If people are getting paid a living wage, I don't really care about tipping being possible. You can press $0 with no guilt if your driver is making $32 an hour.
Just got back from Europe, where tipping was optional. It was really nice to see people’s faces light up from a tip no matter how big or small versus the expectation that I pick up the slack for the living wage that employers should be paying here in the U.S.
In Japan, tipping is basically non-existent. I watched someone nearly knock a child out of a man's arm trying to give change back that he had left behind.
When I lived in Korea my friends told me to never leave a tip except under special circumstances, because they'd see it as insulting. The waiter would see it as you viewing them lower than yourself, and the owner would see it as you insinuating they didn't pay their workers enough.
I've never been near any of the big US bases; those areas may be exceptions.
There are also some exceptions for sex-work adjacent establishments \(or non-adjacent\), but I wasn't going to get into that.
It's 100% the base, you'll find the same around American bases everywhere. Same in Germany and Korea. The soldiers there tend to be younger and less worldly, so they bring the tipping with them and the areas around the bases that mostly serve the American servicemen start adapting to it.
In the UK, companies are doing an opt-out tipping method where you'd actually have to tell them to remove it. This means that they give you the receipt, you say remove, they act surprised and will tell you to hold on as they take 5 minutes to give you another receipt without the tip.
It's a relatively new thing and it's spreading like cancer.
Optional service charges or 'gratuities' on bills have been a thing in the UK for ages; we were asking to remove the charge back in the mid-00s because the money went straight to the restaurant and wasn't treated as tip.
And the tip distribution. Pretty obvious here, but there have been times where I'm hesitant to tip if its going to be split among staff, both good and bad. I want to show gratitude to the staff that dealt with me and went above and beyond.
Outrageous.
Rideshare rides have been really expensive for a few years now. What used to be a $20 ride to the airport is now $70.
The recent change in Seattle is for food delivery. Uber, DoorDash, etc have all raised prices because of new "app based" delivery laws. I personally think they've raised the prices well beyond what was legally required just to make people angry so they complain to the city council and the laws change.
A $13 meal from Panda Express is $33 when ordered through Uber Eats, $30 through DoorDash, and $18 when ordered through the Panda Express app (which uses DoorDash for the actual delivery).
A ride to the airport has been well over $70 for me for a few years now. Uber has repeatedly raised prices and lowered driver compensation numerous times BEFORE the legislation passed, even being unreasonable LONG before the minimum pay requirements. Like I’m talking before Covid long before. The recent changes in prices that I’ve seen are just about as much as *everything* has gone up and I just expect it to be expensive and for me not to use it unless I’m feeling lazy.
That’s such bs. I wish they were also forced to show the actual markup price of items in the apps compared to the normal menu, because there’s several layers that go into the order becoming so expensive. It starts with the menu item itself costing more through the app, then the delivery fee, then tax, then the tip…
> It starts with the menu item itself costing more through the app, then the delivery fee, then tax, then the tip…
Delivery **fees**, plural. There's a "Delivery fee" and a "Service fee." In some apps, they combine everything into one "Taxes and Fees" category to make it even more obfuscated about exactly how much you're paying.
You could find a new restaurant through a delivery service and have *legitimately no idea* how much the meal normally costs.
You’re paying for someone else to pick it up - a $13 meal plus $20 for delivery service - after gas and the app fee, the driver takes whatever little is left for their time (edit: so you pay $20, minus gas and app fee, driver gets $5)
Would you rather pick it up yourself or pay $20?
I think that’s the best way to consider if it’s expensive. A lot of people get delivery, and think only about the food price.
Because the frank answer is most people don’t understand how expensive it is to get something delivered. We’re so used to having everything at our fingertips for cheap.
People will say delivery drivers should make a living wage on one hand then complain about how much it costs to get delivery on the other. You can’t have both.
The amount of outrage over food delivery costs blows my fucking mind. Oh, you want any meal you can think of delivered straight to your door within the hour? Yeah, that should probably cost you some money.
There was a time before delivery apps where local companies would partner with 20 or so restaurants and provide delivery. In most places, you had to call hours in advance, choose a time slot, and pay a flat fee of $15-20 plus tip. Now, you can order delivery from fast food and pay that $15-20.
Yeah, this is a huge part of the issue right here. Take rates should be capped at 25%. After all, taxi companies were capped at 15% to 20%, and these tech companies should be more efficient than a taxi company.
The truth is that a bunch of tech companies, including Uber and Lyft, have far too high of overhead. That's why they are barely profitable or unprofitable even with an absurdly high take rate.
Even this MA law at $32 is for only active hours. If you're only active 70% of the time, you're now grossing $20 per hour. Vehicle expenses will eat up at least another $5 per hour, and I haven't even included any time for washing vehicles, maintenance, keeping track or profit and losses, accidents, damages, and so on.
You need to gross roughly $40 per active hour if you want to even net $15 per hour.
> People will say delivery drivers should make a living wage on one hand then complain about how much it costs to get delivery on the other. You can’t have both.
Sadly a lot of people will also argue that delivery drivers don't actually deserve a living wage.
That's because before they were taking huge losses to gain market share, Uber was profitable for the first time last year but they are still down over $30 billion over their lifetime.
It feels like taxi lobby got its way. Uber in Seattle is almost 2x what a taxi costs. The only explanation for this to me is lobbying veiled as working wage for gig workers.
I bet taxi drivers don’t get $32/hour.
Seattle is one of the most expensive places in the US, plus it has the 1st or 2nd highest gas prices in the US. Plus tolls and terrible congestion and lots of bridges.
I would expect it to be among the most expensive.
SF and NYC are denser, meaning more rides per square mile, meaning lower marginal costs. SF and NYC also have a greater population of lower income people willing to drive Ubers, so higher supply of labor relative to demand would result in lower prices.
Food is like that in Seattle too, relatively small immigrant population willing to work for low wages in food service, so higher food prices than NYC and SF.
Right now at 1 am in New Jersey if I took an Uber to my parents house (which is about 5-7 mins away) it would be 10.44 solo and 9.26 shared. That doesn’t include tip obviously
Did he have his own medallion? Most actual drivers don't have them and usually have to rent them from the owner of the taxi/license. They usually have to make up $x in rides nightly just to pay the license rental fee, and only get to keep whatever extra they make on top of that.
In Vancouver at least, that averages out to maybe $25 CAD/hour at the absolute max (driving drunks on a Friday night), and usually below that if you sit around idling and waiting for a ride.
wait what.
I’ve been in Seattle these past couple of days and tipped on all my rides thinking that’s just the cost of stuff in Seattle. Was I paying out the ass for nothing?
ahh yes the ole small business strategy. learned first hand from a family acquaintance that those communal tip-jars are often times going straight to the owners lol. i also had a lady at a taco shop(not around anymore) straight up tell me to cancel the tip because it will go to the owner.. so definitely wasnt a one time thing
An employee at a chain bakery I go to straight tells people not to tip via the card reader because the owner takes all of it.
It should be standard for people to ask employees if they see any of that tip before selecting one, and if so how much.
All tipping essentially subsidizes the owner (as it enables them to pay workers less) so keeping that in mind, I won't be surpised that one day Waymo will ask for a tip. That cancer is spreading everywhere, because people are afraid to say "NO!".
It will so come down to how much of a percentage Uber takes for themselves. Will they continue to take 50+% or will they they take a more reasonable cut like 25-30% so that normal riders can still use the service
I mean if not enough people will pay the higher prices it would require, they will lower it back to where it was and take a lower cut. It just depends on how elastic the demand is.
