Service will degrade too. "Your driver will be here in 45 minutes" type of stuff going forward. A huge incentive of using uber/lyft was that in major cities you could literally be picked up in a few minutes of requesting the ride.
Definitely not feasible to keep drivers on as employees legally. Some issues that come to mind that seem incredibly hard for uber/lyft to enforce but are mandatory for California employees:
* Meal & rest breaks
* Callback pay
* Split Shift premiums
* Reporting premium (if you show up to work, but less work to do than half your scheduled shift)
The only way I see this working is somebody started some "Driver Pool" company that employed drivers fulltime and then Uber/Lyft/Doordash/Grubhub/etc all use that company.
AB5 explicitly allowed for flexible hours- it did not require "shifts" like you're talking about. It made allowances to give drivers the flexibility they want, but Uber and Lyft are upset that it also requires them to provide the option for insurance and that they'd have to pay into the unemployment pool.
They cannot be classified as employees to begin with. AB5 also harmed non-Uber/Lyft drivers, I came across several posts for programming gigs that said that they would not be able to accept offers from programmers in CA due to AB5. It's broken.
Meal and rest breaks would be easy-ish. Have a button in the driver app to take a rest break available every so often. If it's been too long, force it and don't show rides. Same for meals.
Callback, split shift, and reporting premiums only apply to my knowledge if the shifts are scheduled. I guess it depends if they go towards scheduled shifts over show up whenever, and/or if they can make it 'i'd like to work: yes/no'
Not many states are in the position California is. No matter how poorly run the state might be, people are unlikely to leave due to existing business and weather. Hard to compare.
This. It's basically a hostage situation. With the exception of not enforcing non-competes, I can't think of a single thing that makes California great that is the result of government.
Hollywood is there because of the weather. The central valley is there because of the weather and the soil. The tech industry is there because of the defense industry in WWII and the importance of the west coast to the war effort in the Pacific. There almost 1000 miles of beautiful coast and some of the best National Parks and National Forests in the country are in California.
The geography and the weather is the root of why California is successful. That has attracted and kept talent and created a positive feedback loop between talent and natural resources.
The California government has the luxury of being able to be the most mismanaged because they don't even have to try. Tax money is abundant from all the economic activity and they have captive industries that would have a hard time relocating elsewhere.
I could not disagree more. I work for a film company and believe me Hollywood has had nothing to do with the weather for fifty years. Very little is actually shot on location in Los Angeles, yet it remains a center.
Silicon Valley is because of the defense industry in WW2? OK sure, but then why not Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia etc. The aerospace industry was in Los Angeles, but that moved, so why couldn't tech move?
Here is my alternate hypothesis: California has always been relatively welcoming to people from all around the world. Places like San Francisco (in particular) and Los Angeles have a very long history of being accepting of new ideas, religions, different ethnicity. Not completely, just more than a lot of other places in the US. So it has been a place where people with new ideas come.
As far as the state government-- yeah it could be better. But so could a lot of states. It is not clear to me that California is a worse run state than many others. Still we all should expect improvement.
> Hollywood has had nothing to do with the weather for fifty years.
It simply wouldn't be there in the first place had the weather not been as good as it was.
Part of the reason you're now seeing other cities blossom in importance in film has to do with weather no longer being as important. What continues to be important that preserves Hollywood is the concentration of talent, which itself still has as its root the great weather that helped the industry establish itself there in the first place.
While the weather may no longer be as important, it's the "natural resource" that made the region the epicenter of film in the first place.
> Silicon Valley is because of the defense industry in WW2? OK sure, but then why not Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia etc. The aerospace industry was in Los Angeles, but that moved, so why couldn't tech move?
I mentioned this exactly in the comment you're replying to and you ignored it. There was exactly one thing California got right and that is not enforcing non-compete agreements. This is why Fairchild Semiconductor spawned an entire industry and why companies like DEC around Route 128 did not.
> Here is my alternate hypothesis: California has always been relatively welcoming to people from all around the world.
Agree. But government has absolutely nothing to do with that.
The California government is no different than a trust fund kid failing upwards.
Sorry about missing your point about non-competes. You are right that is a big part of it. But I don't think all of it.
>> The California government is no different than a trust fund kid failing upwards.
The Government is a reflection of the people. California has a more liberal government than some states because the voters are more liberal-- in general-- particularly socially. I am fifth generation, and lots of my relatives are very conservative but still pretty accepting of different beliefs and lifestyles.
There's clearly some downside to that liberalism. You can see how countries in Europe struggle with having the taxes, the protections, and a healthy economy. But California tends to pull toward that model and other states pull to other models. Those other models also have downsides.
> You are right that is a big part of it. But I don't think all of it.
Completely agree that that's not all of it. Not enforcing non-competes is just the only piece of it that I can identify that can be credited to the California government.
I'm not arguing that California isn't successful. It's very successful. I'm arguing that California is successful despite its government and that most policies passed by the government are well intentioned but counterproductive.
We shouldn't compare California to other states because every state has different circumstances. We should compare California as it is to what it could be. You could get rid of most of California's governance and the state would do be even more successful because politicians wouldn't be messing things up. For example, there are reasons why California has the highest poverty rate when adjusting for cost of living and a lot has to do with well-meaning but counterproductive policies.
you won't find many because only Michigan and Texas have smaller departure rates as a percentage of their population, and California remains the most popular state for international immigrants in the US.
If you're asking for better run states, it looks like Texas is doing well but I'm unfamiliar with most other states to give you a good answer.
As 20 year California resident, what I do know is that nothing has gotten better here over that time frame. Everything from infrastructure to taxes to city planning is much worse now than ever. CCPA is probably the only good outcome I can think of.
The state that scared uber and lyft off with background requirements, fingerprinting, and restricting bikelanes? I think maybe the grass is just greener.
I agree with those policies so it counts as better run for me. As far as I can tell, Uber and Lyft do operate in Texas today so it looks like everything worked out?
Yeah, they're operating again. I have little doubt that Uber and Lyft will continue to operate in california once they a) adjust their business model to pay people appropriately (they seem to be able to roll out new software quite quickly) and b) stop throwing a tantrum (which is what happened in austin).
California is one of USA's biggest markets. Even if they don't get their shit together, one of CA's many entrepreneurs will. Who wants free VC bucks?
It was the City of Austin that scared off Uber and Lyft for a time not the state. Lots of West coasters came to Austin and brought their political problems with them. The City of Austin is CA lite basically.
Same sentiment here as well. Its a tangent but I feel like we get the least benefit from the highest taxes. Possibly some of the worst roads in the country with outdated and dangerous interstate designs because cars are bad and public transit is good but there is no public transit. =/
I live in California and I think the state government does things that make it better and worse at the same time. Look many many laws that we take for granted origin from California. For example, SF was the first city to start granting marriage licenses to LGBT couples. Now most states follow that rule. CA was first to implement mileage requirements. Now many states follow that rule. CA was first to subsidize clean air vehicles. Now it is common across the nation. CA was ahead with medical marijuana and recognizing the role of marijuana as recreational. So it seems like government is making it worse, CA legislature is always pushing the limits and seems worse because it is the first one to do so. I bet that there will be some middle ground in the gig economy due to this law, which will become the model for the rest of the country.
I used to drive for Uber, a few hours a week during my downtime when I was bored and had nothing better to do.
The earnings weren’t great, but it was very helpful as an extra. I had a fuel efficient car and kept track of all my expenses for deductions and made above minimum wage.
I’ve met plenty of lovely and fascinating people and had great, enjoyable conversations. I barely had any issues with riders.
This extra income helped me buy more stocks and make just a little bit more progress towards my financial goals. These stocks are still compounding away.
I’m a bit sad that this opportunity is now taken away from Californians.
My close friend drove for Uber and Lyft in Los Angeles. He was constantly abused and berated by drunk and rude passengers (which he couldn't refuse), drove more just to have Uber slash his take-home rate by 60%, and even invested in a larger van so he could drove pool (or whatever the name is for large groups) which never materialized. He's extremely happy to see them go.
If driving is what someone has decided to solely do for a living, then they should get a driving job. There's plenty of driving jobs that aren't driving gigs. In my mind, the definition of "gig" sets the expectation for the type of work it will be.
I suspect you're being disingenuous since I never said either of those things, so I will ignore your second question.
As to your first question, I've never met a consultant that enjoys all the benefits of the full-time employees at the companies they consult for. The term "consultant" sets the expectation that one would not enjoy those benefits during their work there.
I suspect you're being disingenuous since I never said either of those things, so I will ignore your second question.
You used the word should - should get a full time job. Based on what you say, you don’t think freelance work is acceptable. If you considered it acceptable then you wouldn’t be admonishing people, telling them what they should do.
I've never met
You’re just full of assumptions. I get paid crazy-well - much higher than the salaried employees I work with, and unlike them I can bill off-hours. I don’t have a company retirement plan but that’s cheap with the excess I get paid over salary. And I write my own vacations.
The term "consultant" sets the expectation that one would not enjoy those benefits during their work there.
No, it sets the expectation that I’m consulting. That’s all.
Hopefully the companies and government can come to a middle ground that solves both problems. There are quite a few people that drive for supplemental income and don't need all the stuff that the law is now requiring, and there are some people that do it full time and would benefit from the perks of a more traditional full time job.
The bummer is, as usual, the policy makers aren't seeing the nuance between the two and now drivers have to suffer the consequences and lost wages until the dust settles. Either the politicians are ignorant, or they're willfully ignoring the facts. Honestly neither would surprise me, it is CA after all :)
This is where the gig economy shines, when people want to use it to make extra money on the side or push to achieve financial goals. However, by your own admission you did it because you were "bored" and wanted to make some money.
Unfortunately many gig workers don't have the privilege. I'm assuming here but you probably had another job and benefits. There are many workers who don't, and are turning to Uber or Lyft just to put food on the table and are being forced into working without paid vacation, sick leave, or benefits simply because they have no other options.
I think corporations taking advantages of the imbalances is a race to the bottom. I believe we should find a 21st century approach to fixing these imbalances so that we don't take opportunities like yours away, but also work to protect labor rights/power that has been much eroded in the last decades.
Driving jobs already exist if that’s what they wanted. Turning ridesharing into full-time employment doesn't solve anything other than removing the freelance opportunity for many who find it fits their situation best.
> Nobody is being forced into anything. They're choosing this because it's the best opportunity.
That is such a lazy take. Of course people are forced to take whatever job is available: humans need food, shelter and healthcare. If society doesn't collectively agree about a minimum standard of what a job entails, you inevitably ends up with the "bottom of the barrel" living in inhumane conditions. As a society, it is our duty to lift up the standards, not lower them and trample on the already destitute.
Why don't these people accept the existing full-time driving jobs then? Is it because flexibility is paramount and they might already have other commitments?
Why convert many existing opportunities into fewer worse jobs? What's that solve exactly? Do you think there should be no independent contractors? Do you also object to freelancer writers or artists?
> Why don't these people accept the existing full-time driving jobs then?
Which jobs? The ones that got slaughtered when Uber&co undercutted the whole market because they did not have to provide their workers with the basic standards that their competitors have to (i.e insurance, benefits, min. wage)?
> Is it because flexibility is paramount and they might already have other commitments?
How is that related? Flexibility doesn't mean having no rights. You can absolutely have a flexible schedule as an employee.
> Why convert many existing opportunities into fewer worse jobs?
What you call opportunity, I call exploitation in the current way Uber&co run their businesses.
> Do you think there should be no independent contractors? Do you also object to freelancer writers or artists?
How is that related? The relationship and power balance between Uber and their drivers is not even close to "two independant parties", and the courts of California and many other countries around the world agree with me. There is nothing "freelance" about being an Uber driver.
Buses, trucking, shuttles, delivery, emergency, construction, medical transport, etc. Many exist that are unfilled right now. Explain why they're unfilled and yet ridesharing has so many people?
What rights are missing? Be specific.
What's lacking in the power balance? How is different than any other contractor position? Is it a problem if contract writers are told what to write? Is it a problem if contract tech support are told to deal with customers? Why or why not?
> Unfortunately many gig workers don't have the privilege.
Gig work turning into full time work out of necessity is the band-aid on the bullet wound. The unemployment numbers were down, in large part due to gig work, but that work never should've been counted as real employment.
So rather than address the underlying problem with something like the New Deal's Works Progress Administration, which was the real and necessary answer, we papered things over with gig work out of a deep-seated philosophical hatred of government as a primary employer.
Now, rather than admit gig work was never a real solution for employment, we're trying to force it to be that by fiat, and acting shocked when this wrongheaded strategy isn't working.
I have a strong suspicion that the Works Progress Administration may come about if Biden wins the election. There's a lot of bridges going into disrepair, new transit projects we _should_ pursue- not to say that everyone employed by this program is necessarily qualified to build a bridge, but if the opportunity is there I wouldn't be shocked if it drew unemployed folks.
Maybe it’s due to where I live, but I’ve never understood throwing money in to roads and the like as stimulus. Construction crews are already busy all the time, and a company isn’t going to hire another 100 untrained workers to tackle an additional project and then fire them again.
I remember one local road being resurfaced during the 2008 stimulus that was perfectly fine before. It was just an easy road for them to shut down.
From what I understand, the biggest economic lever the government has to boost the economy is the humble food stamp. However, the second-biggest lever is building infrastructure.
The reverse-lever for economic stimulus is tax cuts.
There's plenty of long term work available that isn't a waste. Modernizing plumbing and sewage systems, running fiber connections to all homes, building public transit systems, etc. All of these would take decades and provide for long careers.
The pay is quite good right now. A skilled welder willing to move around can clear $100K per year and it can go above that, especially if you run your own business.
Lots of folks don't consider the trades "prestigious" enough.
Obviously it's not good enough. Bump up the pay to $500k, and it will magically become "prestigious" enough. I also wouldn't want to wreck my body for $100k if I can make $80k sitting in an office at a keyboard doing a Mon-Fri 8AM to 5PM and get to sleep at home every night. And work from home during a pandemic.
Right now, society is taking advantage of people who have to sacrifice their bodies because they have no other options. If the supply of people having to sacrifice their bodies drops, then the price point has to rise to compensate for that.
Well, the people not going into the trades don't have an $80k office job option. They're alternative is a $30k retail job and they still don't want to go into the trades.
The world has changed, homie. The construction unions will slay you if you try to substitute their labour with lots of other people. You will lose the game.
If you have a WPA, it'll look like this:
* Funding for existing construction companies
* Higher pay for construction workers
* Roughly the same employment
You've got to remember that high employment is not a union goal. If they can get five $250k construction workers over fifteen $80k construction workers, they'll do it. That's not a criticism. It's a transparent aim that unions fight for their members. That's what makes them worthwhile.
Until you don't. Just ask the air traffic controllers' union.
I don't mean this to say I'm anti-union, but just there are net-good and net-bad employers, there are net-good and net-bad unions. For things to get better at the national level everyone is going to have to sacrifice.
My point with the air traffic controllers is just that: you absolutely can make them. The air traffic controllers thought they had a supreme bargaining position, but then suddenly they discovered that their power was a social construct and could be ripped away when they overplayed their hand.
I don't think it will happen, but my point is that it can if they overplay their hand.
That's like offering someone who is starving a shit sandwich: "What, it's a sandwich, eat it. Or do you like starving?"
Capitalism frequently tries to (and succeeds) exploit the poorest citizens: they are desperate. Laws like this exist to protect the weakest from exploitation.
Giving someone a job they want is not exploitation. If gig workers wanted to be unemployed they could easily do that instead, but they chose to look for a job, someone offered them a job, and they took it. Why should the state interfere in that arrangement and take that job away?
"Laws like this exist to protect the weakest from exploitation."
maybe that was the intent but, in reality, you just destroyed your poorest citizen by taking what little they did have away. I get it, passing a law was the easiest thing for you to do because it shifts all responsibility but don't think too high of yourself.
I don't disagree, the current politicians need to find a solution to provide people with meaningful opportunities to protect them from the fallout of these changes. I think the danger of allowing this exploitation to continue, if we examine the precedent of the previous decades, is too large though and we need to act before the erosion continues.
I’m not familiar with the proposition, but lets say that you are right for the sake of argument:
Now we have two possibilities:
a) We could fight against it and try to get it revoked. Go back to the status quo where those workers keep working—potentially underpaid—without getting any of the benefits full-time workers rely on.
b) We could ask for a new proposal that would give gig workers these benefits and guarantee them a minimum wage.
Nah, they're not. In the undocumented economy, there are lots of things you do that don't show up. It's not like you're filing taxes when you drive up to Lowe's and ask the guys waiting in the parking lot to help you with some construction. That shit is going straight cash-to-cash.
Those jobs are shittier (that's why people drive instead of doing them) but they will still exist.
Just go to upwork or similar sites and see how people are refusing to hire workers (including programmers) in CA because of AB5. This affected way more people than just drivers.
The funny thing is that he's replying to me, one of the people who has stopped using California contractors except among trusted relationships (which is non-Upwork).
I don't know what your experience is with contractors (I use Upwork - which is an awesome platform - extensively) but that's not it. The savings come from the fact that you don't need 100% of their time, you don't need to recruit, and you can slide easily along the performance vs. price on the scale.
One is when you want an expert: for instance, we don't retain in-house counsel. We don't need it 100% of the time, but for the short periods we need it, we need the 99th percentile guy. And we can't afford the 99th percentile guy 100% of the time.
And then it's when you want drudge work but it's spiky: like you need things labelled or whatever. Upwork is like AWS for people and it's really, really good for all the reasons AWS is good.
If I suddenly have to work out payroll and benefits and all that shit, that's instantly non-viable. It's all right, the world is a big place, and things I can contract out I can just as well contract out outside of California and eventually outside the US. 90% of the time I'm doing Anglophone-adjacent nations anyway. Americans are too expensive for this work and they're equivalent performance anyway.
And for the stuff like law? Well, there I'll go with the 99th percentile guy. I know he's powerful enough to get his carve-out (as he has).
Hahaha, that's a really funny reply considering this comment I made a couple of hours ago¹. I guess you're right. I didn't think other people were also doing this.
> Upwork sent around a "Don't worry about AB5" email but I'm not taking chances. Just ended everything with Cali contractors.
> Unfortunately many gig workers don't have the privilege. I'm assuming here but you probably had another job and benefits. There are many workers who don't, and are turning to Uber or Lyft just to put food on the table and are being forced into working without paid vacation, sick leave, or benefits simply because they have no other options.
These drivers who can't put food on the table without Uber(which I've personally never met) in Califoria seem in a far worse position now.
No one is forcing them to do anything. They not only get to decide if they want to work, but how much, and when.
And every time these laws are passed most Uber and Lyft drivers always seem far more worried they will lose their income source than they are excited they might get benefits.
And almost all of my Uber and Lyft drivers had another source of income, were retired, were raising children, or had a medical condition that kept them from holding down a full time job.
> No one is forcing them to do anything. They not only get to decide if they want to work, but how much, and when.
No they don't.. Their material conditions dictate how much they need to work to meet their basic needs (food, utilities, rent).
You're assuming that people who are living paycheck to paycheck, who are backed against a wall, have the option to pick and choose if, when, and how much they work. The people in those situations are the ones we need to work the hardest to protect because they are the most vulnerable to poor conditions and exploitation/coercion. Without protections they contribute to the race to the bottom simply by nature of having no other options, making them willing to work without benefits or for low wages.
> And almost all of my Uber and Lyft drivers had another source of income, were retired, were raising children, or had a medical condition that kept them from holding down a full time job.
This is entirely anecdotal, on top of the fact that "raising children" or "having a medical condition" should not be an excuse to be denied economic stability and benefits.
"This is entirely anecdotal, on top of the fact that "raising children" or "having a medical condition" should not be an excuse to be denied economic stability and benefits."
well they sure as shit aren't getting _anything_ now. What a hollow victory.
Sorry I meant no one is forcing them to work for Lyft/Uber. Everyone who decided to work for Lyft and Uber because it made their life better. Would they have made that same choice if they had a trust fund that met all their basic needs? Probably not.
> This is entirely anecdotal, on top of the fact that "raising children" or "having a medical condition" should not be an excuse to be denied economic stability and benefits.
Yes I'm using anecdotes from talking with Uber drivers, which isn't as good as a study. But it is better than what you are doing which is speculating. Have you had the experience that almost all of your Uber drivers were hoping for full time employment, with a boss, and working on a set schedule?
This bill will completely change what a job looks like for Uber and Lyft. People choose to work for Uber and Lyft for the flexibility that accommodates different life circumstances not for the pay. This bill will destroy that flexibility, it will improve the lives of a small % of Uber and Lyft's drivers who want to work full time and get benefits from Lyft and Uber. But this will worsen the lives of everyone who works there precisely because of the flexibility.
> Unfortunately many gig workers don't have the privilege. I'm assuming here but you probably had another job and benefits. There are many workers who don't, and are turning to Uber or Lyft just to put food on the table and are being forced into working without paid vacation, sick leave, or benefits simply because they have no other options.
Agreed, but is that a problem with the gig economy itself or our entire welfare system?
I agree we can make life better for the workers that remain on Lyft/Uber, but what happens to the workers who were "fired" as a result of reduced ridership?
How much did the wear and tear on the car take out? I've been thinking of doing the same, but i keep hearing that when you factor in all the repairs you'll have to do, then it comes out at pretty much a wash.
I can personally testify to this. My rule of thumb as a driver was that I had to drive roughly twice as many miles as dollars I needed, i.e. $0.50 a mile.
It was absolutely a lifesaver and exactly what I needed at the time. But it's debatable whether it could have been sustained long term.
Personally, I think if instead of chasing imaginary Level 5 autonomy madness with billions of dollars, they had done the unsexy thing and simply paid drivers better, they might not be in this mess. It's pretty insane that they take half of every fare and still can't turn a profit-- seems like a clear sign somebody screwed up &/or made the wrong bet.
The IRS driving reimbursement rate where I am is $0.575/mile. So, if you make less than that, it seems as if you're not making money (as an 'average' driver). You'll just be trading the mileage on your tires/transmission/axels for cash today.
They exist, but those opportunities exist not in as numerous quantities because they are undercut by Lyft/Uber, which are only able to do so because they are operating unsustainably. The latter just need to either increase their prices to make the rideshare job more profitable and acceptable or, if that’s truly impossible as they suggest, I guess we’ll have to go back to cab rides.
Uber/Lyft are both profitable in many markets. The system is perfectly sustainable.
It's the service, not the price, that made the biggest difference for users. And this service requires having thousands of drivers able to start at a moment's notice, which is not viable under an employee-shift driven model.
People freely worked under abusive conditions in factories in the Industrial Revolution before the labour rights movement. No one wants to go back to that.
This is a tired argument. Please name the abusive conditions that actually apply here.
AB5 affects more than just ridesharing too. Many writers, artists and other creative professionals are suffering as well. What abuse are they affected by?
you dont get vacation days.
you re not paid for national holidays off days.
you dont get sick days.
you may say it’s what contract is. but without me being able to see where to drive, whom to drive and set price as I wish, without affecting my rating - it’s just talk.
