[unksdfnaajhfjk]

> This is why I don't understand why people take gig jobs.

Sometimes Compared to what? is the most important question.

I've been driving for a few years. Before this I was making minimum wage with no benefits. Before that I had a difficult stretch of unemployment. One of my least favorite questions passengers ask me is What did you do before this? because I don't really like to talk about it. It is a rough job - you take a lot of risk, have a lot of bad days, and you get little reward in return. But at least it's work.

Of course the bottom rungs of the ladder look terrible to people near the top, but for who have fallen off of it the bottom is the most important part. All of these "worker protections" define the bottom of the ladder as exploitation. Let me decide that, my labor is my own to sell for whatever price I can get somebody to pay for it.

[JMTQp8lwXL]

So, you'd rather drive without a guaranteed minimum wage, possibility for unemployment benefits, or health care benefits? I fail to see how that leaves the driver in a better position.

[unksdfnaajhfjk]

Better position compared to what?

> a guaranteed minimum wage

A min-wage guarantee implies Uber and Lyft will tell you when and where to drive because it would demolish the fundamental mechanism we drivers use to allocate ourselves. Otherwise we would all clump up in a parking lot somewhere trying to insulate ourselves from the costs of driving people around while collecting $10/hr.

> possibility for unemployment benefits

I haven't had this option in a decade or more. If you increase the cost of firing somebody, which is exactly what this is, you increase the cost of hiring as well. See above: this is a bottom rung job, the most important thing is to be on the ladder. If you make the bottom four rungs of the ladder illegal it doesn't mean people can magically start jumping to the fifth rung, they just get left out.

> health care benefits

Life's rough. Hopefully I solve this problem with a better job in the near future.

Don't get me wrong, I really dislike the Uber/Lyft model, I cringe every time somebody says "Oh but Lyft treats drivers so much better than Uber, right?" and I would love to see a better competitor prove the flaws of the Uber/Lyft model in the marketplace. I just don't think that minimum wage, employee status, and benefits packages are going to be that great for drivers or passengers. It's probably a mixed bag for both, but not a very good mixed bag.

As an aside, there's part of me that wants to figure out what a slide-deck is, make one, and be that competitor. So don't think I've been drinking the company Kool-Aid or anything, because I would love to put both of them out of business largely because I don't like how they treat drivers. But I'm still extremely thankful that I've had this job and I don't want to see it taken away from others who may value it in the way I have.

[ntpeters]

> I cringe every time somebody says "Oh but Lyft treats drivers so much better than Uber, right?"

I'm somebody who genuinely thought this was the case. Would you mind elaborating?

[unksdfnaajhfjk]

Ok, here's the rant I really try not to give to my passengers. I apologize for the length. TL;DR - Do you want to date an emotionally unavailable a-hole, or an emotionally manipulative a-hole? Pick your poison.

Lyft's president once said regarding Uber, "We're not the nice guys. We're a better boyfriend." This statement describes Lyft so much better than I ever could. They don't care about doing the right thing, they probably don't even know what the right thing is anymore, their internal sense of morality is pegged to whether or not they can keep people away from Uber.

As a driver, they have the same business model so the fundamentals of the job are exactly the same. Most of the differences are either window dressing, support quality, or bonus-related.

Uber's just kind of cold. Dealing with support is something you try not to do. It feels like they're cutting costs in their support department and they're not interested in convincing you otherwise. It's kind of like they sent you a picture of a middle finger on your third day of work and from that point on you've known the deal.

Lyft is very touchy-feely, they have events so you can eat donuts and they send a lot of emails talking about how you're a member of a community, etc. They also shame you for doing things detrimental to the community, like if you don't accept a ride. Long-term you start to realize it's all very manipulative, to the extent I've started thinking of their logo as a pink snake.

They kind of move and shift things so it's hard to tell what's going on. Especially with their bonuses, look at this[0], where do these numbers come from? 165 rides a week? That's probably 7 12 hour days. But nobody's hitting that, the middle tier might be doable, but not while driving for Uber, too, so you turn off your Uber app for the week and do 7 10's for Lyft. Next week you'll get different numbers, different goals. It's always shifting, always making you think "well, I might make an extra $50 if I don't drive for Uber this week..." Then after a few months you realize you're driving 30% more and making 20% less. And it just kind of happened while you weren't looking, while you were trying to hit these bonuses.

It also used to be that everybody got the same bonuses, but now they personalize them just for you. Because they care. I have no idea what bonuses other drivers are getting at this point, but for many or most drivers the job doesn't work without them (rental program is $1,000/month) so it ends up being an effective lever for controlling drivers.