It’s one of those things where capitalism doesn’t work if the workers have to make a charitable contribution of their time for the owner to be successful.
It's kinda what we had to say to the south when they complained that slavery was necessary for their way of life. If that's the only way you can run your business, you are just gonna have to get a new business.
If that's the only way to run your business, you don't have a business, you have an unprofitable hobby that involves fucking people over for your own shits and giggles.
That's what always gets me when there's talk about workers heading further and further to poverty-level wages, from especially big companies. It amounts to, "Well, the law needs to mandate our profits or we wouldn't be profitable."
Then your business is bad.
For every business that needs a law to keep them profitable, there is (or was) another business that didn't. It just didn't have investors.
>Taxis also provide their own vehicles, pay their drivers for gas, maintain their own insurance, change the oil / maintain the vehicles for their fleet and the drivers can cancel a ride without losing the ability to work
I know you're mentioning some positives of taxis but let's also not forget about taxi medallions and how insane the taxi industry used to be.
Using the example state in the article, you need a medallion to operate as a cab in cities like Boston and Cambridge. The amount of medallions available was tightly controlled, meaning being able to own one had a hefty price. Those medallions used to cost upwards of $500,000-700,000 at their peak. Independent drivers would take out loans to get their own medallion so that they could have their own car. That could mean a driver owes $3,000-5,000 a month just to use the taxi. Lifetime drivers banked on selling the medallions to fund retirement once they were ready to retire for good.
Others who worked for taxi companies would pay the taxi company directly out of their own pocket to use the car as the medallion was owned by the company. That could be a few hundred bucks a day, meaning if the driver doesn't make enough off fares and tips he could end up breaking even or even losing money if it's particularly bad day.
The whole thing was a sham. Uber and Lyft killed the value of those medallions, which to me is fine because the usage of the medallions and them being so tightly controlled was basically a bubble. But for the taxi drivers taking out loans and paying stupid money for a medallion they basically got fucked when the bubble popped and got screwed.
I’m also curious how this is going effect who they allow to work for them now. If they have to pay people an hourly wage, they are going to be much more strict on who and how many people they allow to drive on their behalf. How often can they realistically and legally drug test people? If It’s random drug tests on top of that anyone that smokes weed at all will lose their job, even if they aren’t smoking while driving. Will their driving record standards increase thereby eliminating people that have small ticketed offenses on their history? This increase can be good for a certain amount of people, but it can end up fucking over a large amount of people that use these services as supplemental income on top of increasing prices for passengers even more.
I’m all for people making a living wage at their jobs, but I’m always very torn when it comes to Uber and Lyft because it’s whole model was built on side gig/supplemental income work. It wasn’t meant to be a full time job, but somewhere along the way people signing up to drive decided they wanted it to be that and felt like they should be paid as if it was. Idk it just sits weird for me. They knew what it was when signing up, but want more from it now. Many of them just don’t want to get a different job and just want to keep driving at a rate that covers all of their expenses. They should be getting more of the share from rides for sure, that I could totally back 100%, but I disagree with them being paid hourly and treated as actual employees because they don’t like what they signed up for despite knowing exactly what it was. I just think it’s really dumb for anyone to use ride share as the sole way to make a living, I’m sure there are those that disagree, but I just don’t understand the mindset of it when it comes to Uber and Lyft.
Unfortunately, Uber and Lyft drivers will still see reviews of passengers so if you’re marked “bad” due to lack of tipping, you’re less likely to be chosen over someone who tips.
Ugh. You're absolutely correct. I was leaving the Paramount (Seattle) after a sold out LCD Soundsystem recently, and I got an ~~Uber~~ Lyft before most of the people that had poured out before my dawdling ass at the merch booth.
Lyft driver quizzes me immediately, "You know why I picked you? Guess. C'mon, guess!"
ME: "Idk, because I'm the longest ride?"
DRIVER: "Nope! Rating! You tip!"
And he goes on about how drivers review people. So I'm immediately uncomfortable with this implied threat of "Tip me too, or watch me review bomb you," the whole way home.
Now, I tended bar for 13 years and have always taken pleasure in tipping generously, but never once, in all of my reliance upon tips, did I exude this rampant entitlement that's apparently evolved into overt extortion.
EDIT: Uber to Lyft for clarity/consistency
Really?! Hell, I'll start using Uber then. I had the worthless *Lyft Pink* as some credit card perk, but the difference between regular and "priority" is never more than 2 min.
Avoiding snap judgement (even positive) is a much better perk.
He couldn't have been any clearer that this is the exact sentiment he and his fellow drivers fuel up with when they go out.
Then there's the Dominican Republic.
There, they will take you to the beaches outside of Santo Domingo, but when you get the Uber/Lyft on your way back, they first message you it's $60 USD (Cash only) in addition to the fare or you're not getting back to SD.
Sound like an empty threat? We thought so too, but nope. They made some unofficial union pact and every driver sent it. We finally found a local who knew a driver willing to take us.
..to an ATM for the cash to get back.
This mostly just reveals how much Uber & Lyft have been ripping everyone off.
Think about it: What was your last Uber ride? How long was it? How much did it cost?
Pulling up the app right now I've got a pick up in 5 minutes for a 10 minute ride. If I was in Massachusetts AFTER this law went into effect (and I'm obviously not), they'd be paying my driver $8 for that ride.
Okay. Obviously Uber needs to charge more than that to cover the costs of running the app. And they should be able to make a profit. So... what? 150% what the driver is earning? 200%?
So this ride must be like $12 to $16, right?
Nope. The cheapest ride is $22. A 275% markup.
And remember, this is the price they're charging BEFORE Massachussetts' law goes into effect and only for the cheapest option. Some quick googling suggests that, locally, they're actually charging 480% of what the average driver is getting paid for the cheapest rides.
Under the current system, you're tipping the driver so that they can survive. Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft are fleecing you both for huge profit margins.
As a former driver I still check out the subs and forums. Each year they pay the drivers less and less. They were paid the most by percentage when the apps launched. So our prices have gone up while drivers pay has gone down. Plus, they lie to the drivers about what the total actually was. We pay lets say $100, drivers gets told we paid $40. No joke or exaggeration.
Tbf, there are costs on the apps' end. There are a lot of promotions to get some customer to use the services (so idk how many pay full price), there are a lot of refunds, there are a lot of background checks (most drivers never actually drive or drive only rarely), there's liability insurance, and then there's app development. But I do agree that it feels absurd to me that they can't seem to make a profit with like 1/2 the money in many cases.
My car gets 40 mpg and my estimated operating cost is around 25-30 cents per mile or between $5-10 an hour. It varies heavily on the type of vehicle, the price of gas and the market you drive in
It's active driving time. Not while waiting for riders. I do rideshare (in a different state) and I sometimes won't get a ride for up to an hour. There can be a lot of no pay time. Add in that drivers pay for gas and maintenance, and $32/hr is a lot less impressive than it sounds.
Here's the [attorney general's announcement](https://www.mass.gov/news/ag-campbell-reaches-nation-leading-settlement-with-uber-and-lyft-secures-landmark-wages-benefits-and-protections-for-drivers) with the details. Looks like they're also getting some sort of health insurance benefit and paid sick leave now, which is nice:
> **Drivers receive a minimum of $32.50 per hour** for time spent traveling to pick up riders and transporting them to their destination, adjusted annually for inflation, ensuring for the first time that the tens of thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers in Massachusetts will be guaranteed minimum pay.