That's not abuse. You work whenever you want, whether it's a holiday or not. That's the whole point of being freelance and applies to any other industry.
And you can set the price. You can't see the destination but you do know the approximate time and direction.
The point is that Industrial Revolution capitalists used the same argument that you're using. Those people were "freely" working, except that it was the only real work that could be had. Are people working for Uber/Lyft for whom it's the only way to feed their families, or to supplement their income enough to pay the mortgage or make the rent still "freely" working? If everyone had secure salaries with healthcare and vacation days, how many of those people would "freely" choose to continue working for Uber and Lyft?
Just because someone freely accepts work, doesn't mean its automatically free of exploitation. Exploitation just means one party is taking advantage of another parties weakness.
Rideshare specifically - I don't think this exploitation is unilateral, but it does exist.
EDIT: I should clarify - there are degrees of exploitation, the UAE example is an extreme (but used as an example because its so clear cut). My overall point has more to do with people "freely choosing to work" as an idea that people can't be exploited as a result.
You're comparing this to poor laborers held hostage?
Drivers are not forced into anything. They apply and can quit anytime. Earnings and fares are completely transparent. Their schedule is determined by them. Where's the exploitation?
Have you ever driven for Uber? I find it odd that so many people claim to know better for others without any experience of the situation.
Laborers in India/Pakistan were not forced to fly to UAE to take the job, but they did anyway.
> Have you ever driven for Uber? I find it odd that so many people claim to know better for others without any experience of the situation.
I have not, but calculating the economics is pretty damn simple, and their earnings are shit (most drivers dont take into account taxes, car costs, gas, car depreciation, etc.).
I think the problem is that you have to bifurcate those who want a full-time-like salary with those who drive to earn a few bucks, otherwise the discussion breaks down.
Again, having your wages and passport stolen is not "freely" working and completely incomparable to ridesharing.
Earnings vary wildy by person. Some people do great, others don't. There's no universal calculation. Ridesharing has always been about flexibility, not full-time employment, even though some people work full-time hours.
There are numerous other driving jobs if you wanted employment instead of being independent. Perhaps suggesting that instead of changing the law for everyone else would be the better option.
Your example does not match the Uber/Lyft situation. They are free to stop driving at any time and are not stranded in a foreign land without vital identification.
Yes people can freely work for Lyft/Uber, but they can't work free. As in, the designation "independent contractor" means they should have a lot more freedom in how they conduct their personal business than they do at the moment.
Lyft/Uber keep their drivers on a leash while saying they're independent contractors. And that is exploitation.
I disagree with what you claim is a "leash". Have you ever driven for Uber? They have already made tweaks to give drivers more control over their fares and you always had control over when and where you work, along with which ride you accept.
More importantly these definitions are decades old and need updating for the modern era. The better solution would be to create a new classification between employee and freelance.
IIRC they only made these tweaks are being pressured by the government. They were perfectly happy breaking the law when it allowed them to grow quickly.
At that point it's full blown Stockholm syndrome, they somehow managed to make people believe it's in their own interest to be denied basic worker rights. Make them believe they are "their own boss" and they'll accept everything, even if they're just a tiny cog in the giant money printing machine (money they'll never see the color of)
Basic worker rights? Have you ever worked as an independent contractor? What rights are you specifically talking about?
People who have no idea or experience of others but want to remove their freedom and tell them what's best for them is far more insidious and dangerous.
> People who have no idea or experience of others but want to
That's the basis of society, people who have a better overall views of things decide for you all the time, and it should be like that.
What's the opposite ? Private for profit companies deciding what's better for "you" ? That's what Uber and Amazon are trying to do and that's why they lose dozens of court cases about workers rights all over the world.
I don't even get your point, "it's not as bad as X", ok but what's the goal ? Raise the bar so that everyone has access to safe, sustainable jobs or lower the bar to the lowest acceptable working conditions ?
The issue is that people making these laws do not have a better overall view of things. When you go against the majority because you personally think something without experience or evidence, that's a major problem.
When did I make the point that "it's not as bad as X"? Both full-time driving jobs and freelance ride-sharing exist. Drivers can already choose what works for them, and many choose ride-sharing for the flexibility it offers and because it's what works in addition to their prior commitments.
Why do you want to take away that opportunity or think that people are incapable of making that choice for themselves?
Personally I don’t think Uber drivers are as stupid as you think they are. They legitimately want to be able to drive flexibly. Also they keep about 75% of receipts for their driving (average gross margin for Uber is under 25%).
> Also they keep about 75% of receipts for their driving
That's good because that way they can pay for their car insurance, health insurance, pension, gas, car maintenance, self employment taxes, frequent car cleaning, &c.
I'm not saying the drivers are stupid, I'm saying Uber &co are very smart.
No, I think it’s two fold. One it means they believe increasing rates would make their business less viable and second it’s likely a tactic to force the government to reconsider.
The gov will have to weigh the benefit of people having affordable rides on demand plus people who want “side money” vs higher fares plus people who now are either out of a job or out of side money.
The State of California doesn't care about workers, they care about the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars they want from payroll and unemployment taxes, in addition to revenue from automatic withholdings for people whom would otherwise be below the reporting limit.
I have you ever worked as a freelancer? I have and so do many many people I know. Go to a bar with all your freelancing friends and play this drinking game: take a drink every time your client has shafted you.
The belief that consenting adults who voluntarily apply and work for a company as they choose are being "exploited" speaks volumes about your beliefs of the average person's intelligence and capabilities. Perhaps it is the class of individuals who internalize beliefs of another class of people being effectively brainless cattle who must be shepherded and protected -- perhaps it is they who are actually exploiting workers for their own social and political ends.
Sort of, the rub is the model can't work for both über and lyft. Their competing triggers a race to the bottom price war exacerbated by the lack of platform lock-in.
In other words, I as a rational consumer will use the service that is cheapest when all other factors are identical. Driver's as rational actors will do precisely the opposite - the one paying me the most - as neither platform found a way to differentiate themselves on driver benefits.
This system behaves according to market principles and as such, costs need to be constantly cut to fight off competing rideshare services.
Über needs lyft to die and vice versa. The real battle can be further abstracted to the investment firms supporting each company. Since the investors know that so long as their bet is funded and working towards one of the two endgames for rideshares (full self driving or death of competition) it doesn't matter how much money is lost per ride.
Because the previous medallion system was so much better.
Either the driver rented the car to a middleman who rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling and financing (most banks won't touch these medallions!) a medallion at a ridiculous interest rate to a driver that plans to use it as his retirement savings.
Pre-Uber, the more I spoke to cab drivers the more it seemed their industry was a pyramid schemed aimed at helping established rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants. Uber brought a breeze of fresh air: Someone could simply buy a car, calculate the depreciation and it's value on the market (since unlike medallions cars are relatively liquid assets!) do rideshare and calculate their profits or loss. They can get out of the game at anytime.
>"Either the driver rented the car to a middleman who rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling and financing (most banks won't touch these medallions!)"
There are plenty of commercial banks that have underwritten loans for taxi medallions and built up a significant portfolio Just in NY for example - North Fork Bank, Capital One, Provident and Signature Bank, See:
Of course there are, but as with any not so liquid and extremely volatile asset, the interest rates are going to be horrible. It's not like a car or a house.
I dislike the moving of the goalposts about what is "worker exploitation". The workers aren't being exploited, they're working. Worker exploitation would be forcing them to work 80 hours a week without the ability to say no.
Well it’s not even ridesharing as such. I think Uber and Lyft would have avoided legal issues, had they been actual ridesharing companies. Driving around picking up people and driving them to destination where you don’t need to go is called being a taxi.
I really wish we could stop calling Uber ridesharing, when the majority of their business is in fact not. It cause problems for actual ridesharing, which do enjoy some legal protection in some countries.
California has proven itself again and again to be really good at centrally planning the economic activities of individuals so I think this will work out pretty well in the end.
That is why the California economy is collapsing. /s
Everybody likes to complain about California. When I was born here it was about 15m people. Now its 40m. If you are unhappy, please leave to a lower cost, lower tax state. People have been predicting California's decline my entire life and the real problem is it can't handle the growth. Also, California has been sucking up employing the young and of mid-west and south for a century. Now those states get mad when "Californians" move to places like Austin. Where do you think they came from originally?
That's a good point. I think immigration is great for the country. And I never mind it my neighbors come from the mid-west or from Central America or wherever. I just get sick of people bashing California. It outgrows the rest of the country at an amazing rate, spawns world beating companies, and then people say it is socialist.
California also has the highest poverty rate in the country when you adjust for cost of living.
The successes of people within a state might be because the state. Or it might be despite the state. I think a lot of California’s success is despite the state’s actions or policies. Reasonable minds can disagree.
Nah. CA funds healthcare, environmental laws, a great public university system, CCPA etc and in general enacts many pro-people laws. Many of these are then enacted nationally. So its disingenuous to characterize the state as obstructing progress when its clearly done the opposite.
The comparison I like to make is with TX. If Texas was even moderately liberal/centrist and enacted commonsense policies (Medicaid expansion, State taxes to fund healthcare education etc) it would do a LOT better. Now, Texas HAS been successful despite its Government doing nothing/actively getting in the way.
> So its disingenuous to characterize the state as obstructing progress when its clearly done the opposite.
If by progress you mean increase poverty then we agree. Otherwise I didn’t talk about “progress” one way or another.
> If Texas was even moderately liberal/centrist and enacted commonsense policies (Medicaid expansion, State taxes to fund healthcare education etc) it would do a LOT better.
Maybe. Or maybe Texas would do worse and their poverty rate would grow to match California!
California is able to pass all kinds of bills and spend all kinds of money because it is a very very wealthy state. Did California policies directly cause that wealth or is Hollywood + Silicon Valley a matter of luck? Or perhaps out of California’s thousands of policies only a couple (such as non-compete) had a significant influence on their economic bounty.
Yeah, pretty much all of the best state economies are extremely liberal (1). I think the anti-tax sentiment on HN is from people who make a lot of money and then realize they have to pay taxes. They attribute their success entirely to themselves and then whine about giving anything back to the environment that enabled them. California certainly has giant problems but don't let it distract you from the big picture.
I'd like to see the p-value on states' political lean vs the size of their economy. Looking at the top 10 state economies on your list, 3 are swing states and 3 are red states, leaving only 4 (far from "pretty much all") as blue states. Even looking 10 states further down, into the top 20, adds 5 red states, 3 swing states, and only 2 blue states.
Your framing of the list is more than a bit disingenuous. 4/5 of the top economies are blue. 6/10 are blue, 1/10 is a swing state, and 3/10 are red (1). When you dive a bit deeper, you can also see that all 3 red states border much bigger and richer blue states (Utah -> Colorado, Idaho -> Washington/Oregon, Arizona -> California). Perhaps a better way is to break it down by district (2). If you look at the house of representatives and sum up the GDP by party, democrats account for ~$10T and republicans account for ~$6T.
If you look at quality of life indicators instead of economic strength, California certainly falls more than a bit but the red/blue divide grows even larger (1). From purely a quality of life standpoint, 8 of the best 10 are blue and 8 out of the worst 10 are red.
Half of the top ten in that list cannot be called "extremely liberal" (or for some, even moderately liberal) -- Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Florida, and Arizona; even fewer in the next ten.
I don't disagree with you vis-a-vis the anti-tax sentiment, but you're making a strong claim that extremely liberal state government policies drive economies, and that's a reach.
4 out of the top 5 are extremely liberal. In the top ten, let's calculate by population.
Blue: 66.8M (5.7 + 7.6 + 39.5 + 4.2 + 6.8 + 3)
Red: 12.3M (3.2 + 1.8 + 7.3)
Swing (aka Florida): 21.5M
This can be a bit confusing so let's skip straight to the point. If you take the house of representatives and add up GDP by district, democrats account for $10.2T and republicans account for $6.2T (1). The differences don't stop there. Republican districts have slower economic growth, less skilled labor, less educated workers, and a host of other bad indicators.
Interesting discussion. Take some of the districts shown in your source: NY-10, a Democratic district, is like half of Manhattan plus bits of Brooklyn. PA-13, a Republican district, is 98% rural Pennsylvania with some small towns thrown in.
Rural districts lean Republican, and urban districts lean Democratic. I'd wager that the bad indicators you mention are better explained by the rural/urban divide more so than political leanings. A central business district of a major city is going to have better economic growth, higher-skilled and more educated labor, and a host of other good indicators compared to farmland.
I agree there is correlation between dense urban areas (which are more likely to lean Democratic) having a higher GDP output and rural areas (which are more likely to lean Republican) having a lower GDP output. However, you would need to provide stronger evidence that there is any causality established there.
I'd say the causality runs the other way around: people in high density living situations (which for better or worse have been the primary driver of GDP growth since the industrial revolution) are amenable to more government regulation, simply by virtue of the problems caused by that same density -- people encounter "this is why we can't have nice things" kinds of situations, and want regulation to counter those, a lot more often when squeezed into big cities. Therefore those places lean Democratic in the US. The opposite applies for rural areas. I don't think you can claim that you could take a rural (and therefore Republican-leaning) area, turn the voters there Democratic, and cause economic growth to happen, without first turning it into a dense city.
The causality is certainly confusing and not clear cut. It does seem that these small towns are in desperate need of liberal economic policies yet they vote the opposite. Rural areas need investment in education, infrastructure, and job retraining. If you turned Republican towns blue, you'd almost certainly help their cause.
I am by no means conservative but the taxes on regular people in California are so high because the taxes on longtime landowners are low. And I also don’t think the taxes are being spent well enough to justify them. It’s also quite a stretch to call anything about obstructionist NIMBYism “liberal”
Also many of the people paying the highest taxes in CA are not even from there (executives, tech workers, entertainment workers), which kind of breaks down the argument of giving back to the environment that produced you.
I would be perfectly happy with paying income and sales taxes as high as they are in California if they were assessed more fairly (no low taxes because your grandparents lived here) and if I felt like I got enough out of public services.
> are not even from there (executives, tech workers, entertainment workers), which kind of breaks down the argument of giving back to the environment that produced you.
This doesn't make sense. Are you saying people should only pay taxes in the state they were born in forever? That's not how taxation works.
Not exactly, what I’m saying is I don’t buy any argument that the taxes are so high in CA because they need to be to provide the services that allow it to have a good economy. The only possible exception to this is the UC system. Other than that I think California has a good economy mostly as a result of its location, size, and geography
Man, if ever there was a proposition that need to be repealed. I lived in NorCal for 22 years. Prop 13 is why schools in non-rich neighborhoods are literally collapsing. There are schools in South Sacto that have been holding classes in "temporary" trailers for over 20 years. What a huge mistake 1978 made.
> Prop 13 is why schools in non-rich neighborhoods are literally collapsing.
Let's say Prop 13 was repealed. Rich neighborhoods would still get more property tax revenue than poor neighborhoods, because the properties in rich neighborhoods are worth more.
If you want to solve the disparity in school funding you need to stop basing it on the values of the homes in the neighborhoods surrounding the schools.
Repealing Prop 13 will give schools in poor areas more money than they have now, but they will never get as much money as schools in rich areas as long as the property tax funding model persists.
If California had the weather of South Dakota no one would live there. California is the state version of being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple.
I think we should not talk about regions of the country like they are sports teams that we root for or against. Texas is very nice with lots of nice people California is very nice with lots of nice people.
I wish it could be cordial but that time is over. The very nice people of Texas are supporting a traitor inviting Russian interference, destroying a constitutionally provisioned mail service, and actively overseeing one of the largest wealth transfers from poor to rich in the history of the US. 58K Americans died in Vietnam. More than twice that have died unnecessarily due to Covid-19 due to purely political reasons. Situations of this gravity force us to dispose of the niceties.
I find it hard to blame Trump solely for the fact that capitalism has gloriously failed to provide anything in way of an adequate response to a global pandemic. And our government for longer than trump has been captured by our economy. A statement like "more than twice have died unnecessarily due to covid" is rather hard to take seriously. As if there was something reactionary anybody could have done to prevent _all_ the covid deaths.
Your comment is extremely misleading. Texas has 8x the proved oil reserves (1) and 10x the current oil production (2). Texas produces 41% of the oil in the US. California is 4%. Texas also provides processing and distribution to the greater Gulf of Mexico oil production states. When it comes to quality of life indicators, Texas is clearly the bottom half in states (3), (4) .
This is more true than people realize: sure, silicon valley could've happened anywhere (and almost did) - but California won the lottery many times over, between the gold and silver rushes, early Hollywood needing reliable sunshine and varied terrain, and massive farming operations (incl Napa Valley) needing mild, reliable weather, and of course, coastal tourism and people staying "for the lifestyle."
Certainly! My whole life it has gotten more expensive and lots of people can't afford it. That's not different than New York City or London.
But unlike many other states, the population of California has not actually gone down (see below). Maybe it will, but why is that a problem when traffic and housing costs are such an issue?
When I moved to CA, I put off getting a CA license for years. I always told myself I'd go to the DMV and do the paperwork, then I waited long enough to find out I would have to retake the test, until finally I just resigned to using Uber and Lyft all the time. I never thought I would need it and so I never made it a priority.
So this news really sucks, as you haven't been able to schedule DMV appointments at all and it looks like it will continue to be that way for the foreseeable futuere. I understand the Uber/Lyft may have had this a long time coming but it really is inconvenient for this to happen during COVID.
The average person's response to being told they'd have to take another driver's test isn't to replace driving with Uber/Lyft. You're in a unique position to be able to afford to replace all driving with ridesharing, since gas+insurance+maintenance costs are much lower than say, a month of commuting to an office via rideshare.
There are tons of people who could have replaced their car with rideshare and maybe some public transit, and still come out cheaper.
Insurance, parking, fuel, depreciation, maintenance, and random events add up. If you don't need it for commuting, most of the recurring rideshare costs vanish.
If you need to make an extra long occasional trip, car rental for a day or two outweighs ownership.
Edit: To be clear, anything other than a car is cheaper for many (not all) people. (e)Bike, shared scooter, walking, trolley, Uber/Lyft, taxi, carpooling, etc. Cities are expensive and small towns are small.
On average, ~50% of car trips are under 2 miles. A car is not required for most of those in most locations.
For my commute, the cost of ridesharing breaks even with the cost of buying a parking space in the city (Boston) if you go to work an average of 4 days per week or fewer. (at least pre-covid, I'm not sure if parking is cheaper these days). Once you factor in insurance and maintenance, for some cars you would get to 5 days.
An unlimited use trolley/bus pass is $150/month in my city. Suppose I spend $200/month on gas/insurance/maintenance. The marginal cost of having commutes that take half as much time, to me, is worth it. Otherwise, you could be spending 30 more hours a month commuting to save $50.
That equation doesn't work out in every city obviously. In SF a trip to the Mountain View (GOOG HQ) by car is an hour and change regardless if you drive or take CalTrain. If you live and work downtown, walking is a perfectly valid option as well.
Now add $300/month for a parking space in an apartment building, $10/day for parking in a garage downtown near your office, plus your car payment/depreciation of the car you're driving.
Also not all public transit trips take twice as long as a car. In many urban places (which is where any of this scenario makes sense) at rush hour a trip on public transit is often about equivalent to driving if not shorter.
This is no joke, getting parking for an apartment (pretty much required unless you live in the sunset or have deeded parking) is like $250/mo+ and your car will probably be broken into depending on how often you park it on the street
I mainly used Uber/Lyft for "last mile" transportation. I replaced "all driving" with largely public transportation. I probably spent an average of ~$300/mo on Uber/Lyft which would account of my parking premium + insurance.
That said, I will concede I'm in a unique position. This legislation isn't completely onerous on me.
This is not true for everyone. I track my ride share spending and it’s significantly lower than owning a car. I spend less that $200 a month on average (2019 avg was $196).
I’m in a unique position to do this, because i put myself in that position. i moved near my work and live in an urban area.
even if it cost $400 a month, i would still do it this way. i read when i’m in the car, i wouldn’t trade that for staring at the road.
If you’re in the Bay, or really any other major tech hub in the US, you should also factor the increased cost of rent or mortgage payments into that calculation. I’m lucky to be remote, but if I moved close enough to SF or the Valley to spend only $200/month on ride shares to the office, my mortgage would at least triple. This would far offset any savings in gas/insurance/maintenance.
I’m happy that you’ve found a good situation for yourself and I don’t mean to disparage it. I just don’t think the comparison you’ve made is quite complete.
The reason rents and mortgages in transportation and commute friendly areas of the country are high is because those locations are desirable.
If one enjoys the lifestyle, spending less on transportation and shifting that spending to housing is a net win. That's how I did it, and for about eight of my eleven years in the Bay, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
I left the Bay in 2018 because I got a remote job and didn't feel like I was getting my money's worth from the city life. Pretty clearly, in 2020, much of what makes city living good is gone, but it will come back; whether that's a matter of years or decades is very much an open question.
The problem in SF is that Uber/Lyft has become some convenient that its been diverting people from transit and putting them into single occupant cars (the driver doens't count). Much of the traffic congestion is coming from Uber/Lyft
Counting rideshare cars as "single occupant vehicles" is not "double counting" -- whether I drive in to work and park my car myself, or I take Uber and get dropped off, that's still one trip so it's the same congestion. If he picks up another fare immediately, then that's a new single occupant vehicle trip.
But I think it's rare during commute hours that a ride share driver will drop someone off downtown and immediately find another fare, he's going to have to leave downtown to get his next passenger. So that Uber driver is worse than a single occupant vehicle, he's made 2 trips for one passenger (once to drop me off, once to leave downtown to pick up his next fare).
In off hours, sure, the driver brings someone in, then doesn't have to search far to find someone else looking for a ride, but during commute hours I don't think that's true.
The irony in this comment is amazing. You're in a unique, privileged position to not even consider public transit for some trips an option.
Public transit for everyday commute to work, plus Uber/Lyft for trips outside of common commute hours or off the beaten path where public transit is less reliable, can definitely be cheaper than car ownership.
Public transit in SF works well in some areas, not so well in others -- even making a single connection can add 30 - 45 minutes to your commute If you're going to the financial district or north SOMA, transit is usually viable, if you're going anywhere else, it's likely not so viable.
And this is a city that's only 7 miles wide -- I used to be able to bike downtown in less than than I spent waiting on the bus on most days (since I didn't just have to wait for one bus, I had to wait for a bus that wasn't already full to take on passengers)
Well, OP was considering driving vs rideshare, so that's what I compared/contrasted. They never considered public transit, and continuing with their train of thought, neither did I. Seems like a reasonable perspective to take.
Public transit isn't an option for all people, particularly in low income communities, that have to get from home to work in rural and suburban areas. They aren't dense enough for public transit.
I think you're vastly underestimating how many people can do so, especially in urban centers with walking, biking, and public transit. Even more now with the changes brought by covid.
When I was living in Dallas in 2014 I was using Uber full time and it was less than half the total cost of ownership of owning a used car at the time. And paying $10 to park downtown each day. It was about $3.15 one way which was even cheaper than the bus. I'm not sure what uber prices are in Dallas these days but it'd have to be close to $9 one way for it to be cheaper than owning a car in that situation. Uber was a major lifeline for me here in the Bay Area when I first arrived as I didn't have a car for the first three years. Parking in my area starts at around $250/mo. My uber bill was usually around $300/mo. Car insurance alone is at least $50/mo.
