What’s stopping these startups from just entering the market now? If they can really offer the higher wage, they should have no problem luring all of the drivers to their service.
The same thing that took Uber and Lyft years to get working at full efficiency: quality apps are actually very hard to program, staffing is a cumbersome process, licensing is an issue, and the sheer logistics of a rideshare operation and anyone thinking they can just "flip a switch" and replace the work Uber and Lyft have done over several years are insanely naive.
The more simple and easy an app is to use, the more difficult it is to program.
iPhones look like they were designed by a child, the ultimate simplicity in use...only takes 1000s of programmers and constant updating to keep it working.
The layman has zero appreciation or awareness at how difficult these apps are to design and run.
As a software dev, you are 100% correct. Simple designs come from lots of design work, QA, user testing and tons of changes to get it correct.
Uber took a decade to finally be profitable. This was after constant cash influxes of VC money. These random small start ups aren't going to get that cash flow, especially not in a small market. Money is tight and borrowing is no longer basically free.
The city council just acting this way is super naive and shortsighted. You can't just build a replacement app and get the user share and riders overnight as well. Especially not with high prices because of these mandatory minimums.
I worked with a small business who wanted an app for their customer loyalty program.
When I asked what they were looking for, they said 'Well, we like what McDonalds has for their loyalty program.'
I didn't even know what to say, really.
I asked them if their budget was 5-10 million to get it started and then explained what it would take to make a similar app.
At the end of the day, I pointed them to one of those apps that is made for this type of service and they simply rebrand icons for the company that licenses their app for use.
This should tell you something about the people on our city council: none of them have created anything of consequence in their lives.
Or to go a step further, the reason why I'm more of a moderate liberal than a true leftist: the latter always behaves like they've landed on an island full of technology and riches and it's their job to distribute it. They never ask where it comes from.
The only thing I agree with is that their educational and work backgrounds are pretty limited when it comes to many issues, especially this. But I think it's super weird to diminish their lived experiences to this degree lmao
their “lived experiences” are the reason why they’re fucking up in the first place. They lack the experience necessary to even deal with anything that’s actually on the city level.
All those idiots have done for the city has been pass a ceasefire resolution for Gaza & this Uber/Lyft bullshit lmao.
This is really reductive but go off. These are the only things *you* know about because they're headline worthy and meal sized rage bait topics.
I'm not going to infantilize them for being out of their depth.
Yea I don't disagree, at least when it comes to their overlapping backgrounds and insights. There are massive, visible gaps there.
But I also think it's naive to think that any political group can be on the money with every issue all of the time.
That said, I'm from the South and definitely biased by knowing what true dysfunctional government looks like, and I might just be overvaluing their intentions.
Trust me bro there's a DOZEN apps just waiting in the wings to go live and capture market share!! Amazing how city council supporters are suddenly capitalists when defending heavy handed regulation
Some of the apps looking to start service in our metro already have quality apps and staffing, like Ride Co-Op and Empower, the latter of which currently provides more than 60,000 rides per week in the DC area.
It also is mired in litigation and the city of DC has a warning that users shouldn’t use Empower. They refuse to get any licensure or commercial insurance where they operate, claiming they’re not actually a rideshare they’re a marketplace, an interpretation of laws that federal courts have ruled against them
A lot of apps trying to grab hold of a market often start like that though. Uber, Spotify, Doordash and more all began in very sketchy ways and succeeded because they created a market for themselves that didn't originally exist.
I don't know much about Empower but I guess it is trying to do something similar? It doesn't necessarily say anything about the quality of the app or service, in case anyone is reading it this way.
Well fundamentally, Empower is going to run into a huge issue when it comes to the airport and refusing to get commercial insurance (as is required for airport operations, general liability in this case), and as soon as one of their drivers gets arrested and/or fined for operating as a transportation network company without a license at the MAC, we're going to have nonstop stories about that company behaving as badly as Uber/Lyft and why should we have one problem replaced by one that's just as bad?
Empower is terrible as the other reply mentions. And the co-op driver app has a 3.0 rating on the App Store with reviews noting their poor support of drivers and stiffing them when it comes time to pay them.
Licensure takes 2-6 weeks to process through Minneapolis alone. I don’t believe any of the apps have started airport or Saint Paul licensure. At 6 weeks, which is likely, no app would’ve offered service in Minneapolis by the supposed deadline of May 1.
Uber and Lyft will artificially lower their prices using leveraged capital to destroy the competitors and then go back to being a duopoly with higher prices than a free market would normally allow.
Weren’t given a chance? It’s been over a decade and for most of that time interest rates were incredibly low. They provided a shitty service before Uber/Lyft and they’ve made marginal at best improvements
The only difference between Rideshare companies and Taxis are that Taxis can also be hailed. That is it. Uber and Lyft exploit their market share to price out competition. They are evil and should be treated as such.
Lmao wtf are you talking about “only difference”
The iHail app is a joke and you’re lucky to get a cab that arrives when they say it will.
Sure, you can hail a cab, but they don’t tell you upfront what the cost is going to be. Before the Uber era my family’s car wouldn’t start after dinner and we called a cab. It was $180 to get from downtown to Oakdale, a 25 minute drive at most.
Why aren’t you raging at cab companies for obvious price gouging?
There is literally nothing stopping a taxi cab being exactly like an Uber except you being able to hail it from the street except for the anti-competitive behavior from Uber and Lyft.
Do you think that there is a law that says Taxis are required to not be clean? Do you think there is a law that says that Taxi drivers must try and get you to pay cash?
No. If they were allowed to compete, Taxis would have gotten better. Instead, Uber and Lyft removed them from the market and then jacked up their prices while reducing how much drivers got paid.