> **Pooled health insurance benefit.** For the first time anywhere, Uber and Lyft will allow drivers to pool their hours driving for the two companies to obtain access to a health insurance stipend. Anyone who drives for more than 15 hours per week—for either or both companies—will be able to earn a health insurance stipend to pay for a plan on the Massachusetts Health Connector.
> **Drivers receive guaranteed paid sick leave**, earning one hour of sick pay for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 40 hours per year. As part of the agreement, Uber and Lyft must update their driver applications so drivers are able to view and claim their sick leave directly in the app.
>Drivers receive a minimum of $32.50 per hour for **time spent traveling to pick up riders** and transporting them to their destination
The law covers pickup time.
Yeah, and it's suddenly going to be like it is in Seattle where they're going to game the system a bit in how far away they'll send it out to drivers to reduce the paid time. So they might wait the minute while driver X drives toward customer Y to match the two to minimize the paid time. Uber will have a leg up because they've been doing this with Eats (wasn't necessary with our rideshare bill but they put this in place for food delivery).
And drivers are going to game it by accepting and continuing to drive past the exit (or legitimately the companies don't send it with enough time to get over). Which will be a bit of a bummer... They'll have to work on this because customers will get annoyed since they can't as easily hide it like they can with food delivery.
Just FYI I follow the driver subreddits and people are getting easily deactivated for this. One guy got stuck behind a protest and they deactivated him for it,
It will be interesting to see where fares settle, I have suspected for a long time it eventually will match taxi prices if not higher, as that is actually the market price, these companies were just artificially deflating the price to kill the industry.
I also think these prices will continue to get higher but taxis were not market price. Taxis would control the market by artificially controlling the number of taxis that could be on the streets in many cities. In many places they had become very powerful lobbying groups.
They’ll continue running there but pass on the cost direct to the consumer as a surcharge or fee and tell the customer how anti competitive Massachusetts is.
That’s what DoorDash and UberEats did in Seattle after a city policy passed.
In California, I saw a charge on my Uber receipt for something like "Driver insurance surcharge". And, iirc, the description basically said it was to cover insurance of the driver as required by CA law. It was figured into the ride cost, so it wasn't a hidden fee. I'm sure they will do something similar here.
Edit: found a PR post about it
https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-invests-more-than-1-billion-in-prop-22-benefits-for-ca-drivers-and-couriers/
The Seattle $5 fee was never justified by any data. The choice of $5 was convenient because there was a $5 minimum set by law but there was previously a $2-4 minimum already paid by the apps, depending on which one. NYC required $30/active hour during engaged work (or $19 for the full hour shift) but the companies only raised fees to $2 there.
So, sure, they'll pass it on to customers because of course that's how regulatory fees work (most is borne by consumers if the companies think they can justify it). But the $5 in Seattle appears to be like 40-80% politically motivated to overturn the law because there's now a more conservative City Council and less because that's truthfully what it required.
The companies have since said that they could pay $22/active hour (rather than the $26.4/active hour of the current law) without any fees at all, after all.
You’re literally supposed to pass the cost direct to the consumer. You need to charge the cost plus profit to make the business worthwhile. If nobody will pay that or if there is not enough profit to make it worthwhile, you simply stop and do something else. This is business 101.
Seriously, it's awkward when people act like businesses should just eat the cost of rules and regulations, or any other business expense.
Want the rules? OK. Pay for them.
No, they came back because the Texas Legislature passed a law saying cities aren't allowed to require them to perform background checks. We did have several local apps that worked fine while they were gone, but they crumbled once the advertising behemoth that is Uber came back to town.
Would be hard to do.
Part of the business of doing ride share is making sure its ubiquitous. If its less convenient then people stop using it altogether and other services can take mindshare/marketshare.
So other areas may get a price bump to subsidize the more expensive drivers.
Or they may just surcharge Mass customers.
Yea used to work for them on the corporate side - this will basically get rid of part time/flex drivers (if those still exist) and they’ll just feel limited spots with their top drivers - who may even have to “bid” for spots
Eh - it’s actually more of a we have 500 spots: we are offering these to our 500 best drivers, you have 1 hour to signup for shifts tomorrow, after that any spot left over will be given to the next cohort of 500. By bid I guess I mean it’s more of a competition for shifts, and potentially working times you’d prefer not to - I doubt they pay for them - but could see taking a discount for slower hours
They'll certainly pretend that, but they won't leave.
If they did, someone else would swoop right in and prove that it's perfectly viable. Then, that company would immediately have enough name recognition to do it country wide. It would be the end of Uber and Lyft to let competition in like that. Lol.
It would be quite hard for a new company to outperform Uber and Lyft. Uber and Lyft have numerous advantages like economy of scale and name recognition. If Uber/Lyft leave because it’s actually unprofitable and not just because they are upset they are making less, it’s very unlikely for another company to succeed as they will be even more unprofitable.
Of course, that doesn’t mean some startup won’t happily take investors money to try, but unless they can think of some way to make it more profitable that Uber/Lyft missed, the math just isn’t mathing.
It’s going to be “active hours” not “online hours” meaning if in 3 hours they did 3x 20 minute ride = 1 hour = $32
Don’t @ me I’m not a driver or user of either.
If that’s the case, it creates an odd incentive for drivers to “run the meter” as much as possible except it doesn’t cost the customer money, just time.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted for this - you are exactly right. Yes, workers could "run the clock up," just like any hourly worker could work slower and get paid the same amount for less work, or like any independent contractor could over-bill for their hours. The consequence for that is that they can be disciplined (or fired / have their contract terminated) if they choose to do it. Realistically, most drivers want to do a good job & have satisfied customers & don't do this kind of thing nearly as much as people imagine they will!
They also are given pre-set routes to take, and if they frequently deviate from those routes to run up the clock, it absolutely *will* be caught & penalized. It's actually even more likely for an algorithmic "boss" to catch & penalize this kind of behavior than a typical boss.
That's what happens in CA, where rideshare & delivery companies wrote their own ballot initiative giving pay per active hour.
Incentives are always going to be problematic for drivers. Pay them for their time and they run the meter, pay them for the distance and they run the lights.
Not really. For ride share/delivery, they were only so cheap because investors were footing the bill, so that companies like Uber could get a foothold in the market. Now they want to stop footing your bills. It’s not a clear case of greed where they are trying to make more profit. They literally just want to make a profit. If increasing the costs doesn’t work, it’s not like they are losing anything since they weren’t making money anyways.
I’m always amazed people don’t get this. On one hand, people say they want others to make a living wage. Let’s say for simplicity for that’s $20.
Well… that DoorDash you just had delivered took up 30 minutes of a drivers time. Venture capital spent years paying for that. With that money gone, your service fee and/or menu price goes up.
There was a thread the other day of someone complaining that a diner breakfast at 10 dollars was too much, and that they could buy all the ingredients themself and make breakfast for 3 people for the same price.
It's like people forget that part of the what you're paying for is for someone to do it for you so you don't have to do it yourself. And labor isn't cheap, which isn't a bad thing, but you still have to recognize it.
I mean if it costs $32/hour to not “fuck” themselves then maybe the concept of people driving you around just isn’t even an option. It’s not really a cooperations fault if that’s the pay rate it takes to fairly employ a driver.
This looks like government helping out the taxi companies instead of the consumers. How is this corporate greed? This looks more like a win for Big Taxis and a loss for riders
I took a taxi in NYC LaGuardia from to almost downtown manhattan. I thought it would be cheaper than the Uber app, nope. $20 more.
