Or you might call three or four companies before you find one who actually will send a driver to your address, and then he doesn’t show up, so now you have to call more. Uber wouldn’t exist if this worked satisfactorily for most people.
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This.
ETA: The ride share services add a level of convenience. Less time is wasted when you want to take an off the cuff cab ride.
No reason the existing medallion’d cab companies can’t get it together to bring that same level of service to the table.
But I get the feeling @abnercadaver was just being a crabby luddite, and doesn’t care about the gap in service.
But presumably a barber license would include phlebotomy as well as minor surgery – that’s why barber poles are red and white – they are advertising that they also provide bleeding services. Granted, many barbers may seem surprised by the request, but if they don’t, their pole is false advertising!
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Can someone compare/contrast Uber’s business model with that of a traditional taxi company? Here’s what I’m thinking: Traditional Taxi companies own and maintain their own cars AND have the additional expense of medallion fees, yet their business model seemed to work for 60 years or so. As I understand it, Uber’s fares are higher and their cars should be spending more time carrying fares thanks to fancy routing software.
So, is the problem just that Uber’s capitalists are skimming more than their share of the fares, thus leaving their drivers in the mess? Or is there something inherently less sustainable about their business model than that of the cab companies?
EDIT: I re-read the article, and see now that it answers my question with “Uber’s fares are too low.” It hasn’t been my experience that Uber is cheaper than a taxi but maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.
These are requests I would not make. My old barber would definitely cut you. Or me. His flair with a straight razor tests the customers ability to accept a shave calmly and fatalistically.
Staring yourself in the eye as the blade whips around, you enjoy the warmth of the cream before it is scraped off your throat, you know you will just continue to look yourself in the eye and bleed to death if that is your end. You always wanted to be a cowboy.
The sting of the aftershave is the sweet kiss of life, how many such journeys have you looking so sharp at the end? You tip well.
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I recall seeing a John Oliver piece on chicken farming. At one point, the corporation that sells chicks and buys chickens explained that “The farmers own the land and the equipment, we only own the chickens.” It cut back to Oliver who said: “So the farmers own everything that costs money, and you own everything that makes money.”
I understand that in a lot of ways Uber isn’t that different than other businesses. Salespeople working on commission can deduct vehicle depreciation from their taxes in Canada (I assume they can in America as well). We understand that people need vehicles to do work, and sometimes you need to bring your own.
I think it’s pretty obvious that Uber drivers are getting screwed by their working conditions. Uber wouldn’t have to fight in court to deny that their employees are even contractors if they weren’t screwing them. This capital cost issue is a way they are making that screwing less transparent to the people being screwed.
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I’m going to start my own disruptive company, lending cars to Uber drivers.
Not precisely the same thing, but there are already several companies that will rent you a car that you can use to drive for Uber or Lyft (e.g., HyreCar).
Someone here at work almost did that:
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I was going to say, that used to be a thing when I was in high school.
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They were starting to phase it out in my home state when I was a teen.
Over the last 25 years, numerous schools have been closed in my home town, including the only two high schools that were specifically dedicated to vocational training.
There’s also at least two national-level phlebotomist associations that, as far as I can tell, confer no actual benefits and hold no authority whatsoever. One of them still uses an AOL email address, for cryin’ out loud. My wife paid her dues to one for a couple of years before I took a closer look at the organization. I finally convinced her that the worst thing that would happen if she didn’t renew is that someone else might have a little more trouble making a boat payment.
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Well, those weren’t an issue for me in 1982. However, it sounds like labs refuse to train and rely on what? For-profit colleges.
eta: A law firm can train you to be a paralegal, a bar can train you to be a bartender, a doctor’s office can train you to be an assistant, etc., but most places want applicants who can show proof of skills. (Enter the copious amount of para-professional trade colleges into the market.)
I’m agreeing with you, and wonder if it might be easier in, for example, a small town to get one’s foot in the door. My wife did go to a for-profit school school (no longer in business), and when she finished, the phlebotomists’ association was conveniently there to ask her for her certification payment.
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Okay… if Zizek drove for Uber in Ljubljana… I’d take an Uber in Ljubljana…
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