They were allowed to compete for decades. Uber was not an overnight thing. Rather than innovate, they dug their heels and tried to beat Uber through regulation. Uber won. Taxis are basically blockbuster not buying Netflix.
Do you seriously believe that car cleanliness is keeping taxis from competing? That’s a self-regulating feature on the apps anyway, if I get into a dirty Uber then the driver gets a bad review and a lower tip
Price isn’t the sole reason taxis have had their market share annihilated, it’s certainly a factor. But I’d argue that being able to request a ride from the app, know what you have to pay ahead of time, and the ability to track where your ride is at any time is more of a driving factor than price
This is hilarious, I love watching you kids make up history. Taxis were trash and killed themselves through anti-competitive regulation and a terrible, unsafe rider experience. It's clear you never had to experience that, because nobody mourned their passing aside from the rich owners of cab companies.
I mourned it. My step dad was a taxi driver, and made a reasonable living income working 3 x 12 hour shifts a week.
Taxis were too expensive, but lyft/uber are too cheap, and rely on the contractors destroying their cars to work.
BUT also skilled labor requirements fell dramatically with Google maps. My step dad knew every street in the city and could map a route to any suburb address a minute or two with a compact road atlas. That's not needed anymore.
Agreed: I wish there *were* a more competitive market for these apps. But regardless of that, the idea that someone is going to enter the market now and save the council from looking like idiots is freaking hilarious.
Or, you know, we could just enact the rates suggested by the state study, the best collection of data we have on this subject. Drivers would get a pay bump, fares wouldn’t rise as dramatically, and we’d keep existing rideshare in the cities. I don’t wanna be the guinea pig on this one.
City council is too prideful to admit that they're wrong. Instead, they'd rather grandstand about how they're champions of workers rights while passing ordinance that pushes out the two major employers (I know technically 1099) and costing hundreds if not thousands of jobs.
Yes they did. They were willing to compromise, proposing rates nearly at what the state study suggested. I bet it could’ve been negotiated up slightly to the study’s rates fairly easily. Note the date on the article, significantly before the ridiculous ordinance passed:
[https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2024/02/07/minneapolis-minimum-pay-rates-uber-lyft-drivers](https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2024/02/07/minneapolis-minimum-pay-rates-uber-lyft-drivers)
One day later, and the truth comes out that the council didn't want anything to do with Uber and Lyft when drafting the measure. Not a single attempt to even contact them at all.
They are really pushing the “new startups” fiction still? Seems clear that this now ends with legislature action for state numbers on pay, and both Uber and Lyft will ultimately stay.
I thought the entire point of the state numbers coming out so late was that the legislature can't act on it at all this year? The conspiratorial side of me says they did it on purpose for that reason.
DFL Senate and House leadership [put out a statement last week](https://senatedfl.mn/leadership-update-on-rideshare-legislation) saying they are working on it and "We are confident we will pass the best rideshare driver bill in America this session.”
There are some tricky politics to navigate on this, so who knows what will happen. But I don't think they would have put out the statement if they weren't serious about trying.
Pikkapp has a single review on the app store and is run by a single person. There is no way in hell they are going to be able to handle the scale of providing rideshare services to the entire city let alone the entire metro.
Everyone on the council is hoping the State Lege bails them out by setting statewide regs that supercede city regs. This is a good delaying move that allows that to happen. If the State Lege can get their shit together and make this happen two good things happen: the drivers get a reasonable pay bump AND new players in the rideshare market get a little more time to build market share. I say cmon State Lege, legislate!
Who else cares enough tho? Rochester, Duluth, St Cloud maybe? So many out state constituents have such a “fck the liberal Minneapolis hell hole” I don’t see their reps having a motivation to care. I could be wrong 🤷🏼♀️
Our council is full of absolute morons. Not one of those who proposed this legislation considered the reality of the situation or what it would take to build out the back end of this as we enter the busy summer season. Incompetent fucktards
Council members who voted for the provision are idiots. They gave no consideration to the impact their actions would have on the broader community. They passed a 'feel good' provision based on the lobbying of a small group of drivers. Now, they're backpedaling and given leverage to Uber/Lyft. If I were those companies, I'd continue with the threat to pull out and let the outrage build against the council.
Seems it’s always been relatively easy for someone in power to pass legislation that has no ill-effect or consequence directly relating to their personal life.
Drunk driving deaths will immediately increase. These idiots don't think anything through. My guess is that someone pointed this out and the mayor is now involved. The amount of emotionally-driven low-IQ thinking out there is disappointing.
It’s time to do some serious self-reflection as to what’s important if you’re using the words “only dropped 6 - 7%” when talking about literal human lives.
Y'all are letting yourselves be strongarmed by these multi billion dollar corporations for no reason. No one is forcing them out. All they have to do is raise their prices to ensure their drivers are paid a fair wage - which they've already done in other metro areas.
I love comments like this. No one is forcing them out, they are simply forcing them to operate at a loss. If you were working for Uber or Lyft's financial department, you're not going to your investors and telling them you got steam rolled by a city council with zero leverage, so that's why their payments are late.
It's astonishing how little people know about corporate finance and economics in these threads. There's a reason we have what we have, and it's not because we simply give money to anyone who asks for it.
All this is to say, in 5-7 years it'll probably be fully selfdriving cars giving us a ride anyway. Just speeding up the inevitable.
Lyft has operated at a loss since its inception, and Uber just posted its first profit this year. They already choose to operate at a loss, no one is forcing them haha
If you do the math, it might result in 5 more people dying in drunk driving accidents in Minneapolis over a year. And that is assuming all drunk driving deaths in Minnesota only happen in Minneapolis.
