aids aids aids aids aids aids aids aids.

If anyone in the Sacremento area wants to take an uber ride in a cobalt blue Shelby cobra driven by a future Nobel prize winning cage fighter who also invented the fountain of orgasm take a gander at this video.

I can vouche for him as a person and driver although he does have a lead foot.

An entertaining option would be if drivers who were ready to quit anyway, instead gave a series of "hell rides" until their rating got low enough to be deactivated and posted videos on youtube. Shouting at passengers or going on absurd rants, keeping the car absolutely filthy, deliberately making wrong turns and driving like a jackass, etc. Judging by the near postal employee level of disgruntled I saw in the Uber driver forum, the #hellride uprising almost seems inevitable.

In the training video, Uber says you're supposed to decline a tip if offered

And that goes to them. They calculate the 20% cut before they take the extra dollar out of your fare. So a 5 dollar ride nets you 3 dollars or something.

I think they take the $1 then the 20% because a $5 ride is 3.20.

Ah, my bad. Still ridiculous though.

It goes towards their insurance policy, which screams BS to me.

I don't get the people saying Uber is an evil company. Sure, the drivers do not make much money, but they are the ones taking the job.

I haven't had a driver that does it full time in Atlanta in at least 6 months if not more (I use Uber probably ~4x/week on average, but sometimes as often as 10x/week and primarily use Uberx). I do get some full time drivers in NYC, but those are typically regular uber (not uberx) guys doing mostly airport trips which ends up being about a $50-60 ride for <1 hr so they are still easily netting $20 after taking uber's cut, depreciation, gas, and the toll to get into the city or a cut from a car company if they're working for someone else.

The main reason the company is not evil though is that they have been a massive net positive for society. They have made transportation easier, more convenient, more comfortable, and more pleasant for anyone who had been using cabs as the alternative. They have also likely made roads safer since the cost is so accessible that it is hard to imagine as many people are driving drunk as they were even 3 years ago.

isn't the biggest benefit of driving for uber that you can just turn the app on and work whenever you want for however long you want? you aren't moving to take a new real job or committing yourself to anything. if people find that this isn't making them as much money as they thought then they'll just stop doing it, and if they find some times where the money is worth it then they will keep at it. seems like a no-risk win for everyone.

I guess it is "bad" that they lead people to believe the gig is better than it actually is, but I cant think of a job that doesnt.

Cdl,

yep, though in SF a big percentage of uber drivers are full time (often former taxi or limo drivers). The evil part of uber is a lot of deceptive marketing, bait-and-switch type promotions for drivers, slimy practices against competition, etc. But, yeah, I still use them because they provide an amazing service. If they can't find labor who think it's worth doing for what they pay, the prices will have to go up a little and that would be fine by me.
.

They also enter new markets with company drivers (nice cars, amenities given to riders) to build up a user base. I'm not sure if this is unethical, but it hurts the rating of normal drivers who are replacing them, and who knows what the company drivers say to them about expectations.

My neighbor doesn't even run his A/C when he drives, lol.

it's an immutable law of 2p2 that whenever tipping is mentioned, even just in passing, the thread turns to absolute aids.
sometimes the threads turn out to be magic johnsons and can go on to live long reasonably healthy lives, but the aids is always there right below the surface ready to take over and destroy the thread if vigilance is not steady.

Much of which is regulation encouraged by taxi companies to prevent competition. The cab companies have been complicit in this evolving cartelization, and it was working out pretty well for them. This was an unexpected, unforeseen complication, the idea that people could just cheaply and efficiently organize a way around their regulations. I'm sure they are working tirelessly to make it illegal and go back to status quo...via more regulations.

Seeing my own thread turn to aids and kinda hoping it gets locked, feels like wanting to smother my suffering child with a pillow.

Ytf,

Speaking of your threads, how about a life update in the weight loss thread?

Uber's new privacy policy is going to say they can send spam to the people on your contact list. Just another example of Uber not being evil...

I don't get the aIds reference, to me personally the tipping situation is by far the most interesting part of the thread.

However, YTF, if you want more info about something else that has not been answered, maybe you should ask some additional specific questions?

This is not accurate. Bare minimum cost to rider in Seattle was $4.20. $1 safe ride fee, 20 cents to city of Seattle, $3 fare. $2.40 to driver.

I've already been corrected

It was certainly worthy of discussion, but it turned into 100+ posts of "Tips are included/no they're not/yes they are/you're dumb!"

The uberpeople.net link has answered most of them. But just like with this thread, every post there must be taken with a grain of salt, as I've yet to be convinced that that the folks boasting the highest net, fully appreciate the maintenence expenses they face.

This thread *is* a YTF Life Update....but you're not the first to ask that question, so OK, I'll type one up and post it there soon.

(No, I didn't lose my job. When I heard about Uber, I thought it might be a way to make a decent living, allowing me to leave the casino biz and move to the casino-free state where my ex lives with my kids. Looks like that's not the case. Back to the drawing board...)

ytf,

You already signed up, right? No reason not to just give it a try and see for yourself. Use that app I linked earlier in the thread that lets you track your miles driven, hours, etc to get an accurate accounting of how much you're actually making.

more "where uber will be in 2,5,10,25 and 50 years" and exactly zero more anything with the word "tip"

lol

...because we both know how well I do with those vital stat-tracking apps.