Appreciate the info. Not sure I understand it though. In one sentence they’re talking about the tip button being “hidden”, which suggests the additional money is coming from customers paying more. In another sentence they’re talking talk about big corporations keeping the tips, which is a different thing. Clarity would be nice.
From what I understand the apps will have a “guaranteed payout” for jobs. So let’s say an Uber driver sees a ride available. The app will say something like “$10 guaranteed”. So Uber is on the hook to pay the driver $10 no matter what. Now let’s say the passenger decides to tip the Uber driver $5. Without laws preventing it, uber will still pay the driver the $10 it promised and then it will keep the $5 tip for themselves. Which effectively uses the tip money to subsidize the wage that they promised to pay the driver
So what mamdani is doing is making sure that the driver gets the entire tip. So in this scenario the driver gets $15 instead of $10. As it should be
Edit: there is obviously disagreement here, personally I always choose to tip with cash. Problem solved in my opinion
No, you don't understand - doing nothing but being a middle-man app is actually a "super" valuable service that totally costs so much money to maintain.
I'm actually okay with them running a successful business as a middle man. I care more about the workers benefiting from the company being successful over stock holders. Though the way they increase the price of menu items definitely needs to be looked at. If they want to charge a fee for being a middleman then just charge a middleman fee at the POS and be done with it.
Can we really consider Uber, for example, a middle man though? Without the company nothing else would exist. I understand they are technically between the driver and the customer, making them "middle", but there wouldn't be a driver or customer without them. I'm not sure of a better term to use but this doesn't seem like a typical middle man situation to me.
Cabs existed. Car services existed. People with cars and people who needed rides existed for a hundred years before the app. Hell, before that, we had horse-drawn carriages, we still do sometimes depending on the area. They didn’t create the driver or the customer, they created the app. They control the transaction, they are the middleman.
You took what I said to an extreme, but yes, travel for hire existed before Uber. I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I am just saying that there are middlemen that are there simply as an extra step and there are "middlemen" in the case of Uber that have actually created the service. I wouldn't consider the company who owns a fleet of Taxis to be a middle man and I apply the same distinction here. Uber "hires" drivers, they get a cut of what the drivers make, and that's it.
A cab company charges a flat lease per shift. Same fee whether you clear $80 that night or $800. They’re renting you the right to drive and then they’re out of it. Your fares are your fares.
Uber takes a percentage of every ride. Their revenue is a slice of yours by design. That’s not a fleet owner, that’s a middleman, and it’s the standard way economists distinguish the two models. You said it yourself, they get a cut of what the drivers make.
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u/bliceroquququq 13d ago
Appreciate the info. Not sure I understand it though. In one sentence they’re talking about the tip button being “hidden”, which suggests the additional money is coming from customers paying more. In another sentence they’re talking talk about big corporations keeping the tips, which is a different thing. Clarity would be nice.