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Comment by habosa | Hacker News Reader

So in a way driving Uber is like taking a loan from your future self. You have a car and need money. Uber gives you good gross pay. 5 years down the road when you have to sell or repair your car, that's when you have to pay up for all the wear and tear.

It's really a shame to see who gets rich off this. As a rider, these services are incredibly convenient. But I wish I wasn't basically relying on unpaid labor.

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Something I don't think people really think about in the Uber equation. Driving also has a massively higher risk of dying than sitting on the couch, so it's part loan part Russian roulette.

It's not just traffic, Taxi drivers have double the risk of being murdered as cops, without any of the benefits. http://www.syracuse.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/01/by_the_num...

When it comes to finances, people have a shockingly hard time figuring out the true cost of things. I've seen this a lot with things such as driving and income taxes. As he mentions, this informational asymmetry works to Uber/Lyft's advantage, so I doubt we will see any changes from them.

Can you explain what people confuse about income taxes?

In my experience the confusion surrounds 2 things. How brackets and deductions work. Many people don't understand that once your income goes into a higher bracket, you are only taxed at that higher bracket for the income that pushes you into it. For deductions, I've met a lot of people who think that it works essentially as a credit, rather than just saving you your tax rate on that portion.

It's wording like that that's confusing. Once your income goes into a higher bracket, you are only taxed at that higher bracket for the income _that falls within that new bracket._ The income that _pushed_ you into that bracket is taxed the same way.

(and AGI does affect deduction phase-outs so there's that complication...)

And there's the psychological stress of sitting in traffic. My mental status takes a huge nosedive when I have a job where I have to commute by car.

I think that feeling can probably be split by the fear of being late, fear of being in a bender fender and the general unpleasantness of navigating traffic - so as a professional driver you don't care about lateness and can take a small insurance to reduce the mental stress of being in a fender bender.

won't solve everything, but maybe it can bring the stress down enough to be manageable as a career.

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