Or the treatment of XL drivers, Uber lets the driver turn off regular rides but Lyft says that's just not possible and instead tries to "keep [the driver] busy[1]." The notion of keeping independent contractors busy is a strange one. This seems so clearly anti-competitive I don't know how it's even legal. They don't come out and say they'd rather you didn't drive for UberXL, they just want to keep you busy and if that keeps you off Uber then it's a coincidence that never crossed their mind. Why Uber isn't filing a lawsuit over this is beyond me.

Eventually you get sick of Lyft's games and decide to just drive for Uber full-time and within a day you're shaking your head wondering if Uber is even trying at all. Like, at all. So you drive for both. Then you realize if you just turn off Uber for the rest of the week you can hit this bonus on Lyft....

[0] - https://i2.wp.com/therideshareguy.com/wp-content/uploads/201... [1] - https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/115012926367-How-to-...

[arwineap]

> The notion of keeping independent contractors busy is a strange one. This seems so clearly anti-competitive I don't know how it's even legal.

If my company is paying contractors, they generally want them to be busy; I'm not sure what you mean by that

WRT the anti-competitive statement, are you suggesting that lyft is intentionally making it harder to drive XL for both uber and lyft? TBH, I'm not sure that'd hit on any competition laws but I'm willing to be convinced

Thank you for your post, it lets me see a lot of things I would have never put together. It's impressive how much thought lyft put into their platform to monetize guilt, and ensure "stickiness" of their platform / drivers

[apacheCamel]

I think keeping contractors busy is only productive and worth it if you are getting their money's worth. You are paying them per hour worked, so if we don't have work and they aren't doing anything, we don't have to pay them. Keeping these people "busy" seems to me (and possibly OP) like a way to keep them from driving for Uber since getting paid for specifically XL (I assume) is much better than getting paid for a regular ride. The whole thing is weird because it forces people to choose between possibly getting Uber XL rides (more $$) OR staying busy with normal rides through Lyft where at least they are getting paid!

That is just what I got from the original post, I do not work for either company so it really is hard for me to relate to the pressure OP is feeling.

[thefringthing]

> Life's rough. Hopefully I solve this problem with a better job in the near future.

A nation of temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

[apacheCamel]

This isn't related at all. OP just wants a better job, they never stated they wanted to be rolling in it as some CEO somewhere. This is about just living, not striking it rich.

[ethanwillis]

The gig jobs are already not profitable without those things in place. With those in place the gig jobs will be destroyed. People already complain about high prices and those prices don't even cover the costs of trips unless you live in a dense city.

[JMTQp8lwXL]

Profitable to Uber, or to the driver? Uber gets a ~30% cut of what the rider pays (though it varies per ride).

[ethanwillis]

I meant profitable to Uber.

[jshowa3]

I highly doubt this is accurate. There's no reason why drivers can't maintain the same hours but still be considered an employee.

I would love to be the health insurance provider getting Uber as a client. I'd be freaking rich on premiums.

[JMTQp8lwXL]

The risk pool could be different. If its people that can't hold full time jobs driving, that may speak to the state of their health.

[ericb]

This is the conclusion people come to naturally when one assumes all the other variables don't change in response to the wage. but they all change

The number of rides change as the price of the ride goes up, which happens when you raise the underlying cost to the rider. (aka supply and demand)

The number of drivers change with the overhead cost-per-driver. If each driver has a fixed healthcare overhead, it makes sense to hire only full time drivers as you can pay the overhead once and get the most hours driven from that sunk cost.

The number of drivers that get hired if you bump the salary also declines for all the reasons above.

[JMTQp8lwXL]

It doesn't have to imply a decline in service availability. For example, the spread between Uber Pool and X could grow (since wanting your own vehicle, without sharing it, places more stress on the overall system). So, the popularity of pool could grow.

[kelnos]

I think the parent's point is that it's better to have a job, even if it's low-paying and has few protections, than to have no job at all.

Obviously it'd be better if all jobs were reasonably-paying and had protections, and you could directly replace all the bad ones with better ones, but that's not the world we live in.

[DuskStar]

What if the choice isn't between "driving with a guaranteed minimum wage + benefits" and "driving with no protections" but between "driving with no protections" and "doing nothing"? That's the fear here.

[JMTQp8lwXL]

Some benefits, like retirement and health care, can be provided by the government. We already pay FICA taxes -- they could be expanded to include Medicare (for all) and perhaps a more generous retirement package.

[DuskStar]

But that's not what's going on here, is it? Instead the government is stepping in and trying to force the companies involved to take over that responsibility.

[mixmastamyk]

It's the age-old minimum wage debate over again.