Uber / Lyft drivers
Is the controversy surrounding rideshare drivers ever discussed within Uber/Lyft corporate offices? In other words, how does management address the drivers protesting for better pay / benefits or manipulating surge prices to get better fares? It seems like the public perception is that most drivers are poor people being taken advantage of, but there’s also no way for these companies to become profitable without screwing drivers even more. Thoughts ?
1. Charging more != screwing people over 2. No one is being taken advantage of. There are plenty of other transportation options and low wage jobs. 3. Uber/lyft will keep on pushing for ways to make more money of their users. What do you think they are doing?
We already ran experiments where we boosted driver pay. Didn't actually increase their take home
Of course we talk about it. Constantly. We are never trying to intentionally “screw people over”. People like to assume the worst because it makes for a good headline.
Head over to the Uber Driver Reddit forum to see how you're screwing over the drivers.
I’ve been to several online driver communities. Many of them are filled with stories on how we can do better. Many are also filled with stories that are either exaggerated, ignorant of the platform (although in many cases that’s not their fault), or filled with entitlement. People understandably get emotional over things that affect their take-home, and that makes it easier to fall into a victim-based mindset and assume that we’re some big faceless entity out to screw you, but being emotional doesn’t make you right.
Looking at https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/independent-contractor-self-employed-or-employee How are drivers not freelance/contractors? Most points imo go toward freelancer.
Drivers are core to the system working. Why would we want to screw them over? We have 4 million active drivers. So a couple thousand was to be treated like full time employees. Any rational person would see their demands are unreasonable and they don’t understand how Uber works. Drive at the right times and places, which we suggest for you very clearly , and you’ll make decent money. Drive at random times in low demand or high supply areas, you’ll be sitting around not making any money. But our PR does a terrible job educating the public about this , and journalists just assume we’re terrible evil people that don’t care about the drivers. It’s sad that no one actually tries to find out the real truth.
Actually, I really care about drivers and I do my best to improve the experience. However it seems that people will never be happy with whatever you try to do. Uber just gave 10,000, 20,000 and 40,000 bonuses to drivers... And right after that, they did the "protest" They ask to get benefits, when we finally gave them benefits (Uber pro)... They don't like it because they have to accept every trip (of course! We are going to reward you if you are loyal to Uber!) Or they think that is just a scam for them to accept every trip. It is very hard to please everyone. It seems that everyone just had forgotten HOW BAD the taxi industry used to be. In the other hand, Lyft lowers the cost of the ride, and we try to be competitive...
Why are people so pedantic about uber and lyft ? If drivers didn't think it was worth it, they wouldn't drive....
I agree with you, but that’s not relevant to my question. Regardless of your opinion, this is a widely discussed topic and critical aspect of the rideshare business model.