Techdirt Podcast Episode 15: What's It Like To Drive For Uber And Lyft?

from the the-gig-economy dept

Services like Uber and Lyft have been disrupting the taxi industry, and plenty more industries, too. In fact, they are the progenitors of a new and growing "gig economy". But what's it like to actually drive for one? Podcast co-host Dennis Yang has been trying his hand as a driver for both services, and in this episode he shares his experiences and sparks off a discussion about the future of this economy.

Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via iTunes, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: gig economy, podcast, ride sharing
Companies: lyft, sidecar, uber


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Mar 2015 @ 2:59pm

    For those that say drivers are being taken advantage of the logical reason they do it is because their next best alternative is worse. Now employers must compete harder for employees or else now employees have more alternative ways to make money.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Killer_Tofu (profile), 11 Mar 2015 @ 10:51am

    I know I don't post much on TD compared to my days of years past, but I do still at least read every post title and a good half of the posts. I am enjoying the podcast so far. Thank you guys for doing it. This one particularly was enlightening as to how both services work and how far they've come. Being where I am at in Michigan I don't think I have ever seen the mustaches or other signatures in person. Although, as stated in the podcast that doesn't mean as much these days.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 11 Mar 2015 @ 2:16pm

      Re:

      The fact is that govt. established taxi cab monopolies were a huge economic burden and allowing for these much better alternatives creates huge economic efficiencies. There are many people who don't drive that now mostly use Uber to get around because it's much cheaper than what a cab used to cost. If it weren't for these competing services many of these people would simply be unable to get around (to work, to the store, etc...) nearly as efficiently which would greatly limit their ability to get around (ie: they would have to take bikes everywhere). In Chili, when I visited there (years before Uber and Lyft) many people took taxi cabs everywhere (to work, etc...) because it was affordable. When politicians limit competition due to their corrupt nature it imposes huge economic burdens and it's important for us as a society to really appreciate how socially burdensome political corruption is so that we can prevent and undo many of the politically motivated laws (ie: 95+ year copy protection lengths).

      link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.