I was an undercover Uber driver

by robdimarco • 11 years ago

237 134 11 years ago

krapht• 11 years ago

I also drove for Uber in DC for a few months while I was between jobs. I thought it would be a fun and easy way to get a few dollars for beer. My experience mirrors that of the reporter. Towards the end, I would only drive during surge pricing hours, as that was the only way to make a reasonable net hourly wage.

I have no problem hailing an Uber - they are really, really cheap. However, it's a raw deal for drivers. Uber turns a blind eye to driver-contractors driving without commercial vehicle insurance. It has to, as the additional cost (which is pushed onto the driver) would cause the driver's hourly rate to plummet even further. In addition, there is no way to purchase commercial insurance on an hourly basis - therefore part-time drivers would be squeezed out. The flat-rate $1 safe rides fee causes low-distance fares to be even more unprofitable, even when many short trips are already a bad deal due to the overhead involved in each pickup and drop-off.

To fix this, Uber should probably cover drivers with an on-demand commercial policy while they are logged into the app. The flat per-ride fee should go away. And while I doubt this is going to happen, Uber should probably also reduce the commission they take per ride.

pmorici5• 11 years ago

I drove for Uber in Baltimore last spring for a few months during weekends just for fun and I agree this article's assessment is _dead_ on.

I've since stopped using Uber even as a rider. The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous and I don't want to be an enabler to that. Lyft is a bit better because at least I can leave the driver a reasonable tip through the app.

jaredhansen2• 11 years ago

The way they treat the drivers is pretty horrendous I keep hearing this, and it's ... confusing. I mean maybe Uber's really nasty to drivers, I guess, but if it is, then what are all these Uber drivers doing?

It takes all of ... what, like 45 seconds to download Lyft? If Uber is so bad, why don't all the drivers just switch?

I don't know enough about the economics of any particular driver's situation to know how many people it works for or doesn't, but (1) believing that Uber drivers get screwed, (2) believing that, say, Lyft drivers have it much better, AND (3) recognizing that far more people choose to drive for Uber than for these other platforms, requires us to believe some rather surprising things about the subjective mental states of the many, many Uber drivers, right?

I mean: Damn, I hate my job, my company treats me terribly, and a substantially identical job is about 4 taps and 2 minutes away, and ... I guess I'll just keep working for The Man.

Why would anyone do that?

aikah• 11 years ago

It has to

So basically you mean than Uber can only make money if most their drivers do not respect the law. Which gives Uber an unfair advantage over the competition (regular taxis that do respect the law ). It's like saying employer X doesn't check if his employees are legal workers, because if he did it would be too expensive to do business. But hey, even startups got to hussle to make a good living.

danieltillett3• 11 years ago

This is the whole idea behind regulatory arbitrage. Find an industry that has built up "inefficiencies" due the law and then undercut by deliberately breaking the law.

The only thing that amazes me about uber (apart from its current valuation) is that the taxi industry is powerful enough to prevent the issuing of more taxi medallions, but not powerful enough to get the current laws enforced against uber. Assuming uber recognised this in advance (I don't have any evidence that they did) then this was pretty clever.

stickfigure5• 11 years ago

Uber can only make money if most their drivers do not respect the law is an assumption. Keep in mind that Uber evades the cost of a medallion, which the article says runs $420-460 per week in Philly. That eliminates $1700+ per month of cost that effectively goes to the banks that fund loans on these assets. I don't see much social good in that.

Uber may additionally benefit from regulatory arbitrage, but it is not obvious that their business requires it.

Dylan16807• 11 years ago

So how much does commercial insurance cost? And since you have experience maybe you can answer this: What if you accept the insurance argument that having the app open is commercial, and shut it off to find a parking space after every ride. How long would that take, is it feasible?

Tycho• 11 years ago

maybe the insurance industry could innovate and solve this problem

TeMPOraL4• 11 years ago

Why would they? If they don't have to pay out money to people who get screwed by Uber, they profit.

dragontamer• 11 years ago

https://www.geico.com/getaquote/ridesharing/

diminoten• 11 years ago

Uber reassures drivers that they've got them covered, but their vaunted $1 million policy is secondary for collision — that is, drivers must try to get their own insurance companies to pay the claims first. If the claim is rejected because the insurer figures out it's Uber-related, then Uber's policy kicks in — but the driver's almost certainly going to have his personal insurance policy cancelled, and in some cases be investigated for fraud.