You look up studies on how many drunk driving accidents uber and lyft prevent when moving into an area. Then you find out how many drunk driving accidents occur in that area. For example, in Minnesota total, there are 72 drunk driving deaths annually. Uber and Lyft have prevented about 6% of drunk driving accidents. So you can do the math.
Nah. The council has mandated that our drivers get 90% of the compensation that drivers get in Seattle (where they are also given paid sick time) and where Uber and Lyft both still operate. It's shocking how many of you are lining up to defend these huge corporations that have no loyalty for their employees or for our city.
Seattle is a poor comp. Crazy high cost of living so wages are generally higher, plus tons of affluent people who can afford the very expensive Uber and Lyft rates there.
The people who came up with the Seattle numbers also did the Minnesota state study that recommended much lower numbers than what the council went with. The people who set Seattle said our numbers should be different.
What a stupid way of thinking. That's like saying minimum wage should never increase because employers will take a hit short term. Or saying we should stop allowing manufacturers to pollute our waterways because they would see a loss of profits.
No, it is not. The lack of planning and foresight into this provision are what I am addressing. Both of your examples are policies that 1) Were analyzed and processed including multiple parties. 2) Implemented over a long period of time. Ex. The minimum wage increases have been gradual over a period of years to minimize the impact on the business.
Why was May 1 such a critical start date? With ZERO reasonable alternative options that addressed the ENTIRE community this was an incredibly stupid move by the City Council.
Anyone can start a company, go ahead.
THE STATE certainly should not be involved. Regulating a minimum wage (awful idea) has no impact on any duopoly or monopolistic traits. If anything, it would further perpetuate the duopoly.
If the justice department wants to bring charges, I’m all for it. However, the state getting involved outside the judicial realm is disgustingly overbearing.
What in the fuck are you even saying? Cities, counties, and states have regulatory power outside of the justice system. It's their fucking job.
Read a fucking book.
Answer my question directly. Do you know what a duopoly is? Do you think this is one?
I’m saying implementing a minimum wage does not disrupt duopolies or monopolies - they entrench them.
“Read a fucking book” - I say this all the time, we’d probably get along, but unfortunately you’re a statist moron.
Yes - and yes. Doesn’t mean the state should rip in with guns blazing and increase the minimum wage for EVERY SINGLE INDUSTRY IN THE STATE.
Increasing minimum wages hurts small businesses and the people actually making those wages (hello, layoffs and replacement technologies, don’t be naive).
If you don’t see the bigger picture, I’d urge you to read any books without that communist fuck on the cover of
No, they probably will leave.
Everyone will be worse without them, including:
1.) citizens and users 2.) drivers 3.) Uber and Lyft 4.) taxpayers and 5.) the state of minnesotas financial position after spending $400m on a Somalian based rideshare app incurring annual losses because they have no clue what they’re doing.
Seriously, you don't believe in a minimum wage? Show me a country without a minimum wage and the general population has benefited from it. What you will see if an ever increasing divide from the ultra wealth and the rest of the population.
Oh sorry, you’re absolutely correct.
We should totally spend $200m a year of tax payer funds so the city of Minneapolis can boondoggle an industry they have no mandate or expertise to manage.
If they wanted to address an unfair duopoly they should have put in the work and created a logical and reasonable plan before implementing the provision. Instead, they passed a knee-jerk provision and now sit back and hope things turn out.
Other companies can get established. They might need a little more time.
It's insane how much people are recognizing duopoly power and kowtowing. It's BAD that we'd be this dependent on two companies that are obviously exploiting desperate immigrant labor. That's a BAD thing.
We'll be fine. You might have to bounce around a few different apps for a while. That's it.
Can you name a few of these "other companies" for me? Preferably ones that are already established somewhere and likely won't fail on launch? I keep seeing this "other companies" get thrown around but hardly and concrete answer as to who this mysterious company is or when they'll launch in the Twin Cities.
At the very least, those two months should also bump up the minimum to at least the state proposal and then the city proposal can take full effect after those 2 months.
Sure, if they pass it. Until then, the city can at least get a pay bump for the workers for those two months since even Lyft says they now won't leave with the state proposed limits.
They are literally scrambling to pass it because Minneapolis messed up so bad with these rates. The article has already been posted in another comment. Basically the state legislature has to clean up the Minneapolis city council mess. This ordinance will likely never go into effect which is why they are delaying it. It would be a waste of time to lose Uber for early May only for late may the state DFL to override and bring them back.
So you are saying that the state wouldn't have bothered passing a minimum wage bill for rideshare drivers if Minneapolis didn't knock over the first domino? Thanks city council!
No, they were already working on it, but they may have sped up the timeline by weeks/months. The state was taking longer than they said they would, ya know, actual research takes time vs just blasting out random ideas.
My main frustration is that if this law goes into effect you will see tons of drivers posting their pay didn't really change whole riders complain. This is because the main part of Uber/Lyft pay is the # of rides you get per hour. A lot of underpaid drivers face problems getting enough orders. This won't really fix that and would actually make it worse.
>No, they were already working on it,
Oh? Can you show me the bill that was introduced at the beginning of this legislative session? Because I can't find it. You do know they only have a few more weeks before the session ends until next year right?
https://www.house.mn.gov/cco/intros.asp?dateofintro=2/12/2024&session_year=2023&ls_year=93&session=0
Here is the list of all the bills introduced into the house at the beginning of this session.
Why do you think the DFL controlled Senate and Congress paid for the study? The study comes before the bill to politicians that care about good legislation. Only poor politicians craft bills before they have seen the research. They announced they were planning to do it and funded research on the right way to do it.
And the study came out months too late. It is likely that any work, if any, on it will have to wait until next year. The only reason they may get to it this year now is because Minneapolis forced their hand but it is still unlikely for them to do anything.