$3 sounds like an extremely short ride. Either that, or they were subsidizing a lot more back then. In Austin, over the past few years I've used use lyft occasionally to get to or from work and it was typically $6-$9 for a 1.6 mile trip that typically lasted 6-8 minutes.
In California, most cities are very spread out so taking taxis anywhere are super expensive. You can't just hail one down on the street like other cities, you have to order one over the phone to come pick you up from where ever you are.
I decided to check for myself and registered in the app. The nearest ride is in 20 minutes (about 2x from the rideshares) and the price from my house to SFO is about $160. My last ride with Uber was about $70. Make your own conclusions.
Oh yes and the app is buggy as heck, losing internet connection all the time (on my home wifi!) and getting stuck in random places.
Sure. That wasn't the point of this conversation, though. The point of this conversation was why one would use Lyft and Uber, and still not want to use the regular taxi companies.
Depends where you are. In much of the Valley you will not see a cab anywhere, but you might be able to call one.
In SF proper, there are more cabs, but don't forget the hour-long waits we had before the ride-sharing thing started. I don't know if it'll get that bad again, but I don't think they authorized thousands of new cabs like (IMO) they should have. Also, I've had cabbies in SF tell me point-blank they won't take my fare because it's not far enough. Yeah, illegal, they don't care.
Further out... good luck. You're in Concord and need a ride to Walnut Creek? Might work, but it might be faster to try Craigslist.
The last cab I was in, the driver was asking my girlfriend how to get where we were going (Chinatown in LA from downtown...not exactly challenging), which she didn't know because she doesn't drive. He was rude to us both the entire time, and then when we got out, (even after she left him a reasonable tip), he called her a "fcking btch" and sped away. We tried complaining to the cab company a few times but nothing came of it. I've never had an issue even remotely close to that in Uber/Lyft, but have had more unpleasant than pleasant experiences in taxis all over the country.
I remember taxis before Uber/Lyft. They sucked. They were very expensive. Low availability - I once was stuck in the middle of one 200k+ city with literally no cars available after calling several companies. After an hour or so, I had to call friends to pick me up. Then, if you get a cab, you have no idea who is your driver and have no history and no resort if something happens - you could call the dispatcher again but they won't take complaints, as it's not their business, and even if you manage to get the taxi company's support number (provided such thing exists) they'd probably ignore you. Oh yes, and last time I used it half of the drivers couldn't even make a credit card transactions - you had to have cash (hopefully at least this one is fixed now?)
I totally understand that it doesn't always make economic sense to own a car. But I confess that it's really hard for me to understand the mentality of not getting a drivers license if able to do so. So many of the activities I do when in the Bay Area (and elsewhere) are pretty much impossible without either renting a car or having someone else drive me which isn't always possible. I've even had jobs that I couldn't have done without driving.
1. Things just tended to "work out". I'm not someone who sweats the small stuff when planning things. At the very least if I'm going somewhere "remote" (Tahoe, Santa Cruz), I wouldn't be by myself and I could ride with someone else.
2. You'd be surprised how far you can take an Uber. I had a friend take an Uber from SF to Sacremento.
I wouldn't consider, say, the Santa Cruz mountains remote. I go there all the time when I'm in the Bay Area. But, yes, I'm sure like many things one adjusts their expectations and desires based on their constraints. I'd find not having a car in the Bay Area extremely limiting.
> then I waited long enough to find out I would have to retake the test
I didn't have my driver's license for 10+ years, and thought the Californian DMV would surely make me take another driver's test because of that. Nope...after I did the written test, they said my license would come in the mail.
DMV is offering appointments again in many locations.
I feel your pain though... living in SF made it a little too easy to just ignore the DL thing, and then I moved to Europe and lived in big cities with excellent public transportation.
Now that I'm finally doing it I'm kicking myself for not just getting it done years ago even if I might not have used it much.
Not if you call a cab and they say "we dispatched a driver" and then that driver never shows up. There wasn't accountability with the old system, hopefully Uber/Lyft have forced cab companies to evolve. The apps in some cities are a promising sign but aren't universal.
I find that this is super convenient that this is happening during COVID restrictions.
I'm not needing a taxi/uber/lyft for leaving the bar. I'm not going out to a restaurant with friends. I'm not traveling for work/fun and needing an lift to the hotel.
My usage of uber/lyft/taxis went from 100s per month down to 0. If this change happened in 2019, I'd of had significant changes to my daily routine. Today, this changes nothing.
100% of the thousands of Uber drivers I've talked to over the past 8 years have said work flexibility is their greatest advantage. Many of them already have other commitments and drive for extra income. If they wanted a FT driving job, they would've gotten one.
Thinking through this more. I've noticed that a lot of drivers work both Uber and Lyft (flexibility allows this). Would that go away in the employee model?
Yes. While you can be employed by multiple companies, it's unlikely you'll have the flexibility to do so because they will implement shift schedules to maximize employee driving time and coverage.
I would think so, no more running multiple apps as a driver if you're employed.
Because the pool of drivers for a particular company would be massively reduced as well, driver down-time between rides on their platform may be expected to significantly decrease, which was a major reason for running multiple apps in the first place. Basically the remaining drivers will essentially partition themselves into two pools, driving exclusively for either Uber or Lyft. I'm not saying anything about whether that's good or bad, but it seems a likely outcome.
True but the problem is that it mandates presence-based earnings (by the hour) and not output-based. That is the reason it does not work with the model Uber & Lyft built.
Obviously, Lyft and Uber could've anticipated this and could've decided months ago to work on an alternative. Instead they let it come to a head and now they are trying to a dramatic PR push to get the law changed.
Employees were always able to have flexible hours, there's nothing new about that. The major change is that employee classification means predetermined shifts.
Uber/Lyft will control when and where and how long work is. That changes everything about the service (which is what matters more than the price) and makes it nonviable outside of a few major urban areas.
If the economics of Uber don't work when Uber is responsible for treating their drivers right, giving them a minimum wage, and offering benefits- then it sounds like their business model is simply exploiting the working class.
You are using a completely subjective opinion of "treating their drivers right". Have you spoken to many drivers about what they actually want?
What do you think independent contractor means? Do you think that nobody should be independent then? Do you realize that full-time driving jobs already exist? Why do you presume that drivers can't make this choice for themselves? Why can't the people who are unhappy with the earnings just stop driving? Why is it better for both riders and drivers to lose this service and income by forced legislation when it already works fine for millions?
You're asking a lot of questions that can be answered with Google.
With regards to my experiences- I've spent years as an independent contractor. My linkedin is in my profile, feel free to confirm. I know the pros and cons of being an independent contractor and have followed the changes in the law both on the federal and local level. I'd say I'm fairly well versed in it.
Your argument about how "employee == full time" is just a straw man. No one is requiring people to be full time. In fact "flexibility"- which in most survays done on drivers is one of their top concerns- is preserved with the legal cases and subsequent AB5 legislation. The only difference is that as employees drivers would also get paid for idle time while waiting for rides, would have the option of benefits, and Uber would be responsible for paying unemployment taxes for when those riders lose their jobs (like when a pandemic hits).
So you didn't talk to any drivers? None of those questions are for Google. They question your position, and it seems that's why you didn't answer.
Why did you ever work as a contractor if you're against not having a min wage and benefits? You claim that's "right" so what changed? Why impose that on others instead of choosing for yourself?
Flexibility means work when, where, and however long you want. AB5 removes this. Employee classification means preset shifts, which means it's only viable with fewer drivers working set schedules in dense areas instead of the fluid supply/demand with high coverage that exists today. This fundamentally changes the service from what consumers want, and that's why it doesn't work.
So what you're saying is that surveys with statistically significant numbers or respondents are not as important as the anecdotal evidence that comes with talking to a handful of people.
I don't drive often- I use public transit and lyft. I have talked to drivers, and most of them are pissed that their wages are dropping every year but they can't do things like unionize as they aren't "real employees". My anecdotal evidence, which you value so highly, lines up with what I've been saying.
> Employee classification means preset shifts
This is factually wrong. California doesn't have any law requiring "shifts". It does have a law saying that companies which enforce shifts (such as saying someone needs to be in the office from nine to five) give a minimum of four hours pay if they send people home early, but that's a huge difference from what you're saying.
There are tons of examples of this too- "work from home data entry" is a big field in California, and while they often have deadlines they rarely schedule specific shifts.
What I'm saying is what I said. Why don't you answer the questions?
Wages decrease because there's more supply than demand. That's why surge pricing exists. The issue isn't the feedback (surveys align with the thousands I've talked to), it's that you don't think AB5 affects flexibility.
However paying by time requires shifts. Ridesharing needs to meet demand. Employees have to be placed in the best location and time to avoid idle drivers. This would lead to fewer drivers working longer hours and less coverage. This changes the service that people expect and pay for, leading to less riders and then even less drivers in a bad feedback loop.
All because some people don't think other people can choose how to spend their own time.
The problem is that many drivers prefer having the flexibility to work 5 hours one week and then 50 hours the next. With the new rules, this would not be possible. By taking away this option, you are telling drivers they need to commit to Uber as a legit job. Considering the vast majority of Uber drivers I've ever spoken to use it as a side gig to earn extra cash, I will bet they side with Uber on this one.
The idea that someone can clock-in, work 2-3 hours, clock-out and then clock in again in 2 weeks tells me this isn't a real job. We need another classification.
And the problem here isn't that Uber's model doesn't work. Uber can transition to this new classification and adjust their business model to make it work, the bigger problem is that the drivers don't want it to work this way. The service works because it can respond to minute-by-minute demand. That's not possible with the new rules.
The point is they may work full-time one week, and then not work for 6 months, or ever again. Once you start classifying people as employees, this low commitment approach becomes nearly impossible to maintain.
> Many of them already have other commitments and drive for extra income.
Exactly, why are so many people forgetting this aspect of ridesharing? The whole point is that you can pick it up and put it down whenever you want for a little extra cash. VERY early on people were able to make a killing doing Uber and that gave others a false impression that this was somehow a viable full time job. It's been years and years since it made economic sense to do Uber on a fulltime basis. Giving drivers benefits isn't going to change the effective hourly rate of $7/hr or whatever it's been for a while.
It's no different than any other supply and demand market. If you open a new business selling shoes, nobody guarantees you an income or protection from competitors who take all the customers.
A low-skill contract like driving casual passengers just has too much competition to be worth a full-time position, but it's still a great way for extra income with little commitment.
This might not be the case here but I notice that CA often creates laws that are unrealistic and don't work. So while I don't have the data in this case it would not surprise me if true.
If true, it's also selection bias. Current drivers like the current situation. Current non-drivers might join the workforce under new circumstances. Obviously its just speculation but you should take the statistics with a grain of salt.
Probably, but I bet the 1/5 of drivers that support the getting classified as employees represent a disproportionate amount of driver hours spent on the app. If you are logged in 8.5h a day as your primary source of income, becoming an employee is probably beneficial. If you only log in for likely surge events a few hours a week, you largely won't get to do that anymore.
Health insurance and healthcare are very far from the same thing. In my work I am constantly dealing with people who have "great" insurance, but who are going without medical attention.
Sometimes claims are denied. Others spent all their money buying the insurance and now can't afford their co-pay (when they would have been able to easily afford the treatment if not for the cost of the insurance). More often, the system works just as its designed. There's no official denials. No refusals. Just a Kafkaesque runaround that inconveniences and delays treatment so that people get less of it, at a lower quality, and a lower cost for the insurer.
Of course, there's a lot of people who make good livings off the insurance industry (myself included). So there's a lot of vested interests trying to prevent people from being able (or accustomed) to buy medical care with cash, credit, etc.
They should simply decouple health insurance from employment by taxing it as income.
Seems like that's what Lyft was hoping would be sufficient compromise. Per the release:
"We’ve spent hundreds of hours meeting with policymakers and labor leaders to craft an alternative proposal for drivers that includes a minimum earnings guarantee, mileage reimbursement, a health care subsidy, and occupational accident insurance, without the negative consequences."
That's what AB5 did. It allowed for a new type of worker that was still partially an employee but would also allow for flexible hours and the ability for drivers to reject rides.
That's what's so disingenuous about this campaign by Uber and Lyft. They're pretending that being an employee would take away all of this flexibility, but the reality is the legislation left that flexibility in place. This is entirely an argument about benefits and protections, but Lyft and Uber are trying to pretend otherwise.
Everything I look up says AB5 makes rideshare drivers wholesale employees with the obligations and benefits that carries. Can you explain what you mean?
That's nothing new. Employees can already have flexible hours and part-time employment.
The issue is that they're still considered employees which means predetermined shifts and control rather than fluid supply meeting demand by the minute. This changes the service (which matters more than the price for customers) so that it no longer works at the current scale.
> The issue is that they're still considered employees which means predetermined shifts
Is there anything in California labour law or AB5 that requires predetermined shifts? What would prevent Uber/Lyft from allowing its now-employees to volunteer for an X-hour shift at any point that demand forecasts suggest it would be useful?
There's nothing in California law that requires predetermined shifts. The only rules are that if you do have predetermined shifts, you have to pay for at least half the shift even if you send someone home early. All of these people talking about predetermined shifts are just pretty FUD with no backing in reality.
Because benefits (healthcare) are so costly that the rideshare business model becomes nonviable. To that, some might claim that no business model deserves to exist if it cannot provide all of these benefits. I think that’s misguided.
The very idea that health benefits are tied to employment is the real problem. In Canada they aren’t and thus it’s far more reasonable to work as a ride share driver here. If we could go even further and add pharmacare, dental, and even basic income to the services provided by the government, then we could get rid of minimum wage laws as well. When people are truly free to walk away from any job, then the market will decide the appropriate wage. Any job offering truly unacceptable wages at that point becomes a ripe target for automation.
When Tesla/Waymo/Uber/Lyft roll out actual self-driving technology in the future and people complain "robots are taking our jobs!" we can point to this legislation and say "actually, no, it was the politicians"
Automation isn’t done for automation’s sake. Business people don’t think that way. It’s done to save money or make money. Also, business owners are not quick to break a system that makes money for a few extra pennies. Politicians like to flip the scales, and business owners react predictably.
That's interesting since Craigslist has operated a rideshare marketplace for 20+ years and runs at an 80% profit margin. They've also never ran afoul of contractor vs. employee scrutiny.
Could it be that perhaps Uber and Lyft are simply poorly ran organizations who only excel at burning VC money?
If you had commodity full self driving, how could a human compete at almost any price point? You can run the car all day and night. Lack of this legislation didn't stop factory automation. I can't help but think this is a bad take.
a 3rd classification isn't enough. employment is a spectrum just like gender and policies need to reflect that. politicians are so stuck in the old binary way of thinking
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
I suspect that California is going to backpedal on this pretty quickly. Uber and Lyft are popular. Going back to taxis is going to be very unpopular.
IMO, if the California Republican party was smart they would make this a wedge issue in the next election. "Elect us, and we'll make it possible to use Uber again."
The State of California doesn't care about workers, they care about the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars they want from payroll and unemployment taxes, in addition to revenue from automatic withholdings for people whom would otherwise be below the reporting limit.
I think it's reasonable for a government to crack down on businesses where the entire operational structure is designed to subvert that government's tax code and regulations.
You mean, overcrowding a market with underpaid positions, sold with lies and marketing to make them sound better than they are, to force people with full time jobs out of work so that people could get a ride in a vehicle with no safety, security, (or originally) background verification while doing all they could to cheat regulations, driver and user privacy, tax laws, climate change, and eventually, now, rent-seek, to boost stock prices to pad Vegas parties and investor portfolios.
Modern ride sharing is not sustainable, environmentally friendly, or a 'job' and this doesn't exempt the bad behaviors by taxi companies, but understand this is the end destination of capitalism invading a regulated economy.
Playing devil's advocate here, but how do you think they managed to make a more affordable solution? If you think it's entirely due to their technology, I'm afraid you'd be mistaken.
Who do you think ends up paying that money? Uber/Lyft? Not a chance! This cost always gets passed down the the individuals in the form of smaller cuts of the pie.
Government doesn't exist to collect taxes. They are there to provide governance. Taxes are a necessary evil that should be kept to a minimum to provide the service of governance.
If someone can come up with a legal operational structure that gets around taxes then that the government didn't do its job.
It's only easy to get around taxes when the taxes aren't closely tied to the service the government is providing. i.e. when you taxing one individual or business for a service provided to other individuals or businesses.
"The legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted."
"To dodge the shareholders' taxes is not one of the transactions contemplated as corporate "reorganizations."
And from the SC ruling:
"The whole undertaking, though conducted according to the terms of [the statute], was in fact an elaborate and devious form of conveyance masquerading as a corporate reorganization, and nothing else. ... [T]he transaction upon its face lies outside the plain intent of the statute. To hold otherwise would be to exalt artifice above reality and to deprive the statutory provision in question of all serious purpose."
If there's no business purpose beyond tax avoidance, the government can indeed hold you to the higher tax rate. I don't think that's what happened here, i think there are legitimate non-tax reasons for Uber/Lyft's structure, but it's not a completely unreasonable take to disagree with that.
And even if not, the government is free to change the law to fix things, which it did.
They care about the burden these employees put on the system when they get sick or injured which costs tax money. Most people don't use Uber or Lyft, why should they have to subsidize these companies.
Who forced Lyft to shut down? Was it the state, or did they freely choose to cease operations? Obviously, spin will characterize this in any way that's advantageous. But nobody 'forced' Lyft to close.
Their business model is on-demand transportation. The business model doesn't work if the workforce is not also on-demand. I don't think that's spin, but maybe society decides that we don't like on-demand businesses.
> The business model doesn't work if the workforce is not also on-demand.
Have they tried it to confirm it 'doesn't work'? Maybe rideshare companies need to reduce their cut, and start putting more of that money into the driver's pocket. Doesn't mean it can't be a profitable business, though possibly low-margin. Have they tried paring back development costs, marketing costs, etc?
Are you implying that Lyft is going to give every driver a salary, or are you intentionally being obtuse? This is like saying "you should be able to make dinner for a restaurant, as you already have a kitchen"
Uber and Lyft aren't profitable, never have been and may never be. The idea is that if only you build a strong enough brand and network, somehow there will be money in it.
In the meantime, they'll operate at a loss. If they leave the California market, they'll simple lose money slower.
I never understood the way Uber wanted to win. There is essentially zero moat, especially because the drivers are not employees in their model. So even a small competitor can just slightly pay more to the drivers, and cost slightly less to the riders, to grow. The only way out is replacing the driver, and protecting that technology. I don't see either of that happening. If technology gets good enough, Tesla/GM/VW will have it too. And they have a cheaper access to cars.
Taxis are either independent contractors driving their own or company cars and getting most or part of the fare, or employees paid by the hour who are pushed to get a particular revenue per hour. Yes, the contractors will now have to be employees in California, so that model is gone there.
The former tends to adapt okay to predictable demand, the latter tends to not at all.
Before Lyft and Uber, my usual wait time for a Taxis in the Seattle area was on the order of 45 minutes to an hour. Since the rideshare companies became common, the wait time for taxis has gone down, but its still longer than the wait for Lyft.
There's actually jurisprudence that taxi drivers can be employees, not independent contractors, even when they are working for fares and lease the vehicle. See Linton v. DeSoto Cab.
The state doesn't need to allow a business to continue just because they invented a business model that requires exploitative labor practices. Whether Lyft can exist is not an aspect that enters into labor law.
The business model doesn't require exploitative business practices; Lyft has chosen their prices, and chosen what they'll pay their drivers.
If prices were to go up, sure, Lyft would have less business, but presumably there is some price point that pays drivers enough and also makes the economics work for Lyft.
The statement was "The business model doesn't work if ..." and I'm saying that doesn't matter. Whether it's true or false doesn't enter in to the debate.
> Whether it's true or false doesn't enter in to the debate.
Yes it does matter in the debate.
Because when we are passing laws, we should care about both the pros and the cons of a particular policy.
You can feel free to say that the pros outweight the cons for these laws, but you still need to recognize that shutting down ride sharing is a con of these laws.
Those are the drawbacks of these laws, and it is OK for people to care about these drawbacks, and bring them up into the debate.
To be equivalent, you'd have to say that McDonalds is able to provide food anywhere at any time. My house at 6am, downtown at lunch, late night at 2am. In fact, the only way to do this is to use Uber Eats or something similar. And no, delivery drivers have never been that ubiquitous.
Your definition of on-demand is more like a bus or train, not lyft or uber. i.e. you have to actually go to a bus stop or train stop, which could be out of the way, and you have to deal with their schedule. That's hardly on-demand.
Uber and lyft's business model is absolutely based on being on-demand. I would take a bus or train if it was even close to as convenient.
Uber operates in other countries which require them to use employees and not contractors (e.g. Germany), and it works fine. So it certainly isn't impossible.
There is no evidence that the business model doesn't work, otherwise traditional cab companies would've never survived. Rideshare companies undercut traditional cabs by operating illegally, but that doesn't mean a regulated model can't work.
The state made their business model illegal. Yes, technically that’s not the same thing as shutting them down, since they could have switched to a different business model, but it’s a distinction without a difference.
They can still run the same business model, they will just have to increase employee compensation (and fares).
This is like saying that raising the minimum wage will drive McDonald's out of business. At the current prices, sure, but McDonald's will raise prices 10% to compensate (wages are not 100% of the cost of a burger) and keep on trucking.
Maybe in normal times, but in pandemic times who knows? Most things are shut down right now, add uber/lyft to the list and see if people actually care.
In Portland, Radio Cab has an Android/iOS app. I switched to them once they modernized. In this case, Lyft/Uber caused taxis to improve infrastructure. That's a win.
Competition tends to force organizations to evolve to meet the threat. That is, unless some government intervenes in the market, distorting the effect. Then you get a distorted market with inefficient allocation of resources.
Seems to happen quite a bit in monoideological areas.
Drivers choose to make their living with Lyft and Uber. California is starting to feel the repercussions of their far left policies. It hurts consumers (fare prices rise), stifles innovation, pushes entrepreneurs out of the state, and the irony is it ended up hurting the drivers.
Or perhaps it's basic business and economics. Lyft and Uber's business is built on the assumption that drivers provide on-demand transportation. The business model doesn't work if the workforce is not also on-demand. Instead of vilifying companies, perhaps it might be beneficial to understand the business aspects of decisions instead of jumping to conclusions based on knee jerk emotional outrage.
When did California eliminate private property? When did it hand over the means of production to the proletariat?
Last I checked, capitalism was alive and well in California, which is the dearly beloved home of the most successful capitalist entities and richest people on the planet.
If California's policies really were far left, all those companies would be owned and run by their workers, and no one would be richer than anyone else.
California literally paid billions in unemployment to rideshare drivers during Corona, funds that Uber and Lyft didn't contribute a cent to, but you feel it's sensible Republican policy to declare "next year, we'll do it all over again"?
