Lyft and Uber say they will leave Minneapolis if the mayor signs a minimum wage bill for drivers

Oh no! Businesses whose 'innovation' is doing end runs around labour law, leaving? How sad.
- And whose business plan is to use VC money to undercut existing taxi services and drive them out of business so that they can increase prices to a profitable point (and beyond!).
  
  I have little sympathy for the taxi companies. They were terrible at what they did for so long. I can still remember the last two taxi rides I had in my life.
  Me stuck a 5 minute drive from work. Every cab company I call wants 40 dollars and only in cash. Why? Because it crossed a town and county line. It took 4 calls before I found one that would take plastic.
  A year later going to the airport and I am fighting a migraine. No AC, cab was filthy, ads are blasting, and smelled. Hey can you turn off the advertisements? I can't. Buddy I have a really bad headache can you please turn it off? I can't do that. I will give you five dollars to turn it off. It goes off.
- The "labor laws" you reference only exist to give taxi companies monopolies and provide worse experiences for everyone involved
  
  You mean exist to ensure the underpaid actually get the legal minimum wage and to stop exploitive rich people from exploiting poor people?
  
  Still better than the 'gig economy'. If making worker's lives more precarious makes your life better, fuck your life.
  
  There's nothing preventing Uber, Lyft, or any other company from charging realistic rates to pay drivers a minimum wage. But if Uber or Lyft do this, their rates end up being more than traditional taxis, so the question is why

Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

If your business can't afford to pay a living wage it shouldn't exist.

Uber was notorious for moving into and operating in certain cities illegally.
- *all cities
  
  Not all, they were kicked out from Hungary - although that was less a victory of workers' rights rather than that of the taxi driver union.
- Yup. And now the founder is rich when he really should be in jail.

Good.

Bye bye Lyft. Bye bye Uber.

Cool, Columbus Ohio’s bus system offers a subsidized version of Uber and while it sucks in service area the idea and price both make perfect sense for Minneapolis to adopt.
Rideshare apps aren’t the solution, effective and adaptive public transportation is. Public transit based rideshare is a great way to fill in the gaps of bus and train systems and to push them to fill their own gaps.
And when all else fails, unionized taxi services.
Sometimes Silicon Valley feels like the monorail man
- Sometimes Silicon Valley feels like the monorail man
  Just don't look up what they're planning to build for the airport connection in San Jose...
- Public transit is good where I live and I know it's not good everywhere but I would so rather take the bus or train over uber and lyft. I only take ubers and lyfts if I have a coupon or I absolutely have to take one because its 3 am and there's no other way to get home.
- Proper ride sharing would be awesome. It's love if I could come to work by using an app to find someone going the same way as me and getting a lift.
- Sometimes Silicon Valley feels like the monorail man
  https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY
- Public transit based rideshare is a great way to fill in the gaps of bus and train systems and to push them to fill their own gaps.
  That is what I am hoping for. I don't know how many times I see an empty bus or would save so much time if I could just get from one local station to another instead of going all the way to a main hub and back. The ride share companies are collecting all this data on where populations really need to go. If we could somehow use them for last leg of distance, route bridges, and filling in lines that are over served.
  I am not sure what exactly the best way to structure this but we do have policy experts so that is there job. Some form of public-private partnership.

I see no down side here. Taxi unions existed long before Uber and Lyft undercut the hell out of them.
- Those taxi unions had a monopoly in the areas they served (which was far smaller than Uber and Lyft's service area) and their prices reflected that.
  If Uber and Lyft leave there's one thing sure to happen: a lot more people dying from being hit by drunk drivers.
  This isn't a good thing any way you cut it.
  
  dog what
  dude there are like... other rideshare apps
  and taxis still exist
  and Minneapolis has an effective (for America) transit system
  there are so many options in place before breaking the law
  and if paying a living wage is not possible for Uber or Lyft, maybe they shouldn't be in business
  
  Wage slavery is an unacceptable form of drunk driving prevention.

Good.
Move out of the way for employers willing to follow the law.
Also side note, why don't they already have a minimum wage mandated by nationwide law?! Do people not get basic human rights over there? What the actual fuck is wrong with these people?
If you took away our minimum wage we would topple the bloody government, and that's coming from England where we hardly get excited over anything. But, that would be an unprecedentedly evil, evil thing to do, with gigantic wide ranging negative effects across the whole nation the likes of which we've never seen.
- We do have nationwide minimum wage. These companies get around it though because they drivers are "contract workers" not employees of the company. In every meaningful way, this is bullshit. It let's them not be required to pay the workers though.
- Ok calm down beans on toast we get it. If you really care about the nuance of it all over the outrage factor... Well the Internet exists so all that info is out there just waiting to educate ya!

