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Rosalind
Apr 30, 2013

When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change.

Uber in NYC is pretty awesome when you're in an outer borough. Even though the green borough cabs are supposed to help, they're too few and far between in most areas. NYC doesn't allow just anyone to drive for Uber either so you're always picked up by reputable people from livery services. Most of the time the Uber cars I've gotten have been much cleaner, nicer vehicles compared to how gross some NYC cabs can get.

Also an African-American friend of mine said he loves Uber because taxis will never stop for him so being able to use an app where the drivers can't screen him just based on his skin color is a huge deal for him. I hear all this stuff about Uber being bad and awful, but no one ever talks about how it's bringing affordable private transit to underserved areas and alleviating a lot of the discrimination that goes along with getting a taxi.

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Kings Of Calabria
Sep 10, 2013

MisterTurtle posted:

As another poster mentioned it has improved a bit in the past few years but on the whole they're still severely lacking. Many cabbies in Boston used to (or maybe still) outright refuse to bring people to certain areas of the city such as East Boston late at night simply because it was inconvenient. I've spent some time in SF and their taxi system was a complete disaster as well.

While I don't dispute the way Uber treats its drivers is ethically questionable such services would never have come into existence if the current taxi system actually worked. For years the taxis in most cities refused to adapt and improve standards - in many cities (Boston included) taxis didn't even have the capability to accept cards until somewhat recently. No one wants to call for a cab, be placed on hold for 20 minutes and then wonder if a driver is ever actually going to show up. The taxi industry brought this 'disruption' onto itself by refusing to adapt and improve so now they've got to figure out a way to survive.

The difference I see there is that if enough people had showed up to local or state held meetings,or leaned on MassDOT (or whoever is it), or mailed their Senators, maybe some of those taxi problems would be fixed. I'm not saying it would be easy but at least I would have the option and my neighbors who might agree or disagree would have their say too.

Once Uber "disrupts" livery service to the point where it's almost almost impossible to get a reliable taxi, what's to stop them from raising the prices? What about the poor then? What about some disabled people or the elderly or other people that just don't use apps for basic services? What about people without a credit card to link? I'm sure there's solutions to these problems but Uber has no incentive to do any single thing that doesn't make them money. Maybe some laws will get passed but we already know Uber won't care to follow it if it disrupts the cash flow.

To me it seems like we're all playing a dangerous game to save 7 bucks on a ride home from the bar. I feel like I'm screaming at a cloud, but to me it's obvious that this is a grand right wing "starve the beast" situation and nobody seems to care because of the flashy graphics and ~*shared economy*~.buzzword poo poo.

nickutz
Feb 3, 2004

Put blue and red chicken in mouth plz

Kings Of Calabria posted:

The difference I see there is that if enough people had showed up to local or state held meetings,or leaned on MassDOT (or whoever is it), or mailed their Senators, maybe some of those taxi problems would be fixed. I'm not saying it would be easy but at least I would have the option and my neighbors who might agree or disagree would have their say too.

Taking your dollars elsewhere a.k.a. "voting with your wallet" is an infinitely more effective way of bringing change to an industry. Always has been.

And I honestly hope Taxi companies are up to the challenge as I'd rather see both exist than just Uber.

DeathSandwich
Apr 24, 2008

I fucking hate puzzles.
So what's the reason that it costs so much to buy a taxi medallion in the bigger US cities? It just seems like that sort of arbitrarily expensive hoop to jump through in order to create false scarcity to drive up rate prices for taxis. I drive my own car mind you and never deal with Uber or standard Taxis, but wouldn't part of the answer be to have a cheaper pathway to become a licensed taxi? Lower the rates and make it easier to get a ride when you need one and also undercut one of the big advantages of Uber.

Kings Of Calabria
Sep 10, 2013

nickutz posted:

Taking your dollars elsewhere a.k.a. "voting with your wallet" is an infinitely more effective way of bringing change to an industry. Always has been.

And I honestly hope Taxi companies are up to the challenge as I'd rather see both exist than just Uber.