Idk how Massachusetts pricing going to be but I suspect taxis going to raise rates too
There's no world where taxis undercut Uber in price. Even if you hate Uber and think they're greedy dumb tech capitalist bros or whatever, nothing is ever going to change that they replaced a super labor intensive, inefficient dispatch system with an app.
Yeah don’t, I mean do if you want to but it can’t be necessary. 32 and hour is about 66 grand a year putting in 40 hour work weeks for 52 weeks salary to live comfortably in Massachusetts is about 70 grand a year so I wouldn’t see a point in it
Good question I know for DoorDash it was when you accept a ride till they get dropped off that was for like food an stuff but I’m pretty sure it’s the same principle
> then taxes on top of that.
I mean, when it comes to pay, no one really uses net income.
Like you’d say minimum federal wage is $7.50/hr, not $6/hr or whatever after tax.
True, and I suppose they should be able to write off a lot of their income as business expenses (gas and maintainance) so their actual taxes should be low.
But the downtimes and business expenses will probably still push the bottom line to approximately minimum wage level.
Just like any other paying job that doesn't let you get overtime.
They'll just get second jobs.
Probably the easiest would be 8 hours for Uber and 8 hours for Lyft.
>*"[Independent Uber and Lyft operators] in the state will get yearly inflation-based pay raises and other employee-style benefits, such as being able to earn up to 40 hours of sick leave a year, paid at $20 per hour. Uber and Lyft will also give drivers stipends so they can buy healthcare and sign up for the state’s family and medical leave program, and will cover work-related injuries."*
The "top-up" to $32.50/hour is meant to fill in the no rider gaps in service during the times that drivers are logged into the app and accepting rides. So, in a given hour where the driver only has say, 2x $15 rides, the top-up gives them the other $2.50 to get them to the minimum. It's structured like the "Tipped Workers" top-up, but hopefully access to paid benefits and the enforcement is more effective in practice than has been seen by restaurant workers.
Rejecting rides is about to be a timed out penalty if it isnt already. Too short? I dont like that zip code? Ok, driver you have rejected 3 rides, you.must wait 72 hours before you can log in again. Then maybe even mic and camera permissions to record waiting time
Agreed. There must be some kind of give-and-take responsibility here otherwise the opportunity for abuse would be too great.
In any case, It's going to give [**Waymo**](https://waymo.com/) a big boost, especially since Waymo is now open to everyone and you no longer need invitation codes to ride.
In theory you shouldn’t need to tip. As Uber and Lyft are dynamic pricing. So if the pay is less, then that will lead to less drivers. If their are less drivers, then the pay will increase.
I know a lot of taxi drivers and then uber/lyft drivers.
One of the uncles explained how he owned cabs and when Uber/lyft came they just bought a few cars and they drove one while they got new canadians, truck drivers who are in town etc to drive their vehicles when they are not using them.
This one uncle told me that taxis will win in the long term because once the real costs kick in and the drivers want to live off the income, looking at how much more Uber and lyft want in $ for people in the offices/shareholders who actually do not matter in the operations and are just sink holes for $
Required regulations in Massachusetts was so unprofitable, that [many auto insurance companies](https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2012/10/05/265682.htm) pulled out of the state entirely. For years.
They are doing the same thing again with home insurance with forest fires in California and flooding in Florida.
Wonder how long before Uber and Lyft just say nahhh
I can't wait for food delivery to go back to an 18 year old driving dangerously in an old 4 cylinder with lots music delivering pizzas and loving it. This side hustle culture had killed the vibe.
They agreed to the settlement in lieu of being required to classify their workers as employees, which they *really* don't want to do and would cost them significantly more, so - no, they won't be pulling out of MA.
Holy shit that's a huge boost. Now I ain't tipping.
We already have had this in Seattle, you don't tip anymore. The apps will clearly state that you don't need to but you can if you want to.
Almost *like how tipping should work*
Now if all tipping options were removed entirely...
If people are getting paid a living wage, I don't really care about tipping being possible. You can press $0 with no guilt if your driver is making $32 an hour.
Just got back from Europe, where tipping was optional. It was really nice to see people’s faces light up from a tip no matter how big or small versus the expectation that I pick up the slack for the living wage that employers should be paying here in the U.S.
In Japan, tipping is basically non-existent. I watched someone nearly knock a child out of a man's arm trying to give change back that he had left behind.
When I lived in Korea my friends told me to never leave a tip except under special circumstances, because they'd see it as insulting. The waiter would see it as you viewing them lower than yourself, and the owner would see it as you insinuating they didn't pay their workers enough.
>the owner would see it as you insinuating they didn't pay their workers enough. I mean, this is literally what tipping is.
No that's what tipping is *in the USA* in Europe and most other countries it's a bonus you leave for good service
Only in the ‘greatest country on earth’ do people think that.
Eh. In Okinawa tipping is almost everywhere in the cities. Maybe it's just around the military bases though
I've never been near any of the big US bases; those areas may be exceptions. There are also some exceptions for sex-work adjacent establishments \(or non-adjacent\), but I wasn't going to get into that.
It's 100% the base, you'll find the same around American bases everywhere. Same in Germany and Korea. The soldiers there tend to be younger and less worldly, so they bring the tipping with them and the areas around the bases that mostly serve the American servicemen start adapting to it.
I had an old lady chase me for 3 blocks to give me my tip back.
In the UK, companies are doing an opt-out tipping method where you'd actually have to tell them to remove it. This means that they give you the receipt, you say remove, they act surprised and will tell you to hold on as they take 5 minutes to give you another receipt without the tip. It's a relatively new thing and it's spreading like cancer.
Optional service charges or 'gratuities' on bills have been a thing in the UK for ages; we were asking to remove the charge back in the mid-00s because the money went straight to the restaurant and wasn't treated as tip.
There’s a bigger issue at play here. If we are expected to tip then we should be aware of the hourly wage beforehand.
And the tip distribution. Pretty obvious here, but there have been times where I'm hesitant to tip if its going to be split among staff, both good and bad. I want to show gratitude to the staff that dealt with me and went above and beyond.
I think it should be like a bonus for great service. Maybe a small very tip for good service. And nothing for poor service.
Like a bunch of other countries…..
It was this way until fairly recently. Tips were for good service, not a wage subsidy
Imagine that! A world where tipping is optional and guilt free
How are the fares compared to previously?
Outrageous. Rideshare rides have been really expensive for a few years now. What used to be a $20 ride to the airport is now $70. The recent change in Seattle is for food delivery. Uber, DoorDash, etc have all raised prices because of new "app based" delivery laws. I personally think they've raised the prices well beyond what was legally required just to make people angry so they complain to the city council and the laws change. A $13 meal from Panda Express is $33 when ordered through Uber Eats, $30 through DoorDash, and $18 when ordered through the Panda Express app (which uses DoorDash for the actual delivery).
A ride to the airport has been well over $70 for me for a few years now. Uber has repeatedly raised prices and lowered driver compensation numerous times BEFORE the legislation passed, even being unreasonable LONG before the minimum pay requirements. Like I’m talking before Covid long before. The recent changes in prices that I’ve seen are just about as much as *everything* has gone up and I just expect it to be expensive and for me not to use it unless I’m feeling lazy.
