a $10k bonus on IPO based on how many rides completed, with the option of taking it in cash or equity at the same IPO price?
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadSo Uber and Lyft either achieve self driving capabilities and get rid of the human drivers or go out of business and let the human drivers go. Either way human ride share drivers have no future. If anyone is looking at this occupation as anything other than temp work, they need a reality check.
Why is this inherently true? Taxi services were profitable and Uber/Lyft are better than they ever were. I don't see why Uber/Lyft raising fares a bit would lead to an entire market collapse.
The only issue is that the highest paid blue collar jobs left are in transportation and construction. Those are on the chopping block.
Then what?
What new system will we use to ensure those people have a life they find agreeable.
Modern solutions for modern problems.
After blue collar jobs are eliminated, people will need to skill up in order to create an agreeable life. The best that the state can do is UBI, but that's not an agreeable life - it should be at best, just life.
Starvation, if human history is any guide.
There’s no such thing.
I wonder how long it will be until people realize that “fully autonomous vehicles” in the context of an unmanned taxi service means complete human level brain-replacing AI.
It has literally nothing to do whatsoever with Uber or Lyft’s current business environment.
These aren’t edge cases they happen all the time and they require something pretty similar to full AI.
I’m not saying there won’t be semi-useful niche cases where “autonomous” vehicles are implemented before that, but “fully autonomous” taxis are like eleven steps away and there are no relevant prototypes at all today for that use case.
Waymo is on its way to doing it in phoenix
They are too poor and too desperate to be unemployed for long, they have no benefits, and many will be replaced with robots.
The gig economy is an underclass. They are serfs. Unless they rise up violently nothing will change.
They have the power to vote, arguably much more influential then money.
> They are too poor and too desperate to be unemployed for long
If they are too poor, they also qualify for food stamp and a bunch of other benefit that YOU are paying for ! Its a transfer of wealth from your work / pocket to rich Uber shareholders like Saudi Arabia.
> and many will be replaced with robots.
Unlikely, especially for last mile, and in cities ( where most people live )
> The gig economy is an underclass. They are serfs.
Most of us are "serfs" to somebody, unless you are retired or are living off your investments.
> Unless they rise up violently nothing will change.
Not really, they just need to vote, DJT is an example, Bernie maybe next.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/voter-turnout-2016-ele...
All Uber has to do is raise the wages of the drivers who don’t strike. This will encourage other drivers to give up the strike and start driving again. Once enough drivers are back, Uber will lower their wages again.
And they could probably automate this.
They do. It's called surge pricing. If there are not enough drivers prices go up. And yes, drivers definitely notice and go drive when they see surge pricing is in effect.
If these drivers actually think striking is going to do anything, they have no understanding of economics.
Uber gives them income they otherwise would not have (if they had better employment options they would use them - especially in the current excellent economy).
So why would they want to destroy their source of income?
When Uber and Lyft left Austin, a bunch of companies popped up very quickly to fill the gap. It isn't clear to me what you are investing in if you were to buy Uber shares.
You always get the best strategic advice on the internet!
The real answer is that they're a new category that doesn't fit into 20th century US employment law.
But until the law catches up to reality around 2048, I guess the category that's least wrong is "contractor".
Taxi drivers aren't protesting, it's the ride-share drivers who are protesting. Ride-share drivers have grievances with Uber outside of what's happening to traditional taxi drivers.
Taxi drivers are committing suicide;
Please read the article before you take a side;
If you had read and comprehended my post, and the post I responded to, you would have seen that the OP was taking offense to the idea that taxi drivers were protesting Uber.
Having read the article, it is clear that the OP is mistaken, because taxi drivers are not protesting.
Hope this helps.
Where does the other party's personal responsibility come in, exactly?
Things didn't "change", Uber barged in, elbowing left and right, burning VC money and failing to turn a profit. One could argue this is one more chapter in the ancient story of money and greed.
2) There was a marked Lyft pickup location because it is a local hotspot
3) I was on the curb before ordering the car.
Per the GPS, first car just never moved. Second one just kept driving further and further away while I waited.
Another possibility is that your ride wasn't subject to a primetime fare and they thought that they had a good chance of getting one that was by canceling and waiting for the next request. That doesn't justify poor driver behavior, but I'm just being realistic.
Apologies for implying that you were doing anything wrong, I only meant to give a driver's perspective of the valid reasons for avoiding rides.
That said, I've gotten the impression that I'm more 'honest' than most drivers so it's possible there are some scams or strategies which create weird incentives/behavior that I'm not aware of.
That is really significant and pretry equitable.