I think its all how you approach uber. If you see yourself making a living with uber or just using uber to fund something on the side. I used uber to fund my ecommerce biz and now I trade Forex. For me Uber wasn’t meant to be something long term but meant to fund other sources. So I really didn’t care what uber did as long as I reached my but I think I’d feel different if I was using them as a main source.
Until you have an accident and don’t have commercial liability insurance and you get sued then you will see what uber will do for you…nothing your on your own even though they take 28%!!!
Wow 28% now geez I drove when it was 20%. I haven’t driven for them in 2 years made my $$$ built my biz with it and said goodbye.
I very much think that the company is on the wrong side of the law. To a large extent the workers are employees who are paid as independent contractors.
Uber’s business model is designed to exploit the desperate, the uneducated and the misinformed! If your rate is $1/mile or less…you have zero profit!
You’re neglecting to point out a very obvious and unavoidable truth: in this situation, as in any other business, there are going to be a number of individuals who just can’t get it. I’m at like 500 for the week already, and I’ve yet to work more than 5 hours in any one day. I figured out where and when to work. I have taken 2 rides this week that were under 20 dollars, both times because i was unlucky.
Uber owes you nothing, those of us who are making it work owe you nothing. Every loser that ever lived decided to blame some outside force for their struggles. Spend more time thinking about what you’re doing wrong, less time about what uber is doing.
Most days i feel like I’m exploiting uber. If you’re being exploited yourself, It’s because you’re kind of a dumbass. If you’re out to save all the dumbasses the world exploits every day… well you’ve got your work cut out for you.
This is absurd. You get a ping, you accept, you drive, you collect money. You are using a service as part of your business. You are SELF EMPLOYED. Uber provides hits and a payment method. You don’t have a job, you have your own company. Get over it. If you don’t like it dance on the street and put out a hat for people to put money in but if you don’t like it don’t blame the hat. Or the sidewalk. Or your mom. Grow up.
Look at the original post in this thread. We are talking about “Uber drivers”.
Drivers by and large are not independent transportation providers who sometimes get riders through Uber. They are, in fact, Uber drivers.
How can one possibly be an independent transportation provider if they are not even legally able to drive a person on their own for money?
Who says you can’t legally drive a person on your own for money?
One can if they are properly insured. That is not the case for most drivers who are driving with Uber.
And again, that is the responsibility of the driver when using their own personal vehicle. If I was driving a company vehicle then it would be their responsibility.
that misses the point. The overwhelming proportion of drivers are not able to drive people for money. They are Uber drivers. They are not independent transportation providers because they cannot provide transportation services independently of Uber. They took a job as an Uber driver.
They took a contract with Uber not a job. They can do like any other business and get the insurance and licenses they need to create their own company. I know plenty that have. It is still up to the driver and not Uber to make that happen. And I did not miss the point.
Uber says that it partners with independent transportation providers. The reality, in most cases, is that they are giving people jobs as Uber drivers.
it is not a job. It is a contracted position. It is the responsibility of the person accepting the contract to understand the requirements of the work that they will be doing. I spent over 3 weeks doing my homework and researching what was entailed and required and still missed information about the permits but I did not blame uber for that. I made sure I knew what I was getting into before I stepped onboard. Shirking that responsibility is not an excuse. Too many people no longer accept the responsibility to make sure they understand and know what they are doing. They then want to blame others for that.
Calling it a job doesn’t make it so either.
What does make it a contract position is the conditions of the work in relation to the requirements of the state.
Straight from the state of Texas definition of Contract VS Employee:
http://www.twc.state.tx.us/…/independent_contractor…
- the degree of control exercised by the alleged employer; - this is the biggest questionable area. How much control does Uber/Lyft truly have over me and how I work.
- the extent of the relative investments of the [alleged] employee and employer; - My investment is in my car and my time. To me that is a huge investment to making my money.
- the degree to which the “employee’s” opportunity for profit and loss is determined by the “employer”; My profit and loss is partially determined by the rate that Uber charges but more by the actions that I perform and decisions I make in obtaining that income. If i am driving in the wrong areas or at the wrong times they are not responsible at all for my loss at that time, I am. I know plenty of drivers that are still making very good profits from being smart despite the rate drops.
- the skill and initiative required in performing the job; People think that there is no skill or initiative required in performing this work. In fact there is a high degree of skill and a lot of initiative required to make money doing this. Without both of those you are guaranteed to lose money. As an employee your skill and initiative will only control how long you have the position not whether you will get paid or not.
and - the permanency of the relationship. There is ABSOLUTELY NO permanency or expected time frame at all involved with this. You have and they have made absolutely no commitment to how long you are willing to perform the services you have contracted with. This makes it a grey area as well but still pushes it towards contract work.
In the end none of that matters, What matters is what the labor courts decide to classify us as. Their word is the final word in the classification system. As it sits now, they have chosen to maintain the contractor classification as it goes through court to let the legal battle go on until a Judge makes the decision.
It’s not a job or a contract position. Did you sign a contract? I didn’t. I signed a contract when I delivered newspapers and I was assigned a route and it was an ongoing arrangement between me and the newspaper. This is not that.
People need to take responsibility for their self employment. If you make it a primary source of income the people who know what they are doing learn how to run it like a business and deduct expenses, file taxes, analyze profit vs loss and how much they are actually making.
If it’s not worth it or too much risk or stress or “not treated like a human being” then jeesus delete the app, apply for Lyft, apply for a job at a cab company or the USPS and get an actual contract with a real employer or something…
TOS has been proven many times as a binding contract between a user and the company. The TOS itself can be determined invalid or parts of it invalid by a court but it is accepted as a legally binding contract.