What? Has this ever happened before? Surely by now there would be specific examples of this taking place, if it were indeed a real thing.

CP: Yeah, not really — when they take UberX into a new market like Philly, they start off by paying drivers a lot. So in the beginning, you get a lot of drivers who look like the drivers in Uber ads, like, suits and bottled water and no accents. And everyone gets the idea that Uber drivers have suits and make a ton of money. Then after a while, usually when a competitor comes in — you know Lyft just started up a couple weeks ago, right?

(CP is the person who wrote the article, not anyone being interviewed) -- How impressively unprofessional. The entire section that quote comes from is just the person writing the article yelling at someone she's ferrying around as an UberX driver. A more obvious hit piece could not have been written.

Also, the site keeps refreshing on me, losing my place in the article. I think it's related to the graphs, but I can't be sure. They randomly go into "loading..." mode when this happens.

JoblessWonder• 11 years ago

FYI- My page kept refreshing as well. Really annoying. I can't imagine it is on purpose to drive up pageview counts... but... I've seen shadier tactics.

danso• 11 years ago

There have been quite a few stories regarding the insurance policy, though more about the ambiguity/controversy in general than specific incidents...which isn't surprising...when do car accidents make it into the national news? Rarely, unless a whole bunch of people die. For an Uber-related accident and subsequent legal fight to make national news, one of the parties has to pitch that angle to the media...though with the way things are, media outlets generally have little problem jumping on an Uber (or Airbnb) mishap when they hear about it.

That said, here are a few examples I found:

2013-09: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/09/real-future-ride-shar...

As you might imagine, the front of the Dodge was badly damaged. The driver is now suing the driver of the Town Car, a vehicle with livery plates operated under the company SF Limo Car Service. The pedestrian, who broke her leg and injured her back, is suing both drivers. She is also suing – and this is what makes this crash particularly interesting – the transportation-tech company Uber.

2014-12: "Rideshare Drivers Still Cornered Into Insurance Secrecy" http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/12/18/uber-lyft-d...

The don’t-ask-don’t-tell strategy usually works until there’s a crash. Ian, a Bay Area Uber driver, was off duty when his car was hit by another car in October. While he was filing a claim with Geico, they asked him if he ever worked for Uber or Lyft. “I panicked,” he said. “They put me on the spot. So I just answered honestly and said yes, but that I wasn’t working when this happened.”

2014-01 http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/should-car-services-provide...

Uber posted a “Statement On New Year’s Eve Accident” on its blog, offering condolences to the victim and her family, but also distancing itself from any cuplability.

2015-03 http://www.insurancebusiness.ca/news/toronto-uber-crash-reig...

After initially being told by an Uber representative in Chicago that he had to pay a $1,000 deductible, this was later recanted. Since he was not at fault, his personal car insurance fronted the entire bill. But because he lacks commercial coverage, questions arise as to who would be responsible if he had been responsible for the collision.

CodeWriter23• 11 years ago

Go check the forums at uberpeople.net to hear firsthand the numerous stories of drivers having their personal insurance policies canceled after an accident. The media doesn't care enough to cover these stories.

It's not a myth, it is actually right in the agreement with your insurer, that your vehicle will not be used for commercial purposes.

Also, the $1 "Safe Ride" fee only covers excess liability, not collision. So if you're driving for Uber or Lyft, and the accident is your fault, everyone else is covered. Your passengers, the other driver(s), their vehicle(s). You have a totaled car with no insurance and have to pay your own medical bills.

yellowapple4• 11 years ago

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

rconti2• 11 years ago

Especially when it refreshes to "too many database connections" mid-read. Great work, citypaper.

Eric_WVGG• 11 years ago

I used to think Safari “Reader View” was sort of daft but I’ve been indispensable lately…

eosrei• 11 years ago

I ended up reading the article in Print Preview. No way for them to screw that up.

TeMPOraL4• 11 years ago

Yet.

StavrosK2• 11 years ago

I'm glad it wasn't just me, but I had this happen with (what I think is) another site earlier. Are you guys using Ghostery too, perhaps?

yellowapple4• 11 years ago

I'm just using AdBlock Plus on this particular browser (Conkeror; Firefox-like). Haven't bothered to try with Firefox (which doesn't have Ghostery, but has a more stringent ad-blocking policy and some other privacy-ish addons that I can't recall at the moment).

