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How Uber Profits Even When Its Drivers Aren't Earning Money (vice.com)
tedlistens writes: Jay Cassano spoke to Uber drivers about "dead miles" and what work means when your boss is an algorithm, and considers a new frontier of labor concerns and big data. "Uber is the closest thing to an employer we've ever seen in this industry," Bhairavi Desai, founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, told him. "They not only direct every aspect of a driver's workday, they also profit off the entire day through data collection, not just the 'sale of a product.'"
Every cab I've ever been in has been a good experience for me. I just can't imagine myself getting into a stranger's car. I'll take a taxi over Uber any day of the week.
Complain to your municipal government.
This is really going to depend on where you live - around here, lobbying groups for taxi companies and their drivers forestalled any attempts at legislated change for over a decade before Uber stepped in, quickly picking up market share due to its reliability. It used to be that even if you called to schedule a pickup (in an hour!) there was only a 30-40% chance a taxi would actually show up. I remember the days of being unable to get home via taxi at night without offering a 100% tip in advance all too vividly and have no desire whatsoever to return to that.
I'm not saying Uber is the best answer here - clearly, the new model comes with its own share of problems - but the previous monopoly (taxis) really screwed themselves out of a future with their own behavior. There was a hotline to call to report problems, but absolutely zero accountability for the drivers at the end of the day. The situation has since improved, but generally falls along the lines of 'too little, too late'.
If medallion taxi companies tracked their drivers, they could collect the same data, and drivers could make the same pitch for getting paid something for the data they are generating. But tracking would also reveal those roundabout routes cabdrivers like to use on newbie passengers, so I'm betting the union would nix it.
Yes, but on the other side of the coin it's the old story of piecework with a race to the bottom plus deliberate criminal action even if the laws broken are unfair. It's like bringing a little bit of the third world home or digging up a 19th century robber baron.
There is nobody to cheer for in this situation. Unfair monopoly versus a new player that wants to take over the unfair monopoly and move a lot of cost onto their employees. The lie of "ride sharing" as a smokescreen is an especially blatant lie and is being used as a pretended point of difference to get around laws protecting the current local monopolies.