Saturday, June 10, 2017

Poor Uber Driver

Oh my. This is a sad story. Here is an Uber driver voicing his concerns in the Uber driver's forum about whether or not his "sharing economy" gig is paying off.

It's possible that this is not a genuine post from a genuine Uber driver. I see that. It's the kind of schlopp I would write if I were in a mischievous mood.

On the other hand, given what I already know about the Uber scam, and the people it exploits in order to get them to employ "assets they already own," in Tim Hudak's famous phrase, it's entirely reasonable to believe that this is a REAL Uber driver, who is just beginning to figure out who is making money, or should be making money, and who is getting royally boned. (See my story about the Uber driver who drove a football player from Chicago to Buffalo for minus $38.50.)

I knew it was a scam from the beginning. That is why, when people asked me why, instead of tolerating the City of Hamilton's demonstrably absurd taxi regulations, I didn't simply switch to Uber, i already knew that I would never drive a cab for Uber. It was an obvious sucker job. They match riders with drivers and, instead of merely charging a "booking fee," they claim an additional 25% of what the rider pays, at zero cost to Uber! Talk about the Marxist objection to capital exploiting labour, the Uber concept has suckered hundreds of thousands of people into using their own capital to exploit themselves.

Pardon me for my use of profanity here, but that is FUCKING INGENIOUS!

And when people finally begin to understand the magnitude of the con, I hope they don't forget how quickly and easily their political representatives adopted Uber's seductive jargon by trying to be "trendy" and by pretending that Uber's angle was technological rather than simply exploiting innumerate drivers and, and by pressuring weak, opportunistic, dishonest, and cowardly politicians into turning long established taxi regulations upside-down in order to provide Uber with the opportunity to extract a significant percentage of the gross taxi revenues in the targeted jurisdictions.

And I hope they don't forget that I pointed it all out to them from the start.

"I have taken my car for lease till 40,000 km. Now I am crossing extra km company will charge me .18 cent per km. Now I am worried how will I drive uber. I normally drive 700 km in week and earn 500 dolar. It mean $125 I have to pay company $80 for Gas forget about my car premium, insurance ,car service cell phone bill and wear and tear I will go negative. Ptesently In 30 hours I am making $ 305. Which is $10 per hour. Today I got a ride for bolton return no ride I drove 50 km return. I face same problem in airport return no ride. Any advice guys I do not want to drive 200 km extra but if I wait in one place then no request I need to come to main road and happening places. Or else I just have to work 50 hours and It will very low dollar per hour. One more thing I want to mention when ever sucharges going to start like friday and satuday 1.30 am to 3.00 am uber give me a ride which is 10 km away from surcharges. If I am in border of surcharges then I get request of no surcharges. Some days were good I made $65 per hour. But that happen once in blue moon."

Source.

More Uber News


Here is an interesting interview from Canada's government propaganda network's Anna Maria Tremonti, and Uber executive, Adam Lashinsky. I sent a message to Anna asking to invite me onto her show to provide a different perspective on the Uber taxi phenomenon. I will let you know if I get a response. I'm not holding my breath.


Here are a few of the videos I sent to various political decision makers, none of which received a single response:


Also of Interest

San Francisco Is Investigating Whether Uber And Lyft Are Public Nuisances.

Yeah, "Safety is a priority for Uber."

A top Uber executive, who obtained the medical records of a customer who was a rape victim, has been fired.

You know, when I read these reports, the first question I ask myself is, have the politicians in my city, well, all of Ontario, for that matter, really done their homework before deciding to comply with Uber's mandates, rather than stand up to them?

From my point of view, the answer is clearly, "No." And I will go further. They don't know, and they don't care."

"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
George Orwell

Hamilton Mayor, Fred Eisenberger, lies about city's deal with Uber having the "backing of the taxi industry."

He later confessed that he was referencing a "stakeholder team," consisting of, as far as I have been able to determine, three taxi brokers and a taxi school official that worked with Licensing in writing the bylaw that screwed the other, approximately, 1,196 taxi industry stakeholders who were not consulted. He admitted it to me in an email by stating,

"I realize that not all drivers, yourself included, are fans of the compromise that was ratified and put into place."

It should be noted, that the taxi brokerages, and the taxi school, have interests that are often diametrically opposite the interests of the other 1,196 drivers, operators, and license owners.

So much for unanimity.

"Contrary to the fanatical belief of its advocates, compromise [on basic principles] does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to be all things to all men, end up by not being anything to anyone. And more: the partial victory of an unjust claim, encourages the claimant to try further; the partial defeat of a just claim, discourages and paralyzes the victim."
-- Ayn Rand

Final Entry: Uber Driver gets Ripped off on Trip from Chicago to Buffalo

This driver was was saved by the tip.

Using the AAA as a source, and assuming the Uber driver was driving a small sedan, it would have cost this driver somewhere in the ballpark of 1,100 mi. X $.464 $/Mi = $510 to run this trip.

The rider was charged $632 for the trip. The Uber corporation would extract $2.50 + .25 X $632 = $160.50 in brokerage fees (what I call the Uber Income Tax,) leaving the driver with a payout of $632 - ($160.50 + $510) = $632 - $670.5 = *negative* $38.50.

It's lucky for this Uber lackey that the rider tipped him $300. That helped cover the $38.50 loss this driver incurred leaving him with net earnings of $261.50 for the 16 hour round trip, or about $16.35 per hour.

So, if all Uber passengers were to tip their drivers 47.5%, it would be a decent job.

That rarely happens, though.

By contrast, here is an example of how Uber drivers calculate their "earnings," from UberPeople.net:

"$632 - $2.50 = $629.50 × 75% = $472.13 plus $300 = $772.13 - $100 gas = $672.13 over 16 hours is $42 per hour is worth the drive."

So now you know part of the reason Uber is able to miraculously charge so much less than taxis.

See the new item here.

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