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Comment by dgellow | Hacker News Reader

1. As a contractor I negotiate my rates with the companies I work with. Uber drivers cannot do this.

2. I also negotiate contract terms. Uber drivers cannot do this.

3. Uber drivers are penalized for not taking rides, which is more akin to refusing a paid opportunity than building a feature. Again as a contractor I do negotiate the work I can and want to do.

4. For this point I agree with you. I can also terminate the contract on my end.

The main difference I see is the imbalance of power. As a self-employed software engineer I can decide who I work with and negotiate almost everything with them. I have my business, they have theirs, and we discuss to try to reach agreements or not. Uber drivers are not in this position. Uber can dictate everything they want, drivers can only decide to stay or leave.

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I don't get why you're so focused on the negotiation part. I'm guessing your services happen to be very in demand, which is great and gives you the ability to successfully negotiate. There are lots of other contractors that fail to negotiate and end up accepting a client's first offer. Are they not actually contractors?

For #3, drivers may be penalized for being logged in and rejecting rides (though even that may have changed recently). But that is more akin to missing a deadline or not being available at an agreed upon time, something which any contractor might be penalized for. Uber drivers are always free to just decide not to log in and work at all and aren't penalized for that.

Because as I say, the main difference I see is the imbalance of power.

> There are lots of other contractors that fail to negotiate and end up accepting a client's first offer. Are they not actually contractors?

Is there a 3rd party coming in and deciding what their rates are going to be? Or is it between them and the client?

In the USA I can ignore rides at will without penalty, which is a recent development (last year or two IIRC). I only drive when it's busy and the rates are up. Uber offer's me a rate, and I choose whether to accept it or not. Even before this, though, I could just go offline when it wasn't busy enough or the rates were too low.

I still have no power to negotiate contract terms though, as the only other company I could contract with is Lyft, and their terms are basically the same.

Nevertheless, driving for Uber is much much more profitable than it was in the early days. Increase in ride demand is the main reason. Tips can also put you to $30/hour pure profit if you know how to be entertaining.

Except now the pandemic has destroyed the market.

Thanks for sharing your experience, that's good to know about those recent developments.

The driver absolutely can negotiate, but Uber is not under any obligation to compromise. The following is a perfectly valid negotiation:

company: Our payment terms are ABC.

contractor: Can we do XYZ instead?

company: Sorry, but we are not willing to do XYZ. It will need to be ABC, can you accept that?

contractor: OK

You are mistaking the right of the contractor to negotiate with an obligation on the company to concede, which does not exist in any situation.

Does Uber communicate ABC entirely before a driver accepts? I have not used the app as a driver, but the screenshots I've seen suggest they might not?

I agree with you, but if the drivers set their own rate, some might go too low to get more rides and compromise on safety or use illegal workers and such to make up for it.

1. They kind of can. They could just only accept long rides or maybe higher paying rides like 2x at the end of a sporting event.

2. Eh kind of. You could also look at it as Uber simply doesn’t negotiate their contract. It’s like a company hiring a freeelancer and just not negotiating.

3. If a company called you up and you said yes once and then no the next 10 times I bet they’d stop calling and you’d be penalized. They might not even have an Excel sheet with notes or a rating.

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