That’s such bs. I wish they were also forced to show the actual markup price of items in the apps compared to the normal menu, because there’s several layers that go into the order becoming so expensive. It starts with the menu item itself costing more through the app, then the delivery fee, then tax, then the tip…
> It starts with the menu item itself costing more through the app, then the delivery fee, then tax, then the tip… Delivery **fees**, plural. There's a "Delivery fee" and a "Service fee." In some apps, they combine everything into one "Taxes and Fees" category to make it even more obfuscated about exactly how much you're paying. You could find a new restaurant through a delivery service and have *legitimately no idea* how much the meal normally costs.
You’re paying for someone else to pick it up - a $13 meal plus $20 for delivery service - after gas and the app fee, the driver takes whatever little is left for their time (edit: so you pay $20, minus gas and app fee, driver gets $5) Would you rather pick it up yourself or pay $20? I think that’s the best way to consider if it’s expensive. A lot of people get delivery, and think only about the food price.
Because the frank answer is most people don’t understand how expensive it is to get something delivered. We’re so used to having everything at our fingertips for cheap. People will say delivery drivers should make a living wage on one hand then complain about how much it costs to get delivery on the other. You can’t have both.
The amount of outrage over food delivery costs blows my fucking mind. Oh, you want any meal you can think of delivered straight to your door within the hour? Yeah, that should probably cost you some money.
There was a time before delivery apps where local companies would partner with 20 or so restaurants and provide delivery. In most places, you had to call hours in advance, choose a time slot, and pay a flat fee of $15-20 plus tip. Now, you can order delivery from fast food and pay that $15-20.
This completely ignores the huge cut technology companies take from both sides of the whole process.
Yeah, this is a huge part of the issue right here. Take rates should be capped at 25%. After all, taxi companies were capped at 15% to 20%, and these tech companies should be more efficient than a taxi company. The truth is that a bunch of tech companies, including Uber and Lyft, have far too high of overhead. That's why they are barely profitable or unprofitable even with an absurdly high take rate. Even this MA law at $32 is for only active hours. If you're only active 70% of the time, you're now grossing $20 per hour. Vehicle expenses will eat up at least another $5 per hour, and I haven't even included any time for washing vehicles, maintenance, keeping track or profit and losses, accidents, damages, and so on. You need to gross roughly $40 per active hour if you want to even net $15 per hour.
> People will say delivery drivers should make a living wage on one hand then complain about how much it costs to get delivery on the other. You can’t have both. Sadly a lot of people will also argue that delivery drivers don't actually deserve a living wage.
Surge pricing is bs. I've seen 20 minute rides for 100 dollars.
That's because before they were taking huge losses to gain market share, Uber was profitable for the first time last year but they are still down over $30 billion over their lifetime.
It feels like taxi lobby got its way. Uber in Seattle is almost 2x what a taxi costs. The only explanation for this to me is lobbying veiled as working wage for gig workers. I bet taxi drivers don’t get $32/hour.
It feels like Uber in Seattle is more expensive than ANY other US city. It’s impossible to go anywhere for under $10
Seattle is one of the most expensive places in the US, plus it has the 1st or 2nd highest gas prices in the US. Plus tolls and terrible congestion and lots of bridges. I would expect it to be among the most expensive.
California has us beat for gas prices if I’m not mistaken. Everything else checks out though
It's not that, it's more expensive than SF and NYC, both of which are way more expensive cities than Seattle.
SF and NYC are denser, meaning more rides per square mile, meaning lower marginal costs. SF and NYC also have a greater population of lower income people willing to drive Ubers, so higher supply of labor relative to demand would result in lower prices. Food is like that in Seattle too, relatively small immigrant population willing to work for low wages in food service, so higher food prices than NYC and SF.
In which city can you get anywhere beyond reasonable walking distance by Uber for less than $10?
Right now at 1 am in New Jersey if I took an Uber to my parents house (which is about 5-7 mins away) it would be 10.44 solo and 9.26 shared. That doesn’t include tip obviously
I’ve never been anywhere for less than $10. You making a lot of 1/2 mile trips or something?
they prob do, my dad reported 20 /hr to the courts in a cheaper col city in ~90. he made twice that.
Did he have his own medallion? Most actual drivers don't have them and usually have to rent them from the owner of the taxi/license. They usually have to make up $x in rides nightly just to pay the license rental fee, and only get to keep whatever extra they make on top of that. In Vancouver at least, that averages out to maybe $25 CAD/hour at the absolute max (driving drunks on a Friday night), and usually below that if you sit around idling and waiting for a ride.
wait what. I’ve been in Seattle these past couple of days and tipped on all my rides thinking that’s just the cost of stuff in Seattle. Was I paying out the ass for nothing?
Fact. They gotta stop upping all these minimum wage type salaries and expecting tips still.
Heh, now its a tip for the company, not the driver
ahh yes the ole small business strategy. learned first hand from a family acquaintance that those communal tip-jars are often times going straight to the owners lol. i also had a lady at a taco shop(not around anymore) straight up tell me to cancel the tip because it will go to the owner.. so definitely wasnt a one time thing
Thats illegal, no wonder they dont exist anymore.
An employee at a chain bakery I go to straight tells people not to tip via the card reader because the owner takes all of it. It should be standard for people to ask employees if they see any of that tip before selecting one, and if so how much.
That's wage theft. You can't even share tips if you're a manager.
You never have to tip on a Waymo.
Wait until Gemini / ChatGPT asks for a tip
All tipping essentially subsidizes the owner (as it enables them to pay workers less) so keeping that in mind, I won't be surpised that one day Waymo will ask for a tip. That cancer is spreading everywhere, because people are afraid to say "NO!".
What makes you think you will be able to afford a ride once they are paying drivers 32/h
If its already $90 to go to the airport late at night, im afraid of what the new prices will be lol
It will so come down to how much of a percentage Uber takes for themselves. Will they continue to take 50+% or will they they take a more reasonable cut like 25-30% so that normal riders can still use the service
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I mean if not enough people will pay the higher prices it would require, they will lower it back to where it was and take a lower cut. It just depends on how elastic the demand is.
It’s one of those things where capitalism doesn’t work if the workers have to make a charitable contribution of their time for the owner to be successful.
It's kinda what we had to say to the south when they complained that slavery was necessary for their way of life. If that's the only way you can run your business, you are just gonna have to get a new business.
If that's the only way to run your business, you don't have a business, you have an unprofitable hobby that involves fucking people over for your own shits and giggles.
The robots are already coming for all Uber/Lyft jobs. Be careful what you wish for drivers...
That's what always gets me when there's talk about workers heading further and further to poverty-level wages, from especially big companies. It amounts to, "Well, the law needs to mandate our profits or we wouldn't be profitable." Then your business is bad. For every business that needs a law to keep them profitable, there is (or was) another business that didn't. It just didn't have investors.
People don't like to admit that the solution "go out of business then ya scrub" is always on the table.
If they can't make rides affordable and pay their drivers enough to live on I guess they just deserve to go under, shucks.
Just like Taxi companies deserved to go under when Uber and Lyft came out? What Taxi companies are guaranteeing $32/hour?