Republican party is completely dead in California. Last time they had some power they kept manufacturing crises and shutting down the government. After Trump they've gone all in on the national Republican party's white-hot hatred of the state.
A couple of years ago, the Quebec government introduced additional restrictions on ridesharing companies. Uber got up on their soapbox and said they were pulling out of Quebec. The government called their bluff and basically said "Okay, bye" and Uber backpedaled. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens here.
This happened in Sep 2017. Then, the transport minister for Quebec changed in Oct 2017, and Uber said later in Oct that they would not pull out because they saw an opportunity for constructive dialogue with the new transport minister. By the time Bill 17 was passed in 2019 and Uber became officially legal beyond its pilot project, taxi drivers were protesting the Quebec government's actions.
I don’t understand, why is that surprising? After all the reason behind this bill is to prevent unfair labor conditions. It is literally the job of labor unions to push forward and lobby for bills like these.
I think you are guilty of bad faith reasoning here. First you state that “big labor unions want more power” and your evidence for that claim is “Labor unions push for bills that prevent bad labor practices”.
Instead of accusing me of acting in bad faith, how about you do some research instead of mudslinging on the internet. I have provided evidence. You have provided none.
To help point you in the right direction, why are the United Auto Workers acting in California when there are no unionized auto workers in California? These unions are always seeking to increase there member base because the more members they have the more powerful they are as an entity.
It is bad faith because the evidence you provide is accusing the unions of working towards their expressed interest, to protect the workers from bad labor practices.
Unions also have a notion of solidarity. What is good for workers in California is usually good for workers in New York. That is why you will often see unions acting across state (and industry) boundaries, in solidarity with other unions and non-union workers.
Your argument is as naive as saying politicians act in the best interest of their voters or that companies act in the best interests of their consumers.
Unsure why this is getting downvoted. Anyone who actually follows the money in this debate knows that the unions are very heavily financially invested in this and donate tons of money to the politicians that support anything that increases their power and influence.
If unions were truly invested in the best interest of workers instead of the best interest of the union, they would value the desires of the 4/5 of drivers that want independent work as much as the 1/5 of drivers that want to be employees with benefits.
This is an unfair critique. The whole point is that the drivers will get regular employment (as opposed to being contracted) and will be able to unionize under any driver’s union (or create a new union, or even some other more generic union).
It is being downvoted because it is making an unsound claim without any backing.
Most likely there is not a single explanation, usually issues like these are more complicated then that. There is no consensus on whether unions are more powerful in the US then elsewhere, I’m sure you can easily find examples—or spin the narrative—to back either case. And finally there is no evidence for some ulterior motive of driver’s unions, nor even a convincing narrative. Quite the contrary there is both evidence and a somewhat convincing narrative for why the ride-share companies would want to keep their workers from unionizing and asking for full-time worker’s benefits.
Labor unions in the US are comparatively powerless next to countries with actual, functional unions that are quite capable of striking, and have little lobby.
No, the heart of the issue is definitely the dismal state of health care in the US.
Joe Biden, who many believe will be the next US president has stated "I am a union man, plain and simple". His whole political career has basically been bankrolled by labor unions. If that doesn't indicate the power labor unions have in the US, I don't know what else does.
Teachers Unions, UAW, and the AFLCIO are pretty much the strongest lobbies in America.
The campaign contributions of many other industry interest groups dwarfs those other interests, and that is evidently obvious when looking at the policies of the Democratic party, which would not even be a center left moderate party in most EU countries with actually strong labor interests.
I keep paying my health insurance premium at my home country just because the health insurance in the US is completely broken. I feel that if you get seriously sick in the US you're in an almost sure path to financial insolvency.
My employer pays probably a shit ton of money for my health insurance and what I get is the most subpar, confusing, broken and sometimes blatantly extortive service ever.
I live in Austin and sometimes I think if I really need a major procedure it would be just simpler to drive to Mexico and get it done there. In fact, that's what many people in South Texas do, so there's your benchmark for how broken is healthcare in the US.
I definitely recommend it for dental work. You can easily find a dentist in Mexico that went to school in the US and has the same credentials. You'll save so much money.
I recommended a friend who needed heart surgery with less than great US health insurance go to India to have it done. US trained doctors, recuperated in accommodations equivalent to a five star resort. Cheap enough they could pay for it in cash.
I am downright surprised I haven't seen a YC startup that performs this sort of medical tourism brokerage to be honest. Take this business model! I'll be your first angel investment.
I love the idea, I imagine it's in a tricky legal area though. And perhaps the people that could pull it off are all profiting off of the US healthcare system well enough to not need to pursue this.
I know the insurance plan that Utah government employees are on will pay you to go to Mexico to get your prescriptions filled. Airfare, hotel, and medication costs are all covered. Free vacation just so the company doesn't have to pay the US prices for drugs.
Just remember that you might be displacing poor locals from getting the treatment instead. Poor countries have bigger shortage of good doctors and they prioritise foreign appointments due to getting paid more than the local prices.
Edit: This is true for India which is a top medical tourism place:
You have no way of knowing that demand for services in every single country with medical tourism outstrips supply of professionals. You just assumed it.
If it doesn't, which is just as likely (I think more, but I also don't know, and unlike you I won't pretend to know), then you're injecting money into the local economy, while getting medical/dental care at a lower price: win win.
The US has a uniquely onerous path of education and accreditation for medical professionals, with substantial supply-side limitation in the form of slots for medical school. Other places aren't so burdened.
I wonder if medical tourism provides a capitalist solution to the healthcare problem in the US. Could it be cheaper for a health insurance company to pay for flights to and from other countries along with procedures in those countries? There are a lot of non-emergency medical issues which can be serviced this way. In the long run, such insurance would drive down the price of traditional health insurance as well as the price of the procedures themselves locally.
>>I live in Austin and sometimes I think if I really need a major procedure it would be just simpler to drive to Mexico
it is amazing what a Free market would bring right? Instead in the US we have this flawed belief that more government is what we need to solve healthcare never understanding that Government is the source of the problem
MX has a free market in healthcare, this allows people to get better care and lower prices as all free markets do
The cost of care in the US is so high because of the layers and layers of regulations, tax code, and legal liabilities that compound to influence the market in ways that are Anti-Consumer and increase prices on the service
> The cost of care in the US is so high because of the layers and layers of regulations, tax code, and legal liabilities that compound to influence the market in ways that are Anti-Consumer and increase prices on the service
So is it your belief that other countries that have highly-regulated medical systems, complex tax codes and a high degree of legal liability also have health care as expensive as USA? Or do you think it's possible that there are other factors at play?
Ofcourse there are lots of other factors at play, nations with complete government run have all kinds of price controls on the product of health care that results in longer wait times than the US, and in many segments of care worse outcomes, and /or lower quality of care
For example in the US most hospital beds are semi private where only 1 other patent is in the room. Where in many government run hospitals in other nations they was a Ward system where 10,20 or more patents are all lined up in a row. This reduces costs but I prefer our semi private system
US also leads the world in medical research both in new technical, and in drug development largely this has a direct impact on our healthcare costs as well as unlike the rest of the world we do not have the same government mandated price controls. I wonder if US succumb to the pressure and does go full government run with the same price controls what that will do to the advancement of medicine in the world
If you look at a wide range of actual care standards such as Cancer Survivability Rates, Wait times for Specialists, Wait times for things like getting a Heart Stint the US leads the world in health care outcomes. I am sure you will point to the ever misunderstood Life Expectancy and /or infant mortality rates which ARE NOT a proper judge of the health system itself but commentary on other factors in society (such as lifestyle choices)
I believe the free market provides for the best outcomes for the most people, and I believe centrally planned systems be them economic or healthcare provide the worst outcomes. With the free market you may sometimes have breadlines but with centrally planned economies you may sometimes have bread.
> Maybe we should get rid of army and hire mercenaries?
That is a little more tricky and would require an analysis of what we think the proper role of the military would be, but there are several proposals that replace the standing army (which is unconstitutional anyway) with something like the national guard controlled by individual states not the federal government
>>Why can’t pay taxes to an entity I prefer? Isn’t it a service?
No taxes are not a service. Taxes are a compulsory contribution to state revenue enforced by the threat of violence. One can not simply choose not to consume a service and thus not pay the "taxes" for that service.
The fact is that the government, like a mugger, says to a person: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.
The government does not, indeed, waylay a person in a lonely place, spring upon them from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.
>>If everything is free market, why do we need government?
we do not need the modern "nanny state" central planning style of government, we need a basic frame work of law that is far far far more limited that what most consider the modern government to be and is based on lawful defense of life, liberty and property nothing more.
A person is composed of Life, faculties, & production aka individuality, liberty, & property
Each of us has a natural right to defend their person, their liberty, and their property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two.
The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
Since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force for the same reason cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Governments that are granted more power / authority than the collective organization of lawful defense are unethical in their foundation and purpose
You don't even necessarily have the option to shop for service in the USA.
Earlier this year my family had a medical emergency that resulted in us being billed a truly staggering amount of money for services that were technically elective, somewhat unproven, and not necessarily even recommended by the standard of care, and for which the actual sticker price varies wildly from hospital to hospital. But, when an emergency happens, you don't get to shop for hospitals, and you more-or-less unthinkingly do what the care team recommends, because there's simply no opportunity to stop and do any sort of cost/benefit analysis. As luck would have it, we ended up at a hospital that both tends toward the more liberal end of the spectrum in terms of what they do, and tends toward the more expensive end of the price range.
Fortunately our financial hit won't be too bad, because we have decent employer-provided insurance, and that cushions the blow quite a bit. If there's a silver lining, it's that we hit our out of pocket expense limit in the first part of the year, so we basically get everything for free for the rest of the year. But that whole situation is also a big part of the problem. We're nominally in the driver's seat, but, in practice, we really aren't in charge. Because we don't have access to a lot of the information necessary to make informed decisions, but also because we've been insulated from some of the major factors that might motivate an informed decision.
Social criticism in the USA tends to revolve around the "theater" metaphor. We have security theater, we have hygiene theater. I would characterize the underlying principle of the USA's health care system as agency theater.
Can confirm. I drove from Austin to Nuevo Laredo for dental work. Park up, walk across the bridge, get dental work for a fraction the of the US price and walk back. Most painful part of the process is going back though US border control.
This is an interesting idea. Is this an unintended consequence of binding health insurance to your employment?
According to the NYT: "During World War II, federal wage controls prevented employers from wooing workers with higher pay, so companies started offering health insurance as a way around the law. Of course, this form of nonmonetary compensation is still pay. When the war ended, the practice stuck."
I would much rather have a system where I was paid more and got to choose my health insurance provider. That way I could keep my insurance when I change jobs or if I wanted to freelance.
I run a company that helps software engineers find contract work, and the #1 question we get is "how much should I charge?". The #2 question is "what do I do for health insurance?"
It would seem like businesses brought this on themselves by offering benefits to get around compensation limits imposed by the government. Or you could say that this was caused by the government imposing limits on compensation. Super interesting to think that the root cause of our current problem could have been created 80 years ago.
Moving to a single payer system would unleash a lot of latent entreprenurial activity and free companies of all sizes from having to provide health insurance. Great documentary here on the business case for moving to single payer: http://fixithealthcare.com/
The real problem is that the current status is so bad, that those who are relatively better off (probably still bad) are scared of change because they've seen what "worse" looks like and a better system seems mostly aspirational.
There is a reason why ACA messaging from Democrats always included the fact that you could keep your existing insurance if you wanted.
> I think part of the problem in the US is that the current status is so bad, that everyone has a different proposed solution.
“Everyone has different solutions” as in the two parties, both corporatist through and through, are only willing to offer solutions that nip around the edges of the problem with ridiculously complex regulations that ultimately result in less competition and higher profits for healthcare conglomerates.
Single payer in the vein of “Medicare for All” is popular for voters of both parties. It’s just that our representatives represent us in name only.
> Single payer is also seen as too paternalistic by a large minority of the US, so there is that as well.
Again there’s a disconnect between the discourse you can see on corporate cable news and major newspapers and what people actually think and want.
That said, the corporate media and Dems/Rs have been very very successful in 50 years of messaging that everything the government does = bad, inefficient, rationing. And everything corporate = dynamic, efficient, desirable. Almost everything that can be privatized has been privatized via crony capitalism, but they can still say “govt has big budgets, shitty results” when it’s their privatization that is the exact reason for the decay.
I don't watch cable news. I know dozens of people who are vehemently opposed to single-payer. The reasons are paternalism and distrust of government to get things right.
To a certain extent, I agree with the second; I'm kind of glad that the current administration doesn't have control over my health care...
Good point. Health insurance is a form of golden handcuffs. The pain of switching health insurance providers has definitely deterred me from changing jobs before. Microsofts insurance in the early 2000's was so good, I stayed there long enough to become grossly underpaid. When I finally did leave, my salary increased by 50%!
There is really isn't much incentive for companies to stop offering health insurance as a benefit.
Another big bit is tax deductions. I believe when the employer provides healthcare, the amount they pay and the employee pays is 100% pre-tax.
If you pay for medical insurance yourself, it starts getting complicated[0]. They honestly just need to make it so any medical insurance payments should be 100% deductible, regardless of anything else. It would help level the playing field.
> I would much rather have a system where I was paid more and got to choose my health insurance provider. That way I could keep my insurance when I change jobs or if I wanted to freelance.
I would rather see employment and health insurance totally separated from each other.
But if people aren't open to that for whatever reason, one alternative would be a system where the employee freely picks any insurance plan, but the employer pays the premiums tax-free like they do now.
If you make it so the set of insurance choices is the same for all employers and for individuals paying their own way, then you could move around between employers or freelance.
Right now, big employers have bargaining power due to their size, so you'd lose that, but perhaps stronger competition (from everyone freely choosing) would make up for it.
A lot of these issues would go away if employers weren't responsible for providing healthcare group plans. But then again Europe also has similar drives to classify Uber/Lyft drivers as full time employees so they are entitled to other benefits and employment securities (but those don't exist in a very strong form in the USA anyways).
Employers are not required to provide health plans. The issue is that Uber provides _some_ employees with health plans while keeping their lower-paid workers classified as contractors, even if they work essentially full-time.
As soon as you're 50+ folks, you're required to provide health insurance. The US system is broken enough that you will do it before then too.
All founders I've talked with about it find it crazy that they're determining the healthcare choices for their team, and it's much worse when they are supporting a diverse team.
"""Fred has 3 kids and cares about their dental, Tim mostly cares about mental health, Alice runs ultramarathons, and Bob just got married. The main things we have in common are we like building cryptocurrency tech and work in similar time zones."""
Am I an employee of the bottle machine company if I deposit bottles I find? Do they owe me healthcare and a minimum wage if I took more than an hour to find so many bottles? How is uber any different?
I think you can employ W-2-style employees without providing them healthcare. It’s a perk, but not legally required to have a W-2 employee.
I think the heart of the issue is the entirely artificial split between the concept of employee and contractor. (Much like the arbitrary split between taxi and car service in nyc.)
Making everyone a contractor for every job, with the terms of the job specified in the contract, seems much more straightforward. I don’t think that the concept of “employment” needs to be one size fits all, like standard W-2 is today in the US.
It’s an artifact of tax law, the scam that is withholding (make most people not “feel” their taxes), and a dominant manufacturing economy model that no longer exists in the US.
Does that mean that when I remodel my house, I would have to negotiate on time and materials terms, lest the contractor accidentally underbid and end up with less than minimum wage?
I think the law rightfully distinguishes between truly negotiable contracts and take-it-or-leave-it terms offered by a party with more negotiating power.
Of course not. The prices someone sets are not related to the wages they're paid. You're paying a price; you're not paying a wage. The contractors are paid a wage by the business owner; if he pays them less than minimum wage it's illegal; if he pays them more, but does not recoup that cost on the job because he underbid it, that's a business loss.
Why do we treat these things differently? Why is the GC permitted to make bad business decisions and earn below minimum wage, but the people he employs are not?
I think the heart of the issue is VC-backed startups trying their hardest to circumvent laws until they are big enough that enforcing the laws makes people mad.
What citizens want is fickle and entirely depends on framing and knowledge.
Citizens want goods for cheaper, obviously. But citizens also like the concept of people and companies doing "their fair share". For example a fair amount of people were outraged when it was revealed that official Walmart policy was to direct underpaid employees into Medicaid, EBT, etc. rather than just paying them to afford basic life expenses. And the gig economy if anything manages to be even more exploitative than that.
Citizens also want to be able to earn income as independent contractors, the way they have for decades in many other industries. But above all, citizens would like to be able to choose for themselves instead of having a few people with no idea of their experience tell them what they must do.
You mean like the way all citizens are entitled to choose their representatives that passed AB5 in the first place?
California has a strong history of voters holding politicians doing unpopular things accountable (see: Gray Davis) or doing things that override the will of politicians (see: Prop 13). There has not been strong voter organization against AB5, which speaks volumes about how much of a non-issue it is for voters.
In reality, most voters are ignorant and irrational while the state govt is especially dysfunctional, unrepresentative, and full of graft. That's why there are so many problems here in the first place. When CA gives more rights to illegal immigrants than tax-paying citizens, there's clearly something wrong.
It's not. That issue is tangential at best. If it was the crux of the issue here, you'd see many more companies going belly-up rather than pay for health insurance.
For this change, companies like Uber and Lyft will have to completely reorganize their internal systems, ranging from their relationships with drivers to their tooling for organizing their drivers.
They say things like "passengers would experience reduced service, especially in suburban and rural areas" when what they really mean is "lyft would have to pay drivers to be available in that area even when demand is low, and Lyft doesn't want to pay drivers to idle in low demand spaces". There are various solutions to this, but they would all cost Lyft and Uber money, and heaven forbid they not be able to pass those expenses onto others, such as drivers that would hang around those areas _without_ any compensation.
The real heart of the matter here is that 10 years ago Uber disrupted the taxi industry. Now that they're the incumbents, changes like these put Uber and Lyft in a position to be disrupted by newer companies that more easily adapt to regulatory changes, or possibly the taxi companies they disrupted a decade ago. What we're seeing now is Lyft taking drastic measures to try and enrage the public against these policies.
This is a kid throwing a tantrum because they aren't getting cake after refusing to their chores.
I don't think that changing driers to employee status will necessarily give them health benefits. I'm not an expert, but while ERISA generally requires uniform benefit options for all employees in a similar class, the companies could chose to not schedule the drivers as full time employees, use contract labor services, raise the employee contribution to unaffordable level, etc. Many companies with large numbers of employees have large fractions of their employees without health insurance (Walmart, for instance).
You also would have to worry about housing payments. A very easy and progressive solution to this problem is that the government should construct housing that citizens can stay in.
While they are at it, they could also provide basic food.
That way, with your UBI, housing, and food you could live a dream life. We won't call them 'camps' though, but give them a hip millenial-approved name. Maybe 'launch centers'?
America does not have a stories history of being labor friendly. It’s pretty much old European pissing competitions imported anew after WW2. Identity which the country had begun to schlep off between the Gilded Age and WW1. Refugees brought it back over.
The best part of all this is Adam Smith only ever mentions markets in the context of a free labor market, buoyed by government support of equality of condition.
But Smith and Aristotle, who wrote Democracy is likely the most moral government, are cast aside for James Madison who wrote the Senate ought to protect the rich from Democracy or the people will take all the aristocrats stuff.
This is all 2,000+ years old rhetoric. Human biology hasn’t evolved so fast in that time that such concerns of the past are rendered obsolete.
Were I rich right now, being educated enough to understand history, and looking at the relative income gap being larger than the french revolution, I'd be wanting to redistribute some wealth right now myself, lest it be taken by force. A 3% wealth tax seems "extreme" right now, but it will be preferable if the wedge making the poor fight each other breaks down.
The people who become obscenely wealthy in this country become so precisely because they have so little regard for others and almost no comprehension of the long-term impacts of massive inequality (either to the nation or their own physical security). And the system has become so perverse and adept at indoctrination that these people are heralded as heros when they drop a few crumbs from the table.
Aristotle considered democracy a deviant form of a polity. His views on democracy are more negative and complex than you're making it sound, which leads me to doubt what you're saying about the rest.
Forgive me for not satisfying you with a nuanced treatise on a casual forum. Aristotle’s ultimate conclusion was that “for the average person” Democracy was the moral government.
He was not of average status. His nuance and negativity was, to my mind, self preservation driven. Nonetheless, he understood the benefits of Democracy to what we’d call “Main Street” life as obvious. He dismissed on those grounds as well, given the threat to his status. He got what it meant as an idea and agreed it would be a moral win for the public.
Ultimately I’m not writing a biography here. This isn’t rocket science and there’s little new territory to really be walked.
America of a generation ago had high taxes flooding communities with money. Now that generation is wielding a nations wealth against the next generation.
America is a lot of control freaks policing each other for compliance to sound economics and calling it freedom.
Health insurance is a major component. However, the broader theme is the offloading of risk from the company onto their workers, including not only health risk but also for example, accident risk.
Most rideshare drivers are not properly insured — while passengers are well-covered, the drivers and their vehicles are not. Because the drivers are contractors and must navigate the insurance system as individuals, many do not possess adequate knowledge and statistically speaking, a large number are guaranteed to make mistakes when purchasing coverage.
If drivers were employees, then accident coverage for drivers and their vehicles becomes the responsibility of the rideshare companies. There would be fewer bad outcomes for drivers, but because the rideshare companies would bear greater risk, their profits would be reduced.
This is why I think it was a mistake for the ACA to limit catastrophic care to people under 30 (unless you get a hardship waiver [0]). That policy makes the cheapest non-job insurance that a lot of people can get cost >$500/month, whereas a catastrophic plan costs a lot less (about $120/month when I had such a plan in 2016).
For a lot of people who drive Lyft, catastrophic care could be a good fit, e.g. people in between jobs who expect to have a company plan at their next full-time position. This wouldn't entirely close the gap towards providing gig workers with benefits, but it would have helped.
There's also people for whom Lyft is a second job -- I'm thinking of a ride with a Chicago public school teacher who drove on weekends and breaks -- and I don't think it makes sense to force Lyft to provide them with insurance.
Where do you see those numbers? ACA offers catastrophic plans to those under 30 and they're not nearly that expensive. I just did a quick check for someone with no subsidy in San Fransisco using the age of 25 and a catastrophic plan from Oscar showed up at $223.46/month. This includes zero subsidy. Using a $30k income and rerunning the numbers, a bronze plan form Kaiser with subsidy comes out at $47.83/month.
Look, I'm not happy about health care costs either, but ACA plans for young are really not that expensive. Further, plans prior to ACA offered terrible coverage. Yes, people got to say they had coverage, but the lifetime caps bankrupted people repeatedly. Eliminating the caps and mandating minimum essential coverage was absolutely essential to eliminating what really were scams of coverage. Further, even if you really want to get terrible coverage for less money, you can always use the loop hole and purchase coverage through a health care sharing ministry, which are even cheaper. Though, I strongly recommend against that because there's no guarantee that a bill will be covered.
OK, cool. Every state is different, so I'm always a bit curious as to how high premiums are set in different places. I just took a look at plans for those in NYC. For someone aged 35, it still looks like they're offering catastrophic plans. Fidelis has one at $178.75/month with no subsidy. For someone making $30k/year, the subsidy drops a bronze Fidelis plan to $16.59/month.
