[UberFervor]

Vote with your car.

Don't drive for them until they raise rates or add a tipping option.

We are all working for minimum wage at this point and hoping it will get better. At the end of the day, Uber counts on us to provide our cars to them. Don't drive for them until they start paying us adequately. Even if it means just driving for Lyft (even though they are the same, I know) on the principle that they at least give us an avenue to express ourselves and show true hospitality in the hopes we may receive a little something extra.

Vote with your car.

Don't drive Uber and tell everyone who is thinking of driving for Uber to not do it.

That is the only way we can make ourselves heard. At the end of the day we provide something they need to support their business model....the cars that transport the passengers.

 

[Fubernuber]

Make an app that once installed shuts down the uber app for 5 minutes every day. The time is arbitrary and random. It affects your uber app while you are logged but not a fare. If you are on a fare you are skipped that day. For drivers who participate they get voting rights in a future union. For those who dont get nothing. This would work nation wide. 5 minutes out of a work day is nothing but its huge for uber because those 5 minutes would leave millions stranded. This app would need hundreds of thousands to download it before it started the 5 minute rule. I suspect once it is installed by just a fraction of ubers workforce, uber will come to the negotiation table. We can beat this uber app with an app.

 

[105398]

I've read some posts like this before, and my opinion is that it's never going to happen. Drivers make up a massively fragmented group, some driving full time, others part time, different backgrounds, work ethics, personal priorities, etc.

And, aside from this board, (which to my knowledge has no way of assessing the percentages of drivers who contribute or just lurk), there's no centralized way of reaching drivers, nor any continuity in doing so.

 

[Daisey77]

But hey they sure gave themselves a 20¢ pay raise per ride starting tomorrow

 

[TheHazardousDuke]

UBER doesn't want to listen. UBER's own President had a live Q&A yesterday for the drivers. He answered a handful of questions and bailed after about 20 minutes.

http://jalopnik.com/uber-drivers-ask-where-are-the-answers-in-shitshow-q-a-1792461050

UBER will never listen. They are the smartest people in the room and you are expendable.

 

[Fubernuber]

They will listen. This endless stream if stupid drivers who will drive to break even or to for the car will eventually run out. When that happens uber will be in deep isht because the riders will look at it as the worst of all options with least reliability

 

[Uber Uber]

Perfect recipe would do that at the airport, it will surge instantly and everyone has to be in the lot to get a request, so anyone in the lot will be guaranteed a surge fare.

 

[TheHazardousDuke]

We are all sub-contractors who are in constant competition with each other. There is no incentive for me or any other driver to show solidarity (let alone the means to even try). When I get a ping, I'm not thinking about turning off the app to make things better for other drivers. I'm thinking that I'm $5 closer to my goal.

If I ever do decide to turn off my app, well . . . there's a few dozen people down at 46th & Paris getting ready to turn theirs on.

As far as I can tell, UBER's got drivers by the short and curly's.

 

[Uber Uber]

Hazardous, do it for yourself if that's what makes you realize. And you'll also get to your "goal" faster. Who said we are in competition, you? It's possible to work together and everyone can benefit in this gig.

You seem a little smarter then what you just typed. $5 closer to your goal? You sound fishy...

 

[TheHazardousDuke]

$5 was a dig at the minimum fare. It's not even enough to buy a new disc for disc golf.

We, as drivers, are all competing for the next ping. The more of us on the road, the fewer the pings. If you drove NYE, you saw just how competitive it is.

I spend a fair amount of time lurking here. I see quite a few full-timers and some genuinely good people. I also see this not ending so well for those who think driving full-time for UBER will be continue to be equitable as a long-term career.

If you ask me (and no one did), I would hazard a guess (pun!) that UBER really doesn't want the drivers who look at this as a 3+ year career. They want you to come on board, drive 6-8 months and move along.

 

[Archie Nelson]

Perfect recipe would do that at the airport, it will surge instantly and everyone has to be in the lot to get a request, so anyone in the lot will be guaranteed a surge fare.

This is actually completely doable now that the airport chosen when people come in

 

[MichaelMax]

No, Don't drive for them until they raise rates AND add a tipping option.
Uber riders are so cheap , a tipping option will only help them be cheaper because we might give them 5 stars thinking they just might tip, which would be stupid of us.
But uber needs to raise their prices to at least 90% of taxi prices to fix their cheap A$$es

 

[Uber Uber]

I don't see why Uber wouldn't want drivers who have been driving for years rather than months. They know those are the drivers who had more experience with the riders, the city and are least likely to give them bad press and so forth. They are the most reliable and predictable. But I agree that this is not something to rely on full time.

 

[Daisey77]

I don't see why Uber wouldn't want drivers who have been driving for years rather than months. They know those are the drivers who had more experience with the riders, the city and are least likely to give them bad press and so forth. They are the most reliable and predictable. But I agree that this is not something to rely on full time.