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>Taxis also provide their own vehicles, pay their drivers for gas, maintain their own insurance, change the oil / maintain the vehicles for their fleet and the drivers can cancel a ride without losing the ability to work I know you're mentioning some positives of taxis but let's also not forget about taxi medallions and how insane the taxi industry used to be. Using the example state in the article, you need a medallion to operate as a cab in cities like Boston and Cambridge. The amount of medallions available was tightly controlled, meaning being able to own one had a hefty price. Those medallions used to cost upwards of $500,000-700,000 at their peak. Independent drivers would take out loans to get their own medallion so that they could have their own car. That could mean a driver owes $3,000-5,000 a month just to use the taxi. Lifetime drivers banked on selling the medallions to fund retirement once they were ready to retire for good. Others who worked for taxi companies would pay the taxi company directly out of their own pocket to use the car as the medallion was owned by the company. That could be a few hundred bucks a day, meaning if the driver doesn't make enough off fares and tips he could end up breaking even or even losing money if it's particularly bad day. The whole thing was a sham. Uber and Lyft killed the value of those medallions, which to me is fine because the usage of the medallions and them being so tightly controlled was basically a bubble. But for the taxi drivers taking out loans and paying stupid money for a medallion they basically got fucked when the bubble popped and got screwed.
Take a taxi?
I’m also curious how this is going effect who they allow to work for them now. If they have to pay people an hourly wage, they are going to be much more strict on who and how many people they allow to drive on their behalf. How often can they realistically and legally drug test people? If It’s random drug tests on top of that anyone that smokes weed at all will lose their job, even if they aren’t smoking while driving. Will their driving record standards increase thereby eliminating people that have small ticketed offenses on their history? This increase can be good for a certain amount of people, but it can end up fucking over a large amount of people that use these services as supplemental income on top of increasing prices for passengers even more. I’m all for people making a living wage at their jobs, but I’m always very torn when it comes to Uber and Lyft because it’s whole model was built on side gig/supplemental income work. It wasn’t meant to be a full time job, but somewhere along the way people signing up to drive decided they wanted it to be that and felt like they should be paid as if it was. Idk it just sits weird for me. They knew what it was when signing up, but want more from it now. Many of them just don’t want to get a different job and just want to keep driving at a rate that covers all of their expenses. They should be getting more of the share from rides for sure, that I could totally back 100%, but I disagree with them being paid hourly and treated as actual employees because they don’t like what they signed up for despite knowing exactly what it was. I just think it’s really dumb for anyone to use ride share as the sole way to make a living, I’m sure there are those that disagree, but I just don’t understand the mindset of it when it comes to Uber and Lyft.
Yeah the tip like it should’ve been will be factored in to the fare and naturally will cause some balance in terms of supply vs demand
Unfortunately, Uber and Lyft drivers will still see reviews of passengers so if you’re marked “bad” due to lack of tipping, you’re less likely to be chosen over someone who tips.
Ugh. You're absolutely correct. I was leaving the Paramount (Seattle) after a sold out LCD Soundsystem recently, and I got an ~~Uber~~ Lyft before most of the people that had poured out before my dawdling ass at the merch booth. Lyft driver quizzes me immediately, "You know why I picked you? Guess. C'mon, guess!" ME: "Idk, because I'm the longest ride?" DRIVER: "Nope! Rating! You tip!" And he goes on about how drivers review people. So I'm immediately uncomfortable with this implied threat of "Tip me too, or watch me review bomb you," the whole way home. Now, I tended bar for 13 years and have always taken pleasure in tipping generously, but never once, in all of my reliance upon tips, did I exude this rampant entitlement that's apparently evolved into overt extortion. EDIT: Uber to Lyft for clarity/consistency
I thought uber drivers couldn’t see if you tipped until after they have rated you
Really?! Hell, I'll start using Uber then. I had the worthless *Lyft Pink* as some credit card perk, but the difference between regular and "priority" is never more than 2 min. Avoiding snap judgement (even positive) is a much better perk.
Just goes to show how easy it is to make employees feel like it’s the general public fucking them over and not their employer
He couldn't have been any clearer that this is the exact sentiment he and his fellow drivers fuel up with when they go out. Then there's the Dominican Republic. There, they will take you to the beaches outside of Santo Domingo, but when you get the Uber/Lyft on your way back, they first message you it's $60 USD (Cash only) in addition to the fare or you're not getting back to SD. Sound like an empty threat? We thought so too, but nope. They made some unofficial union pact and every driver sent it. We finally found a local who knew a driver willing to take us. ..to an ATM for the cash to get back.
There is no way for drivers to rate you or change their rating of you after they see your tip
This mostly just reveals how much Uber & Lyft have been ripping everyone off. Think about it: What was your last Uber ride? How long was it? How much did it cost? Pulling up the app right now I've got a pick up in 5 minutes for a 10 minute ride. If I was in Massachusetts AFTER this law went into effect (and I'm obviously not), they'd be paying my driver $8 for that ride. Okay. Obviously Uber needs to charge more than that to cover the costs of running the app. And they should be able to make a profit. So... what? 150% what the driver is earning? 200%? So this ride must be like $12 to $16, right? Nope. The cheapest ride is $22. A 275% markup. And remember, this is the price they're charging BEFORE Massachussetts' law goes into effect and only for the cheapest option. Some quick googling suggests that, locally, they're actually charging 480% of what the average driver is getting paid for the cheapest rides. Under the current system, you're tipping the driver so that they can survive. Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft are fleecing you both for huge profit margins.
Isn't this like the first time uber has ever been profitable?
As a former driver I still check out the subs and forums. Each year they pay the drivers less and less. They were paid the most by percentage when the apps launched. So our prices have gone up while drivers pay has gone down. Plus, they lie to the drivers about what the total actually was. We pay lets say $100, drivers gets told we paid $40. No joke or exaggeration.
Gig work becomes an arbitrage model once you hit scale. Charge the highest price the customer will bear. Pay the lowest wage someone will tolerate.
Tbf, there are costs on the apps' end. There are a lot of promotions to get some customer to use the services (so idk how many pay full price), there are a lot of refunds, there are a lot of background checks (most drivers never actually drive or drive only rarely), there's liability insurance, and then there's app development. But I do agree that it feels absurd to me that they can't seem to make a profit with like 1/2 the money in many cases.
So will they take tips to adjust hourly rate? Do we tip if they get paid 32 an hour? Seems like the European model of paid adequately
Granted, they’ve got some expenses coming out of that for sure
They do but it’s still finally a decent wage even after expenses.
My car gets 40 mpg and my estimated operating cost is around 25-30 cents per mile or between $5-10 an hour. It varies heavily on the type of vehicle, the price of gas and the market you drive in
If you factor in depreciation and all that, it's probably closer to the IRS rate too, even if you beat the national average for mileage by a lot.
I've always said that Uber is a scam that shifts the entire cost of running a taxi company onto the driver.
With a sign on promo I was making $40/hour minimum the first month I drove for Uber back in 2014.
It's active driving time. Not while waiting for riders. I do rideshare (in a different state) and I sometimes won't get a ride for up to an hour. There can be a lot of no pay time. Add in that drivers pay for gas and maintenance, and $32/hr is a lot less impressive than it sounds. Here's the [attorney general's announcement](https://www.mass.gov/news/ag-campbell-reaches-nation-leading-settlement-with-uber-and-lyft-secures-landmark-wages-benefits-and-protections-for-drivers) with the details. Looks like they're also getting some sort of health insurance benefit and paid sick leave now, which is nice: > **Drivers receive a minimum of $32.50 per hour** for time spent traveling to pick up riders and transporting them to their destination, adjusted annually for inflation, ensuring for the first time that the tens of thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers in Massachusetts will be guaranteed minimum pay. > **Pooled health insurance benefit.** For the first time anywhere, Uber and Lyft will allow drivers to pool their hours driving for the two companies to obtain access to a health insurance stipend. Anyone who drives for more than 15 hours per week—for either or both companies—will be able to earn a health insurance stipend to pay for a plan on the Massachusetts Health Connector. > **Drivers receive guaranteed paid sick leave**, earning one hour of sick pay for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 40 hours per year. As part of the agreement, Uber and Lyft must update their driver applications so drivers are able to view and claim their sick leave directly in the app.
