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

from the the-gig-economy dept

Tue, Mar 10th 2015 12:39pm — Leigh Beadon

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.

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

3 Comments

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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.
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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.
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- 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).
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