They make more off of you. We're grandfathered in at the older rates. Plus we catch onto their grimy way

 

[Uber Uber]

I wouldn't think being grandfathered in is something they would care about that much, if they did, they could change the rate on those grandfathered in anyway. I do agree though that the riders which are newer are probably more likely to operate in ways Uber would want.

 

[Bobby Maverick]

I agree that it would be great if drivers banded together to cause positive change. I'm highly skeptical of it ever happening, and here's why:

If there's anything the FIFO lot has taught us, it's that there's a handful of drivers determined to jockey for the best of everything, at the expense of everyone else. These are the people who cut in front of you on Shady Grove to get into the lot first, and then the lot gets closed off right after them, leaving you to keep looking until it reopens. They're the ones who zip around you to snag the parking spot you were already backing into. I think they make up a very small minority of the entire pool of drivers, but it's enough to create real problems for others.

Even if, somehow, you could get 95% of the drivers in the FIFO lot to simultaneously go offline to cause a surge, you'd have 5% who would seize the opportunity to stay online and catch all the rides, and by the time everyone else goes back online, the surge is gone.

Successfully organizing for change requires mass participation and unified cooperation. I just don't see (or foresee) this kind of solidarity existing within the rideshare driver community. There are too many lone wolves with an "I only watch out for number one" mentality for anything cohesive to take shape.

 

[Uber Uber]

I agree with you but it's controlled best in the fifo lot , especially if you have to be in that area to accept pings. Also you could communicate with every driver entering, possibly let them know to keep there app for 15 minutes exactly upon entering , leaving a scheduled delay and hopeful surge.

I am a dreamer, you're right, i doubt it will work because of impatient and inconsiderate or people are flat out not thoughtful enough or to care.

 

[Bobby Maverick]

I am a dreamer, you're right, i doubt it will work because of impatient and inconsiderate or people are flat out not thoughtful enough or to care.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a wet blanket. I think it would be awesome if it happened. I'd even be willing to give it a shot in spite of my skepticism. The world needs more dreamers, and I tend to be overly cynical.

 

[TheHazardousDuke]

It's easier to rally experienced drivers and get them to band together. Uber doesn't want that. Experienced drivers also drive for competitors. Uber doesn't want that either. Experienced drivers start their own business and pull riders from away from Uber.

If Uber wants experienced drivers, why do they treat you so poorly?

I'm telling ya, they don't want you to stick around. If they did, they'd incentivize the experienced drivers.

Why? Well, when you're trying to build the largest fleet of driverless cars, you need a few million data points. Experienced drivers fall into a routine. After a while, you offer no more value to the master algorithm.

 

[Coloradical]

I agree that it would be great if drivers banded together to cause positive change. I'm highly skeptical of it ever happening, and here's why:

If there's anything the FIFO lot has taught us, it's that there's a handful of drivers determined to jockey for the best of everything, at the expense of everyone else. These are the people who cut in front of you on Shady Grove to get into the lot first, and then the lot gets closed off right after them, leaving you to keep looking until it reopens. They're the ones who zip around you to snag the parking spot you were already backing into. I think they make up a very small minority of the entire pool of drivers, but it's enough to create real problems for others.

Even if, somehow, you could get 95% of the drivers in the FIFO lot to simultaneously go offline to cause a surge, you'd have 5% who would seize the opportunity to stay online and catch all the rides, and by the time everyone else goes back online, the surge is gone.

Successfully organizing for change requires mass participation and unified cooperation. I just don't see (or foresee) this kind of solidarity existing within the rideshare driver community. There are too many lone wolves with an "I only watch out for number one" mentality for anything cohesive to take shape.

^^ This all day ^^

This type of lone-wolf behavior is exactly what uber is counting on for its business model! As diabolical as it may sound, they KNOW we will never effectively bring them down, because some people will always try to undercut the others - sociology 101. If you're of a certain age think Mr. Burns in the Simpsons, gleefully tapping his fingers together. Easy to do when your workforce is super-distributed and basically unaware of each other. Throw in a slightly small block of cheese (a minor surge) and even more people will join the "bad actors."

I suppose the beacons help now too to identify us. But how many drivers still don't mark their cars at all, even though the law asks for it? (The answer is a lot.)

The fifo lot represents our very best shot at actually organizing drivers. It's the only time we ever encounter one another other than by total random chance, so it represents a way we can try communicate. With the big, newer lot, maybe a goal would be for each of us, when in the lot, to get as many drivers here (to this denver forum) as an intermediate step so that we can reach out more broadly. Information is power, and we can keep more drivers informed

But then again, a lot of us will sit out there and ignore others. So i don't know......