And, to be sure, coverage is still pretty bad. Just because someone has coverage doesn't mean they have the money to use coverage. Unless there's another subsidy, and there may be, that bronze Fidelis plan has a $8150 out of pocket max and it's unlikely someone making $30k/year is going to have that much money laying around. That said, at least the plan has a couple of free PCP visits.
Anyway, my intention here isn't to beat a dead horse. It's really important to me that people get health care coverage and costs are a barrier. I believe ACA plans to be far more affordable than people think them to be. I don't doubt that you saw a price in the realm you mentioned because they're out there, but often better pricing can be found and I end up doing these searches a lot.
Not just healthcare- but other beenfits like sick leave, etc. and collecting taxes like unemployment insurance. When you do this -you better not leave any loopholes because companies have proven they will use it. IF Uber was successful, other companies would start fractional hiring of employees. I only need Finance people 2 days/week- they can come in anytime they like, work as long as they want and can work at other companies too. We'll save on taxes and benefits and they will enjoy their freedom. Too bad the Govt will lose taxes and the workers their benefits.
I don't know if you're genuine or not but the way you wrote this post sounds so utterly inauthentic[0].
You're whimsically sad you can't get more fun money to invest in stock, while the reason that ride sharing is being shut down is because it takes advantage of the lower class it depends on.
He is giving his point of view based on past experience. A lot of drivers see Uber as helpful side money, and that seems quite genuine. Those who see Uber this away are indeed seeing this opportunity taken away.
> You're whimsically sad you can't get more fun money to invest in stock, while the reason that ride sharing is being shut down is because it takes advantage of the lower class it depends on.
The American people take advantage of the lower class by tying healthcare to employment, and in an extra-cruel way where less lucrative jobs also provide insurance that is both more expensive day-to-day to the employee AND less comprehensive.
Uncouple basic benefits from jobs and so many of these problems go away in a much simpler way.
Employee-coupled healthcare in the US came about as a way around wage stabilization controls during WWII and was subsequently enshrined in no small part because of large unions that negotiated it as a major benefit in their contracts.
Perhaps the compromise solution is to ban the unemployed and low-income workers from working for mobile taxi dispatch companies, and only let people do it who exceed certain income eligibility requirements.
I read the post before it had any responses and based on how it read to me then I'd say milofeynman's post is responding to the strongest plausible interpretation, as that's one of the HNest posts I've ever seen, which is really saying something as that's a field full of strong contenders.
This thread is a prime example of how one can troll or shitpost on HN, no problem, so long as the trolling and shitposting is sufficiently HN-flavored. By which I don't mean to imply that the moderation or community are systemically or broadly broken, certainly no more so than most communities online, but simply that there are definite gaps in the armor and when they're found you see a kind of mis-targeted immune response amplifying the damage (in fact, that effect is the main way damage is done by such posts on HN)
Yeah this entire post is filled with comments misrepresenting (intentionally or unintentionally) the dynamics at play here, and it's all fine and good because "California state government bad."
I don't think the comment is claiming the OP is a shill; just that OP's description is idealistic i.e. what OP _wants_ to think of the situation, and not authentic to the average driver's experiences.
If it's genuine this is part of the reason the money earned goes to the floor. Since there's always a lot of people jumping in the service to provide 'supply' that lowers earnings for those that use these services as their only income stream and/or have debt to pay back (to pay back the new vehicle to enable even being on those services).
A brief glance at the comment history and account history makes me think that this is likely a genuine comment. Multiple years old account, lots of karma, recent comments cover a wide range of topics.
There are generally two kinds of drivers on rideshare apps: full-time and "extra cash" drivers. Many of the latter are middle class, not lower class, and I've spoken with many who say similar things to OP.
I've also spoken with many full-time drivers in California, and none were in favor of AB5; they liked their independence, and preferred this work largely because they weren't employees. They did feel resentful of Lyft and especially Uber for reducing their earnings over time (ie "taking advantage of them"), but didn't seem to think AB5 would help wit that.
You can't attack another user like this on HN, no matter how wrong they are or you feel they are. It does nothing to help the "lower class" or anyone else, and it destroys the commons here, which doesn't make anything better.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. You've unfortunately broken them more than once lately.
We either have "full time = forty hours of work and tons of benefits that have been shoehorned into employment because our government doesn't provide it" or "part time = less than forty hours and you get abused"
I'm not privy so I won't pretend to have the right idea, but it seems like there should be a middle ground.
It's not lazy, it's _greedy_. The state is only interesting in getting a share of the Uber/Lyft pie via payroll and unemployment taxes. They would also get automatic deduction of taxes from peoples' paychecks who would otherwise be under the reporting limit.
I wonder what new app will spring up in place of Uber and Lyft. This is a huge opportunity for some aspiring entrepreneur. Of course, they're probably bluffing and will be back soon.
Who said the competitor has to defy the order? Lyft is choosing not to abide by it. Whether Apple would permit it or not, who knows, they tend to apply policy unevenly. On Android, apps can be side-loaded so no need to get App Store approval.
The move seems to be specifically in response to the recent court order:
> Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman ruled Monday [August 10, 2020] that Lyft and Uber's thousands of contract drivers should be given the same protections and benefits under labor law as other employees of the ride-hailing companies.
> The judge said Uber and Lyft have refused to comply with a California law passed last year that was supposed to make it harder for companies in the state to hire workers as contractors, so gig economy workers such as drivers for the ride-hailing companies would receive health insurance, workers' compensation and paid sick and family leave. As independent contractors, Uber and Lyft drivers are not provided these benefits.
Interesting how cities are being allowed to violate the same by not holding their own taxi services into account[0] that they regulate thereby letting them skirt the law. This is likely because these companies tend to put good money into local political campaigns.
This law is impacting people outside of Uber and Lyft but those two are highlighted because it thwarted the lock down many municipalities had over cab companies and they did not want to give up the side benefits of that cash into their political coffers.
Then throw in that Uber and Lyft were truly effective alternatives to unionized mass transit lines operated in many cities and you can see the entirety of the political graft that was being upended. If you want more you just jump into that this is part of undoing decades of jobs bounded up in occupational licensing which only serves to protect vested interest who again are quick to maintain their political donations.
If they were out to protect workers they had many more ways to do it.
> Then throw in that Uber and Lyft were truly effective alternatives to unionized mass transit lines operated in many cities
No they weren't. It's called "mass transit" for a reason - replacing trains and buses with masses of individuals riding in separate cars is not an effective alternative. While Uber and Lyft are more convenient for certain trips, mass transit still has a place due to capacity constraints.
> If they were out to protect workers they had many more ways to do it.
Such as what? Strengthening collective bargaining rights? Oh wait, you don't like unions either.
This is what I don't get about the outrage against Uber/Lyft. Where is the outrage against regular taxi companies? They were using contractors long before and still are. Not to mention the corrupt medallion systems.
We had this same thing happen in Austin when Uber and Lyft pulled out after having a hissy fit about fingerprinting and background checks and not parking in the bus lanes. As soon as they pulled out half a dozen alternatives sprung up that paid better (I always used Ride Austin, a not-for-profit). If you're a rider just take the bus, bike, or get any other cab service (seriously, they all have apps now and they maintain a fleet so drivers don't get stuck with repair bills). If you're a driver it's going to suck for a few weeks, you may have to find other opportunities, but more places will pop up and there will be better competition and better pay pretty quickly if the Austin example holds true.
TL;DR it's easy to flip out because Uber and Lyft are big names, but there are plenty of other good services, just use those instead.
This is not a good comparison because they're dismantling the whole business model with this ruling.
With the new requirements in place (e.g. actually hiring employees and providing benefits) the barrier to entry here is waaaaay higher than before. I would argue Ride Austin would have never even started (especially as a non profit) if these requirements were in place the last time Uber/Lyft shut down in Austin.
There's no objective "better" here. Some drivers may have done better with higher fares being passed onto them. On the other hand, 59% of Lyft/Uber riders ceased to use ride-hailing services.
There CSAT wasn't that great either; ride volume of competitors dropped significantly (Ride Austin lost 55% of riders within a week of Uber and Lyft returning).
The fundamental problem we have here is that pricing is being set by a heavily competitive market-place -- the clearance wage however is below what many see as a living wage. The most just thing to do may be to introduce a pricing floor (raise fares and raise driver income/benefits), but it's important to be honest about the trade-offs.
This could not be further from the truth. As someone who was driving full-time in Austin when this happened, I can absolutely say this hurt both the drivers and the passengers.
The apps were extremely buggy for both drivers and passengers causing missed rides, multiple drivers showing up to the same rider, etc. Fasten paid the best, but it still would only be marginally better if not the exact same as I was making with Uber or Lyft.
As far as what happened in Austin, there were absolutely no good replacements and us drivers (at least the ones I talked to) were very happy when they returned.
> the rest would have scheduled shifts, and capped hourly earnings.
I don't really understand why this is necessary. Can't there still be flexible arrangements with drivers simply clocking their work and then getting some kind of salary derived from that? Can't they still get paid bonuses for driving in particularly unwanted hours?
Sure, this would be a complex contract, but I don't see how this is impossible. But I'm not a USA citizen so maybe there is something I'm missing.
I had the same thought. Lyft and Uber are already employers in the view of the state. No further modification is necessary.
What I'm guessing is that having people waiting being paid $0 is a core principal of Uber and Lyft. They hinge on over-supply. If they have to pay minimum wage to everyone who signs on, they need to be a lot more careful about who they allow to sign on, and when.
Saying it'll go to shift work though seems a bit extreme. Sounds like a tantrum to me.
No one would work when you wanted them to work unless you make them. Would you work a busy Friday night dealing with drunk people and missing your friends when you could get the same money for doing nothing on a Tuesday morning?
I mean, what you're describing without realizing it is just a cab company except you pay everyone a 30+ hours a week for doing nothing on top of what you pay them for actually working...
This is why cab companies don't already let drivers pick their own hours (assuming they don't use the uber-lite approach of people just hiring the cab\medallion).
I get that some flexibility is lost. But I would argue that
1. It is by far not as bad as Lyft and Uber present this and
2. I think this is a good thing overall. Less payment flexibility means a more stable income. Sure, some drivers don't need that stability, but those who do need it, really need it and this is more important in my mind.
The second point also fits into the narrative that this only benefits 1/5 of the drivers but that these drivers are doing a majority of the rides. I don't have a citation for that, so take it with a grain of salt :)
Without scheduled shifts, drivers will purposefully all sign up for the same shift to induce supply overflow.
In this situation, drivers can game the flexibility of the system to collect a paycheck while sitting in their cars doing nothing.
Even if drivers don't game the system, there will always be natural imbalance between supply and demand. Surge bonuses can mitigate this imbalance, but scheduling shifts is the more economically efficient way to solve the imbalance problem (hence why they say schedule flexibility will no longer be a feature in a driver employment model).
Then put some kind of system in place to have on-call duty, where you get a small share of the normal payment for being available and then getting the normal rate while you are driving to the customer and driving them to their destination.
All of this is already practiced in some place in the world. Sure, it's not as easy as creating an account on the app and off you go, but the driver flexibility of choosing when to drive doesn't seem to be so hard to me.
Drivers will still take advantage of such a system. Whenever a market is over-supplied, drivers will sign in to collect their free "on-call duty" checks for doing nothing.
That's what contracts are for. Let's say that you can only pass on some small amount of rides or your on-call duty is terminated. Or go further and state in your contract that you have to take rides if you're on on-call duty. If you have too many drivers, don't 'hire' more. If you have too few riders on the important times, increase the bonus.
There are all kinds of adjustments you can make.
Another thing: you don't get paid for "doing nothing", you are getting paid for dropping everything when needed. On these conditions you're limited in all kinds of ways, e.g.
Taking care of a small kid alone? - not possible.
Going shopping? - not really possible.
Ultimately, scheduling shifts is going to be both easier to manage and more cost efficient than what you're suggesting. Uber has a good idea of how many drivers they need at any given time. This ideal distribution of supply will never align perfectly with the supply pool's natural scheduling preferences. You can try to use economic incentives to force these two distributions to overlap, or you can just exert control (that you rightfully have over employees) and force your employees to work when you need them.
Yeah, I was a bit optimistic or even idealistic in thinking that Uber&Lyft are then treating their employees like independent contractors simply because they did before. I just want to stress that no one is really preventing them from doing so. It's "just" expensive and would need them to trust their employees to an extent.
Option 1: Deny any attempts to "clock in" whenever the number of drivers waiting in a region exceeds a certain density.
Option 2: Your shift starts when you pick up a passenger, and ends when you drop them off. (I have no idea whether this actually meets the state's requirements. I do suspect that there exists an equally clever solution that will work.)
Uber and friends built their entire businesses in working around existing laws. I'm sure they can figure out how to navigate the new laws.
Yes, voters in the US want to give people education, healthcare, and unemployment (or basic income-ish) benefits.
Voters in the US also don’t want to pay for any of this.
Hence, the politicians that get elected are ones that give people education via student loans, and healthcare/unemployment benefits tied to employer/employment status. Those politicians get to claim they helped people, and they get to claim they kept taxes low.
The game is to try to reduce your tax burden as much as possible, and don’t slip up and end up in the bottom 3, maybe even 4 income quintiles.
Medicare for All is widely popular in the US. The insurance industry, hospitals, and employers who want leverage over workers buy off politicians to prevent it from happening.
Just my humble opinion, but it seems Medicare for all would only exacerbate the actual problem of medical costs being too high due to government subsidization. I'll take my down votes and go now...
HN's guidelines discourage commenting on downvotes; you may wish to remove the last sentence.
I will say that I recently had to deal with the medical system for a family member, and he was on decent private insurance. We actually would have received better care at a lower cost if he was on Medicare instead. N=1, of course.
I'm pretty sure that Medicare has been shown to be a more effective negotiator than the private insurers and generally operates more efficiently, but I may be misremembering.
Disclaimer that I don't support medicare for all myself, I'd much prefer a model closer to the NHS, with caveats (federal funding, county administration, state oversight).
Medicare for All is a proposed law (S.1129 and H.R.1384) that expands Medicare to be a comprehensive single-payer system for all Americans. It has fairly high bipartisan support in polls, but relatively few (and only Democrat) supporters in Congress.
> Voters in the US also don’t want to pay for any of this.
There is more than enough money to go around, it's that there is a lot of it being wasted. The government and states failed to provide a good taxation and spending model. It's not the issue of the voters not willing to pay for it.
Honestly even a risk of hyperinflation paying for everything with dollar creation would still leave a healthier more productive population in its wake.
Hasn't helped that people still view getting a job "with benefits" as some kind of badge of honor. This leads to a not small amount of people feeling that if you don't have a job "with benefits" you don't deserve any.
It's not much of an honor when insurance companies will still screw over those with the benefits. Employer subsidized care distorts the market and hurts everybody.
I love paying $1,300 a month for my health benefits I use a few times a year. What a great badge of honor. Oh, but wait, there's more! I can also pay hundreds of dollars out of my pocket at each visit to a clinic or dentist!
You pay extra when you're younger to pay for older people's healthcare. The ACA restricted health insurance premiums for older, costlier people as a multiple of the ideal 21 to 24 year old healthy person. NJ has a good pdf showing how premiums are calculated.
If you see at the bottom, a 60 year old's age rating factor is 2.714 times a 21 year old's. Which means their premium can't exceed 2.714 times a 21 year old. Obviously a 60 year old uses far more healthcare than 2.7 times the healthcare a 21 year old uses, so effectively it's a tax on the 21 year old to pay for the 60 year old's healthcare.
In the US we pay hundreds of dollars in monthly medical premiums, thousands in deductibles per year, and still need to live in fear of surprise bankruptcy-level bills arriving if god forbid you collapse and need an emergency procedure at the closest out-of-network facility.
Absolute insanity. Yet changing this at a fundamental level is somehow considered radical, nothing we can do etc., except what every other western country has already done. We keep telling ourselves we have the best medical care in the world, which anyone who has lived outside the US for some time can attest is complete bullshit.
The entire pharma system is extremely complicated and there are a ton of weird incentives in its structure. Those incentive structures are really powerful, and since it is about human health, much harder to change.
> ... and still need to live in fear of surprise bankruptcy-level bills arriving if god forbid you collapse and need an emergency procedure at the closest out-of-network facility.
I don't know why this isn't illegal. You can go from living comfortably to living in poverty even though you held up your end of the contract except for that last time when you were not even conscious.
I know someone dealing with this shenanigans right now, they sent two bills, which he paid, and then figured it was all sorted.
Many months later, he finds out that they later sent two more bills to the address where he lived in middle school, never called him about it, and then referred them to debt collection because of course he hadn't paid them. He found out about this when the debts showed up on his credit monitoring.
Now they're denying that he gave them his current address, despite the fact that he has multiple other bills with earlier dates where the hospital has printed the correct address on them.
tldr: America's medical billing is an absurd shitshow
> Yet changing this at a fundamental level is somehow considered radical, nothing we can do etc., except what every other western country has already done.
Except in the US wants to do what "every other western country has already done," which is to use payroll taxes on the middle class to subsidize mandatory health insurance or pay for a state-run system. Nobody in the US is actually serious about universal healthcare, except the folks who want to fix the ACA. Even Sanders promises not to raise taxes on people making below $250,000. If that's the promise, then all the other stuff is just talk, because the revenue can't be there to pay for any of it.
Warren actually got close to a plan for accomplishing universal healthcare without raising middle class taxes, and it only proves what a complete farce that is. It features:
- A wealth tax that goes up to 6%, four times higher than the 1.5% wealth taxes that Sweden and France abandoned (and most OECD countries never had)
- Corporate taxes around 35-39%, higher than Sweden, France, Germany, Denmark, etc.
- Capital gains taxed at the income rate, with a 70% top rate
Each of those policies individually would be outside the mainstream of the OECD. But under Warren's plan, you'd need all of these in combination just to raise half the money needed for Medicare for All.
So Sweden has corporate taxes around 22%, capital gains taxed at a flat 30%, and a top income tax rate of about 52% depending on municipality. It abandoned its wealth tax recently. Under Warren, the United States would have corporate taxes at 35% + the state rate (total 44% in California), a wealth tax going up to 6%, and a top marginal tax rate on capital gains of 70%.
Obviously we'd never do that, which shows you how it was never a serious proposal.
Yes, voters in the US want to give people education, healthcare, and unemployment (or basic income-ish) benefited
Voters in the US are already paying for healthcare for all, plus they are paying extra to support an entire healthcare insurance industry.
The USA doesn't (generally) let people die if they can't afford healthcare (people may be driven into bankruptcy, but they won't be left to die), so those costs are all getting paid by the public. And it'd be cheaper to pay for preventative care than to wait and pay for care for those that are so sick that they have no choice but to see an expensive doctor.
> Voters in the US are already paying for healthcare for all
I've been living in the US for almost 7 years, and this is news to me. As far as I understand, Medicare only applies to people who are 65+ years old, and Medicaid only applies to families with certain income (relative to family size). What did I miss?
> The USA doesn't (generally) let people die if they can't afford healthcare (people may be driven into bankruptcy, but they won't be left to die), so those costs are all getting paid by the public.
As COVID-19 has demonstrated quite effectively, death is not the only outcome to focus on. Also, driving a person into bankruptcy or otherwise ruining their future is not what I would call "healthcare paid for by everyone".
I am sincerely hoping that I have missed something in your arguments.
I think the previous poster may be referring to use of emergency services by people without health insurance. Which is an indirect tax to voters anyways
Anyone in the USA can walk into an emergency room to get treatment - the public is paying for that through high hospital fees and direct subsidies.
Instead of waiting for someone with the flu to develop pneumonia and go to the ER because he can't breath, it'd be much cheaper to subsidize his visit to a primary care physician that he can go to before he needs a hospital.
To relate a personal experience, I have a relative that's had drug addiction problems all her life -- a few years back she had a cold or flu, couldn't afford to see a doctor so tried to ride it out at home, fortunately, she called her mom and told her how sick she was. When she didn't respond to the phone the next day, her parents drove across the state to check on her, found her near comatose and called 911. She had some bacterial pneumonia and almost died, she spent 10 days in the hospital, 5 of those days were in the ICU, intubated and in an induced coma. Because she was working and had some moderate income, she had lost her eligibility for state subsidized medical insurance. After taking 6 weeks off work to recover, she of course, lost her job, then she qualified for health care coverage and state disability payments.
The total hospital bill was over $300,000. Since she had no income or assets, the hospital wrote off the entire bill and absorbed the charges.
All of this because the public didn't want to pay $100 for her to see a doctor and get some antibiotics.
Okay, so it looks like I didn't actually miss anything in your arguments.
I think it's fair of you to point out that there are certain scenarios in which healthcare is not paid for by the person getting it and everyone else ends up paying for it indirectly. I also think it's fair of you to point out that it's handled in such a way that it creates a byzantine system that ends up costing us all a lot more than it should.
But that's a long long way from claiming that "voters in the US are already paying for healthcare for all", in the context of the current discussion. "Voters in the US are paying for a byzantine system that handles extreme cases that happen because of the failure to have a proper healthcare for all" is as far as I could go with your arguments ;)
It would have been more accurate if I had said "voters in the US are paying more than what it would cost to provide healthcare for all".
But the point remains -- voters don't want to pay for it, but they are already paying for it, many just don't realize it because when they pay $500/month for healthcare insurance, they don't see the $900 that their employer is paying or the public subsidies to hospitals.
Is it really a matter of whether voters want to pay taxes, though? Consider that in California (US), if you make 100k, you pay an avg tax rate of ~29% (marginal 41%), vs in Ontario (Canada), you pay an avg tax rate of ~28% (marginal 43%). At a glance, these look like fairly comparable tax rates.
But Ontario has free public healthcare based on residence status, while Cali doesn't. So a better question might be what is it that US taxes are paying for that are so important (but that the neighbor in the north can do without just fine) that it can't afford healthcare instead?
People all up and down healthcare earn far higher pay in the US than anywhere else.
Discussions about other causes for US taxes to be so high can get very political very quick because the myriad tax deductions available to the asset owning class, as well as the unaccounted for defined benefit / retiree healthcare debt that US governments have at all levels, and then you can get into military spending and so on and so forth.
But earning more means paying more taxes. If the tax rates are comparable, then your argument entails that the US government gets even more tax revenue than other countries per capita, so it makes even less sense that it then presumably spends those tax dollars on things that are not related to healthcare, whereas countries like Canada and UK do consider healthcare one of their priorities in their budgets, while still maintaining things like military operations and space programs.
Pathetic... why not take the ~20% of drivers who put in 35h+ a week and make them employees to keep their service running and help their customers? ... Oh right because they can instead inflict pain 75 days before the carveout ballot measure they wrote.
They aren't the innocent victims of gov't overreach for us to venerate. They stonewalled participation in writing a better AB5, because they want no rules but their own.
IMHO This would be a great time for TESLA to spin up a 100% employee based human driving service in California and gobble up the demand.
