Ale ResnikVerified account

Whether this is a valid point depends on whether Uber drivers actually make enough to save anything. I have seen lots of evidence that they don’t. You can’t build a better future with subsistence wages.

Not really, I think. Uber/Lyft and other gig economy companies allow for much needed (and aspired to) flexibility. Doesn’t need to be the primary job. It can be a supplemental source of income.

But should we allow companies to build Billion dollar businesses on the premise that they never create a decent job for most of their “employees”? I’d say a hard no.

This is vulture capitalism at its worst. A small pool of high paid developers and executives, with investors extracting value from millions of low wage workers forced to accept more tenuous work conditions. It’s unethical.

I disagree. There are no forced conditions of labor. Drivers have freedom to change their line of work, reduce hours, or ignore ridesharing altogether. What’s unethical about having options?

1. Lure drivers in with bogus earnings expectations 2. Convince them to buy/lease cars 3. Continuously modify algorithms to extract more labor from drivers at lower payouts 4. Rely on combination of app gamification and driver debt to keep them driving 5. Sharecropping = success!

That’s irrelevant though. We only think in absolutes and binaries these days and Uber is perpetually evil, per our ethical overlords

I’ve turned 180 on ridesharing- when you see real wages earned I think it’s really just an arbitrage play against the inability of most individuals to truly grasp total car costs. Otherwise Uber would just be a massive fleet company that owns vehicles and just hires drivers.

Sar you too. I hope you will someday realize that Uber is actually an exploitive company. They are literally paying hundreds of thousands of full time drivers less than minimum wage. It simply isn't right.

You can claim that those workers are ok with working for less, but the information asymmetry is what I think makes it unethical.

They used to be able to come here and work as cabbies and make a decent living. The taxi industry is the most diverse and responsible for immigrant success stories than any industry in America Up until 2015, show me a cabbie with 2 kids and I'll show you 2 kids who go to college

Bad take. The implication is that we should do nothing to make America a better place as long as there is greater suffering someplace else in the world.

Few come dreaming to drive for @uber, @lyft. They migrate for US and are exploited on the way. Migrants pay coyotes. Never heard anybody taking coyote side.

I do think that @uber, @lyft has f**ked up the even more exploitive Taxi Cab industry and the medallion owners. So in a way it has done good. However, we need even better for everybody.

$30k medallion = $27k Prius financed by Uber?