The middle men are everyone but the driver and passenger though
Yeah exactly - the proposal here is to have a driver-owned worker cooperative run the app.
That’s a great idea, if someone can bring the software and enough advertising to make it successful. It’s really hard but possible.
It has already been done, that’s what the article is about: https://drivers.coop/
Currently based in NYC, but getting ready for a big launch in Minneapolis in response to the incumbent rideshare companies pulling out of the city in protest of increased rideshare regulation. Big opportunity to seize some marketshare without needing that much startup capital if your better financed competitors are removing themselves from that part of the market.
Best of luck to them. I’d love if this became a reality, it would make the whole gig economy a better place.
Past few times I have tried it. No drivers in Denver. I will keep trying but they need more drivers and this is not something that happens overnight
Yeah I think it’s pretty much just in NYC for now, with a big launch in Minneapolis in progress. Hopefully they get to Denver soon!
Best of luck to them.
It’s true in essentially all industries, but it’s especially obvious in rideshare that there’s a layer of parasites who get paid far too much money for nothing beyond the fact that they won the fight for the position of “parasite who gets paid far too much money for doing nothing.”
Anything that might even just decrease the number of overpaid parasites would be a benefit not just to the concerned industry, but to society as a whole.
They’re just taking their cut for figuring out how to avoid labor laws.
I bet what they all have in common is that they all used advertising in order to get to their position.
Cities should socialize ride shares, delivery shares, bike/scooter shares.
Sure some guy invented an app to make them all slightly easier, and he made a ton a money. Cool. Good for him. Time to make the technology work for people.
All the pieces exist… GPS location, mapping, money transfer e-commerce software, the fediverse social platform. What is missing is the social platform integration of all those separate pieces.
You mean Craigslist?
The tech subs discover taxis
Kind of a dumb point. I suspect you didn’t really have much experience using taxis pre-uber. This is all about trying to replace the uber/lyft model with a similar thing, but where most of the profits go to the drivers and not uber/lyft.
Am I crazy or is everyone just describing car service? Lots of major cities have private storefronts with a group of drivers and a single person that answers the phones.
The only thing those businesses were ever missing was a good online presence and/or a smartphone app.
The only thing those businesses were ever missing was a good online presence and/or a smartphone app.
Which is, of course, no small thing and the thing that makes uber/lyft thousands of times better than the car service model.
I disagree with this. Uber and Lyft just did it at scale. My local car service can make a website with payment processing without knowing any coding. They don’t need a full service app with a global presence. It’s not trivial but totally doable.
How old are you? Did you spend any time in the pre Uber days trying to get a cab? Wrong part of NYC? Good luck. Out in the suburbs and you don’t know a local cab company’s number? Lol never going to happen.
The electronic payment system is not what made it such a big improvement. It’s the ability to instantly call a cab almost anywhere, at any time, with no knowledge of anything local. It’s the connection between the drivers and the passengers that was the big leap.
I grew up in New York City, called the same car service from my neighborhood wherever I was to get home. The main problem is the suburbs, I agree.
In my suburbs, if there were enough of us around, there was someone who knew the local cab company’s number too. Although that was also not great late at night. The issue is that when you are not from the area and don’t have someone who knows the number. This is what Uber (mostly) fixed.
I wonder if a P2P ride-sharing system could be made to work. Or if it would be rife with scams and dangers.
Anything is bad. Just like how Uber is shit today, P2P won’t be any different. A system where everyone can advertise themselves as a taxi is unnecessarily dangerous. Just use regular normal taxi. Anyone can become a taxi in that system, and that’s bad.
Normal taxi still refuse to not be disgusting inside and 20 year old cars with drivers who don’t turn on the ac. Not everyone lives in a global city.
Considering Uber is already pretty bad, take a guess.
Really excited for Waymo to change the world.
Going to free up so much labour. Although I haven’t had too many issues with Uber, taxi drivers can be an absolute disgrace can’t wait for a few of those people to be out of a job where they exploit people.