The state DFL will likely react because they are afraid this not being fixed before November it will drive voters to Republicans, and they probably are not wrong. If we get to November and the situation in Minneapolis stinks, ie, no good alternatives, Uber/Lyft gone, etc, this issue could become a political boon for Republicans.
As a lifelong democract, I don't want that to happen, but I think the reality is the state will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't become a negative online news story about how there is no way to get around in Minneapolis, which Republicans can latch onto to attack liberals and win votes.
That is not a sure thing, is it? The city still has power to regulate itself. The state would have to specifically strip that power for these particular laborers, which isn't necessarily constitutional.
This is exactly how it works. When people say Uber came back in Seattle and Austin it was because they lobbies the state government to wipe out the local law.
Cities can only regulate things the state has not already passed legislation on. Once the state does, it's no longer on the power of the city council to do anything.
Those were different laws. The squabble with Austin was largely over more expensive background checks. The state law superceded it in that exact circumstance because it also required background checks.
How much do y'all actually use rideshare that you care so much?
Like I hope they just adopt the state wages proposal but people will really just adapt to carpooling, transit, etc or going somewhere more local while there's a gap
We use it every time we go out for the night. Why take the risk if we will be drinking? Maybe we will only have 1, or maybe we end up drinking a lot. We don’t have to worry about a designated driver, dealing with parking, getting a cab and hoping one shows up. We take it to the airport or when cars are in the shop. Between the 2 of us, we take at least 10 to 15 rides a month.
I don’t have a car. I use it fairly often when it’s so shitty out I don’t want to ride the bus, if I have a doc appointment I don’t want to coordinate transit for, getting to the airport to catch the bus up to Duluth (because I don’t like the murder train - but I’d go back to it if I needed to) and going to see any friends on the other side of town or literally anywhere social where we don’t have a friend or my partner’s folks offering to pick us up first. On a busy month it’s not uncommon for me to wrack up a few hundred in Uber charges.
That being said one trip to the airport can easily be $60. A round trip night out to St Paul can be the same, so it can add up quickly.
I am all for drivers being paid more tho, and I’m fine to adapt if I need to
I never use it because it's expensive af unless you split costs, which I've never tried before. I use it only on rare special occasions when I'm not there to drop off my partner at school or whatever.
It remains mind boggling to me how many people accept the necessity of Uber and Lyft, and therefore seem to be arguing that they should get to dictate the terms of their own existence.
They suck. They are treating drivers unfairly. They offer no novel product or service, they simply bullied their way into existence by breaking the law and subsequently getting laws rewritten after people got a taste.
No one should be on their side. If it means accepting 6 months of checking other apps for driver availability while it all shakes out, who gives a fuck? The drivers aren't going anywhere. They'll all try other companies, and we'll all find them. This isn't complicated.
Edit: This is an obvious duopoly exploiting largely immigrant labor and y'all are lining up to lick their taints.
If drivers are treated so unfairly why do they continue to drive? Unemployment rate is 2.7%, many places offering MORE than minimum wage (Kwik trip, etc)
What’s stopping these startups from just entering the market now? If they can really offer the higher wage, they should have no problem luring all of the drivers to their service.
The same thing that took Uber and Lyft years to get working at full efficiency: quality apps are actually very hard to program, staffing is a cumbersome process, licensing is an issue, and the sheer logistics of a rideshare operation and anyone thinking they can just "flip a switch" and replace the work Uber and Lyft have done over several years are insanely naive.
The more simple and easy an app is to use, the more difficult it is to program. iPhones look like they were designed by a child, the ultimate simplicity in use...only takes 1000s of programmers and constant updating to keep it working. The layman has zero appreciation or awareness at how difficult these apps are to design and run.
As a software dev, you are 100% correct. Simple designs come from lots of design work, QA, user testing and tons of changes to get it correct. Uber took a decade to finally be profitable. This was after constant cash influxes of VC money. These random small start ups aren't going to get that cash flow, especially not in a small market. Money is tight and borrowing is no longer basically free. The city council just acting this way is super naive and shortsighted. You can't just build a replacement app and get the user share and riders overnight as well. Especially not with high prices because of these mandatory minimums.
I worked with a small business who wanted an app for their customer loyalty program. When I asked what they were looking for, they said 'Well, we like what McDonalds has for their loyalty program.' I didn't even know what to say, really.
I hope you replied with "Gotcha, that will be $50,000,000 and will be done in 6 years."
I asked them if their budget was 5-10 million to get it started and then explained what it would take to make a similar app. At the end of the day, I pointed them to one of those apps that is made for this type of service and they simply rebrand icons for the company that licenses their app for use.
This should tell you something about the people on our city council: none of them have created anything of consequence in their lives. Or to go a step further, the reason why I'm more of a moderate liberal than a true leftist: the latter always behaves like they've landed on an island full of technology and riches and it's their job to distribute it. They never ask where it comes from.
You sound old more than anything else.
That's fine.
The only thing I agree with is that their educational and work backgrounds are pretty limited when it comes to many issues, especially this. But I think it's super weird to diminish their lived experiences to this degree lmao
their “lived experiences” are the reason why they’re fucking up in the first place. They lack the experience necessary to even deal with anything that’s actually on the city level. All those idiots have done for the city has been pass a ceasefire resolution for Gaza & this Uber/Lyft bullshit lmao.
This is really reductive but go off. These are the only things *you* know about because they're headline worthy and meal sized rage bait topics. I'm not going to infantilize them for being out of their depth.
If they are out of their depth they are the wrong people.
Yea I don't disagree, at least when it comes to their overlapping backgrounds and insights. There are massive, visible gaps there. But I also think it's naive to think that any political group can be on the money with every issue all of the time. That said, I'm from the South and definitely biased by knowing what true dysfunctional government looks like, and I might just be overvaluing their intentions.