Zarel• 11 years ago

I'm not using Ghostery or any ad-blocking or tracking-blocking extensions, and I have the same problem.

corin_• 11 years ago

Only a guess but I'd place money on "because that's the best way they can think of to increase advert impressions". I've known publishers do that for this reason, at least. Depressingly.

yellowapple4• 11 years ago

And yet I have adblock on, so the only thing they're accomplishing is making me not read the whole article. There's enough irony in that to cure every case of anemia worldwide.

jwolgamott• 11 years ago

The offending code that reloads the page every 3 minutes [0]. Terrible. The author told me on twitter [1] it's because of traffic, but... no. it's the js code. Ironically, the forced reload is making the traffic problem worse.

You can add a "function contentRefresh(){}" in your devtools js console to get rid of this. It was the only way I could finish the article.

[0] https://gist.github.com/jwo/720edc9fedbbafc87a10

[1] https://twitter.com/emilygee/status/596102787198492672

blahedo• 11 years ago

Every 5 minutes, right?

  var timer = setTimeout("contentRefresh()", 1000 * 60 * 5);function contentRefresh(){self.location.reload(true)}

But yes, this is astonishingly aggravating. Why would you do this on a site, or at least a page, that is attempting long-form journalism? Don't they want people to, you know, read it?

DigitalSea2• 11 years ago

A few months ago when I was in Seattle for work, I caught Uber everywhere. I had so many conversations with Uber drivers about why they drove for Uber, how much money they made and why they weren't doing something else.

Needless to say, unless I felt legitimately fearful for my life (which rarely ever happened) I would always rate 5 stars. I realised a lot of these Uber drivers (usually migrants with broken English) probably didn't have many other options to earn money. An almost consistent sentiment amongst those drivers was they were working long hours and support family (not just a wife and children but parents/relatives). My reasoning for this was I am paying like half the cost of what a taxi would cost me, so why not 5 stars?

I think Uber is great for a certain subset of people. While most people who frequent HN on six figure tech salaries would definitely struggle to live on an Uber salary, a lot of people rely on it. In all honesty, I couldn't do it and I have a certain level of respect for those willing to earn so little and work so much to support their families. As a passenger Uber is great, but you can't deny that drivers get absolutely shafted unless they're driving through surge pricing periods and areas. I always rate 5 stars when I get an Uber unless of course the driver is swerving all over the place, speeding or doing dangerous things to endanger my life (which has happened like twice in all of the time I have used Uber).

Aside: Anyone else find the article sporadically refresh? Made it very difficult to read the article.

carrotleads• 11 years ago

I have come across a startup founder who drives Uber in the evenings to help with cashflow. But he is a unique subset as well. His family lives back in South Africa and this keeps him occupied in the evenings plus he can do a bit of customer validation if occasion presents.

BurningFrog4• 11 years ago

you can't deny that drivers get absolutely shafted

Actually you can.

I think the simplest argument is the best one: They choose to do this voluntarily, every single day they drive.

zorpner• 11 years ago

The idea of "choice" is significantly more complex than you present it to be, particularly within the context of people providing for themselves and their families, and the information asymmetry Uber leverages in order to convince people to work for them.

pmorici5• 11 years ago

I disagree. Uber employs extremely deceptive advertising to recruit drivers and encourages them to do things like buy new cars then turns around and cuts the amount drivers get paid. This has the effect of totally screwing them over. It's a pretty exploitative situation for people who actually rely on it for income to pay their living expenses.

DigitalSea2• 11 years ago

Just like workers in sweatshops and factories in countries like Indonesia and China have a choice to not work for a few dollars per day in dangerous conditions producing textiles for your $200 sneakers and smartphone components for your $1000 iPhone or Android device? The people working in those deplorable conditions are doing so voluntarily, right? Just like the homeless guy digging through the trash on Market St in San Francisco has the choice to not be homeless even though his area is being gentrified and even people on six figure salaries cannot afford to live in a lot of areas of San Francisco. I cannot get on-board with the view that everyone has a choice.

s73v3r4• 11 years ago

Your argument is completely irrelevant. The "its voluntary" thing means absolutely nothing.

shitlord• 11 years ago

That's interesting, because I have had the opposite experience. The one time I used Uber instead of Lyft in NYC, I got a driver who was most probably a rapist. Whenever we passed a bar or any drunk girls, he would start telling me how he wanted to take advantage of them. Then he started insulting me for some reason.

