To be fair, I doubt any management could make ride-sharing companies profitable. The sooner they go under, the sooner drivers start making livable incomes again.
>The sooner they go under, the sooner drivers start making livable incomes again.
What do you imagine they'll do? Are there other, better paying jobs these people can be doing? If there are, what are they waiting for? Would the collapse of ride sharing somehow create new, better paying jobs elsewhere?
There’s the common impression - misconception? - that driving for rideshare companies is a losing game, and that drivers end up making very little money after fuel, repairs, and depreciation. For a while, it seemed like every day there was another article breaking this down and “exposing” Uber and Lyft.
Having never driven for them, I can’t verify whether this is true, but just a quick back-of-the-envelope guess seems like drivers in the Bay Area could average $40 - $50 an hour. That doesn’t seem like minimum wage level to me.
The weird thing is I almost never get a driver with more than 1-2k trips. If the job actually paid well, you would think there would be a lot of people doing it full-time for more than one year. Maybe the skew is due to the rapid growth of rideshare in general but I suspect the main reason there don't seem to be seasoned super-drivers is that the job simply isn't as good as it seems
It's been said is some of the articles I mentioned that Uber's business plan is to profit of drivers who are financially illiterate, until those people either wise up or break. That seems like hyperbole, but if there is a kernel of truth to it, that would explain your observation.
40-50 an hour is a bit on the high side. If you're doing a back of the envelope guess based on what you're charged, keep in mind that there is a sampling bias; you're probably riding hours where other passengers are also making requests. Nonetheless, I would say 35-40 an hour is not unreasonable. There are of course probably lots of drivers who are exceptionally bad at finding rides (let's say 20-25 an hour) who are making less than that. Without tooting my own horn too much, let's just say that there are a lot of really stupid folkways that go around the driver community. There was literally one guy who once said (paraphrased), "I drive a circuit between these five points until I get a ride". Also, he drove a truck. I tried to point out to him why this was a bad idea, but he seemed resistant to the idea of changing his tactics.
That's for all vehicles, including ones that are expensive to own and uncommonly used for rideshare. "Small sedans", which are pretty common for rideshare, cost 42c/mile.
These costs also assume depreciation based on buying cars new. Costs would be quite a bit lower if they were based on buying 3-5 year old used cars, for example.
My impression is that many drivers are not using ride-sharing as their main single income. Of the last 10 rides I took I think only one was using Uber as their main income. Of the rest there seemed to be a mixture of ride-sharing filling in between jobs (truck driver, real-estate agent) and as a way to make money and socialize during 'free' hours.
