July 22, 2015
You’ve got to admire those Silicon Valley boys, they hire one of President Obama’s top political advisers as a lobbyist, put out misleading studies on drivers’ pay, and now they are trying to get their drivers to lobby to reduce their own pay.
The context for the latter was their urging of their “partners” to come to a rally against New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to freeze the number of new cars for hire that Uber and other Internet based companies can put on the city’s streets. De Blasio was ostensibly putting in place this freeze to reduce congestion.
Whether or not the freeze is justified, one thing that is straightforward is that it would act to protect the earnings of existing Uber drivers in the same way that it would protect the earnings of the incumbent taxi industry. With fewer taxis on the road, there will be more passengers for each driver. This is likely to make an especially large difference for Uber drivers since its surge pricing model will lead to automatic fare increases when cars are in short supply.
This means that Uber was effectively asking these drivers to demand that the city cut their pay. I guess we’ll see if it works, maybe it really is a new economy.
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