I don't see how the TESLA model could work with human employee drivers. Uber is already not making a profit with their current lower cost structure. TESLA with more expensive cars and more expensive employee costs, will almost certainly also lose money unless they substantially increase prices. And at the higher price level, demand is likely to be lower as well.
What's stopping someone from running a Lyft-like service "dry" (without payment processing) and just matching riders with drivers, with the expectation of paying cash or Zelle
I mean other than the fact that it would make no money.
What could California do to the developers of such an app?
Maybe an alternative model would be too charge the drivers a subscription fee. Could be a typical SAAS model where first 10 rides/month are free and the ability to work unlimited hours costs ~$1k. I don't think you could do this for free as the support costs are likely really high and support is super important when people are putting their lives in the drivers' hands.
I've met a few drivers in Seattle who offered their own rates via text pickup. I used this to get to the airport once. I wonder how many drivers in California were doing the same thing knowing this was on the way- get your local clients and build trust and start their own mini ride service- assuming you know how to use Venmo and the like.
I've encountered something similar here, where a driver with a minivan equipped with carseats picks up direct work (courtesy of “word-of-mouth” promotion through the highly powerful local working moms group on Facebook).
[note: I'm not being sarcastic about calling the Facebook moms group “highly powerful”—they have significant civic clout in local politics/business/activism.]
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 289 ms ] thread* Meal & rest breaks
* Callback pay
* Split Shift premiums
* Reporting premium (if you show up to work, but less work to do than half your scheduled shift)
The only way I see this working is somebody started some "Driver Pool" company that employed drivers fulltime and then Uber/Lyft/Doordash/Grubhub/etc all use that company.
Callback, split shift, and reporting premiums only apply to my knowledge if the shifts are scheduled. I guess it depends if they go towards scheduled shifts over show up whenever, and/or if they can make it 'i'd like to work: yes/no'
Hollywood is there because of the weather. The central valley is there because of the weather and the soil. The tech industry is there because of the defense industry in WWII and the importance of the west coast to the war effort in the Pacific. There almost 1000 miles of beautiful coast and some of the best National Parks and National Forests in the country are in California.
The geography and the weather is the root of why California is successful. That has attracted and kept talent and created a positive feedback loop between talent and natural resources.
The California government has the luxury of being able to be the most mismanaged because they don't even have to try. Tax money is abundant from all the economic activity and they have captive industries that would have a hard time relocating elsewhere.
Silicon Valley is because of the defense industry in WW2? OK sure, but then why not Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia etc. The aerospace industry was in Los Angeles, but that moved, so why couldn't tech move?
Here is my alternate hypothesis: California has always been relatively welcoming to people from all around the world. Places like San Francisco (in particular) and Los Angeles have a very long history of being accepting of new ideas, religions, different ethnicity. Not completely, just more than a lot of other places in the US. So it has been a place where people with new ideas come.
As far as the state government-- yeah it could be better. But so could a lot of states. It is not clear to me that California is a worse run state than many others. Still we all should expect improvement.
It simply wouldn't be there in the first place had the weather not been as good as it was.
Part of the reason you're now seeing other cities blossom in importance in film has to do with weather no longer being as important. What continues to be important that preserves Hollywood is the concentration of talent, which itself still has as its root the great weather that helped the industry establish itself there in the first place.
While the weather may no longer be as important, it's the "natural resource" that made the region the epicenter of film in the first place.
> Silicon Valley is because of the defense industry in WW2? OK sure, but then why not Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia etc. The aerospace industry was in Los Angeles, but that moved, so why couldn't tech move?
I mentioned this exactly in the comment you're replying to and you ignored it. There was exactly one thing California got right and that is not enforcing non-compete agreements. This is why Fairchild Semiconductor spawned an entire industry and why companies like DEC around Route 128 did not.
> Here is my alternate hypothesis: California has always been relatively welcoming to people from all around the world.
Agree. But government has absolutely nothing to do with that.
The California government is no different than a trust fund kid failing upwards.
>> The California government is no different than a trust fund kid failing upwards.
The Government is a reflection of the people. California has a more liberal government than some states because the voters are more liberal-- in general-- particularly socially. I am fifth generation, and lots of my relatives are very conservative but still pretty accepting of different beliefs and lifestyles.
There's clearly some downside to that liberalism. You can see how countries in Europe struggle with having the taxes, the protections, and a healthy economy. But California tends to pull toward that model and other states pull to other models. Those other models also have downsides.
Completely agree that that's not all of it. Not enforcing non-competes is just the only piece of it that I can identify that can be credited to the California government.
I'm not arguing that California isn't successful. It's very successful. I'm arguing that California is successful despite its government and that most policies passed by the government are well intentioned but counterproductive.
We shouldn't compare California to other states because every state has different circumstances. We should compare California as it is to what it could be. You could get rid of most of California's governance and the state would do be even more successful because politicians wouldn't be messing things up. For example, there are reasons why California has the highest poverty rate when adjusting for cost of living and a lot has to do with well-meaning but counterproductive policies.
As 20 year California resident, what I do know is that nothing has gotten better here over that time frame. Everything from infrastructure to taxes to city planning is much worse now than ever. CCPA is probably the only good outcome I can think of.
California is one of USA's biggest markets. Even if they don't get their shit together, one of CA's many entrepreneurs will. Who wants free VC bucks?
That said, this particular bill is pretty bad
The earnings weren’t great, but it was very helpful as an extra. I had a fuel efficient car and kept track of all my expenses for deductions and made above minimum wage.
I’ve met plenty of lovely and fascinating people and had great, enjoyable conversations. I barely had any issues with riders.
This extra income helped me buy more stocks and make just a little bit more progress towards my financial goals. These stocks are still compounding away.
I’m a bit sad that this opportunity is now taken away from Californians.
Why? I’m a consultant - and this is what I do for a living. Why isn’t freelance work respectable or acceptable in your view?
As to your first question, I've never met a consultant that enjoys all the benefits of the full-time employees at the companies they consult for. The term "consultant" sets the expectation that one would not enjoy those benefits during their work there.
You used the word should - should get a full time job. Based on what you say, you don’t think freelance work is acceptable. If you considered it acceptable then you wouldn’t be admonishing people, telling them what they should do.
I've never met
You’re just full of assumptions. I get paid crazy-well - much higher than the salaried employees I work with, and unlike them I can bill off-hours. I don’t have a company retirement plan but that’s cheap with the excess I get paid over salary. And I write my own vacations.
The term "consultant" sets the expectation that one would not enjoy those benefits during their work there.
No, it sets the expectation that I’m consulting. That’s all.
The bummer is, as usual, the policy makers aren't seeing the nuance between the two and now drivers have to suffer the consequences and lost wages until the dust settles. Either the politicians are ignorant, or they're willfully ignoring the facts. Honestly neither would surprise me, it is CA after all :)
Unfortunately many gig workers don't have the privilege. I'm assuming here but you probably had another job and benefits. There are many workers who don't, and are turning to Uber or Lyft just to put food on the table and are being forced into working without paid vacation, sick leave, or benefits simply because they have no other options.
I think corporations taking advantages of the imbalances is a race to the bottom. I believe we should find a 21st century approach to fixing these imbalances so that we don't take opportunities like yours away, but also work to protect labor rights/power that has been much eroded in the last decades.
That is such a lazy take. Of course people are forced to take whatever job is available: humans need food, shelter and healthcare. If society doesn't collectively agree about a minimum standard of what a job entails, you inevitably ends up with the "bottom of the barrel" living in inhumane conditions. As a society, it is our duty to lift up the standards, not lower them and trample on the already destitute.
Why convert many existing opportunities into fewer worse jobs? What's that solve exactly? Do you think there should be no independent contractors? Do you also object to freelancer writers or artists?
I expect that the number of full-time driving opportunities available would cover maybe a single-digit percentage of (pre-covid) Lyft/Uber drivers.
Which jobs? The ones that got slaughtered when Uber&co undercutted the whole market because they did not have to provide their workers with the basic standards that their competitors have to (i.e insurance, benefits, min. wage)?
> Is it because flexibility is paramount and they might already have other commitments?
How is that related? Flexibility doesn't mean having no rights. You can absolutely have a flexible schedule as an employee.
> Why convert many existing opportunities into fewer worse jobs? What you call opportunity, I call exploitation in the current way Uber&co run their businesses.
> Do you think there should be no independent contractors? Do you also object to freelancer writers or artists?
How is that related? The relationship and power balance between Uber and their drivers is not even close to "two independant parties", and the courts of California and many other countries around the world agree with me. There is nothing "freelance" about being an Uber driver.
What rights are missing? Be specific.
What's lacking in the power balance? How is different than any other contractor position? Is it a problem if contract writers are told what to write? Is it a problem if contract tech support are told to deal with customers? Why or why not?
Gig work turning into full time work out of necessity is the band-aid on the bullet wound. The unemployment numbers were down, in large part due to gig work, but that work never should've been counted as real employment.
So rather than address the underlying problem with something like the New Deal's Works Progress Administration, which was the real and necessary answer, we papered things over with gig work out of a deep-seated philosophical hatred of government as a primary employer.
Now, rather than admit gig work was never a real solution for employment, we're trying to force it to be that by fiat, and acting shocked when this wrongheaded strategy isn't working.
But again, "if".
I remember one local road being resurfaced during the 2008 stimulus that was perfectly fine before. It was just an easy road for them to shut down.
The reverse-lever for economic stimulus is tax cuts.
If the gov’t decides to fund a bunch of infrastructure projects, I don’t see a mad rush of people deciding to make a career in the trades.
Lots of folks don't consider the trades "prestigious" enough.
Right now, society is taking advantage of people who have to sacrifice their bodies because they have no other options. If the supply of people having to sacrifice their bodies drops, then the price point has to rise to compensate for that.
It's more than just money.
Money is the tool used to incentivize people to do things.
If you have a WPA, it'll look like this:
* Funding for existing construction companies
* Higher pay for construction workers
* Roughly the same employment
You've got to remember that high employment is not a union goal. If they can get five $250k construction workers over fifteen $80k construction workers, they'll do it. That's not a criticism. It's a transparent aim that unions fight for their members. That's what makes them worthwhile.
Until you don't. Just ask the air traffic controllers' union.
I don't mean this to say I'm anti-union, but just there are net-good and net-bad employers, there are net-good and net-bad unions. For things to get better at the national level everyone is going to have to sacrifice.
"Everyone has to make a sacrifice" doesn't mean anything when you can't make them.
I don't think it will happen, but my point is that it can if they overplay their hand.
Capitalism frequently tries to (and succeeds) exploit the poorest citizens: they are desperate. Laws like this exist to protect the weakest from exploitation.
maybe that was the intent but, in reality, you just destroyed your poorest citizen by taking what little they did have away. I get it, passing a law was the easiest thing for you to do because it shifts all responsibility but don't think too high of yourself.
The gig economy did not start with Uber or AirBnB.
Now we have two possibilities:
a) We could fight against it and try to get it revoked. Go back to the status quo where those workers keep working—potentially underpaid—without getting any of the benefits full-time workers rely on.
b) We could ask for a new proposal that would give gig workers these benefits and guarantee them a minimum wage.
Those jobs are shittier (that's why people drive instead of doing them) but they will still exist.
So they are refusing to hire workers because they are not allowed to misuse contractors to circumvent giving fair wages and benefits?
I don't know what your experience is with contractors (I use Upwork - which is an awesome platform - extensively) but that's not it. The savings come from the fact that you don't need 100% of their time, you don't need to recruit, and you can slide easily along the performance vs. price on the scale.
One is when you want an expert: for instance, we don't retain in-house counsel. We don't need it 100% of the time, but for the short periods we need it, we need the 99th percentile guy. And we can't afford the 99th percentile guy 100% of the time.
And then it's when you want drudge work but it's spiky: like you need things labelled or whatever. Upwork is like AWS for people and it's really, really good for all the reasons AWS is good.
If I suddenly have to work out payroll and benefits and all that shit, that's instantly non-viable. It's all right, the world is a big place, and things I can contract out I can just as well contract out outside of California and eventually outside the US. 90% of the time I'm doing Anglophone-adjacent nations anyway. Americans are too expensive for this work and they're equivalent performance anyway.
And for the stuff like law? Well, there I'll go with the 99th percentile guy. I know he's powerful enough to get his carve-out (as he has).
> Upwork sent around a "Don't worry about AB5" email but I'm not taking chances. Just ended everything with Cali contractors.
¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24228083
These drivers who can't put food on the table without Uber(which I've personally never met) in Califoria seem in a far worse position now.
No one is forcing them to do anything. They not only get to decide if they want to work, but how much, and when.
And every time these laws are passed most Uber and Lyft drivers always seem far more worried they will lose their income source than they are excited they might get benefits.
And almost all of my Uber and Lyft drivers had another source of income, were retired, were raising children, or had a medical condition that kept them from holding down a full time job.
No they don't.. Their material conditions dictate how much they need to work to meet their basic needs (food, utilities, rent).
You're assuming that people who are living paycheck to paycheck, who are backed against a wall, have the option to pick and choose if, when, and how much they work. The people in those situations are the ones we need to work the hardest to protect because they are the most vulnerable to poor conditions and exploitation/coercion. Without protections they contribute to the race to the bottom simply by nature of having no other options, making them willing to work without benefits or for low wages.
> And almost all of my Uber and Lyft drivers had another source of income, were retired, were raising children, or had a medical condition that kept them from holding down a full time job.
This is entirely anecdotal, on top of the fact that "raising children" or "having a medical condition" should not be an excuse to be denied economic stability and benefits.
well they sure as shit aren't getting _anything_ now. What a hollow victory.
> This is entirely anecdotal, on top of the fact that "raising children" or "having a medical condition" should not be an excuse to be denied economic stability and benefits.
Yes I'm using anecdotes from talking with Uber drivers, which isn't as good as a study. But it is better than what you are doing which is speculating. Have you had the experience that almost all of your Uber drivers were hoping for full time employment, with a boss, and working on a set schedule?
This bill will completely change what a job looks like for Uber and Lyft. People choose to work for Uber and Lyft for the flexibility that accommodates different life circumstances not for the pay. This bill will destroy that flexibility, it will improve the lives of a small % of Uber and Lyft's drivers who want to work full time and get benefits from Lyft and Uber. But this will worsen the lives of everyone who works there precisely because of the flexibility.
Agreed, but is that a problem with the gig economy itself or our entire welfare system?
I agree we can make life better for the workers that remain on Lyft/Uber, but what happens to the workers who were "fired" as a result of reduced ridership?
It was absolutely a lifesaver and exactly what I needed at the time. But it's debatable whether it could have been sustained long term.
Personally, I think if instead of chasing imaginary Level 5 autonomy madness with billions of dollars, they had done the unsexy thing and simply paid drivers better, they might not be in this mess. It's pretty insane that they take half of every fare and still can't turn a profit-- seems like a clear sign somebody screwed up &/or made the wrong bet.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-20-05.pdf
It's the service, not the price, that made the biggest difference for users. And this service requires having thousands of drivers able to start at a moment's notice, which is not viable under an employee-shift driven model.
AB5 affects more than just ridesharing too. Many writers, artists and other creative professionals are suffering as well. What abuse are they affected by?
you may say it’s what contract is. but without me being able to see where to drive, whom to drive and set price as I wish, without affecting my rating - it’s just talk.
And you can set the price. You can't see the destination but you do know the approximate time and direction.
If you don't have total control and transparency of the contract you pick up then it isn't contracting
Just because someone freely accepts work, doesn't mean its automatically free of exploitation. Exploitation just means one party is taking advantage of another parties weakness.
Rideshare specifically - I don't think this exploitation is unilateral, but it does exist.
Example - UAE commercial builders freely attracting Pakistan/India laborers and then holding their passports hostage when they realize it's not worth it. https://www.rt.com/news/353432-uae-migrant-workers-slavery/
EDIT: I should clarify - there are degrees of exploitation, the UAE example is an extreme (but used as an example because its so clear cut). My overall point has more to do with people "freely choosing to work" as an idea that people can't be exploited as a result.
Drivers are not forced into anything. They apply and can quit anytime. Earnings and fares are completely transparent. Their schedule is determined by them. Where's the exploitation?
Have you ever driven for Uber? I find it odd that so many people claim to know better for others without any experience of the situation.
> Have you ever driven for Uber? I find it odd that so many people claim to know better for others without any experience of the situation.
I have not, but calculating the economics is pretty damn simple, and their earnings are shit (most drivers dont take into account taxes, car costs, gas, car depreciation, etc.).
I think the problem is that you have to bifurcate those who want a full-time-like salary with those who drive to earn a few bucks, otherwise the discussion breaks down.
Earnings vary wildy by person. Some people do great, others don't. There's no universal calculation. Ridesharing has always been about flexibility, not full-time employment, even though some people work full-time hours.
There are numerous other driving jobs if you wanted employment instead of being independent. Perhaps suggesting that instead of changing the law for everyone else would be the better option.
See my edit - I clarified this.
> Ridesharing has always been about flexibility, not full-time employment, even though some people work full-time hours.
Have you ever driven for Uber? This is not correct. Why would drivers sue Uber/Lyft if that wasn't the case?
> Earnings vary wildy by person. Some people do great, others don't. There's no universal calculation.
And some earnings don't even give people enough money to live. Do you understand why most modern societies have minimum wage?
You should explain exactly how these drivers are not free before arguing to take their freedom of work away.
If you can't understand why people have to work, I don't think I can help explain that.
Lyft/Uber keep their drivers on a leash while saying they're independent contractors. And that is exploitation.
More importantly these definitions are decades old and need updating for the modern era. The better solution would be to create a new classification between employee and freelance.
People who have no idea or experience of others but want to remove their freedom and tell them what's best for them is far more insidious and dangerous.
That's the basis of society, people who have a better overall views of things decide for you all the time, and it should be like that.
What's the opposite ? Private for profit companies deciding what's better for "you" ? That's what Uber and Amazon are trying to do and that's why they lose dozens of court cases about workers rights all over the world.
I don't even get your point, "it's not as bad as X", ok but what's the goal ? Raise the bar so that everyone has access to safe, sustainable jobs or lower the bar to the lowest acceptable working conditions ?
When did I make the point that "it's not as bad as X"? Both full-time driving jobs and freelance ride-sharing exist. Drivers can already choose what works for them, and many choose ride-sharing for the flexibility it offers and because it's what works in addition to their prior commitments.
Why do you want to take away that opportunity or think that people are incapable of making that choice for themselves?
That's good because that way they can pay for their car insurance, health insurance, pension, gas, car maintenance, self employment taxes, frequent car cleaning, &c.
I'm not saying the drivers are stupid, I'm saying Uber &co are very smart.
Not sure how else to read your previous statement.
The gov will have to weigh the benefit of people having affordable rides on demand plus people who want “side money” vs higher fares plus people who now are either out of a job or out of side money.
Source: I run a company that helps freelance/contract software engineers find work.
You will be drunk very quickly.
https://vimeo.com/22053820
In other words, I as a rational consumer will use the service that is cheapest when all other factors are identical. Driver's as rational actors will do precisely the opposite - the one paying me the most - as neither platform found a way to differentiate themselves on driver benefits.
This system behaves according to market principles and as such, costs need to be constantly cut to fight off competing rideshare services.
Über needs lyft to die and vice versa. The real battle can be further abstracted to the investment firms supporting each company. Since the investors know that so long as their bet is funded and working towards one of the two endgames for rideshares (full self driving or death of competition) it doesn't matter how much money is lost per ride.
Either the driver rented the car to a middleman who rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling and financing (most banks won't touch these medallions!) a medallion at a ridiculous interest rate to a driver that plans to use it as his retirement savings.
Pre-Uber, the more I spoke to cab drivers the more it seemed their industry was a pyramid schemed aimed at helping established rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants. Uber brought a breeze of fresh air: Someone could simply buy a car, calculate the depreciation and it's value on the market (since unlike medallions cars are relatively liquid assets!) do rideshare and calculate their profits or loss. They can get out of the game at anytime.
There are plenty of commercial banks that have underwritten loans for taxi medallions and built up a significant portfolio Just in NY for example - North Fork Bank, Capital One, Provident and Signature Bank, See:
https://www.autofinancenews.net/allposts/finance/loss-mitiga...
https://nyrej.com/print/18823
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200117005338/en/Sig...
I really wish we could stop calling Uber ridesharing, when the majority of their business is in fact not. It cause problems for actual ridesharing, which do enjoy some legal protection in some countries.
Everybody likes to complain about California. When I was born here it was about 15m people. Now its 40m. If you are unhappy, please leave to a lower cost, lower tax state. People have been predicting California's decline my entire life and the real problem is it can't handle the growth. Also, California has been sucking up employing the young and of mid-west and south for a century. Now those states get mad when "Californians" move to places like Austin. Where do you think they came from originally?
The successes of people within a state might be because the state. Or it might be despite the state. I think a lot of California’s success is despite the state’s actions or policies. Reasonable minds can disagree.
The comparison I like to make is with TX. If Texas was even moderately liberal/centrist and enacted commonsense policies (Medicaid expansion, State taxes to fund healthcare education etc) it would do a LOT better. Now, Texas HAS been successful despite its Government doing nothing/actively getting in the way.
If by progress you mean increase poverty then we agree. Otherwise I didn’t talk about “progress” one way or another.
> If Texas was even moderately liberal/centrist and enacted commonsense policies (Medicaid expansion, State taxes to fund healthcare education etc) it would do a LOT better.
Maybe. Or maybe Texas would do worse and their poverty rate would grow to match California!
California is able to pass all kinds of bills and spend all kinds of money because it is a very very wealthy state. Did California policies directly cause that wealth or is Hollywood + Silicon Valley a matter of luck? Or perhaps out of California’s thousands of policies only a couple (such as non-compete) had a significant influence on their economic bounty.
(1) https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/economy
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states
(2) https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/charts-democrats-represent-m...
People make more money in California, but they also spend more on housing, taxes, food, gas, etc.
(1) https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings
I don't disagree with you vis-a-vis the anti-tax sentiment, but you're making a strong claim that extremely liberal state government policies drive economies, and that's a reach.
Blue: 66.8M (5.7 + 7.6 + 39.5 + 4.2 + 6.8 + 3)
Red: 12.3M (3.2 + 1.8 + 7.3)
Swing (aka Florida): 21.5M
This can be a bit confusing so let's skip straight to the point. If you take the house of representatives and add up GDP by district, democrats account for $10.2T and republicans account for $6.2T (1). The differences don't stop there. Republican districts have slower economic growth, less skilled labor, less educated workers, and a host of other bad indicators.
(1) https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/charts-democrats-represent-m...
Rural districts lean Republican, and urban districts lean Democratic. I'd wager that the bad indicators you mention are better explained by the rural/urban divide more so than political leanings. A central business district of a major city is going to have better economic growth, higher-skilled and more educated labor, and a host of other good indicators compared to farmland.
I agree there is correlation between dense urban areas (which are more likely to lean Democratic) having a higher GDP output and rural areas (which are more likely to lean Republican) having a lower GDP output. However, you would need to provide stronger evidence that there is any causality established there.