This mindset of catering to companies is infuriating. They took the risk creating the business, if they are no longer able to afford to pay wages or have competitive prices they don't deserve to remain open. That's the whole fucking point of the free market. Let these companies fail, the country and the economy will recover and new companies that fill current niches and needs will pop up.
- These companies bled investor money for years acquiring market share with their long term viability plan being that self driving cars were around the corner. They've been waiting to fire all the drivers but they got grifted by Elon types into thinking self driving tech was imminent.
  They didn't think they'd still have to pay people. Those salaries were supposed to be a temporary loss leader
  
  There's no way the plan was ever to actually create a fleet of high tech cars they own and maintain themselves, which depreciate over time and eventually have to be replaced. Surely that was just a lie to get the money.

If y'all can pay a living wage, y'all can't do business. Tired of this shit.

Oh no, there will be small local taxi companies instead of some random multi-million dollar corporations, how bad! And people won't have to download their trashy apps that are filled with trackers.
- I actually think the app was the best part of Uber (not necessarily the Uber app, but the concept). In my city it used to be annoying to catch a taxi; you either had to line up at a rank, or call and wait and hope that your taxi turned up. Apps allowed you to order a car to wherever you were - normally with just a few minutes notice. I rarely use either now but I believe that taxis have comparable options now.
  
  I prefer apps too, but I don't want to install corporate spyware on my phone, just to call a taxi. Thankfully both Uber and Lyft have pretty good web apps, and never have to let them touch my phone.

Oh no!
Anyway...

I think we should seize all of Lyft and Ubers assets and use them to construct actual public transportation in USA
- What assets? All they have is debt and maybe some servers. I guess the app and brand has some value, but only to another ride share company.
  
  They have corporate employees beyond the drivers. They likely have offices and such.
  
  If we're talking total fantasyland, I suppose put those employees to work building a government backed alternative or an open platform to allow smaller companies?
  Suppose you had a centralized federated system where states or municipalities or even companies could have their own drivers but it's a common app?
  Edit to add you could also have both driver and passenger rate each other and allow both to filter by rating, lower ratings would naturally pay more or less to compensate for the service. I bet in cities you'd have luxury versions of the same services all from the same app, but also cheap shitty services too.
- They don't own the cars, they don't hire employees. We'd be left with an app? Some servers? We don't need that stuff to run a decent public transportation service.
- love this idea. Wish I knew how to do that lol
- Better off seizing taxis and the cars they own, but ultimately, why would we do that? Pass legislation to make them comply

So the law works.

Fuck uber. Fuck lyft. We'd be better off if they didn't exist. Destroyed livelihoods so silicon valley could seem like they were doing something and not just thieving from people.

Bye Felicia

Uber prices in some cities are absolutely insane. Seattle for example: Right now a ride to the airport from where I am is 13 miles / 25 minute drive. Uber is quoting $51 at 10am on a Friday. Minneapolis' new minimum wage would only be $20.47. Even if the driver came all the way from the airport, that would still only be $41. Somehow I doubt all that money is going to the drivers right now.
- yeah and fucking forget getting away from an airport or train station with one - I think it was like near $90 for a lyft from LAX to my friends house within LA. Only like a 30 minute drive too. Which, where I live a 30 minute ride is like $20 or $30 ish.
- In my city the government used a private company to build the rail to the airport and then have them exclusive running of it for a few decades. It makes sense to take a train from the airport but if you have two or more people it's cheaper to take a taxi to the nearest hub and catch a train from there on.

Oh no..... Anyway....