Wouldn’t be surprised if your let go if you decline pickups regardless of how close or far away they are.
>Drivers receive a minimum of $32.50 per hour for **time spent traveling to pick up riders** and transporting them to their destination The law covers pickup time.
Yeah, and it's suddenly going to be like it is in Seattle where they're going to game the system a bit in how far away they'll send it out to drivers to reduce the paid time. So they might wait the minute while driver X drives toward customer Y to match the two to minimize the paid time. Uber will have a leg up because they've been doing this with Eats (wasn't necessary with our rideshare bill but they put this in place for food delivery). And drivers are going to game it by accepting and continuing to drive past the exit (or legitimately the companies don't send it with enough time to get over). Which will be a bit of a bummer... They'll have to work on this because customers will get annoyed since they can't as easily hide it like they can with food delivery.
Just FYI I follow the driver subreddits and people are getting easily deactivated for this. One guy got stuck behind a protest and they deactivated him for it,
It will be interesting to see where fares settle, I have suspected for a long time it eventually will match taxi prices if not higher, as that is actually the market price, these companies were just artificially deflating the price to kill the industry.
I also think these prices will continue to get higher but taxis were not market price. Taxis would control the market by artificially controlling the number of taxis that could be on the streets in many cities. In many places they had become very powerful lobbying groups.
And now Waymo will come in and take over.
How long before they decide it's not economically viable for them to operate in Massachusetts and cease running there.
They’ll continue running there but pass on the cost direct to the consumer as a surcharge or fee and tell the customer how anti competitive Massachusetts is. That’s what DoorDash and UberEats did in Seattle after a city policy passed.
In California, I saw a charge on my Uber receipt for something like "Driver insurance surcharge". And, iirc, the description basically said it was to cover insurance of the driver as required by CA law. It was figured into the ride cost, so it wasn't a hidden fee. I'm sure they will do something similar here. Edit: found a PR post about it https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-invests-more-than-1-billion-in-prop-22-benefits-for-ca-drivers-and-couriers/
Grubhub had a living wage fee and changed.the tip menu to 1, 2 , 3 dollars instead of percent based and a big note tipping was optional.
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The Seattle $5 fee was never justified by any data. The choice of $5 was convenient because there was a $5 minimum set by law but there was previously a $2-4 minimum already paid by the apps, depending on which one. NYC required $30/active hour during engaged work (or $19 for the full hour shift) but the companies only raised fees to $2 there. So, sure, they'll pass it on to customers because of course that's how regulatory fees work (most is borne by consumers if the companies think they can justify it). But the $5 in Seattle appears to be like 40-80% politically motivated to overturn the law because there's now a more conservative City Council and less because that's truthfully what it required. The companies have since said that they could pay $22/active hour (rather than the $26.4/active hour of the current law) without any fees at all, after all.
You’re literally supposed to pass the cost direct to the consumer. You need to charge the cost plus profit to make the business worthwhile. If nobody will pay that or if there is not enough profit to make it worthwhile, you simply stop and do something else. This is business 101.
Seriously, it's awkward when people act like businesses should just eat the cost of rules and regulations, or any other business expense. Want the rules? OK. Pay for them.
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No, they came back because the Texas Legislature passed a law saying cities aren't allowed to require them to perform background checks. We did have several local apps that worked fine while they were gone, but they crumbled once the advertising behemoth that is Uber came back to town.
Would be hard to do. Part of the business of doing ride share is making sure its ubiquitous. If its less convenient then people stop using it altogether and other services can take mindshare/marketshare. So other areas may get a price bump to subsidize the more expensive drivers. Or they may just surcharge Mass customers.
They'll probably just make changes like limiting the # of active drivers at a time
Yea used to work for them on the corporate side - this will basically get rid of part time/flex drivers (if those still exist) and they’ll just feel limited spots with their top drivers - who may even have to “bid” for spots
> who may even have to “bid” for spots Right back to Taxi Medallions
Eh - it’s actually more of a we have 500 spots: we are offering these to our 500 best drivers, you have 1 hour to signup for shifts tomorrow, after that any spot left over will be given to the next cohort of 500. By bid I guess I mean it’s more of a competition for shifts, and potentially working times you’d prefer not to - I doubt they pay for them - but could see taking a discount for slower hours
They'll certainly pretend that, but they won't leave. If they did, someone else would swoop right in and prove that it's perfectly viable. Then, that company would immediately have enough name recognition to do it country wide. It would be the end of Uber and Lyft to let competition in like that. Lol.
It would be quite hard for a new company to outperform Uber and Lyft. Uber and Lyft have numerous advantages like economy of scale and name recognition. If Uber/Lyft leave because it’s actually unprofitable and not just because they are upset they are making less, it’s very unlikely for another company to succeed as they will be even more unprofitable. Of course, that doesn’t mean some startup won’t happily take investors money to try, but unless they can think of some way to make it more profitable that Uber/Lyft missed, the math just isn’t mathing.
Lol bullshit. The only company that would swoop in to pay those wages would be someone like waymo who.. won't.
Someone else comes in with a better business plan? Free market economy?
It’s going to be “active hours” not “online hours” meaning if in 3 hours they did 3x 20 minute ride = 1 hour = $32 Don’t @ me I’m not a driver or user of either.
If that’s the case, it creates an odd incentive for drivers to “run the meter” as much as possible except it doesn’t cost the customer money, just time.
Taxis have done that for years. Common one here in Vegas is taking someone to the Strip via the freeway which takes longer/more miles.
Doesn't Vegas have fixed rates based on the zone though?
it's in response to that problem
They'll get kicked off the platform for doing that
Not sure why you're getting downvoted for this - you are exactly right. Yes, workers could "run the clock up," just like any hourly worker could work slower and get paid the same amount for less work, or like any independent contractor could over-bill for their hours. The consequence for that is that they can be disciplined (or fired / have their contract terminated) if they choose to do it. Realistically, most drivers want to do a good job & have satisfied customers & don't do this kind of thing nearly as much as people imagine they will! They also are given pre-set routes to take, and if they frequently deviate from those routes to run up the clock, it absolutely *will* be caught & penalized. It's actually even more likely for an algorithmic "boss" to catch & penalize this kind of behavior than a typical boss. That's what happens in CA, where rideshare & delivery companies wrote their own ballot initiative giving pay per active hour.
Incentives are always going to be problematic for drivers. Pay them for their time and they run the meter, pay them for the distance and they run the lights.
Who had taxis coming back on their 2024 bingo card?!
Taxis, hotels, and picking up your own damn food. Greedy corporations always fuck themselves in the end.
Not really. For ride share/delivery, they were only so cheap because investors were footing the bill, so that companies like Uber could get a foothold in the market. Now they want to stop footing your bills. It’s not a clear case of greed where they are trying to make more profit. They literally just want to make a profit. If increasing the costs doesn’t work, it’s not like they are losing anything since they weren’t making money anyways.
I’m always amazed people don’t get this. On one hand, people say they want others to make a living wage. Let’s say for simplicity for that’s $20. Well… that DoorDash you just had delivered took up 30 minutes of a drivers time. Venture capital spent years paying for that. With that money gone, your service fee and/or menu price goes up.