I'm down for that if it doesn't accelerate something that I find unacceptable. If it was just something dumb whatever, but taxis are a quality of life thing for people across all demographics, including those who might not be able to handle a price surge next time Uber decides they want to pay out more bonuses.

e: I hate taxis and the graft in the industry, but I'd rather have something in place that voters have a chance at changing, I'd rather have that than a private company that breaks laws and takes advantage as a part of it's business model. That doesn't mean I'm sticking up for cab companies as they are today,

Kings Of Calabria fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Jun 17, 2015

Necc0
Jun 30, 2005

by exmarx
Broken Cake
Uber operates on a constant churn of finding new sucker drivers to replace the current ones that will inevitably burn out. If you want to do this every now and then to make a few quick bucks there are better ways to do it but whatever Uber isn't your worst option. As soon as you even get remotely close to using it for steady income is when the cards are stacked against you. You'll notice that the ads on the radio are targeted at recruiting drivers, not passengers. This is for a reason.

Unless you're a black car driver and an actual professional who knows what they're doing- I'd stay away.

goodness posted:

People itt seem really bitter about uber. My friend has been a driver for the last 8 months in a medium-small college town. He loves the job and makes s decent amount of money, especially on game days. Yeah it will wear your car down faster but you won't be doing maintenance every month like some people make it seem.

The thing to do is work until you have some regular clients, then ditch uber and do them privately.

Your friend is in for a surprise when he inevitably gets into a fender bender or gets a love letter from the IRS

Necc0 fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Jun 17, 2015

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
My friend just got a job as a licensed black car driver here in Calgary. As a result, he has actual commercial insurance, an actual commercial driver's license, he's driving other people's vehicles that he doesn't have to maintain himself, and there's no legal or tax-related grey areas involved. Why drive for a questionable company like Uber that, let's be honest, cuts some corners, when you can just drive for a normal car service and make roughly the same amount of money with a lot less stress and potential for bad things happening?

Original_Z
Jun 14, 2005
Z so good

Necc0 posted:

Uber operates on a constant churn of finding new sucker drivers to replace the current ones that will inevitably burn out. If you want to do this every now and then to make a few quick bucks there are better ways to do it but whatever Uber isn't your worst option. As soon as you even get remotely close to using it for steady income is when the cards are stacked against you. You'll notice that the ads on the radio are targeted at recruiting drivers, not passengers. This is for a reason.

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

Series DD Funding
Nov 25, 2014

by exmarx

DeathSandwich posted:

So what's the reason that it costs so much to buy a taxi medallion in the bigger US cities? It just seems like that sort of arbitrarily expensive hoop to jump through in order to create false scarcity to drive up rate prices for taxis. I drive my own car mind you and never deal with Uber or standard Taxis, but wouldn't part of the answer be to have a cheaper pathway to become a licensed taxi? Lower the rates and make it easier to get a ride when you need one and also undercut one of the big advantages of Uber.

The roads are congested enough as is

Necc0
Jun 30, 2005

by exmarx
Broken Cake

Original_Z posted:

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

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

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!"

Necc0
Jun 30, 2005

by exmarx
Broken Cake
No that makes the drivers the product. If the drivers were actually 'independent contractors' like they claim that'd be true, and it IS true for their black car service. UberX is a totally different animal and I'm assuming what the OP is asking about.

Necc0
Jun 30, 2005

by exmarx
Broken Cake
Oh! Speak of the devil. The California Labor Commission agrees with me:



http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/17/uber-drivers-deemed-employees-by-california-labor-commission/

photomikey
Dec 30, 2012
Necc0, what's your skin in the game? Uber driver? Taxi driver? Union boss? Attorney? While there are many in this thread discussing this topic, you are personally offended by the very idea that someone would pay for a ride, and someone else would receive money for the ride. I don't understand your personal offense.

