And I'm not sure how drivers will be worse off if they get:

Unemployment Insurance

Workmen's Comp

Half their Social Security paid

And who do you think will be paying for this? Between customers, drivers, and ridesharing companies, who do you think has the least negotiating power?

Once it becomes a job, Uber can justify taking a lot more control. Maybe you can't refuse any rides anymore. Maybe you have to cover specific hours and specific areas, or you don't get hired. Maybe there won't be surge pricing, because they will simply demand more drivers cover the surge times.

This will never happen. Their perfect driver is someone middle age with a full-time job and family, driving twice a week for three hours at a time to save money for a vacation.

That's their perfect driver now. But once the facade of "we're just a ride-sharing app" goes away and the drivers are employees, everything changes.

What is your point? Many companies do this for various reasons. Get over it. Uber provides a great service that many people need. Who cares if they use loopholes.

Weren't you one of the people that thinks McDs workers should get $15+?

Not exactly. You're required to accept 90%+ of requests. You can of course cancel after receiving, which doesn't hurt your acceptance rate.

I did that 3 times in a week where I gave well over 100 rides, and was fired for "attempting to defraud the acceptance rate".

Seems a bit disingenuous to say you qualify for the everyday scams thread and then make the post above.

I used to work as a prop player for Absolute Poker. They stupidly offered an hourly guarantee, and spelled out the requirements: must be logged in and seated at a minimum of two tables. So I did that, in the pre-dawn hours, at low-limit stud/8 tables (a game no one on AP wanted to play back then). I was sitting at these tables all by myself, waiting for someone to join me. Almost no one did, and when they did, I played so slowly that they soon got frustrated and quit.

I had to write and send in an invoice requesting payment for hours worked. The first time, they wrote back, "We're not paying. You're billing us for 20 hours, and you only played 77 hands?"

I wrote back, pointing out that I met all the requirements. They paid. Soon after, they went to a rake-back pay structure, like they should have done from the beginning.

Soon after that, I was done with internet poker.

Soon after that, so were they.

Ytf,

Cool, smart.

Bull**** behavior.

ya that's pretty lol.

I both respect that and find it pathetic at the same time. Not sure which way I'm leaning yet, probably the latter

Playing slowly is lame, but taking advantage of AP is fine. I propped there too for a couple of months, but I wasn't getting any hourly minimum. I found that playing 2-3 handed LHE with a bunch of other props while waiting for some fish to sit wasn't all that great even with 100% RB. I made a little after RB, but it was actually more profitable to just play on Party with 0% RB.

"I stretched the conditions as far as I could get away with..."

"....then, I stretched the conditions as far as I could get away with."

In one case you're taking advantage of a company's stupid policy and nobody gets hurt but them.

In the other you're deliberately ruining the experience of another player. While technically within the rules, that kind of sucks.

Back on topic: is there any reason to NOT "opt in" to the weekend night guarantee money? If a fare takes you outside the guarantee zone, are you supposed to turn down rides until you're back in the zone?

same with me going to the bronx or brooklyn
i never had a problem if they told me they won't take me even though they're supoosed to because it's idiotic to force someone to take a job they don't want to costing themselves money.

These cab drivers and companies are the beneficiaries of a protectionist government system that reduces competition. This costs the public enormous amounts of money in higher fares, as companies like Uber demonstrate. Is it too much to ask that they occasionally take a less profitable fare in exchange for this benefit?

do you live in nyc? the cab drivers hear get royally ****ed over.

basically like 60 years ago nyc sold medallians that you needed to be able to drive a cab.they have never issued new medallians. you are allowed to sell these medallians. so basically the luckboxes who bought them back then lucked out. they now sell for over a million dollars. so the people who own the medallians lease out their taxis 12 hours at a time for something like 150-200 dollars a day. so the cab drivers drive 12-24 hour shifts and have to cover their 12-24 hour lease fees before they make a nickel.

so the only beneficiaries in nyc of this idiotic system are those who own the medallians. so to answer your question yes it is way to much too ask some poor bastard who is already getting ****ed over to drive me somewhere he doesn't want to go and cost himself money. these guys aren't running a charity they are trying to make a living. forcing them to lose money by taking my business they don't want is borderline slavery.

asking them to follow the law and do their jobs is borderline slavery? get real. some rides are better than others, some tips are better than others, it comes down to averages. so based on your mentality, since this ride will cost some cab driver extra money, no cab driver should ever take this ride and the customer will be stranded. there are reasons they make these laws. why reward the dickheads that won't take the job, forcing another driver to take the job. they should take that $500 penalty

As already said, you have no idea what you are talking about. It costs literally a million dollars to license a single cab in NYC. Exactly how many millionaires do you think are ferreting tourists to JFK for 30 bucks a pop? The era of owner driven cabs ended in the 70s.

Occasionally I need to get to get to the airport in the afternoon and I don't try to badger some street hail service at the legal rate because, frankly, I'm just to busy making citizen's arrests for jaywalking to spare the time.

They should drive for Uber instead. Hey I was making 100K at poker working 20 hours a week before the government ****ed that up, so I'm not feeling a lot of sympathy. Maybe if we all stopped supporting corruption things would be better for everyone.

Are medallions crashing in price with Uber gaining popularity?

Regardless of who the ultimate beneficiary is, the cab companies have set up a system where in exchange for certain protections from competition, they have promised to provide a form of a public service. I don't see why cabs should be able to get the benefit of this system, but then just choose not to hold up their bargain.

And while the specific cab driver is the one hurt in each transaction when they have to take a bad fare, the cab companies/medallion owners do bear the brunt as well - the more cab drivers have to take bad fares, the less their hourly is and the less they are willing to pay for to rent the medallion.

Larry,

Google "uber medallion prices"

To some extent:

http://www.thestreet.com/story/13153...medallion.html

edit: or just do what ED suggested