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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

There's a lot that I agree with in your post and in that thread, but this in particular I take issue with:

> One poinI have no idea what orifice @AOC pulled the$3.37 number from, but it’s wrong at best or intentionally deceptive at worst. I never made less than $10/hour and usually made $15-$45 an hour. And this was BEFORE Uber allowed tipping via the app.

This woman is clearly not taking her expenses into account when calculating her income, and there lies the rub - in one way Uber is taking advantage of people's poor ability to do math. If you are a short/part-time driver, the increased depreciation and maintenance costs are probably not that visible to you, but for folks who drive more regularly they absolutely need to be factored in to your income calculations.

A good treatment of the topic: https://www.ridester.com/uber-lyft-driver-costs-and-expenses...

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It was a study that was retracted: https://qz.com/1222744/mits-uber-study-couldnt-possibly-have...

She probably never heard about the retraction, it got a lot less press than the original study

AOC's tweet about Uber was posted a year ago. Before the study was retracted.

Sounds like a good opportunity to retract the tweet too, then

> taking advantage of people's poor ability to do math

Are you sure you're not being patronizing there? i.e. underestimating people's ability to choose what works for them? I talk to most Uber/Lyft drivers I ride with, every one of them has said they're happy with it, and most have given specific reasons why.

None of what you said implies they have ever done any sort of calculation of their maintenance costs and profitability.

They could have reasons (or just stated reasons) beyond considering raw profitability.

I don't think its patronising, some (many?) people just aren't good at maths.

I know a couple of intelligent people that have a real blind spot when it comes to dealing with figures. So this isn't a 'stupid people' thing.

Have you never had a conversation with someone about their new car/phone. They say it's cheap because it only costs them X per month. You ask them what the total cost is, and they have no idea? Because I seem to have that kind of conversation with a wide variety of people.

It's not about choosing what works for them, its about making sure that choice is informed. If you're earning $10/hr great, if you spend $5 of that on other costs, you should really be deciding if $5/hr is worth it.

Sure, but why assume that Uber and Lyft drivers all fall into that category? That's what seems patronizing to me. They'd have to be dumb to take that gig for very long if it wasn't economic for them, and many of the ones I've talked to have stuck with it for a long time now. To me it seems disrespectful to assume that they don't know their own interests, and it fits with a meme of poorer people being dumber, which I dislike.

This is why Uber (no idea about Lyft) faces huge employee turnover. That one is in the stats. About 96% quit after a few months. (Less than half a year.) People get smarter once they get hit with a fat payment (repair for example, a crash, uninsured liability) and cannot keep up on the meager pay. They net a loss and often a big one.

Yes, the company is taking advantage of this. Welcome to capitalism. A sucker is born every second.

Personally I don't read the parents comment as referring to all Uber drivers, but that's just me.

"it fits with a meme of poorer people being dumber "

I agree that that's the meme, the parent doesn't actually refer to Uber driver's wealth, rich or poor.

I'm guessing theres an unspoken assumption that Uber drivers are poorer, because it isn't that well paid? People don't seem to be giving up careers to do it.

Also the meme might be "poor people are forced into exploitative situations". Nobody would assume that a fast food clerk, for example, is dumb enough to consider the job good.

reading that post from that woman literally triggered me. mom of 3 shouldn't be spending most of her time in nurse school and then driving for uber WHAT THE HELL?

Well, if you were better at math, you wouldn't give your free time to post content on HN, would you ?

As soon as you talk about future costs, different people have different believes and different bets, because they have different risk profiles

Edit : why is my comment flagged?

I think you make a good point, but got flagged for snark. It's not a totally bad thing that people try to enforce politeness here.

I understand, I read my comment again a few hours later and it could be misinterpreted. Or maybe the parent edited the original message (can't remember)

I wanted to point the fact that the argument "exploiting people who are bad at math" is not a strong argument, given we are all exploited at some point because we aren't "math machine". Miscalculation can happen to anyone who is human.

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