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.

oliwan
Jul 20, 2005

by Nyc_Tattoo

photomikey posted:

Necc0, what's your skin in the game? Uber driver? Taxi driver? Union boss? Attorney? While there are many in this thread discussing this topic, you are personally offended by the very idea that someone would pay for a ride, and someone else would receive money for the ride. I don't understand your personal offense.

tfw you are so totally brainwashed by neo-liberalism that your empathy or ability to think critically/ethically on any kind of level above the free market has disappeared

Main Paineframe
Oct 27, 2010

rjderouin posted:

I travel a lot for business and I use Uber almost exclusively. I recommend it as a consumer and I have yet to meet an unhappy driver. That may just be because they want 5 stars or they are brain washed into some MLM scheme with Uber. But honestly I would not trust goons opinions when they become this polarized. If you want to do research on something skip the comedy site for answers probably.

Driving for Uber is like driving uninsured or not having an emergency fund - it's seems great and you end up with more money than you'd have otherwise and you have no problems at all with it, until something goes wrong, and then you're straight-up hosed. As long as everything's going well, you're happy and have nothing to complain about (except the low pay, the lovely rating system, the fact that Uber explicitly discourages tipping, and the fact that both cabbies and cops hate you), but in reality you're engaging in a very high-risk activity that'll inevitably bring you disaster sooner or later, and guaranteeing that you will be thoroughly hosed when that disaster happens.

Tax day is hell for an Uber driver; that little extra money you made over a burger flipper all vanishes into the void of self-employment tax. Hope you remembered to set aside a quarter of everything you earmed, just in case you managed to clear the poverty line by enough to owe taxes!

The urban-heavy stop-and-start driving that Uber drivers do is basically the most destructive kind of driving possible for your car, and will wear things out about as quickly as it is possible to wear them out. No, your car won't barf up its engine after two weeks of Ubering, but you will feel the pain a couple years down the road when everything on your car breaks down much earlier than usual and you find yourself faced with very heavy maintenance bills for your car's mileage. Real commercial driving companies are aware of the maintenance burden imposed by commercial driving and are prepared to cope with that, but Uber drivers often aren't even aware of the damage they are doing until it's far too late.

Personal insurance policies don't cover commercial driving, and your insurance will drop you like a hot potato if they so much as catch wind of a rumor that you're driving for Uber or Lyft. And Uber's policy won't cover you if you're not actively driving for them at the moment. Depending on circumstances, you could very well end up insuranceless when you actually need it.

Right now, all you have to worry about is fines, but a number of cities around the world have recognized that fines aren't stopping Uber drivers and taken to more direct action, like impounding drivers' cars or even threatening drivers with short stays in jail - the idea being to impose a consequence that the big rich multinational company can't just take on your behalf. I haven't heard of any Aussie cities doing that yet, but the trend is spreading.

Lastly, the most dangerous job in the US isn't being a cop or a firefighter or anything like that, it's being a taxi driver, and Uber isn't much safer. You're constantly trying to drive through urban traffic as fast as possible, which is one hell of a risk already, and on top of that you're hauling around complete strangers in your car. Uber doesn't share statistics about how many drivers get into accidents, as far as I know, but it's not hard to find anecdotal reports of stalking and creepiness - and news reports of actual rapes and robberies and assaults - against both drivers and passengers. In fact, Uber's lawbreaking makes them arguably more dangerous than taxis for women, since taxi companies are usually forced by law to coordinate rather closely with local authorities and incorporate some sort of safety features in their cars, while Uber cars have no such features and it can take tens of hours for the police to get critical information from the company.

Uncle Jam posted:

Boston has the worst cab service of any large american city. Like, its horrid by many magnitudes. My top 5 list of 'oh god I almost died' is all taxicab rides and 3 of those were in Boston. Many of the cabs don't even have working seatbelts, they're really poo poo.

Only an idiot takes a cab in Boston, a city with a fairly excellent public transit system (by US standards, anyway) that goes twenty-plus miles in every direction worth going. There's even free service from the airport.

DeathSandwich posted:

So what's the reason that it costs so much to buy a taxi medallion in the bigger US cities? It just seems like that sort of arbitrarily expensive hoop to jump through in order to create false scarcity to drive up rate prices for taxis. I drive my own car mind you and never deal with Uber or standard Taxis, but wouldn't part of the answer be to have a cheaper pathway to become a licensed taxi? Lower the rates and make it easier to get a ride when you need one and also undercut one of the big advantages of Uber.

