Tell me about being an Uber Taxi Driver

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about being an Uber Taxi Driver

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

If this thread is anything to go by, people actually are losing money as Uber drivers. And apparently driving your car a few hours extra a week will DESTROY ALL YOU KNOW AND LOVE.

Maybe OP should have been even clearer that they want info from actual Uber drivers, rather than internet slacktivists who once got burned when an Uber driver told them they were too fat to get in.

# ¿ May 12, 2015 16:18

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 14:59

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Necc0 posted:

No they're not. There's now years of legal proceedings showing Uber dancing around the issue of the drivers being their employees.

You're missing the point. Uber profits by acquiring drivers - the drivers themselves are their customer base. The people taking rides are merely incidental to them leasing out their franchise. The service speaks for itself, so they aim their advertising not at people who ride but at increasing their range by targeting potential drivers.

The point he/she is making is completely separate from the employee legal wrangling, it only addresses why Uber advertises for drivers on the radio, rather than saying "Come grab a ride with Uber!"

# ¿ Jun 17, 2015 14:55

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Necc0 posted:

You'll notice that the ads on the radio are targeted at recruiting drivers, not passengers. This is for a reason.

Original_Z posted:

Uber's customers are drivers, not passengers. Everything makes more sense when you look at everything from that angle.

Necc0 posted:

No they're not. There's now years of legal proceedings showing Uber dancing around the issue of the drivers being their employees.

Jeza posted:

The point he/she is making is completely separate from the employee legal wrangling, it only addresses why Uber advertises for drivers on the radio, rather than saying "Come grab a ride with Uber!"

Nobody is disagreeing about the employee status, simply explicating an alternative way of considering why Uber advertise to hire, rather than to market their service. Whether or not the drivers are technically customers to Uber's service, the analogy to Uber treating them as customers is a sound one.

An similar example from the UK is private bus companies: they have adverts in print media and so forth looking for bus drivers, but you never see an advert telling people to take the bus. It's assumed there is little ROI in telling people to come and take a bus ride, so in a sense their real customer base is drivers. People will take the bus regardless. In fact, the analogy works even better for Uber, because their service is not limited by infrastructure or budgetary concerns (ie. do we have enough buses), their service expands with every driver they tempt into the fold, which in turn increases their business. In effect, almost identical to customers paying for a physical product, despite on the face of it being starkly different.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2015 16:45

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Necc0 posted:

I don't think you know what the word 'customer' means

I think that half the people in this thread can't tell the difference between a customer and a consumer. I can't help if people are aggressively pushing an agenda that blinds them to simple definitions of words. Anyway toodle-pip.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2015 09:59

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

man enjoys job, is unwittingly slave labour through marxist false consciousness, more at 11

# ¿ Jul 16, 2015 14:02

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 14:59

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Obdicut posted:

It's going to take him a long time of working to equal the amount he paid for the car, though. It's cool that he gets to get out and meet people and stuff, and if he needs to pair it with a job that's okay for him, but it still means uber gets to profit off of him which I think is what mostly bugs people.

I have relatives who aren't happy unless they're working too, but mostly they do volunteer stuff so I guess they make out even worse financially but on the other hand nobody is profiting off of them.

Unless I'm reading that post wrong, he got the car effectively for free because of Australian tax breaks for small business. So in a way, he got a free car literally because driving for Uber counts as running a small business and he got the tax deducted from his previous earnings, because clearly he might not be making 20k worth of taxable income as an Uber driver.

Sure Uber profits off him, but then again the level of effort involved in setting yourself up as an independent driver or just signing up for a service that simply drives all the business to your door is world's apart. It's like any other franchise, in principle.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2015 19:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about being an Uber Taxi Driver