Has anyone actually verified the numbers? Per my calculation, per hour cost of running a car in US is about $17. Minimum wage is $15/hr. In my experience, Uber/Lyft charges comfortably so the drivers earn above minimum wage. I have in fact met few drivers who owns multiple cars “Ubering” around because it is profitable to them. This has also been previously verified by Forbes when they compared full time Uber drivers income with taxi driver income and concluded that Uber drivers often earned 20% or more.
The article makes bold claims that Uber is killing “efficient” taxi companies using capital but presents no real data. In reality, taxi companies have much larger overhead because large chunk of revenue simply goes into medalian owner’s pockets purely as passive income. Additionally, they need to have staff for recruiting, maintainence, legal, radio etc. There is NO theaoratical reason why app based taxi company cannot beat traditional taxi company just on efficiency.
I know someone who does bike delivery in a densely populated city.
I don't know how uber works really or how they distribute money, but according to him you're not paid an hourly wage every hour.
For example because there is so much competition among drivers, you can go hours without an order assigned to you. even in big/densely populated urban centers. and I think the guaranteed hourly rate thing only applies in specific circumstances. there is no way he is putting in even an 80% work day unless he waited for orders literally all his waking hours.
and then from the money you are actually paid, you have to deduct all the costs for maintenance and so on. from back of the envelope calculations my buddy actually makes much less than minimum wage.
I try to convince him from time to time to just get regular other jobs and point out he will quickly make a lot more money. but frankly he is in a hole and cant see outside perspectives. as you can imagine he's big into crypto as well, trying to day trade that shit with his measly capital not realizing he would make 4 times the money flipping burgers in mcdonalds a couple hours a week.
but we're not that close so it's not my place to give him a kick in the ass. however he's probably a good example of the kind of ignorance and lack of education / perspective that uber can easily exploit.
The article makes bold claims that Uber is killing “efficient” taxi companies using capital but presents no real data. In reality, taxi companies have much larger overhead because large chunk of revenue simply goes into medalian owner’s pockets purely as passive income. Additionally, they need to have staff for recruiting, maintainence, legal, radio etc. There is NO theaoratical reason why app based taxi company cannot beat traditional taxi company just on efficiency.