This is the best summary I could come up with:
Lyft and Uber threatened to stop doing business in Minneapolis after the city council adopted a new rule Thursday that would set a minimum wage for rideshare drivers.
In recent years, states and cities have attempted to pass legislation regarding the growing “gig economy,” or freelance work through apps like Uber and Grubhub, but have generally met with fierce opposition.
Lyft, according to a statement sent to CNN Thursday, said the bill would be detrimental to drivers, who would ultimately earn less, “because prices could double and only the most wealthy could still afford a ride.”
“This ordinance stands to significantly impact our city in terms of worker protections, public safety, disability rights, and transportation mode shift goals,” he said.
In recent years, states have attempted to pass legislation regarding the growing “gig economy,” or freelance work through apps like Uber and Grubhub.
In June, New York City announced a new minimum pay-rate for app food delivery workers amid the rise in use of services like Uber Eats and DoorDash since the pandemic.
The original article contains 587 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
- Would hurt drivers and only the wealthy could drive… let me fix that too it will cut into all my profits and I won’t be able to overcharge common people as easily and simultaneously commit wage theft against the driver.

Hopefully this turns out better than the statewide bill that the governor vetoed earlier this year. It looks like they went with the same mileage payments, which is a good thing. The statewide bill was vetoed due to handicapped transportation services in MN having partnerships with Uber. I wrote to the governor about it, this is going to a committee to quote "find the best solution". Unfortunately I don't have high hopes to see it reintroduced. Gig workers need a minimum standard of labor protections.
Edit: I missed the fact that this is a twin cities ordinance. Fucking good, the metro council should be expanding transportation services to make uber irrelevant.
- Hold out a little hope. Democrats have both houses and the governor. And uncharacteristically they're actually moving some shit though. We got weed legalization, a huge investment in housing, and some good public transit is in the works.

Bye! If you can’t pay a living wage you can’t afford to be in business.

Good. Leave.

Good riddance

Bye have a beautiful time! 👋
- sup Security Officer Peña

Probably a very unpopular thing to say: It would be interesting to see a middleman-free, decentralized version of Lyft/Uber where payments and ride-hailing are done with crypto and blockchain/smart contracts, driver ID's using using DID's, anonymized on-chain using homomorphic encryption. The hardest problem that I forsee with that tech is with dispute resolution. The idea stems from the opinion that the gig economy is great but the real problem (in matters not related to conflict resolution) is that the middleman takes a huge cut of the fare in exchange for doing almost nothing.
- I'd be curious to see which would be more practical: a decentralized version of Lyft/Uber powered by blockchain, or an employee-owned version of Lyft/Uber where workers keep all their earnings and pay a small portion for administrative fees to keep the app running.
  Admittedly I'm always skeptical of blockchain's ability to actually solve problems. But maybe it would have fewer infrastructural costs? Who knows
  
  Great points!
  The reason I jump to recommending crypto rather than a co-op (I'm actually a libertarian-socialist and am a big fan of co-ops) is that, unless you make it impossible for people to be corrupt through public ledgers and DAO's, they eventually WILL take the opportunity to be corrupt.
  If implemented correctly, crypto can be harnessed as a technology that makes corruption IMPOSSIBLE.
  IMO, it gets a bad rap because of bad actors and the public's misinterpretation of the power structures of sketchy, centralized implementations of the tech (like Luna and FTX). However, a truly decentralized, open source chain could definitely be the backbone to a truly trust-less, truly decentralized version of this. If you really look into it, the more decentralized a crypto project, the more it can be trusted.
  For me, the best trust metric that seems to hold strong over the years is initial token allocation.
- This is just a cab, with extra steps. You get a cab, you pay the driver no middle man.
  
  Not really! What about reputation score, etc?
  You could actually say that about any business that accepts credit cards or digital payment at the point of sale. Try it.
  Two points:
  cash-on-hand is a huge security vulnerability
  reputation is something that REQUIRES a tamper-proof network (virtually impossible without blockchain) and some sort of identity. If you attempt to centralize reputation (which would inescapably involve putting it in the hands of a for-profit corporation or trusted party(s)), you get gamification and a company that extorts people to get them to pay for positive reviews or to remove negative reviews like we see with Yelp!