It was a strange experience, but clearly, the Uber driver pool is merging with the taxi driver pool. And it's bringing the bad elements you'd expect from a typical cabbie.

s73v3r4• 11 years ago

"My reasoning for this was I am paying like half the cost of what a taxi would cost me, so why not 5 stars?"

That's true for everyone using Uber. You're not supposed to rate it relative to a taxi, but relative to other Uber drivers.

guessbest• 11 years ago

Aside: Anyone else find the article sporadically refresh? Made it very difficult to read the article.

Yes. It did for me in Firefox on the desktop, but not on mobile safari. I thought I was crazy when it did it the first time but the second time, I knew it was the citypaper site.

perfTerm• 11 years ago

Very strange. For me on mobile safari (iOS 8.whatever's newest) it refreshed six or seven times by the end. Very frustrating. I don't have traffic inspection tools on my iPhone but usually I find weird page refreshes like that are due to advertising.

justhw• 11 years ago

There's a code that refreshes it every 5 min. https://i.imgur.com/SzFkzdG.png

saclark11• 11 years ago

Came here to the comments to ask the same question about the page refresh. At one point the page even completely blanked out and served me an error message directly from the server. It wasn't anything particularly sensitive, but an information leak none-the-less.

grrowl• 11 years ago

Must be to boost their ad impressions. Really scummy, and kept interrupting the embedded Uber training video.

zaroth3• 11 years ago

I realised a lot of these Uber drivers (usually migrants with broken English) probably didn't have many other options to earn money.

This is just such a perfect observation. What we are seeing here is an end-run around the minimum wage. The so-called "1099 economy" is increasing employment of unskilled workers who would otherwise be unemployable at the mandatory minimum.

Where else are people going to find a job they can set their own hours, work 12-hours a day, 80 hours a week, making $5/hour sitting down? If the minimum wage weren't so damn high there might be competitive alternatives.

Keep in mind, the goal isn't to "make" $80k, or even $60k, and then lose over half of it to taxes and phased-out benefits. If you're supporting your wife and two kids, the goal is to make about $32k, which on a 1099 will work out to just about maximize your EITC, food stamps, Medi-Cal, etc. and in the end your net value is equivalent to about $100k fully loaded (the employer's fully loaded cost) of regular W-2 employment.

stickfigure5• 11 years ago

The article mentions several times that expected wage post-expenses is around $10 per hour, not $5. That difference is material.

hackuser2• 11 years ago

If the minimum wage weren't so damn high ...

It's about where it was 50 years ago, measured in real dollars: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/04/5-facts-abou...

By other measurements, it's relatively low: http://www.cepr.net/publications/reports/the-minimum-wage-is...

chrismcb• 11 years ago

I don't plan on taking uber, but if I did, I got average service I would probably dare the driver 3 stars, because that is what 3 stars mean.... Average. And yet I would unknowingly be hurting the driver. And that is just stupid

marincounty3• 11 years ago

I see people buying 2008 plus four door vechicles(that Uber approves of--on the ever changing list) and not making money and stuck with a four door car. Four door cars are harder to sell than two door cars.(I can't point to a link to prove this, but I used to sell cars, and four door cars were a tough sell.)

My problem with Uber is the requirement for a 2008 or newer car, and Uber decides if it's cool enough to represent their company. This is not an independent contractor Uber?

Let the driver use any registered vechicle? Your brilliant app will let the consumer look at the vechicle before before the hire? If you are worried about safety--just because a person has an older car doesn't mean it's less safe. Bring every vechicle in for a safety check if worried?

Maybe then, when the Uber driver finds out it's not the opportunity your company claims; they aren't stuck with a car they can't sell, or take a huge loss when selling your "acceptable" vehicle, or worse claim bankruptcy?

People are desperate for jobs--don't exploit them! I liked your company in the beginning(before I looked into the requirements of Uber).

gcr• 11 years ago

The "Sidecar" app may be more appropriate for drivers who want to take customers for a ride in their go karts/tractor trailers/dune buggies/mopeds/cat busses/... :)

marincounty3• 11 years ago

Besides the Moped--they aren't quite street legal? What is the point of the App if you can't see the vechicle? Do you happen to work in a climate controlled Uber office--with stock shares?