The number of taxi drivers on the streets does need to be limited, because taxis -especially ones without passengers - have a nasty negative impact on traffic flows, especially in the already high-traffic areas where they tend to loiter and cruise around. If you let taxi companies put as many cars as they want on the road, it immensely worsens traffic, particularly in the worst-traffic areas. Taxi medallions are intended to create scarcity, but for the sake of preventing the traffic flow from being overwhelmed by taxis. Of course, people who do pass that scarcity barrier have a vested interest in preventing anyone else from ever passing the same barrier, but that's unavoidable with any sort of enforced scarcity.

mastershakeman
Oct 28, 2008

by vyelkin

Original_Z posted:

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

Yep, it's just like Groupon where the real customers are the businesses. Once enough business/drivers try out the service and realize it actually hurts them in the long run, they're screwed.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

mastershakeman posted:

Yep, it's just like Groupon where the real customers are the businesses. Once enough business/drivers try out the service and realize it actually hurts them in the long run, they're screwed.

I'd also like to add OpenTable to the list of lovely businesses like that, which I hope die in a fire very soon.

mlmp08
Jul 11, 2004

Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration
Nap Ghost
So this thread still hasn't had a single actual uber driver post in it right?

photomikey
Dec 30, 2012

mlmp08 posted:

So this thread still hasn't had a single actual uber driver post in it right?
Look pal, we don't need "facts" or "first hand experience" to have opinions.

Not a Children
Oct 9, 2012

Don't need a holster if you never stop shooting.

PT6A posted:

I'd also like to add OpenTable to the list of lovely businesses like that, which I hope die in a fire very soon.

What's so bad about OpenTable? I like online reservations.

Necc0
Jun 30, 2005

by exmarx
Broken Cake

photomikey posted:

Necc0, what's your skin in the game? Uber driver? Taxi driver? Union boss? Attorney? While there are many in this thread discussing this topic, you are personally offended by the very idea that someone would pay for a ride, and someone else would receive money for the ride. I don't understand your personal offense.

The OP asked what being an Uber driver is like and I'm making sure he gets a clear picture. I feel this is necessary because part of Uber's business strategy is deliberately misinforming their potential customers employees "independent contractors". This has been proven in courts around the globe more times than I can even count. Every single time Uber has super duper pinky-swore promised that they'd fix things and the particular incident was just a freak occurrence. Then it would happen again a few weeks later.

I hope you're not personally offended that someone is pointing out the well-hidden pitfalls in a thread explicitly asking for us to do so.

Necc0
Jun 30, 2005

by exmarx
Broken Cake
Also I've said multiple times that it's fine to drive for Uber but just be sure to factor in the multiple invisible costs before deciding whether or not it's worth your time.

edit:

Jeza posted:

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.

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

Choadmaster
Oct 7, 2004

I don't care how snug they fit, you're nuts!

DeathSandwich posted:

So what's the reason that it costs so much to buy a taxi medallion in the bigger US cities? It just seems like that sort of arbitrarily expensive hoop to jump through in order to create false scarcity to drive up rate prices for taxis.

Your cause/effect is backwards. It's scarcity that causes the expense, not the other way around. Cities only allow X number of medallions, so if you want one you gotta buy one off some other guy and compete with a thousand other people who also want it.


mlmp08 posted:

So this thread still hasn't had a single actual uber driver post in it right?

The fourth loving reply, dude:

Disgusting Coward posted:

You'd think that, but you're going to be weaving through every speed-bump laden, potholed, winding residential shithole you can think of, which means the repairs on your car mount up. Exhaust pipes, suspension springs, wheel bearings and air filters seem to be the most common ones, plus your interior gets beaten the gently caress up in a surprisingly short space of time. Oh and the little hosed-up microclimate your car develops from people getting in and out non-stop plays merry hell with your electrics, so you're going to be bulk-buying vehicle bulbs, heating coils and fuses. Because you're perpetually driving in the busier urban areas your risk of an accident is fuckin' sky-high too, and because you're not a "proper" taxi driver the police won't really help you and your insurance company will invariably squirm out of paying, even if you're not at fault. I got t-boned in a totally not-my-loving-fault accident that I caught on camera with five witnesses AND a police report and their insurance company still took eighteen months to pay out because they were trying to hit some wonky rear end "oh but you're only registered for business and passenger transport not being a hire car" palaver.