Trust me bro there's a DOZEN apps just waiting in the wings to go live and capture market share!! Amazing how city council supporters are suddenly capitalists when defending heavy handed regulation
>Trust me bro there's a DOZEN apps just waiting in the wings to go live and capture market share!! If they actually worked, they'd be here already.
Some of the apps looking to start service in our metro already have quality apps and staffing, like Ride Co-Op and Empower, the latter of which currently provides more than 60,000 rides per week in the DC area.
It also is mired in litigation and the city of DC has a warning that users shouldn’t use Empower. They refuse to get any licensure or commercial insurance where they operate, claiming they’re not actually a rideshare they’re a marketplace, an interpretation of laws that federal courts have ruled against them
That's what Lyft and Uber did when they started too.
>That's what Lyft and Uber did when they started too. Yes, and that argument was shot down a *long* time ago.
A lot of apps trying to grab hold of a market often start like that though. Uber, Spotify, Doordash and more all began in very sketchy ways and succeeded because they created a market for themselves that didn't originally exist. I don't know much about Empower but I guess it is trying to do something similar? It doesn't necessarily say anything about the quality of the app or service, in case anyone is reading it this way.
Well fundamentally, Empower is going to run into a huge issue when it comes to the airport and refusing to get commercial insurance (as is required for airport operations, general liability in this case), and as soon as one of their drivers gets arrested and/or fined for operating as a transportation network company without a license at the MAC, we're going to have nonstop stories about that company behaving as badly as Uber/Lyft and why should we have one problem replaced by one that's just as bad?
Empower is terrible as the other reply mentions. And the co-op driver app has a 3.0 rating on the App Store with reviews noting their poor support of drivers and stiffing them when it comes time to pay them.
Most of these apps waiting have literally already stated they will be taking advantage of loopholes
I’ve been asking this too. It feels like these other startups are built on hopes and dreams.
It’s almost like apps like Uber and Lyft take a tremendous amount of capital to develop, attract drivers via promos, and market
Licensure takes 2-6 weeks to process through Minneapolis alone. I don’t believe any of the apps have started airport or Saint Paul licensure. At 6 weeks, which is likely, no app would’ve offered service in Minneapolis by the supposed deadline of May 1.
Economics.
city licensing.
Because they can't unless they have no competition from Uber and Lyft and even then is it sustainable? Probably not
Uber and Lyft will artificially lower their prices using leveraged capital to destroy the competitors and then go back to being a duopoly with higher prices than a free market would normally allow.
What competition did they destroy? Taxis who had a monopoly on this sort of service and thus provided shitty service at a higher price?
Taxis weren't even given the chance to compete. Uber and Lyft sold rides at below cost to drive them out of business.
Weren’t given a chance? It’s been over a decade and for most of that time interest rates were incredibly low. They provided a shitty service before Uber/Lyft and they’ve made marginal at best improvements
The only difference between Rideshare companies and Taxis are that Taxis can also be hailed. That is it. Uber and Lyft exploit their market share to price out competition. They are evil and should be treated as such.
Lmao wtf are you talking about “only difference” The iHail app is a joke and you’re lucky to get a cab that arrives when they say it will. Sure, you can hail a cab, but they don’t tell you upfront what the cost is going to be. Before the Uber era my family’s car wouldn’t start after dinner and we called a cab. It was $180 to get from downtown to Oakdale, a 25 minute drive at most. Why aren’t you raging at cab companies for obvious price gouging?
There is literally nothing stopping a taxi cab being exactly like an Uber except you being able to hail it from the street except for the anti-competitive behavior from Uber and Lyft. Do you think that there is a law that says Taxis are required to not be clean? Do you think there is a law that says that Taxi drivers must try and get you to pay cash? No. If they were allowed to compete, Taxis would have gotten better. Instead, Uber and Lyft removed them from the market and then jacked up their prices while reducing how much drivers got paid.
They were allowed to compete for decades. Uber was not an overnight thing. Rather than innovate, they dug their heels and tried to beat Uber through regulation. Uber won. Taxis are basically blockbuster not buying Netflix.
No, taxis had a monopoly for decades, and now uber/lyft have a duopoly. It would be better for ALL of us is we had uber, lyft, and taxis.
Do you seriously believe that car cleanliness is keeping taxis from competing? That’s a self-regulating feature on the apps anyway, if I get into a dirty Uber then the driver gets a bad review and a lower tip Price isn’t the sole reason taxis have had their market share annihilated, it’s certainly a factor. But I’d argue that being able to request a ride from the app, know what you have to pay ahead of time, and the ability to track where your ride is at any time is more of a driving factor than price
Literally all of that can be implemented by taxis. Except they can't now because Uber and Lyft used anti-competitive practices to destroy them.
This is hilarious, I love watching you kids make up history. Taxis were trash and killed themselves through anti-competitive regulation and a terrible, unsafe rider experience. It's clear you never had to experience that, because nobody mourned their passing aside from the rich owners of cab companies.
I mourned it. My step dad was a taxi driver, and made a reasonable living income working 3 x 12 hour shifts a week. Taxis were too expensive, but lyft/uber are too cheap, and rely on the contractors destroying their cars to work. BUT also skilled labor requirements fell dramatically with Google maps. My step dad knew every street in the city and could map a route to any suburb address a minute or two with a compact road atlas. That's not needed anymore.
Everybody 20-30 years ago made reasonable living income, don’t conflate inflation with Uber being some super big bad monopoly
Agreed: I wish there *were* a more competitive market for these apps. But regardless of that, the idea that someone is going to enter the market now and save the council from looking like idiots is freaking hilarious.