My point is don't claim Independent Contractor status when you're obviously not. This link makes fun reading. Maybe you can explain automotive aesthetics to me, Honda, Chevrolet, or Volkswagen?

http://www.driveubernyc.com/vehicles/full-list/

marincounty3• 11 years ago

"FULL VEHICLE LIST

"remember - UberBLACK and UberSUV vehicles MUST be black on black.

Please note: all vehicles must be 2010 or newer. The TLC is no longer renewing diamonds for vehicles that are older than 2011, so if your diamond is up for renewal, the TLC will not allow you to continue driving a 2010 vehicle. If you don't have TLC plates yet, you must get a 2011 or newer vehicle, as the TLC requires black cars to be under 5 years old."

But wait if you have one of these Uber approved automobiles you will "make $500 per trip, no risk, no strings attached"

Sign me up for a loan!

(Couldn't upload the list do to size)

jasonisalive2• 11 years ago

Uber offers a certain deal to potential drivers, they either like it enough to accept it or they think they can get a better match for their skills and circumstances and they keep looking. Uber has no responsibility to try and offer a deal which matches your sense of fairness. No one is being coerced and no one is being exploited.

chrismartin• 11 years ago

You're neglecting to consider that other employment opportunities for someone in a given set of circumstances may offer a similarly raw deal, which results in effective exploitation, even if Uber is not solely responsible.

Worse than that, Uber externalizes the cost of commercial vehicle insurance onto the driver. A part-time driver is likely to not carry commercial insurance, due to the expense and to hyperbolic discounting: I'd rather have $X more in my pocket now than protection from a possible lawsuit later. This results in cheap fares at increased personal risk to the driver, who often doesn't fully understand that risk.

Also, these drivers have no ability to negotiate as a group, so they are at a disadvantage against a well-funded corporation that is quickly gaining market power and sets all of these terms.

s73v3r4• 11 years ago

Again, your point has absolutely no basis in reality. The idea that there is no exploitation is completely false.

rhino3693• 11 years ago

Are four doors really harder to sell? They are like 80% of all the cars in America. I've only seen people prefer coupes in sports cars.

Dujdovnik• 11 years ago

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

TeMPOraL4• 11 years ago

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

itgoon• 11 years ago

While I like the improvements to regular taxi service that the competition has brought, I don't like Uber. They're just shady all around.

The "We're not a taxi service, we just sell software" is a load of crap.

How many apps take a piece of the gross? Purchase a license? Ok. A monthly fee for ongoing service? Sure. A chunk of all the money made from using it? I don't think so.

NegativeK• 11 years ago

Doesn't the App Store take a cut of in-app purchases?

dylanjermiah• 11 years ago

If it's a 'digital' product by Apple's definition they get 30%. If it isn't there is no cut.

maceo3• 11 years ago

Human labor is not a commodity.

This was the common sense amongst all working people for most of the 20th century. Samuel Gompers, maybe the most conservative labor leader of his time, said "You cannot weigh the human soul on the same scales as piece of pork." And working people, along with the management class for the most part, understood this to be an undeniable truth. In fact, this piece of common sense was enshrined into US law with the Clayton Act of 1914, which stated "The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce." But in the last 20 years, as capital has gained the firm upper hand, the common sense understanding has shifted towards the idea that labor is in fact a commodity.

The ideas behind the so-called "on-demand workforce" further solidify the notion that labor is a commodity. After all, you can order an uber ride just as easily as you can order vitamins online.

It's so pervasive that even I, someone born into a union family and a firm believer in the idea of worker solidarity, have to force myself to believe that labor is not a commodity. Why? The business class treated labor as expendable in 1915, just as they do in 2015. Why did working people understand this truth in 1915 but not today? I don't know.

I read a recently released sociology book earlier this year (going crazy looking for the title/author, can't find it), that posits millennials are far more likely than any recent generation to blame themselves for the problems they face. It's part of the reason that the self-help industry is bigger business than it's ever been. It's not always your fault. Our modern economy is built on rotten ideas like labor = commodity. If we want to do something about inequality, it's time that we subject fundamentally unjust ideas like these to a serious critique.

smil2• 11 years ago

That labor is a commodity is not an "idea", but in the case of Uber drivers and the Foxconn workers who assemble iPhones, a fact. It is a fact because that's how those jobs and service/production processes have been designed. The work has been broken down into their smallest parts, so that it will require no special skill or intelligence to perform them. As anyone can do those jobs, they have been de facto commoditized.