People are more willing to gently caress you over if you're an Uber driver, too. Don't get me wrong, 95% of people are nice as pie, and most of the remainder aren't malicious - just ignorant. But dudes won't no-show too many taxis from Fred's Taxi Company for fear of getting banned, and the shady nature of the average taxi driver means people tend not to want to gently caress with "proper" taxi drivers too much - nobody wants to antagonise a company of 20-50 unemployable weirdos who are perpetually prowling round looking for you and have the backing of the local authority. As a single Uber hipster, you don't really have that mob/legal protection. Plus people will hold that Uber rating over you like they think it's the Sword of Damocles.

And, for that matter, the fifth:

Biodome posted:

I've been doing it for a few weeks and haven't had any problems. I don't do it for a living though, just supplement. Couple hours here and there, if I work weekends I can clear $350 a week for a few hours of driving. It's fun. I like it.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Not a Children posted:

What's so bad about OpenTable? I like online reservations.

I like online reservations, but there are other systems which are less scammy toward their customers and actually provide, in my opinion, a better service (you don't need to call six loving times to confirm my reservation, OpenTable!). A lot like Groupon, they rely on locking businesses in before they realize how badly they're being hosed. Luckily, I think more people are starting to figure it out, but I purposefully avoid reserving on OpenTable if I can.

Main Paineframe
Oct 27, 2010

mlmp08 posted:

So this thread still hasn't had a single actual uber driver post in it right?

That's a bit like starting a thread "Tell me about being the bottom rung in a Pyramid Scheme" and then ignoring all responses because they don't come from a current member of a pyramid scheme.

mlmp08
Jul 11, 2004

Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration
Nap Ghost

Main Paineframe posted:

That's a bit like starting a thread "Tell me about being the bottom rung in a Pyramid Scheme" and then ignoring all responses because they don't come from a current member of a pyramid scheme.

I don't really have a dog in this fight. I would just be interested in more responses from drivers and less pedantic arguments. I missed one of the two actual uber driver posts on page 1.

The only times I've used uber were just a handful in Chicago and they were so much better than cabs. But typically in Chicago I'm either walking, riding with friends, or using buses and trains.

I guess I patronized an exploitive company but I also wear clothes and eat factory farmed chicken which basically makes me a monster.

Rudager
Apr 29, 2008

Necc0 posted:

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

loving hell you're dense.

Every Uber advertisement (at least that I've seen/heard) is trying to recruit drivers, not riders. Why do you think that is?

Uber doesn't care about people riding in the cars, if they did they would advertise for that. By advertising for drivers and not customers they just gently caress over all their "Independent Contractors" by flooding the supply side of the market.

MLM companies do the same thing, they push the "opportunity" and the products are just incidental because they're not interested in selling the product, they want to recruit more people.

Rudager fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Jun 17, 2015

mlmp08
Jul 11, 2004

Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration
Nap Ghost
Except MLM often requires the salespeople to buy an initial kit of product to sell such that recruiting alone is profitable.

Some MLMs could make money purely through recruiting workers. Uber would go bankrupt without rider revenue. They don't actually charge drivers a startup fee do they?

Also if all it takes to define a customer is that companies market toward employees or contractors, I guess the customer of the peace corps are those who sign up. Same with the military.

Edit: I've heard radio ads for uber drivers but I've seen a ton of web ads directed at riders. Uber' home page is blatantly aimed at potential riders.

mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jun 17, 2015

photomikey
Dec 30, 2012

Necc0 posted:

The OP asked what being an Uber driver is like and I'm making sure he gets a clear picture. I feel this is necessary because part of Uber's business strategy is deliberately misinforming their potential customers employees "independent contractors". This has been proven in courts around the globe more times than I can even count. Every single time Uber has super duper pinky-swore promised that they'd fix things and the particular incident was just a freak occurrence. Then it would happen again a few weeks later.