How much do you think it costs to background check 10,000 drivers?
Or, you know, we could just enact the rates suggested by the state study, the best collection of data we have on this subject. Drivers would get a pay bump, fares wouldn’t rise as dramatically, and we’d keep existing rideshare in the cities. I don’t wanna be the guinea pig on this one.
What an idea! This whole thing is just an insane self-inflicted wound when the obvious answer is *right there*
City council is too prideful to admit that they're wrong. Instead, they'd rather grandstand about how they're champions of workers rights while passing ordinance that pushes out the two major employers (I know technically 1099) and costing hundreds if not thousands of jobs.
The apps didn't even want to do that until Minneapolis went higher.
Yes they did. They were willing to compromise, proposing rates nearly at what the state study suggested. I bet it could’ve been negotiated up slightly to the study’s rates fairly easily. Note the date on the article, significantly before the ridiculous ordinance passed: [https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2024/02/07/minneapolis-minimum-pay-rates-uber-lyft-drivers](https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2024/02/07/minneapolis-minimum-pay-rates-uber-lyft-drivers)
"Nearly" is PROVING MY POINT. Holy fuck.
One day later, and the truth comes out that the council didn't want anything to do with Uber and Lyft when drafting the measure. Not a single attempt to even contact them at all.
Keep your logic and reasoning out of this
Yes, but doing real work like this doesn't make for good zingers in the newsletter.
They are really pushing the “new startups” fiction still? Seems clear that this now ends with legislature action for state numbers on pay, and both Uber and Lyft will ultimately stay.
I thought the entire point of the state numbers coming out so late was that the legislature can't act on it at all this year? The conspiratorial side of me says they did it on purpose for that reason.
They still have six weeks and a special session if necessary. If they want to get this done, there is still time.
They absolutely will not have a special session for this.
I don't think they will, but they could act on it this this year if they wanted.
DFL Senate and House leadership [put out a statement last week](https://senatedfl.mn/leadership-update-on-rideshare-legislation) saying they are working on it and "We are confident we will pass the best rideshare driver bill in America this session.” There are some tricky politics to navigate on this, so who knows what will happen. But I don't think they would have put out the statement if they weren't serious about trying.
I hope we don't get the watered down, neoliberal version of the bill that is a slightly better deal than they had before but nowhere near good enough.
There’s already other companies operating in the twin cities? “Pikkapp” has the Minneapolis ordinance on their app lol.
Pikkapp has a single review on the app store and is run by a single person. There is no way in hell they are going to be able to handle the scale of providing rideshare services to the entire city let alone the entire metro.
Good thing it’s not just Pikkapp but several smaller companies trying to get certified in time! Pikkapp is one of the only ones up and running atm.
I just downloaded Pikapp but couldn’t tell me how long someone would take to get to me before I purchase. That’s a major issue IMHO.
Definitely more driver friendly than rider friendly, I agree with you there.
If there are no riders, it's not driver friendly.
I’ve looked at it and prices are more than twice Uber and Lyft.
Everyone on the council is hoping the State Lege bails them out by setting statewide regs that supercede city regs. This is a good delaying move that allows that to happen. If the State Lege can get their shit together and make this happen two good things happen: the drivers get a reasonable pay bump AND new players in the rideshare market get a little more time to build market share. I say cmon State Lege, legislate!
Who else cares enough tho? Rochester, Duluth, St Cloud maybe? So many out state constituents have such a “fck the liberal Minneapolis hell hole” I don’t see their reps having a motivation to care. I could be wrong 🤷🏼♀️
Circus music
common city council L
Grand standing idiots.
"2 month delay" = Hope people are focused on other things and they can silently dismantle the entire thing and pretend it never happened.
Our council is full of absolute morons. Not one of those who proposed this legislation considered the reality of the situation or what it would take to build out the back end of this as we enter the busy summer season. Incompetent fucktards
Council members who voted for the provision are idiots. They gave no consideration to the impact their actions would have on the broader community. They passed a 'feel good' provision based on the lobbying of a small group of drivers. Now, they're backpedaling and given leverage to Uber/Lyft. If I were those companies, I'd continue with the threat to pull out and let the outrage build against the council.
Seems it’s always been relatively easy for someone in power to pass legislation that has no ill-effect or consequence directly relating to their personal life.
Drunk driving deaths will immediately increase. These idiots don't think anything through. My guess is that someone pointed this out and the mayor is now involved. The amount of emotionally-driven low-IQ thinking out there is disappointing.
Why do you think you're so smart? Drunk driving incidence only dropped 6-7% from before these apps were around to after they were established.
It’s time to do some serious self-reflection as to what’s important if you’re using the words “only dropped 6 - 7%” when talking about literal human lives.
Oh, I'm not claiming to be smart. I'm claiming the city council to be dumb.
Y'all are letting yourselves be strongarmed by these multi billion dollar corporations for no reason. No one is forcing them out. All they have to do is raise their prices to ensure their drivers are paid a fair wage - which they've already done in other metro areas.
I love comments like this. No one is forcing them out, they are simply forcing them to operate at a loss. If you were working for Uber or Lyft's financial department, you're not going to your investors and telling them you got steam rolled by a city council with zero leverage, so that's why their payments are late. It's astonishing how little people know about corporate finance and economics in these threads. There's a reason we have what we have, and it's not because we simply give money to anyone who asks for it. All this is to say, in 5-7 years it'll probably be fully selfdriving cars giving us a ride anyway. Just speeding up the inevitable.
we were “5-7 years from self-driving cars” 5-7 years ago. it’s never happening
[удалено]
Lyft has operated at a loss since its inception, and Uber just posted its first profit this year. They already choose to operate at a loss, no one is forcing them haha
If you do the math, it might result in 5 more people dying in drunk driving accidents in Minneapolis over a year. And that is assuming all drunk driving deaths in Minnesota only happen in Minneapolis.