For someone who cares for the wellbeing of people at the bottom of the enterprise pyramids, the goal should be to design new organizations, with jobs that have latitude for learning and development, that is multi-disciplinary and creative. And many of the worst jobs today should be automated because they are not fit for human beings.

maceo3• 11 years ago

In that regard, it's been a fact since the division of labor was first outlined (and then fetishized) in the late 18th century. In terms of breaking down the tasks needed to build the final product, early Ford factories were just as efficient as modern Foxconn assembly plants.

I'm not arguing whether it's a fact or not. Culturally, in 2015 America it's a fact. In 1915 America, the same "fact" would have been handily rejected, even by conservative minds. Most people only read the first chapter of Wealth of Nations where Adam Smith extolls the virtues of the division of labor. The second half of the book, where he warns that the division of labor taken to the extreme could result in unfathomable social ills, and we ought not ever travel down that path, is usually conveniently ignored.

I'm all for automating jobs that technology deems unnecessary. The solution isn't to push everyone into some multi-disciplinary creative class. Many people would be very happy as uber drivers, or any other menial job, if they were treated with respect by their employer. I'd say the solution begins with treating workers with dignity and respect.

javert5• 11 years ago

Why did working people understand this truth in 1915 but not today? I don't know.

Because of Ayn Rand. You think I'm joking, but she's the only intellectually serious defender of capitalism in the 20th century, and her influence is snowballing. When Rand was alive, members of her circle would rejoice at the extremely occasional mention of her name in print. Now, you can't turn on the TV or go anywhere online without hearing about her.

As a side note, human labor is not a commodity. However, "capital" (as you call it---you use a lot of Marxist terms in your post that do not reflect the reality of society) does not have an obligation to hire you on your terms, either. Labor is about a voluntarily trade.

nyolfen2• 11 years ago

the neoliberal project as organized by the various branches that sprouted from the mont pelerin society have had much more concrete impact on policy for the last 30 years than rand's acolytes alone. they're from the same tradition as many of rand's beliefs but they're the apparatus that engineered the neoliberal order.

hackuser2• 11 years ago

This is one of the most valuable comments I've read in years; thank you.

platz• 11 years ago

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

hudell• 11 years ago

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

fideloper• 11 years ago

Literally just threw my phone across the room in frustration over this.

phamilton• 11 years ago

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

darkstar999• 11 years ago

Same here on desktop.

javert5• 11 years ago

Same here on laptop.

"Hey Boss, I know a way to increase visits to our site by 6x..."

Systemic33• 11 years ago

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

somberi• 11 years ago

I live between NYC and Bangalore, India. I have used Uber and its closest competitors (Lyft and Ola respectively), in both cities.

I have a mental questionnaire I go through with 90% of the drivers and here is what I have learnt:

Uber vs Lyft: Drivers make more money with Uber, but rules of engagement are more relaxed in Lyft.

Uber & Ola (not vs): The drivers in India hone in on these three points:

1. They make 3-4 times the money they would if they were employed as a driver in a upper-middle class household (very common in India).

2. They feel respected and think of themselves as "Business owners" now. It is heartening to see how much the "feeling respected" theme repeats itself.

3. They know the good times won't last.

Unlike US, in India, Uber and Ola are do not take a cut from the ride. In fact it is the opposite - They keep the per kilometre cost to the end consumer lower than Auto Rickshaws and compensate the drivers the difference. In fact Uber has taken a "not-for-profit" model in India (and in Beijing).

Citation for not-for-profit: http://blog.uber.com/the-government-way

krrrh• 11 years ago

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

jolan• 11 years ago

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

lechuga• 11 years ago

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

bayesianhorse• 11 years ago

Driving people from A to B individually would be a "perfect competition" kind of situation without regulation. Some of the motivation behind regulating this market was that some taxi drivers just started robbing their customers.

Now Uber is doing away with the regulation, and it's "perfect competition" again, the state of affairs when prices have to be so low that there is almost no profit for the suppliers. Uber will always make the most overall profit with their drivers just on the edge of survival.

Uber may actually set the fares just below the profitability point, because new drivers or those "driving for fun" actually put money on the table rather than being paid.

olalonde• 11 years ago

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

joshjkim• 11 years ago

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

I was an undercover Uber driver

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