I hope you're not personally offended that someone is pointing out the well-hidden pitfalls in a thread explicitly asking for us to do so.
It's not that you're here for debate - that's what everyone's here for. You're just so passionate about an issue that you aren't involved with. You're neither a driver nor a rider. You're a disinterested third party. You can still have an opinion, it's just that you have this tone that anyone who is not personally offended by the very idea of Uber is a complete idiot and must be pedantically argued with.

If they wanted to lower the speed limit in all of Vermont to 25MPH, I would think that was kind of a stupid idea, and if there was a thread for it, I'd chime in. But at the end of the day, I've never been to Vermont, I don't plan to go, and I figure the people there will either move, ignore, or follow the law, and it's not my problem.

You dig?

Necc0
Jun 30, 2005

by exmarx
Broken Cake
Reading my posts as if my avatar is saying them can be fun but isn't required.

the worst thing is
Oct 3, 2013

by FactsAreUseless
edit gently caress i posted hre before i have a short memory im gay cuck

the worst thing is fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Jun 17, 2015

Series DD Funding
Nov 25, 2014

by exmarx

Rudager posted:

loving hell you're dense.

Every Uber advertisement (at least that I've seen/heard) is trying to recruit drivers, not riders. Why do you think that is?

Uber doesn't care about people riding in the cars, if they did they would advertise for that. By advertising for drivers and not customers they just gently caress over all their "Independent Contractors" by flooding the supply side of the market.

MLM companies do the same thing, they push the "opportunity" and the products are just incidental because they're not interested in selling the product, they want to recruit more people.

No, it means drivers are the ones who need to be persuaded to work for Uber. And yes they do advertise to riders, I've gotten multiple free ride credits from them.

Agean90
Jun 28, 2008


Saying that Ubers drivers are its real customers is like saying a fast food joints real customers are its fry cooks.

Necc0
Jun 30, 2005

by exmarx
Broken Cake

Series DD Funding posted:

No, it means drivers are the ones who need to be persuaded to work for Uber. And yes they do advertise to riders, I've gotten multiple free ride credits from them.

You get it! Hooray! Apparently this is an accomplishment! :barvo:

Rudager
Apr 29, 2008
McDonalds advertises their $1 cheeseburger meal deal on TV/Radio, not the franchise opportunities.

The point is that it should set off red flags that they try to get drivers so hard, either they're flooding the supply side of the market which is bad for drivers, or the turnover on their "independent contractor" is high because it's a lovely deal or their lovely to deal with.

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.

Uncle Jam
Aug 20, 2005

Perfect

Main Paineframe posted:

Only an idiot takes a cab in Boston, a city with a fairly excellent public transit system (by US standards, anyway) that goes twenty-plus miles in every direction worth going. There's even free service from the airport.

Taking the public transit system is fine for leisure but flying in for a meeting in the morning to Wilmington that is in the morning, then flying out in the afternoon, its not acceptable. I guess that makes me an idiot though.

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Main Paineframe
Oct 27, 2010

Rudager posted:

McDonalds advertises their $1 cheeseburger meal deal on TV/Radio, not the franchise opportunities.

The point is that it should set off red flags that they try to get drivers so hard, either they're flooding the supply side of the market which is bad for drivers, or the turnover on their "independent contractor" is high because it's a lovely deal or their lovely to deal with.

Flooding the supply side of the market is a crucial part of Uber's business model. That's how they provide decent service despite not controlling how many drivers are on the road at any given time or where they are - they just brute-force the logistics by making sure there's such a massive oversupply of drivers that there's always tons of them sitting around desperate for rides, no matter when and where, and tons more who aren't currently logged in but can be coaxed into signing in for a few fares if the system is beginning to feel the strain. Also, turnover is pretty high - I think only half of Uber drivers are still with Uber after a year?

Uncle Jam posted:

Taking the public transit system is fine for leisure but flying in for a meeting in the morning to Wilmington that is in the morning, then flying out in the afternoon, its not acceptable. I guess that makes me an idiot though.

Only idiots go to Wilmington.

Hell, on a weekday the commuter rail might get you there faster than uber could, even if you include time spent walking there from the nearest station which is probably in a place anyone wants to go to.

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