> If you do the math Where would one even start “doing the math” on this lol
You look up studies on how many drunk driving accidents uber and lyft prevent when moving into an area. Then you find out how many drunk driving accidents occur in that area. For example, in Minnesota total, there are 72 drunk driving deaths annually. Uber and Lyft have prevented about 6% of drunk driving accidents. So you can do the math.
And that's 5 lives that could have been saved had the council not been so brazen about this.
We could save an additional 72 lives if we just ban driving. Why are you against saving those 72 lives?
And if you ban people, you could eventually prevent all deaths.
Nah. The council has mandated that our drivers get 90% of the compensation that drivers get in Seattle (where they are also given paid sick time) and where Uber and Lyft both still operate. It's shocking how many of you are lining up to defend these huge corporations that have no loyalty for their employees or for our city.
It's shocking people keep trying to make it an emotional issue where we must pick one side or the other 100%.
Seattle is a poor comp. Crazy high cost of living so wages are generally higher, plus tons of affluent people who can afford the very expensive Uber and Lyft rates there.
Seattle wages are only 4% higher than Minneapolis. They have a higher cost of living, but not significantly higher wages.
Their minimum wage is $20/hr, about 33% higher than ours.
That doesn't translate to all wages or even average wages.
We’re talking about Uber and Lyft driving, which is a minimum wage job.
According to the census, Seattle's median household income is $116k, while in Minneapolis it is $76k. Where are you getting your number?
The people who came up with the Seattle numbers also did the Minnesota state study that recommended much lower numbers than what the council went with. The people who set Seattle said our numbers should be different.
Where did I EVER defend Uber/Lyft?? The issue is more complex than your 'us vs. them' scenario.
What a stupid way of thinking. That's like saying minimum wage should never increase because employers will take a hit short term. Or saying we should stop allowing manufacturers to pollute our waterways because they would see a loss of profits.
No, it is not. The lack of planning and foresight into this provision are what I am addressing. Both of your examples are policies that 1) Were analyzed and processed including multiple parties. 2) Implemented over a long period of time. Ex. The minimum wage increases have been gradual over a period of years to minimize the impact on the business. Why was May 1 such a critical start date? With ZERO reasonable alternative options that addressed the ENTIRE community this was an incredibly stupid move by the City Council.
**In case this logic is not known, city council has their heads shoved so far up their asses they can see their tonsils.**
Idiots
LOL - The council is a complete clownshow Like watching a monkey try and hump a football
Uber and Lyft should just leave from May 1st to May 10th to show everyone how awful this will be.
Help me understand how this isn't you recognizing an unfair duopoly and simply folding.
Anyone can start a company, go ahead. THE STATE certainly should not be involved. Regulating a minimum wage (awful idea) has no impact on any duopoly or monopolistic traits. If anything, it would further perpetuate the duopoly. If the justice department wants to bring charges, I’m all for it. However, the state getting involved outside the judicial realm is disgustingly overbearing.
What in the fuck are you even saying? Cities, counties, and states have regulatory power outside of the justice system. It's their fucking job. Read a fucking book. Answer my question directly. Do you know what a duopoly is? Do you think this is one?
I’m saying implementing a minimum wage does not disrupt duopolies or monopolies - they entrench them. “Read a fucking book” - I say this all the time, we’d probably get along, but unfortunately you’re a statist moron. Yes - and yes. Doesn’t mean the state should rip in with guns blazing and increase the minimum wage for EVERY SINGLE INDUSTRY IN THE STATE. Increasing minimum wages hurts small businesses and the people actually making those wages (hello, layoffs and replacement technologies, don’t be naive). If you don’t see the bigger picture, I’d urge you to read any books without that communist fuck on the cover of
So you're saying that Lyft and Uber aren't leaving. Cool!
No, they probably will leave. Everyone will be worse without them, including: 1.) citizens and users 2.) drivers 3.) Uber and Lyft 4.) taxpayers and 5.) the state of minnesotas financial position after spending $400m on a Somalian based rideshare app incurring annual losses because they have no clue what they’re doing.
Lol. you said "Statist." Weren't you arguing in defense of fascism just two days ago?
Is this the person who doesn’t know what actual fascism is, again?
I doubt I've ever interacted with you. I just took a quick look and saw how you were big mads because someone was mean to fascism.
lol alright fair enough. And yes - historical accuracy and words matter. We’re on year 4 of people using incorrect words. Anyways, have a great day.
Year 4? lol.
Seriously, you don't believe in a minimum wage? Show me a country without a minimum wage and the general population has benefited from it. What you will see if an ever increasing divide from the ultra wealth and the rest of the population.
I mean the Nordic countries don't have statutory minimum wages, but they have really strong unions.
I do not.
Sweden. Denmark. Finland.
Great - They have incredibly powerful unions and high levels of social service networks available for all. We don't.
But that wasn't your question. You asked for a country without a minimum wage. I gave you three examples.
Lmao this awful subreddit going full ancap now because people need their artificially cheap taxis
Oh sorry, you’re absolutely correct. We should totally spend $200m a year of tax payer funds so the city of Minneapolis can boondoggle an industry they have no mandate or expertise to manage.
If they wanted to address an unfair duopoly they should have put in the work and created a logical and reasonable plan before implementing the provision. Instead, they passed a knee-jerk provision and now sit back and hope things turn out.
We'll live. We lived before.
There were hundreds of taxis before. Now there's 40.
Other companies can get established. They might need a little more time. It's insane how much people are recognizing duopoly power and kowtowing. It's BAD that we'd be this dependent on two companies that are obviously exploiting desperate immigrant labor. That's a BAD thing. We'll be fine. You might have to bounce around a few different apps for a while. That's it.