Bye Felipe

I've never used or worked for either so legitimate question for anyone who has worked with such, what's the split on a ride between the app owners and the drivers? I should hope that the driver takes the majority since they're the one taking the risk, time, maintinance, stress and all that. My general understanding is that these services tend to be cheaper than a traditional taxi but less regulated so I get there's contention there.
Basically I'm hoping that the drivers aren't in one of those 'living off the tips' situations like servers in resturaunts while the companies vacume up all the fees.
- The driver certainly doesn't take in the majority. There are a bunch of articles online regarding Uber pay, and it's of course variable based on how much and where you drive. It seems that in most places it pays at least $20/hr, but that probably includes tips and is before car maintenance expenses (and insurance: most states now require a different car insurance policy if you drive for ride-sharing now).
  My general understanding is that these services tend to be cheaper than a traditional taxi but less regulated so I get there's contention there.
  They can be cheaper than a traditional taxi because they handle all the dispatch back-end that traditional taxi companies have, and of course they push maintenance expenses onto their drivers. But their special sauce is in their congestion pricing algorithm, which hikes up rates during periods of "high demand". I've gotten off of planes in the middle of the night before, only to find Uber doubled my fare to the hotel due to "congestion". (In reality, I bet they didn't have enough drivers at 3 am). So I searched for the number of a cab company and saved some money.
  Taxi companies who want to compete with Uber should just band together and release a nationwide directory app that let's users phone or text a local cab company that is open 24/7.
  
  Uber was cheaper than Taxi services as it ran at a loss for years trying to out compete the competition on pricing so that it could get a monopoly on the market and get people used to their service. Now they are raising prices again how that most people are used to using their service and other companies are struggling.
  
  Taxi companies who want to compete with Uber should take up more of Uber's model, and have cars even beginning to approach the quality of an Uber.
- In the beginning when Uber moves into a new region, they pay drivers well to get drivers onboard, and charge riders little to get riders onboard. This also makes competitors like taxis less attractive and makes Uber really popular, making it hard for the city to push back.
  So drivers might be getting more than riders are paying, with Uber subsidizing the entire thing! If your city is in this phase, it's great for riders and drivers.
  Once they're established though, and the competitors have been pushed out, and people learned that Uber is awesome and cheap compared to taxis, they start raising prices and reducing driver pay. To keep enough availability they need to hire new drivers, which means their quality standards drop, and they use increasingly creative strategies down to debt slavery (desperate drivers lease/rent their car - which can be their only vehicle and which they may need to get to work or exist in general in a car centric area - from Uber, at "very favorable" rates. But then they have to keep driving for Uber or lose the car.)
  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/05/uber-loan-program-debt
  They also exploit that most people don't realize the true cost of a car. They only look at gas, not the wear and maintenance of the car. And if you look at what Uber pays, deduct only gas, and consider the rest income, it looks like a good deal, while in reality they might be selling their car to Uber one kilometer at a time and working effectively for free.
  As I understand it there isn't a direct share of the ride price or anything like that. The amounts Uber pays to drivers and charges from riders are decoupled to the point where even way it's calculated (e.g. actual distance vs. scheduled distance) could differ between driver and rider. The driver side fare system is different per city/region.
- Generally the driver gets the majority of the ride cost, but their earnings vary a lot by region/time. If you're just asking if it's a good job, then the answer is a resounding no. I did it for a few months a couple years ago, and I have a friend who has done it as his full time job for the past 6 years or so. No change that Uber/Lyft makes is ever designed around benefiting the driver. You can safely assume that any new policy is going to make you earn less than you were before.
  At the end of the day, you are not fairly compensated for vehicle wear and tear, fuel consumption is not factored properly for all rides, certain arbitrary locations pay more or less and require unpaid relocating to actually land rides, etc. The best is when you take a 2 hour trip only to find out after drop off that you aren't allowed to pick up new rides in that area and that you need to spend nearly the same amount of time getting back to an area you're qualified to drive in. I think that one at least has been mostly resolved since I drove years ago, but you get the idea...
  
  So sounds a lot like the world of a pizza driver, which I have done that. No personal interest in doing so since I have a solid thing already but the concept of the freelance 'work when you feel' being more prevalent is I figgure a net good for some people. Particularly I think of the retired and board, or someone who wants a couple extra bucks for holidays, things like that.
  "Not allowed to pick up/qualified to drive there"? That just seems bizzare and pointless...

Good.

The mayor will unfortunately veto this legislation.

The joy of the big company moving into a limited matked, subsidise the loss until the competition leaves/folds and the people are left with the only game in town. Unfortunatly nothing new there, that's pretty well the M/O of every big chain. In my state it seems there has been a Dollar General popping up in every other small town doing the same thing.

They won't, unfortunately.

it's time for a decentralized unionized taxi app

Companies that threaten to leave as an attempt to influence legislation should be immediately seized and liquidated

But minimum wage = good??!! What happed??!!!! Hahaha idiots