I'd say the causality runs the other way around: people in high density living situations (which for better or worse have been the primary driver of GDP growth since the industrial revolution) are amenable to more government regulation, simply by virtue of the problems caused by that same density -- people encounter "this is why we can't have nice things" kinds of situations, and want regulation to counter those, a lot more often when squeezed into big cities. Therefore those places lean Democratic in the US. The opposite applies for rural areas. I don't think you can claim that you could take a rural (and therefore Republican-leaning) area, turn the voters there Democratic, and cause economic growth to happen, without first turning it into a dense city.
Also many of the people paying the highest taxes in CA are not even from there (executives, tech workers, entertainment workers), which kind of breaks down the argument of giving back to the environment that produced you.
I would be perfectly happy with paying income and sales taxes as high as they are in California if they were assessed more fairly (no low taxes because your grandparents lived here) and if I felt like I got enough out of public services.
This doesn't make sense. Are you saying people should only pay taxes in the state they were born in forever? That's not how taxation works.
Let's say Prop 13 was repealed. Rich neighborhoods would still get more property tax revenue than poor neighborhoods, because the properties in rich neighborhoods are worth more.
If you want to solve the disparity in school funding you need to stop basing it on the values of the homes in the neighborhoods surrounding the schools.
Repealing Prop 13 will give schools in poor areas more money than they have now, but they will never get as much money as schools in rich areas as long as the property tax funding model persists.
Not sure what you're trying to say here.
(1) https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_pres_a_EPC0_R01_mmbbl_a...
(2) https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
(3) https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings
(4) https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-to-live-in/62617/#main...
https://www.google.com/search?q=history+of+hollywood+film+in...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_Lode
People are, by the millions.
But unlike many other states, the population of California has not actually gone down (see below). Maybe it will, but why is that a problem when traffic and housing costs are such an issue?
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=populat...
So this news really sucks, as you haven't been able to schedule DMV appointments at all and it looks like it will continue to be that way for the foreseeable futuere. I understand the Uber/Lyft may have had this a long time coming but it really is inconvenient for this to happen during COVID.
Insurance, parking, fuel, depreciation, maintenance, and random events add up. If you don't need it for commuting, most of the recurring rideshare costs vanish.
If you need to make an extra long occasional trip, car rental for a day or two outweighs ownership.
Edit: To be clear, anything other than a car is cheaper for many (not all) people. (e)Bike, shared scooter, walking, trolley, Uber/Lyft, taxi, carpooling, etc. Cities are expensive and small towns are small.
On average, ~50% of car trips are under 2 miles. A car is not required for most of those in most locations.
Riders only have themselves to blame if they made life choices around a service that was clearly unsustainable, Movie Pass style.
Also not all public transit trips take twice as long as a car. In many urban places (which is where any of this scenario makes sense) at rush hour a trip on public transit is often about equivalent to driving if not shorter.
That said, I will concede I'm in a unique position. This legislation isn't completely onerous on me.
I’m in a unique position to do this, because i put myself in that position. i moved near my work and live in an urban area.
even if it cost $400 a month, i would still do it this way. i read when i’m in the car, i wouldn’t trade that for staring at the road.
I’m happy that you’ve found a good situation for yourself and I don’t mean to disparage it. I just don’t think the comparison you’ve made is quite complete.
If one enjoys the lifestyle, spending less on transportation and shifting that spending to housing is a net win. That's how I did it, and for about eight of my eleven years in the Bay, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
I left the Bay in 2018 because I got a remote job and didn't feel like I was getting my money's worth from the city life. Pretty clearly, in 2020, much of what makes city living good is gone, but it will come back; whether that's a matter of years or decades is very much an open question.
Not sure how to handle the fact that this de-facto subsidizes the Peninsula. But it would be a start.
But I think it's rare during commute hours that a ride share driver will drop someone off downtown and immediately find another fare, he's going to have to leave downtown to get his next passenger. So that Uber driver is worse than a single occupant vehicle, he's made 2 trips for one passenger (once to drop me off, once to leave downtown to pick up his next fare).
In off hours, sure, the driver brings someone in, then doesn't have to search far to find someone else looking for a ride, but during commute hours I don't think that's true.
Last I heard, public transit had greatly reduced service in San Francisco, but I'm not sure of the current status.
Public transit for everyday commute to work, plus Uber/Lyft for trips outside of common commute hours or off the beaten path where public transit is less reliable, can definitely be cheaper than car ownership.
And this is a city that's only 7 miles wide -- I used to be able to bike downtown in less than than I spent waiting on the bus on most days (since I didn't just have to wait for one bus, I had to wait for a bus that wasn't already full to take on passengers)
Public transit isn't an option for all people, particularly in low income communities, that have to get from home to work in rural and suburban areas. They aren't dense enough for public transit.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/curb-the-taxi-app/id299226386
In SF proper, there are more cabs, but don't forget the hour-long waits we had before the ride-sharing thing started. I don't know if it'll get that bad again, but I don't think they authorized thousands of new cabs like (IMO) they should have. Also, I've had cabbies in SF tell me point-blank they won't take my fare because it's not far enough. Yeah, illegal, they don't care.
Further out... good luck. You're in Concord and need a ride to Walnut Creek? Might work, but it might be faster to try Craigslist.
(I live in Dallas TX)
2. You'd be surprised how far you can take an Uber. I had a friend take an Uber from SF to Sacremento.
I didn't have my driver's license for 10+ years, and thought the Californian DMV would surely make me take another driver's test because of that. Nope...after I did the written test, they said my license would come in the mail.
I feel your pain though... living in SF made it a little too easy to just ignore the DL thing, and then I moved to Europe and lived in big cities with excellent public transportation.
Now that I'm finally doing it I'm kicking myself for not just getting it done years ago even if I might not have used it much.
I'm not needing a taxi/uber/lyft for leaving the bar. I'm not going out to a restaurant with friends. I'm not traveling for work/fun and needing an lift to the hotel.
My usage of uber/lyft/taxis went from 100s per month down to 0. If this change happened in 2019, I'd of had significant changes to my daily routine. Today, this changes nothing.
Is that stat accurate? If so, what is the argument for imposing a model that the vast majority of drivers don't support?
Because the pool of drivers for a particular company would be massively reduced as well, driver down-time between rides on their platform may be expected to significantly decrease, which was a major reason for running multiple apps in the first place. Basically the remaining drivers will essentially partition themselves into two pools, driving exclusively for either Uber or Lyft. I'm not saying anything about whether that's good or bad, but it seems a likely outcome.
Nothing about this legislation or the court case before it took that flexibility away. Nothing about it requires people to be "full time" either.
Obviously, Lyft and Uber could've anticipated this and could've decided months ago to work on an alternative. Instead they let it come to a head and now they are trying to a dramatic PR push to get the law changed.
Uber/Lyft will control when and where and how long work is. That changes everything about the service (which is what matters more than the price) and makes it nonviable outside of a few major urban areas.
Do you want low-commitment employment (from both sides) or do you want employee benefits. You can't have both.
What do you think independent contractor means? Do you think that nobody should be independent then? Do you realize that full-time driving jobs already exist? Why do you presume that drivers can't make this choice for themselves? Why can't the people who are unhappy with the earnings just stop driving? Why is it better for both riders and drivers to lose this service and income by forced legislation when it already works fine for millions?
With regards to my experiences- I've spent years as an independent contractor. My linkedin is in my profile, feel free to confirm. I know the pros and cons of being an independent contractor and have followed the changes in the law both on the federal and local level. I'd say I'm fairly well versed in it.
Your argument about how "employee == full time" is just a straw man. No one is requiring people to be full time. In fact "flexibility"- which in most survays done on drivers is one of their top concerns- is preserved with the legal cases and subsequent AB5 legislation. The only difference is that as employees drivers would also get paid for idle time while waiting for rides, would have the option of benefits, and Uber would be responsible for paying unemployment taxes for when those riders lose their jobs (like when a pandemic hits).
Why did you ever work as a contractor if you're against not having a min wage and benefits? You claim that's "right" so what changed? Why impose that on others instead of choosing for yourself?
Flexibility means work when, where, and however long you want. AB5 removes this. Employee classification means preset shifts, which means it's only viable with fewer drivers working set schedules in dense areas instead of the fluid supply/demand with high coverage that exists today. This fundamentally changes the service from what consumers want, and that's why it doesn't work.
I don't drive often- I use public transit and lyft. I have talked to drivers, and most of them are pissed that their wages are dropping every year but they can't do things like unionize as they aren't "real employees". My anecdotal evidence, which you value so highly, lines up with what I've been saying.
> Employee classification means preset shifts
This is factually wrong. California doesn't have any law requiring "shifts". It does have a law saying that companies which enforce shifts (such as saying someone needs to be in the office from nine to five) give a minimum of four hours pay if they send people home early, but that's a huge difference from what you're saying.
There are tons of examples of this too- "work from home data entry" is a big field in California, and while they often have deadlines they rarely schedule specific shifts.
Wages decrease because there's more supply than demand. That's why surge pricing exists. The issue isn't the feedback (surveys align with the thousands I've talked to), it's that you don't think AB5 affects flexibility.
However paying by time requires shifts. Ridesharing needs to meet demand. Employees have to be placed in the best location and time to avoid idle drivers. This would lead to fewer drivers working longer hours and less coverage. This changes the service that people expect and pay for, leading to less riders and then even less drivers in a bad feedback loop.
All because some people don't think other people can choose how to spend their own time.
The idea that someone can clock-in, work 2-3 hours, clock-out and then clock in again in 2 weeks tells me this isn't a real job. We need another classification.
And the problem here isn't that Uber's model doesn't work. Uber can transition to this new classification and adjust their business model to make it work, the bigger problem is that the drivers don't want it to work this way. The service works because it can respond to minute-by-minute demand. That's not possible with the new rules.
Outside of the fact that uber would have to pay them more, there is nothing stopping them from working five hours one week and fifty the next.
Exactly, why are so many people forgetting this aspect of ridesharing? The whole point is that you can pick it up and put it down whenever you want for a little extra cash. VERY early on people were able to make a killing doing Uber and that gave others a false impression that this was somehow a viable full time job. It's been years and years since it made economic sense to do Uber on a fulltime basis. Giving drivers benefits isn't going to change the effective hourly rate of $7/hr or whatever it's been for a while.
Now they are trying to avoid the laws that made them unprofitable in the first term.
it was unsustainable from the beggining, they just expected to gain the public opinion to change the laws
A low-skill contract like driving casual passengers just has too much competition to be worth a full-time position, but it's still a great way for extra income with little commitment.
Sometimes claims are denied. Others spent all their money buying the insurance and now can't afford their co-pay (when they would have been able to easily afford the treatment if not for the cost of the insurance). More often, the system works just as its designed. There's no official denials. No refusals. Just a Kafkaesque runaround that inconveniences and delays treatment so that people get less of it, at a lower quality, and a lower cost for the insurer.
Of course, there's a lot of people who make good livings off the insurance industry (myself included). So there's a lot of vested interests trying to prevent people from being able (or accustomed) to buy medical care with cash, credit, etc.
They should simply decouple health insurance from employment by taxing it as income.
"We’ve spent hundreds of hours meeting with policymakers and labor leaders to craft an alternative proposal for drivers that includes a minimum earnings guarantee, mileage reimbursement, a health care subsidy, and occupational accident insurance, without the negative consequences."
That's what's so disingenuous about this campaign by Uber and Lyft. They're pretending that being an employee would take away all of this flexibility, but the reality is the legislation left that flexibility in place. This is entirely an argument about benefits and protections, but Lyft and Uber are trying to pretend otherwise.
The issue is that they're still considered employees which means predetermined shifts and control rather than fluid supply meeting demand by the minute. This changes the service (which matters more than the price for customers) so that it no longer works at the current scale.
Is there anything in California labour law or AB5 that requires predetermined shifts? What would prevent Uber/Lyft from allowing its now-employees to volunteer for an X-hour shift at any point that demand forecasts suggest it would be useful?
What do you call it when Uber tells an employee where, when and how long to work?
The very idea that health benefits are tied to employment is the real problem. In Canada they aren’t and thus it’s far more reasonable to work as a ride share driver here. If we could go even further and add pharmacare, dental, and even basic income to the services provided by the government, then we could get rid of minimum wage laws as well. When people are truly free to walk away from any job, then the market will decide the appropriate wage. Any job offering truly unacceptable wages at that point becomes a ripe target for automation.
Could it be that perhaps Uber and Lyft are simply poorly ran organizations who only excel at burning VC money?
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
IMO, if the California Republican party was smart they would make this a wedge issue in the next election. "Elect us, and we'll make it possible to use Uber again."
You mean, overcrowding a market with underpaid positions, sold with lies and marketing to make them sound better than they are, to force people with full time jobs out of work so that people could get a ride in a vehicle with no safety, security, (or originally) background verification while doing all they could to cheat regulations, driver and user privacy, tax laws, climate change, and eventually, now, rent-seek, to boost stock prices to pad Vegas parties and investor portfolios.
Modern ride sharing is not sustainable, environmentally friendly, or a 'job' and this doesn't exempt the bad behaviors by taxi companies, but understand this is the end destination of capitalism invading a regulated economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_v._Helvering
Government doesn't exist to collect taxes. They are there to provide governance. Taxes are a necessary evil that should be kept to a minimum to provide the service of governance.
If someone can come up with a legal operational structure that gets around taxes then that the government didn't do its job.
It's only easy to get around taxes when the taxes aren't closely tied to the service the government is providing. i.e. when you taxing one individual or business for a service provided to other individuals or businesses.
Right, they passed a law, AB5, to better do that job.
"To dodge the shareholders' taxes is not one of the transactions contemplated as corporate "reorganizations."
And from the SC ruling:
"The whole undertaking, though conducted according to the terms of [the statute], was in fact an elaborate and devious form of conveyance masquerading as a corporate reorganization, and nothing else. ... [T]he transaction upon its face lies outside the plain intent of the statute. To hold otherwise would be to exalt artifice above reality and to deprive the statutory provision in question of all serious purpose."
If there's no business purpose beyond tax avoidance, the government can indeed hold you to the higher tax rate. I don't think that's what happened here, i think there are legitimate non-tax reasons for Uber/Lyft's structure, but it's not a completely unreasonable take to disagree with that.
And even if not, the government is free to change the law to fix things, which it did.
Have they tried it to confirm it 'doesn't work'? Maybe rideshare companies need to reduce their cut, and start putting more of that money into the driver's pocket. Doesn't mean it can't be a profitable business, though possibly low-margin. Have they tried paring back development costs, marketing costs, etc?
In the meantime, they'll operate at a loss. If they leave the California market, they'll simple lose money slower.
The former tends to adapt okay to predictable demand, the latter tends to not at all.
Before Lyft and Uber, my usual wait time for a Taxis in the Seattle area was on the order of 45 minutes to an hour. Since the rideshare companies became common, the wait time for taxis has gone down, but its still longer than the wait for Lyft.
If prices were to go up, sure, Lyft would have less business, but presumably there is some price point that pays drivers enough and also makes the economics work for Lyft.
Yes it does matter in the debate.
Because when we are passing laws, we should care about both the pros and the cons of a particular policy.
You can feel free to say that the pros outweight the cons for these laws, but you still need to recognize that shutting down ride sharing is a con of these laws.
Those are the drawbacks of these laws, and it is OK for people to care about these drawbacks, and bring them up into the debate.
There are peculiarities to Lyft and Uber’s business model, being on demand is not one.
Your definition of on-demand is more like a bus or train, not lyft or uber. i.e. you have to actually go to a bus stop or train stop, which could be out of the way, and you have to deal with their schedule. That's hardly on-demand.
Uber and lyft's business model is absolutely based on being on-demand. I would take a bus or train if it was even close to as convenient.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamex_Operations_West,_Inc._...
This is like saying that raising the minimum wage will drive McDonald's out of business. At the current prices, sure, but McDonald's will raise prices 10% to compensate (wages are not 100% of the cost of a burger) and keep on trucking.
Seems to happen quite a bit in monoideological areas.
This is a transparent ploy by Lyft and Uber to try and extort the state into changing the law by holding their drivers' livelihoods ransom.
When did California eliminate private property? When did it hand over the means of production to the proletariat?
Last I checked, capitalism was alive and well in California, which is the dearly beloved home of the most successful capitalist entities and richest people on the planet.
If California's policies really were far left, all those companies would be owned and run by their workers, and no one would be richer than anyone else.
But that's not California, is it?
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/uber-is-officially-allowed-in-qu...
I wouldn't describe what happened in Quebec as a loss for Uber.
https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=37194&defa...
https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=133178&def...
List of all sponsors:
https://legiscan.com/CA/sponsors/AB5/2019
As you can see "Labor" is by far the biggest sponsor to the politicans who pushed through this initiative.
I think you are guilty of bad faith reasoning here. First you state that “big labor unions want more power” and your evidence for that claim is “Labor unions push for bills that prevent bad labor practices”.
To help point you in the right direction, why are the United Auto Workers acting in California when there are no unionized auto workers in California? These unions are always seeking to increase there member base because the more members they have the more powerful they are as an entity.
Unions also have a notion of solidarity. What is good for workers in California is usually good for workers in New York. That is why you will often see unions acting across state (and industry) boundaries, in solidarity with other unions and non-union workers.
Entities act in the best interests of themselves.
If unions were truly invested in the best interest of workers instead of the best interest of the union, they would value the desires of the 4/5 of drivers that want independent work as much as the 1/5 of drivers that want to be employees with benefits.
Most likely there is not a single explanation, usually issues like these are more complicated then that. There is no consensus on whether unions are more powerful in the US then elsewhere, I’m sure you can easily find examples—or spin the narrative—to back either case. And finally there is no evidence for some ulterior motive of driver’s unions, nor even a convincing narrative. Quite the contrary there is both evidence and a somewhat convincing narrative for why the ride-share companies would want to keep their workers from unionizing and asking for full-time worker’s benefits.
No, the heart of the issue is definitely the dismal state of health care in the US.
Teachers Unions, UAW, and the AFLCIO are pretty much the strongest lobbies in America.
My employer pays probably a shit ton of money for my health insurance and what I get is the most subpar, confusing, broken and sometimes blatantly extortive service ever.
I live in Austin and sometimes I think if I really need a major procedure it would be just simpler to drive to Mexico and get it done there. In fact, that's what many people in South Texas do, so there's your benchmark for how broken is healthcare in the US.
This even has a name: Medical Tourism.
I am downright surprised I haven't seen a YC startup that performs this sort of medical tourism brokerage to be honest. Take this business model! I'll be your first angel investment.
I know the insurance plan that Utah government employees are on will pay you to go to Mexico to get your prescriptions filled. Airfare, hotel, and medication costs are all covered. Free vacation just so the company doesn't have to pay the US prices for drugs.
Edit: This is true for India which is a top medical tourism place:
https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/implications-india-me...
https://scroll.in/article/931857/with-20-medical-professiona...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC404528
http://www.who.int/hrh/resources/16058health_workforce_India...
No, really: you just, flat out, made this up.
You have no way of knowing that demand for services in every single country with medical tourism outstrips supply of professionals. You just assumed it.
If it doesn't, which is just as likely (I think more, but I also don't know, and unlike you I won't pretend to know), then you're injecting money into the local economy, while getting medical/dental care at a lower price: win win.
The US has a uniquely onerous path of education and accreditation for medical professionals, with substantial supply-side limitation in the form of slots for medical school. Other places aren't so burdened.
Something to think about.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/business/medical-tourism-...
Though, I'm not convinced that's the "correct" solution from a broad societal perspective.
it is amazing what a Free market would bring right? Instead in the US we have this flawed belief that more government is what we need to solve healthcare never understanding that Government is the source of the problem
MX has a free market in healthcare, this allows people to get better care and lower prices as all free markets do
The cost of care in the US is so high because of the layers and layers of regulations, tax code, and legal liabilities that compound to influence the market in ways that are Anti-Consumer and increase prices on the service
So is it your belief that other countries that have highly-regulated medical systems, complex tax codes and a high degree of legal liability also have health care as expensive as USA? Or do you think it's possible that there are other factors at play?
For example in the US most hospital beds are semi private where only 1 other patent is in the room. Where in many government run hospitals in other nations they was a Ward system where 10,20 or more patents are all lined up in a row. This reduces costs but I prefer our semi private system
US also leads the world in medical research both in new technical, and in drug development largely this has a direct impact on our healthcare costs as well as unlike the rest of the world we do not have the same government mandated price controls. I wonder if US succumb to the pressure and does go full government run with the same price controls what that will do to the advancement of medicine in the world
If you look at a wide range of actual care standards such as Cancer Survivability Rates, Wait times for Specialists, Wait times for things like getting a Heart Stint the US leads the world in health care outcomes. I am sure you will point to the ever misunderstood Life Expectancy and /or infant mortality rates which ARE NOT a proper judge of the health system itself but commentary on other factors in society (such as lifestyle choices)
I believe the free market provides for the best outcomes for the most people, and I believe centrally planned systems be them economic or healthcare provide the worst outcomes. With the free market you may sometimes have breadlines but with centrally planned economies you may sometimes have bread.
That said..
>> taxes
This can never be free market, and some taxes (aka income taxes) is just unethical theft
> FBI, police
Should be funded in a variety of ways but absolutely could be privatized
https://reason.com/video/dont-abolish-the-police-privatize-t...
> Maybe we should get rid of army and hire mercenaries?
That is a little more tricky and would require an analysis of what we think the proper role of the military would be, but there are several proposals that replace the standing army (which is unconstitutional anyway) with something like the national guard controlled by individual states not the federal government
If everything is free market, why do we need government?
I know the answer, do you?
No taxes are not a service. Taxes are a compulsory contribution to state revenue enforced by the threat of violence. One can not simply choose not to consume a service and thus not pay the "taxes" for that service.
The fact is that the government, like a mugger, says to a person: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.
The government does not, indeed, waylay a person in a lonely place, spring upon them from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.
>>If everything is free market, why do we need government?
we do not need the modern "nanny state" central planning style of government, we need a basic frame work of law that is far far far more limited that what most consider the modern government to be and is based on lawful defense of life, liberty and property nothing more.
A person is composed of Life, faculties, & production aka individuality, liberty, & property
Each of us has a natural right to defend their person, their liberty, and their property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two.
The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
Since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force for the same reason cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Governments that are granted more power / authority than the collective organization of lawful defense are unethical in their foundation and purpose
Earlier this year my family had a medical emergency that resulted in us being billed a truly staggering amount of money for services that were technically elective, somewhat unproven, and not necessarily even recommended by the standard of care, and for which the actual sticker price varies wildly from hospital to hospital. But, when an emergency happens, you don't get to shop for hospitals, and you more-or-less unthinkingly do what the care team recommends, because there's simply no opportunity to stop and do any sort of cost/benefit analysis. As luck would have it, we ended up at a hospital that both tends toward the more liberal end of the spectrum in terms of what they do, and tends toward the more expensive end of the price range.
