I see where this is going. I guess as long as there is rubber on the pedals, no proper footwear is required. The power of ignorance is strong here.
Remember:
- Uber is for the passengers, NOT the drivers.
- 97% of Uber drivers quit. There is a reason for that.
To move away from accepting all credible new drivers is a step towards the employee argument in the legal arena. If anything, you can expect the practice of shutting drivers down for phantom complaints to increase if there is a need to reduce numbers.
Uber and Lyft will never care how many unless it hurts their bottom line.
NYC and state will test that when the $17.xx/hour goes into effect later this fall.
Then it will cost Uber and Lyft real money and they will have to decide if an Uber and Lyft driver on every corner at $17.xx/hr makes financial sense vs the $2/hr the driver would earn if there was an Uber and Lyft driver on every corner.
And yet we still see posts from new hopeful drivers asking how long does it take for my background check???
The minimum wage doesn’t affect drivers. Truck drivers for example are paid by the mile, we’re paid by the mile and a little bit for time. We’re not paid anything if we’re standing or moving around without a passenger.
The long view says none of these factors affect our job future. Watch for:
- The drop in drivers in the next gas crisis. When prices rise dramatically, the number of drivers will fall just as dramatically.
- The legal divide between taxi and rideshare will eventually even out with taxis using apps and getting cost down, along with the expense of labor of Uber/Lyft companies going up.
- When the loan value of cars and the value of the cars become unbalanced enough to cause a financial ripple. Hard times, a slow in traffic and the financial upset in people losing jobs and cars could snowball.
I look at it another way.
With the low barrier of entry, the next gas price spike and resulting recession will drive the new unemployed to Uber and Lyft just as ridership decreases due to lower economic activity. Signup bonuses will disappear, quests will as well, and surge will be a long forgotten memory.
This swell of new drivers and the lower number of riders will result in earnings reaching well below $10/hour for the vast majority of drivers.
We are in the best of times and drivers earnings have been halved in just 3 years. Wait until the worst of times with unemployed sitting in their cars on every block hoping, no, praying, for a ping.