There was a thread the other day of someone complaining that a diner breakfast at 10 dollars was too much, and that they could buy all the ingredients themself and make breakfast for 3 people for the same price. It's like people forget that part of the what you're paying for is for someone to do it for you so you don't have to do it yourself. And labor isn't cheap, which isn't a bad thing, but you still have to recognize it.
And the cost of the building, utilities, insurance, and all the other overhead.
> and that they could buy all the ingredients themself and make breakfast for 3 people for the same price. Hasnt this always been the case?
Remember that one spring/summer that investors funded our movie tickets? What a time to be alive that was.
I mean if it costs $32/hour to not “fuck” themselves then maybe the concept of people driving you around just isn’t even an option. It’s not really a cooperations fault if that’s the pay rate it takes to fairly employ a driver.
I mean I consider it like UberEats. It's never economically viable to have someone else pick up your food versus getting it yourself.
This looks like government helping out the taxi companies instead of the consumers. How is this corporate greed? This looks more like a win for Big Taxis and a loss for riders
I took a taxi in NYC LaGuardia from to almost downtown manhattan. I thought it would be cheaper than the Uber app, nope. $20 more. Idk how Massachusetts pricing going to be but I suspect taxis going to raise rates too
There's no world where taxis undercut Uber in price. Even if you hate Uber and think they're greedy dumb tech capitalist bros or whatever, nothing is ever going to change that they replaced a super labor intensive, inefficient dispatch system with an app.
taxi medallions too.
Great I don’t have to tip anymore
Yeah don’t, I mean do if you want to but it can’t be necessary. 32 and hour is about 66 grand a year putting in 40 hour work weeks for 52 weeks salary to live comfortably in Massachusetts is about 70 grand a year so I wouldn’t see a point in it
> putting in 40 hour work weeks for 52 weeks What is considered working? Just being available on the app or taking a ride?
taking a ride, 100% Guarantee that the drivers during quiet periods are only getting paid for about three hours out of 8
Uber and Lyft would shut down in the state if all it took was being ready to take a ride
Good question I know for DoorDash it was when you accept a ride till they get dropped off that was for like food an stuff but I’m pretty sure it’s the same principle
32/hr driving at a 50% uptake rate comes out to $16/hr before costs of gas, vehicle maintenance, wear and tear, and then taxes on top of that.
> then taxes on top of that. I mean, when it comes to pay, no one really uses net income. Like you’d say minimum federal wage is $7.50/hr, not $6/hr or whatever after tax.
True, and I suppose they should be able to write off a lot of their income as business expenses (gas and maintainance) so their actual taxes should be low. But the downtimes and business expenses will probably still push the bottom line to approximately minimum wage level.
You personally never tipped drivers.
Wait until they tell the drivers they are not allowed to work more than 8 hours, due overtime laws.
Maybe 8 hours of total ride time. There is a lot of drivers that really need to work more than 8 hours to stay afloat.
Just like any other paying job that doesn't let you get overtime. They'll just get second jobs. Probably the easiest would be 8 hours for Uber and 8 hours for Lyft.
>*"[Independent Uber and Lyft operators] in the state will get yearly inflation-based pay raises and other employee-style benefits, such as being able to earn up to 40 hours of sick leave a year, paid at $20 per hour. Uber and Lyft will also give drivers stipends so they can buy healthcare and sign up for the state’s family and medical leave program, and will cover work-related injuries."* The "top-up" to $32.50/hour is meant to fill in the no rider gaps in service during the times that drivers are logged into the app and accepting rides. So, in a given hour where the driver only has say, 2x $15 rides, the top-up gives them the other $2.50 to get them to the minimum. It's structured like the "Tipped Workers" top-up, but hopefully access to paid benefits and the enforcement is more effective in practice than has been seen by restaurant workers.
Rejecting rides is about to be a timed out penalty if it isnt already. Too short? I dont like that zip code? Ok, driver you have rejected 3 rides, you.must wait 72 hours before you can log in again. Then maybe even mic and camera permissions to record waiting time
Agreed. There must be some kind of give-and-take responsibility here otherwise the opportunity for abuse would be too great. In any case, It's going to give [**Waymo**](https://waymo.com/) a big boost, especially since Waymo is now open to everyone and you no longer need invitation codes to ride.
I drive for UE and if I made this much, I wouldn't mind people not tipping.
Looks like you have to use taxis again. No way they're sticking around.
If I lived there I wouldn’t be tipping now
In theory you shouldn’t need to tip. As Uber and Lyft are dynamic pricing. So if the pay is less, then that will lead to less drivers. If their are less drivers, then the pay will increase.
When Uber first came out it was advertised that you don't need to tip.
Y’all tip?
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I know a lot of taxi drivers and then uber/lyft drivers. One of the uncles explained how he owned cabs and when Uber/lyft came they just bought a few cars and they drove one while they got new canadians, truck drivers who are in town etc to drive their vehicles when they are not using them. This one uncle told me that taxis will win in the long term because once the real costs kick in and the drivers want to live off the income, looking at how much more Uber and lyft want in $ for people in the offices/shareholders who actually do not matter in the operations and are just sink holes for $
So a living wage then, with the price being passed onto consumers, so exactly like the real taxi service we had before?
They'll just increase the cost of the rides
...no shit?
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Required regulations in Massachusetts was so unprofitable, that [many auto insurance companies](https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2012/10/05/265682.htm) pulled out of the state entirely. For years. They are doing the same thing again with home insurance with forest fires in California and flooding in Florida. Wonder how long before Uber and Lyft just say nahhh
Long Wharf to Boston Common - that will be $63.74.
lol I moved from Boston to Seattle and saw my airport Uber increase in Seattle from $60 to $100 overnight
I can't wait for food delivery to go back to an 18 year old driving dangerously in an old 4 cylinder with lots music delivering pizzas and loving it. This side hustle culture had killed the vibe.
Good. I don’t think a lot of Uber and Lyft drivers realize how little they make after car expenses/depreciation.
And the Taxi Unions win, it was fun while it lasted
I guess they’ll be leaving that state then
Farewell Uber and Lyft in Mass I guess.
ITT: people who are too stupid to understand that customers pay every cost a business has. Whether it's wages or tips the customers pay it
In other words, Uber and Lyft about to pull out of Mass.
They agreed to the settlement in lieu of being required to classify their workers as employees, which they *really* don't want to do and would cost them significantly more, so - no, they won't be pulling out of MA.
Pretty sure they're gonna transfer cost to consumers by hiking fees.
People here actually think the company will just swallow the cost and loose money. These costs are always transferred to the rider.
Yes that's how a business works.
“Uber and Lyft shutting down operations in Massachusetts”
32 an hour is probably what you need to afford your bills in Massachusetts these days.
Uber and Lyft are no longer available in Massachusetts incoming.
Wouldn't surprise me if they left Massachusetts
This is going to be great for everyone and will have no unintended negative consequences.
Rideshare? It's a taxi. Why do we call these things anything different from normal taxis?
That should help boost the self driving technology R&D…
Next article. Uber and Lyft pull out of Massachusetts
How long until these don't operate at all in those states or become so expensive that only the richest people can afford them?
Haaaaaaaa. A rare win for workers is always welcome
Not the workers that need a ride.
They should vote for better public transportation. Exploiting a vulnerable subset of society is not an effective model for propping up other groups.
Vulnerable subset of society.. that’s us. So I agree.