Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

This is yet another example of what happens as a result of the "race to bottom" for wages and compensation for Uber/Lyft drivers.

These drivers are looking for any way that they can to make their work barely profitable, because just letting the algorithm "Manna[1]" them around a city ends up being barely break even after all costs are added in.

So that's why you get the calls asking where you're going so they can get long trips (especially around airports), the "oh not I got into an accident, can you cancel the trip?" calls, etc... Not to mention the drivers who are stuck with high interest loans on cars from Uber.

It's marginal labor inputs for a marginalized workforce - and an increasingly immigrant one, which is great generally but correlates to the easily exploitable. So while I don't condone this kind of behavior, I can see why they would feel pushed into doing it - especially if it's relatively retribution free.

[1]http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Uber is the worst, especially if you are an Uber Eats driver. They just recently increased the drive radius while lowering pay. The app doesn't encourage customers to tip, either, whereas a tip is default in other apps like GrubHub(then again, DoorDash steals tips so they can pay less in fees).

Unfortunately, not enough people use Lyft so those who don't like Uber are still forced to "multi-app" with Uber rather than relying on it as a sole source of income.

It's companies like Uber that make the US unemployment rate bullshit; people can be independent contractors, get treated like trash by "unicorns" like Uber, get paid shit, and be considered employed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can make a living working multiple gig economy jobs, but it's hardly sustainable.

I don’t understand tipping. Service offered for $x. Contract accepted. Contract completed. Service delivered. Funds transferred.

It's a way for employers to shift, by way of ingrained culture, some of the labour costs onto the customer.

I had a tiler round on Monday. He quoted £200, I paid £200. Job done.

The entire cost of his Labour was borne by me, yet I didn’t tip him.

Is it a tax evasion scheme, and thus a tax subsidy for certain professions?

I don't quite understand what you mean by this.

If it wasn't clear, what I meant is: employer under pays employee with the expectation that customer will pick up the slack via tipping.

Pay $20 for something and no tip Pay $15 for something and $5 tip

It's identical, expect I suspect the $5 tip isn't taxed

> DoorDash steals tips so they can pay less in fees

I found that hard to believe, so I looked it up, and you're right.

DoorDash uses some pretty fancy wording to try to hide it, but they use tips to subsidize your pay. If a delivery is going to pay you $5 and the customer tips $0, then you get $5, obviously paid entirely by DD. If the customer tips $3, then they give you the $3 tip, and DD only pays $2, so you still drive away with only $5. If on that same delivery, they instead tip a whopping $10, then you get the $10 tip and DD only pays you $1.

But DD is charging the customer the same delivery fee no matter what. If DD charged the customer $7 for this hypothetical delivery, then they keep $2 from the non-tipper, $5 from the $3 tipper, and $6 from the $10 tipper, when really, they should be keeping only $2 each time with the remainder going to you.

They are absolutely stealing tips.

It's not just companies like Uber with independent contractors that make the unemployment rate bullshit.

Work 30 hours a week at minimum wage for McDonalds, and technically you're considered employed.

> These drivers are looking for any way that they can to make their work barely profitable

Sympathizing with this is like sympathizing with a store clerk who is taking money out of the register on the side.

except that: vomit fraud is a very uncommon occurrence

second, regular cabs also have tons of ways to rip off riders, and do so. Playing with the meter, intentionally taking a longer route, etc.

> Playing with the meter...

Which you report to Weights & Measures if you suspect that since the meters are supposed to be certified and untampered with -- back before uber defanged Weights & Measures (at least in Arizona so they would quit hunting their illegal livery vehicles) this was a serious offence.

> ...intentionally taking a longer route

Everyone has a smartphone and generally don't trust cab drivers so have their google maps open.

The main difference is with a cab the only way they can charge you extra is to call the police and have them make you pay (or give you a ticket for "theft of service"), with uber they just tack on some extra charges and you have to fight them to get the money back. The police are going to ask a few questions and not make someone pay $150+ for a couple mile trip when they can look in the back seat and see there's no vomit.

It kind of sounds like a 3rd world mind set in trying to get people to pay more. Only because they are not getting paid enough to live on, but may have no other options as employment. So they, the drivers become a captive employee/consultant, hoping to make ends meet.

It's a shame our system (USA) allows this type of abuse to happen. Time to bring back unions (at least until they become corrupt).

peace

I live in the third world. I don't know what you mean by "third world mindset". Grab drivers here don't do that. I hope this "US mindset" doesn't spread to the third world.

A temporary diversion, as Uber and Lyft have made no secret that they're eager to replace all of their drivers with autonomous vehicles post haste.

I only recently read Manna, and it was terrifying and inspirational. My concern is that only the inspirational is fictional.

It’s not just westerners running pig of jobs. The immigration influx in both Europe and America, and wider the people left behind, are also symptoms.

Watching a travelogue this evening in a rural Sicilian town that was mostly empty. The population in the last generation had left. Not to Palermo, or even Rome, but to Berlin and London.

The governemt was keeping the village alive by settling immigrants from Africa there, but eventually, under our current system, they’ll need jobs.

It’s the same story world over. In places looks Tunisia it’s more explicit than in say England, but in today’s world it’s not going to go away any time sooner. It’s like a sinking ship in “titanic”, and as technical experts with the benefot of a western passport and education we’re further from the bow. Eventually though there’s only a few life rafts.

While we still have nominal democracy there is a chance though, doesn’t matter how much voter disenfranchise or brainwashing you have, when 90% of the country is unemployed, they aren’t going to vote for the system that keeps 10% in power.

I believe the mayor of this town had questionable charges just filed against him by the national government

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