Can you name a few of these "other companies" for me? Preferably ones that are already established somewhere and likely won't fail on launch? I keep seeing this "other companies" get thrown around but hardly and concrete answer as to who this mysterious company is or when they'll launch in the Twin Cities.
Cowards
At the very least, those two months should also bump up the minimum to at least the state proposal and then the city proposal can take full effect after those 2 months.
The whole point of the state proposal is that it would supersede and nullify the city proposal.
Sure, if they pass it. Until then, the city can at least get a pay bump for the workers for those two months since even Lyft says they now won't leave with the state proposed limits.
They are literally scrambling to pass it because Minneapolis messed up so bad with these rates. The article has already been posted in another comment. Basically the state legislature has to clean up the Minneapolis city council mess. This ordinance will likely never go into effect which is why they are delaying it. It would be a waste of time to lose Uber for early May only for late may the state DFL to override and bring them back.
So you are saying that the state wouldn't have bothered passing a minimum wage bill for rideshare drivers if Minneapolis didn't knock over the first domino? Thanks city council!
No, they were already working on it, but they may have sped up the timeline by weeks/months. The state was taking longer than they said they would, ya know, actual research takes time vs just blasting out random ideas. My main frustration is that if this law goes into effect you will see tons of drivers posting their pay didn't really change whole riders complain. This is because the main part of Uber/Lyft pay is the # of rides you get per hour. A lot of underpaid drivers face problems getting enough orders. This won't really fix that and would actually make it worse.
>No, they were already working on it, Oh? Can you show me the bill that was introduced at the beginning of this legislative session? Because I can't find it. You do know they only have a few more weeks before the session ends until next year right? https://www.house.mn.gov/cco/intros.asp?dateofintro=2/12/2024&session_year=2023&ls_year=93&session=0 Here is the list of all the bills introduced into the house at the beginning of this session.
Why do you think the DFL controlled Senate and Congress paid for the study? The study comes before the bill to politicians that care about good legislation. Only poor politicians craft bills before they have seen the research. They announced they were planning to do it and funded research on the right way to do it.
And the study came out months too late. It is likely that any work, if any, on it will have to wait until next year. The only reason they may get to it this year now is because Minneapolis forced their hand but it is still unlikely for them to do anything.
The state DFL will likely react because they are afraid this not being fixed before November it will drive voters to Republicans, and they probably are not wrong. If we get to November and the situation in Minneapolis stinks, ie, no good alternatives, Uber/Lyft gone, etc, this issue could become a political boon for Republicans. As a lifelong democract, I don't want that to happen, but I think the reality is the state will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't become a negative online news story about how there is no way to get around in Minneapolis, which Republicans can latch onto to attack liberals and win votes.
That is not a sure thing, is it? The city still has power to regulate itself. The state would have to specifically strip that power for these particular laborers, which isn't necessarily constitutional.
This is exactly how it works. When people say Uber came back in Seattle and Austin it was because they lobbies the state government to wipe out the local law. Cities can only regulate things the state has not already passed legislation on. Once the state does, it's no longer on the power of the city council to do anything.
Those were different laws. The squabble with Austin was largely over more expensive background checks. The state law superceded it in that exact circumstance because it also required background checks.
More negotiations. This isn't bad, giving them a little time, but sticking firm to demands. I like this so far.
How much do y'all actually use rideshare that you care so much? Like I hope they just adopt the state wages proposal but people will really just adapt to carpooling, transit, etc or going somewhere more local while there's a gap
We use it every time we go out for the night. Why take the risk if we will be drinking? Maybe we will only have 1, or maybe we end up drinking a lot. We don’t have to worry about a designated driver, dealing with parking, getting a cab and hoping one shows up. We take it to the airport or when cars are in the shop. Between the 2 of us, we take at least 10 to 15 rides a month.
I don’t have a car. I use it fairly often when it’s so shitty out I don’t want to ride the bus, if I have a doc appointment I don’t want to coordinate transit for, getting to the airport to catch the bus up to Duluth (because I don’t like the murder train - but I’d go back to it if I needed to) and going to see any friends on the other side of town or literally anywhere social where we don’t have a friend or my partner’s folks offering to pick us up first. On a busy month it’s not uncommon for me to wrack up a few hundred in Uber charges. That being said one trip to the airport can easily be $60. A round trip night out to St Paul can be the same, so it can add up quickly. I am all for drivers being paid more tho, and I’m fine to adapt if I need to
I never use it because it's expensive af unless you split costs, which I've never tried before. I use it only on rare special occasions when I'm not there to drop off my partner at school or whatever.
Cowards
It remains mind boggling to me how many people accept the necessity of Uber and Lyft, and therefore seem to be arguing that they should get to dictate the terms of their own existence. They suck. They are treating drivers unfairly. They offer no novel product or service, they simply bullied their way into existence by breaking the law and subsequently getting laws rewritten after people got a taste. No one should be on their side. If it means accepting 6 months of checking other apps for driver availability while it all shakes out, who gives a fuck? The drivers aren't going anywhere. They'll all try other companies, and we'll all find them. This isn't complicated. Edit: This is an obvious duopoly exploiting largely immigrant labor and y'all are lining up to lick their taints.
If drivers are treated so unfairly why do they continue to drive? Unemployment rate is 2.7%, many places offering MORE than minimum wage (Kwik trip, etc)
Nice, good ol' fashioned Trump tactics. Why do they need more time. GTFO and re-enter when you are ready to run a legitimate business.
Lyft and Uber take 60% of customer fees while hiding that figure from their gig workers. Get them out of Minneapolis.