In my eyes, they are. Uber doesn't own any cars, they don't pay maintenance on these vehicles, so no matter what uber states you make, your actual take is far lower. I had a driver whose car had been totaled and was being held by the dealership, the driver was using a rental car to try and save up enough to pay the dealer. The people who drive for uber are often desperate and struggling, and given these two rideshare companies are famous for burning millions of dollars in VC money with little to show for it, quarter after quarter since they began, why not burn just a little bit more and actually offer benefits that any other employee in any other profession would already be entitled to?
> no matter what uber states you make, your actual take is far lower.
It depends. For a lot of drivers, the car is a sunk cost. That is to say, they would own the car regardless of whether or not they were driving for Uber because they need to meet their own personal transportation needs regardless of Uber/Lyft. For example, you can't take into account vehicle depreciation, because the vehicle depreciates regardless of whether or not you drive for Uber/Lyft.
The one significant cost that increases strictly as a consequence of driving for Uber/Lyft is vehicle wear-and-tear. However, when you take into account vehicle maintenance, Uber/Lyft drivers still make far more than minimum wage.
Uber requires that you have a certain car. I've had drivers who have leased a newer car to drive for uber, and I've had drivers that were renting their car from Hertz. It's a huge assumption that most uber drivers already had a sufficient car, and even if they did, the maintenance costs will surge as they pound on the mileage. Same problems with being a pizza delivery boy, but you can't get away with a 'disposable' 1k car.
> For example, you can't take into account vehicle depreciation, because the vehicle depreciates regardless of whether or not you drive for Uber/Lyft.
For taxable depreciation, which is generally equally spaced over a fixed time, ok. For actual economic depreiciation, as in the difference in what you paid vs what you could sell it for, time and mileage are both factors, extra miles from driving for hire reduce the sales value of the vehicle.
> time and mileage are both factors, extra miles from driving for hire reduce the sales value of the vehicle.
Yes, but time impacts depreciation far more than mileage, and the time-based portion of depreciation is a sunk cost. You can definitely argue that drivers accrue more miles driving for Uber/Lyft, and that they should be reimbursed for that, and I would agree with you. However...
Compare the Bluebook value of a typical car that might be used for this kind of work at ten years old with 120k miles (12k/year) vs. ten years old with a million miles (100k/year). The difference will end up being around $2500, because after ten years the car will be worth hardly any more than that no matter how many miles it has on it, and it can't lose more than 100% of its value due to higher mileage. ~$2500 amortized over 880k additional miles is <0.003/mile.
A 2016 Camry with 60,000 miles is worth about $5000 more than a 2016 Camry with 500,000 miles, which works out to about ~$.01/mile of depreciation.
So in a regime where drivers are compensated for the mileage-based component of the vehicle depreciation, and if the average number of miles per trip is, say 10 miles, you're looking at drivers earning about 10 cents more, per trip.