Fortunately our financial hit won't be too bad, because we have decent employer-provided insurance, and that cushions the blow quite a bit. If there's a silver lining, it's that we hit our out of pocket expense limit in the first part of the year, so we basically get everything for free for the rest of the year. But that whole situation is also a big part of the problem. We're nominally in the driver's seat, but, in practice, we really aren't in charge. Because we don't have access to a lot of the information necessary to make informed decisions, but also because we've been insulated from some of the major factors that might motivate an informed decision.
Social criticism in the USA tends to revolve around the "theater" metaphor. We have security theater, we have hygiene theater. I would characterize the underlying principle of the USA's health care system as agency theater.
According to the NYT: "During World War II, federal wage controls prevented employers from wooing workers with higher pay, so companies started offering health insurance as a way around the law. Of course, this form of nonmonetary compensation is still pay. When the war ended, the practice stuck."
I would much rather have a system where I was paid more and got to choose my health insurance provider. That way I could keep my insurance when I change jobs or if I wanted to freelance.
I run a company that helps software engineers find contract work, and the #1 question we get is "how much should I charge?". The #2 question is "what do I do for health insurance?"
It would seem like businesses brought this on themselves by offering benefits to get around compensation limits imposed by the government. Or you could say that this was caused by the government imposing limits on compensation. Super interesting to think that the root cause of our current problem could have been created 80 years ago.
Single payer is also seen as too paternalistic by a large minority of the US, so there is that as well.
There is a reason why ACA messaging from Democrats always included the fact that you could keep your existing insurance if you wanted.
“Everyone has different solutions” as in the two parties, both corporatist through and through, are only willing to offer solutions that nip around the edges of the problem with ridiculously complex regulations that ultimately result in less competition and higher profits for healthcare conglomerates.
Single payer in the vein of “Medicare for All” is popular for voters of both parties. It’s just that our representatives represent us in name only.
> Single payer is also seen as too paternalistic by a large minority of the US, so there is that as well.
Again there’s a disconnect between the discourse you can see on corporate cable news and major newspapers and what people actually think and want.
That said, the corporate media and Dems/Rs have been very very successful in 50 years of messaging that everything the government does = bad, inefficient, rationing. And everything corporate = dynamic, efficient, desirable. Almost everything that can be privatized has been privatized via crony capitalism, but they can still say “govt has big budgets, shitty results” when it’s their privatization that is the exact reason for the decay.
It’s depressing how effective it all is.
To a certain extent, I agree with the second; I'm kind of glad that the current administration doesn't have control over my health care...
It's potentially good for employers, as it increases friction in the labor market.
There is really isn't much incentive for companies to stop offering health insurance as a benefit.
If you pay for medical insurance yourself, it starts getting complicated[0]. They honestly just need to make it so any medical insurance payments should be 100% deductible, regardless of anything else. It would help level the playing field.
[0] https://www.investopedia.com/are-health-insurance-premiums-t...
That is a strange way to Phrase that... Government imposes unethical pay caps, and the "business" brought this on, not government?
No this problem is 100% the fault of the government not business
I would rather see employment and health insurance totally separated from each other.
But if people aren't open to that for whatever reason, one alternative would be a system where the employee freely picks any insurance plan, but the employer pays the premiums tax-free like they do now.
If you make it so the set of insurance choices is the same for all employers and for individuals paying their own way, then you could move around between employers or freelance.
Right now, big employers have bargaining power due to their size, so you'd lose that, but perhaps stronger competition (from everyone freely choosing) would make up for it.
Employers are required to provide health plans to any part or full time employees (excluding contractors) who work more than 30 hours a week.
All founders I've talked with about it find it crazy that they're determining the healthcare choices for their team, and it's much worse when they are supporting a diverse team.
"""Fred has 3 kids and cares about their dental, Tim mostly cares about mental health, Alice runs ultramarathons, and Bob just got married. The main things we have in common are we like building cryptocurrency tech and work in similar time zones."""
I think the heart of the issue is the entirely artificial split between the concept of employee and contractor. (Much like the arbitrary split between taxi and car service in nyc.)
Making everyone a contractor for every job, with the terms of the job specified in the contract, seems much more straightforward. I don’t think that the concept of “employment” needs to be one size fits all, like standard W-2 is today in the US.
It’s an artifact of tax law, the scam that is withholding (make most people not “feel” their taxes), and a dominant manufacturing economy model that no longer exists in the US.
I think the law rightfully distinguishes between truly negotiable contracts and take-it-or-leave-it terms offered by a party with more negotiating power.
This is entirely arbitrary.
It's not mandated but Obama care did introduce tax penalties for those that don't. Exact rules are complicated.
If you have fewer than 50 full time employees, yes (depending on the state).
If you have 50 or more employees, you have to offer healthcare (or pay penalties).
Citizens want goods for cheaper, obviously. But citizens also like the concept of people and companies doing "their fair share". For example a fair amount of people were outraged when it was revealed that official Walmart policy was to direct underpaid employees into Medicaid, EBT, etc. rather than just paying them to afford basic life expenses. And the gig economy if anything manages to be even more exploitative than that.
California has a strong history of voters holding politicians doing unpopular things accountable (see: Gray Davis) or doing things that override the will of politicians (see: Prop 13). There has not been strong voter organization against AB5, which speaks volumes about how much of a non-issue it is for voters.
For this change, companies like Uber and Lyft will have to completely reorganize their internal systems, ranging from their relationships with drivers to their tooling for organizing their drivers.
They say things like "passengers would experience reduced service, especially in suburban and rural areas" when what they really mean is "lyft would have to pay drivers to be available in that area even when demand is low, and Lyft doesn't want to pay drivers to idle in low demand spaces". There are various solutions to this, but they would all cost Lyft and Uber money, and heaven forbid they not be able to pass those expenses onto others, such as drivers that would hang around those areas _without_ any compensation.
The real heart of the matter here is that 10 years ago Uber disrupted the taxi industry. Now that they're the incumbents, changes like these put Uber and Lyft in a position to be disrupted by newer companies that more easily adapt to regulatory changes, or possibly the taxi companies they disrupted a decade ago. What we're seeing now is Lyft taking drastic measures to try and enrage the public against these policies.
This is a kid throwing a tantrum because they aren't getting cake after refusing to their chores.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...
In an nutshell: USA auto manufacturers purchased and dismantled the streetcar business to force people to have to buy cars.
companies and their employees would both be better supported if we established a Universal Basic Income.
While they are at it, they could also provide basic food.
That way, with your UBI, housing, and food you could live a dream life. We won't call them 'camps' though, but give them a hip millenial-approved name. Maybe 'launch centers'?
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-insecurity-o...
America does not have a stories history of being labor friendly. It’s pretty much old European pissing competitions imported anew after WW2. Identity which the country had begun to schlep off between the Gilded Age and WW1. Refugees brought it back over.
The best part of all this is Adam Smith only ever mentions markets in the context of a free labor market, buoyed by government support of equality of condition.
But Smith and Aristotle, who wrote Democracy is likely the most moral government, are cast aside for James Madison who wrote the Senate ought to protect the rich from Democracy or the people will take all the aristocrats stuff.
This is all 2,000+ years old rhetoric. Human biology hasn’t evolved so fast in that time that such concerns of the past are rendered obsolete.
To learn more: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/
He was not of average status. His nuance and negativity was, to my mind, self preservation driven. Nonetheless, he understood the benefits of Democracy to what we’d call “Main Street” life as obvious. He dismissed on those grounds as well, given the threat to his status. He got what it meant as an idea and agreed it would be a moral win for the public.
Ultimately I’m not writing a biography here. This isn’t rocket science and there’s little new territory to really be walked.
America of a generation ago had high taxes flooding communities with money. Now that generation is wielding a nations wealth against the next generation.
America is a lot of control freaks policing each other for compliance to sound economics and calling it freedom.
Most rideshare drivers are not properly insured — while passengers are well-covered, the drivers and their vehicles are not. Because the drivers are contractors and must navigate the insurance system as individuals, many do not possess adequate knowledge and statistically speaking, a large number are guaranteed to make mistakes when purchasing coverage.
If drivers were employees, then accident coverage for drivers and their vehicles becomes the responsibility of the rideshare companies. There would be fewer bad outcomes for drivers, but because the rideshare companies would bear greater risk, their profits would be reduced.
For a lot of people who drive Lyft, catastrophic care could be a good fit, e.g. people in between jobs who expect to have a company plan at their next full-time position. This wouldn't entirely close the gap towards providing gig workers with benefits, but it would have helped.
There's also people for whom Lyft is a second job -- I'm thinking of a ride with a Chicago public school teacher who drove on weekends and breaks -- and I don't think it makes sense to force Lyft to provide them with insurance.
[0] https://www.healthcare.gov/health-coverage-exemptions/2019-e....
Look, I'm not happy about health care costs either, but ACA plans for young are really not that expensive. Further, plans prior to ACA offered terrible coverage. Yes, people got to say they had coverage, but the lifetime caps bankrupted people repeatedly. Eliminating the caps and mandating minimum essential coverage was absolutely essential to eliminating what really were scams of coverage. Further, even if you really want to get terrible coverage for less money, you can always use the loop hole and purchase coverage through a health care sharing ministry, which are even cheaper. Though, I strongly recommend against that because there's no guarantee that a bill will be covered.
My numbers are based on my own experiences shopping for healthcare in an ACA exchange in NY.
And, to be sure, coverage is still pretty bad. Just because someone has coverage doesn't mean they have the money to use coverage. Unless there's another subsidy, and there may be, that bronze Fidelis plan has a $8150 out of pocket max and it's unlikely someone making $30k/year is going to have that much money laying around. That said, at least the plan has a couple of free PCP visits.
Anyway, my intention here isn't to beat a dead horse. It's really important to me that people get health care coverage and costs are a barrier. I believe ACA plans to be far more affordable than people think them to be. I don't doubt that you saw a price in the realm you mentioned because they're out there, but often better pricing can be found and I end up doing these searches a lot.
[0]edit: unauthentic->inauthentic
Removing my tin foil hat now.
The American people take advantage of the lower class by tying healthcare to employment, and in an extra-cruel way where less lucrative jobs also provide insurance that is both more expensive day-to-day to the employee AND less comprehensive.
Uncouple basic benefits from jobs and so many of these problems go away in a much simpler way.
Unless they find another job. Which they were free to do anyway. But that's not always so simple...
So what problem did we just solve?
This is basically the one actual political policy issue that I feel strongly about.
A boy can dream...
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
...attacked as a shill.
I've also spoken with many full-time drivers in California, and none were in favor of AB5; they liked their independence, and preferred this work largely because they weren't employees. They did feel resentful of Lyft and especially Uber for reducing their earnings over time (ie "taking advantage of them"), but didn't seem to think AB5 would help wit that.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. You've unfortunately broken them more than once lately.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24225001.
We either have "full time = forty hours of work and tons of benefits that have been shoehorned into employment because our government doesn't provide it" or "part time = less than forty hours and you get abused"
I'm not privy so I won't pretend to have the right idea, but it seems like there should be a middle ground.
Unemployment is a different case, but here, it would actually make the state liable for more money—it would be a pretty weird greed situation.
Not if they are under the reporting limit, which many drivers are.
> Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman ruled Monday [August 10, 2020] that Lyft and Uber's thousands of contract drivers should be given the same protections and benefits under labor law as other employees of the ride-hailing companies.
> The judge said Uber and Lyft have refused to comply with a California law passed last year that was supposed to make it harder for companies in the state to hire workers as contractors, so gig economy workers such as drivers for the ride-hailing companies would receive health insurance, workers' compensation and paid sick and family leave. As independent contractors, Uber and Lyft drivers are not provided these benefits.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/901099643/california-judge-or...
This law is impacting people outside of Uber and Lyft but those two are highlighted because it thwarted the lock down many municipalities had over cab companies and they did not want to give up the side benefits of that cash into their political coffers.
Then throw in that Uber and Lyft were truly effective alternatives to unionized mass transit lines operated in many cities and you can see the entirety of the political graft that was being upended. If you want more you just jump into that this is part of undoing decades of jobs bounded up in occupational licensing which only serves to protect vested interest who again are quick to maintain their political donations.
If they were out to protect workers they had many more ways to do it.
[0]https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-s-gi...
No they weren't. It's called "mass transit" for a reason - replacing trains and buses with masses of individuals riding in separate cars is not an effective alternative. While Uber and Lyft are more convenient for certain trips, mass transit still has a place due to capacity constraints.
> If they were out to protect workers they had many more ways to do it.
Such as what? Strengthening collective bargaining rights? Oh wait, you don't like unions either.
How does it compare?
TL;DR it's easy to flip out because Uber and Lyft are big names, but there are plenty of other good services, just use those instead.
[1] https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-austin/impacts/20....
With the new requirements in place (e.g. actually hiring employees and providing benefits) the barrier to entry here is waaaaay higher than before. I would argue Ride Austin would have never even started (especially as a non profit) if these requirements were in place the last time Uber/Lyft shut down in Austin.
There's no objective "better" here. Some drivers may have done better with higher fares being passed onto them. On the other hand, 59% of Lyft/Uber riders ceased to use ride-hailing services.
There CSAT wasn't that great either; ride volume of competitors dropped significantly (Ride Austin lost 55% of riders within a week of Uber and Lyft returning).
The fundamental problem we have here is that pricing is being set by a heavily competitive market-place -- the clearance wage however is below what many see as a living wage. The most just thing to do may be to introduce a pricing floor (raise fares and raise driver income/benefits), but it's important to be honest about the trade-offs.
The apps were extremely buggy for both drivers and passengers causing missed rides, multiple drivers showing up to the same rider, etc. Fasten paid the best, but it still would only be marginally better if not the exact same as I was making with Uber or Lyft.
As far as what happened in Austin, there were absolutely no good replacements and us drivers (at least the ones I talked to) were very happy when they returned.
I don't really understand why this is necessary. Can't there still be flexible arrangements with drivers simply clocking their work and then getting some kind of salary derived from that? Can't they still get paid bonuses for driving in particularly unwanted hours?
Sure, this would be a complex contract, but I don't see how this is impossible. But I'm not a USA citizen so maybe there is something I'm missing.
What I'm guessing is that having people waiting being paid $0 is a core principal of Uber and Lyft. They hinge on over-supply. If they have to pay minimum wage to everyone who signs on, they need to be a lot more careful about who they allow to sign on, and when.
Saying it'll go to shift work though seems a bit extreme. Sounds like a tantrum to me.
This is why cab companies don't already let drivers pick their own hours (assuming they don't use the uber-lite approach of people just hiring the cab\medallion).
1. It is by far not as bad as Lyft and Uber present this and 2. I think this is a good thing overall. Less payment flexibility means a more stable income. Sure, some drivers don't need that stability, but those who do need it, really need it and this is more important in my mind.
The second point also fits into the narrative that this only benefits 1/5 of the drivers but that these drivers are doing a majority of the rides. I don't have a citation for that, so take it with a grain of salt :)
Even if drivers don't game the system, there will always be natural imbalance between supply and demand. Surge bonuses can mitigate this imbalance, but scheduling shifts is the more economically efficient way to solve the imbalance problem (hence why they say schedule flexibility will no longer be a feature in a driver employment model).
All of this is already practiced in some place in the world. Sure, it's not as easy as creating an account on the app and off you go, but the driver flexibility of choosing when to drive doesn't seem to be so hard to me.
There are all kinds of adjustments you can make.
Another thing: you don't get paid for "doing nothing", you are getting paid for dropping everything when needed. On these conditions you're limited in all kinds of ways, e.g.
Taking care of a small kid alone? - not possible. Going shopping? - not really possible.
Option 1: Deny any attempts to "clock in" whenever the number of drivers waiting in a region exceeds a certain density.
Option 2: Your shift starts when you pick up a passenger, and ends when you drop them off. (I have no idea whether this actually meets the state's requirements. I do suspect that there exists an equally clever solution that will work.)
Uber and friends built their entire businesses in working around existing laws. I'm sure they can figure out how to navigate the new laws.
Voters in the US also don’t want to pay for any of this.
Hence, the politicians that get elected are ones that give people education via student loans, and healthcare/unemployment benefits tied to employer/employment status. Those politicians get to claim they helped people, and they get to claim they kept taxes low.
The game is to try to reduce your tax burden as much as possible, and don’t slip up and end up in the bottom 3, maybe even 4 income quintiles.
I will say that I recently had to deal with the medical system for a family member, and he was on decent private insurance. We actually would have received better care at a lower cost if he was on Medicare instead. N=1, of course.
I'm pretty sure that Medicare has been shown to be a more effective negotiator than the private insurers and generally operates more efficiently, but I may be misremembering.
Disclaimer that I don't support medicare for all myself, I'd much prefer a model closer to the NHS, with caveats (federal funding, county administration, state oversight).
There is more than enough money to go around, it's that there is a lot of it being wasted. The government and states failed to provide a good taxation and spending model. It's not the issue of the voters not willing to pay for it.
https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra...
If you see at the bottom, a 60 year old's age rating factor is 2.714 times a 21 year old's. Which means their premium can't exceed 2.714 times a 21 year old. Obviously a 60 year old uses far more healthcare than 2.7 times the healthcare a 21 year old uses, so effectively it's a tax on the 21 year old to pay for the 60 year old's healthcare.
Absolute insanity. Yet changing this at a fundamental level is somehow considered radical, nothing we can do etc., except what every other western country has already done. We keep telling ourselves we have the best medical care in the world, which anyone who has lived outside the US for some time can attest is complete bullshit.
Good paper on the topic - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/biosoc.2010.40
I don't know why this isn't illegal. You can go from living comfortably to living in poverty even though you held up your end of the contract except for that last time when you were not even conscious.
It'd like a burger OK, here it is. What is the charge? I'm not sure. I'll send you a bill in 2-32 weeks.
Many months later, he finds out that they later sent two more bills to the address where he lived in middle school, never called him about it, and then referred them to debt collection because of course he hadn't paid them. He found out about this when the debts showed up on his credit monitoring.
Now they're denying that he gave them his current address, despite the fact that he has multiple other bills with earlier dates where the hospital has printed the correct address on them.
tldr: America's medical billing is an absurd shitshow
Except in the US wants to do what "every other western country has already done," which is to use payroll taxes on the middle class to subsidize mandatory health insurance or pay for a state-run system. Nobody in the US is actually serious about universal healthcare, except the folks who want to fix the ACA. Even Sanders promises not to raise taxes on people making below $250,000. If that's the promise, then all the other stuff is just talk, because the revenue can't be there to pay for any of it.
Warren actually got close to a plan for accomplishing universal healthcare without raising middle class taxes, and it only proves what a complete farce that is. It features:
- A wealth tax that goes up to 6%, four times higher than the 1.5% wealth taxes that Sweden and France abandoned (and most OECD countries never had)
- Corporate taxes around 35-39%, higher than Sweden, France, Germany, Denmark, etc.
- Capital gains taxed at the income rate, with a 70% top rate
Each of those policies individually would be outside the mainstream of the OECD. But under Warren's plan, you'd need all of these in combination just to raise half the money needed for Medicare for All.
So Sweden has corporate taxes around 22%, capital gains taxed at a flat 30%, and a top income tax rate of about 52% depending on municipality. It abandoned its wealth tax recently. Under Warren, the United States would have corporate taxes at 35% + the state rate (total 44% in California), a wealth tax going up to 6%, and a top marginal tax rate on capital gains of 70%.
Obviously we'd never do that, which shows you how it was never a serious proposal.
Voters in the US are already paying for healthcare for all, plus they are paying extra to support an entire healthcare insurance industry.
The USA doesn't (generally) let people die if they can't afford healthcare (people may be driven into bankruptcy, but they won't be left to die), so those costs are all getting paid by the public. And it'd be cheaper to pay for preventative care than to wait and pay for care for those that are so sick that they have no choice but to see an expensive doctor.
I've been living in the US for almost 7 years, and this is news to me. As far as I understand, Medicare only applies to people who are 65+ years old, and Medicaid only applies to families with certain income (relative to family size). What did I miss?
> The USA doesn't (generally) let people die if they can't afford healthcare (people may be driven into bankruptcy, but they won't be left to die), so those costs are all getting paid by the public.
As COVID-19 has demonstrated quite effectively, death is not the only outcome to focus on. Also, driving a person into bankruptcy or otherwise ruining their future is not what I would call "healthcare paid for by everyone".
I am sincerely hoping that I have missed something in your arguments.
Instead of waiting for someone with the flu to develop pneumonia and go to the ER because he can't breath, it'd be much cheaper to subsidize his visit to a primary care physician that he can go to before he needs a hospital.
To relate a personal experience, I have a relative that's had drug addiction problems all her life -- a few years back she had a cold or flu, couldn't afford to see a doctor so tried to ride it out at home, fortunately, she called her mom and told her how sick she was. When she didn't respond to the phone the next day, her parents drove across the state to check on her, found her near comatose and called 911. She had some bacterial pneumonia and almost died, she spent 10 days in the hospital, 5 of those days were in the ICU, intubated and in an induced coma. Because she was working and had some moderate income, she had lost her eligibility for state subsidized medical insurance. After taking 6 weeks off work to recover, she of course, lost her job, then she qualified for health care coverage and state disability payments.
The total hospital bill was over $300,000. Since she had no income or assets, the hospital wrote off the entire bill and absorbed the charges.
All of this because the public didn't want to pay $100 for her to see a doctor and get some antibiotics.
I think it's fair of you to point out that there are certain scenarios in which healthcare is not paid for by the person getting it and everyone else ends up paying for it indirectly. I also think it's fair of you to point out that it's handled in such a way that it creates a byzantine system that ends up costing us all a lot more than it should.
But that's a long long way from claiming that "voters in the US are already paying for healthcare for all", in the context of the current discussion. "Voters in the US are paying for a byzantine system that handles extreme cases that happen because of the failure to have a proper healthcare for all" is as far as I could go with your arguments ;)
But the point remains -- voters don't want to pay for it, but they are already paying for it, many just don't realize it because when they pay $500/month for healthcare insurance, they don't see the $900 that their employer is paying or the public subsidies to hospitals.
> Voters in the US also don’t want to pay for any of this.
A wealth tax is pretty popular. And we spend a whole lot in health insurance premiums.
Oh, and we could cut our defense (offense) spending in half and still be spending a good bit more than China.
But Ontario has free public healthcare based on residence status, while Cali doesn't. So a better question might be what is it that US taxes are paying for that are so important (but that the neighbor in the north can do without just fine) that it can't afford healthcare instead?
Discussions about other causes for US taxes to be so high can get very political very quick because the myriad tax deductions available to the asset owning class, as well as the unaccounted for defined benefit / retiree healthcare debt that US governments have at all levels, and then you can get into military spending and so on and so forth.
They aren't the innocent victims of gov't overreach for us to venerate. They stonewalled participation in writing a better AB5, because they want no rules but their own.
IMHO This would be a great time for TESLA to spin up a 100% employee based human driving service in California and gobble up the demand.
I mean other than the fact that it would make no money.
What could California do to the developers of such an app?
[note: I'm not being sarcastic about calling the Facebook moms group “highly powerful”—they have significant civic clout in local politics/business/activism.]
At the end of the day, the added value of Uber and Lyft is not that amazing, and should be easy to replicate in a p2p system.