Sorry, how does this work when drivers toggle between Uber & Lyft? Is that now officially disallowed? Literally every driver I've ever met contracts through both services, but obviously they can't both be paying the driver $30ish an hour at the same time. (With that being said- I'm definitely rooting for the driver who figures out how to hack the system and does exactly that....)
Neither company is paying them a flat rate, driver pay is just increasing so that when working, the hourly wage will be at least $16 an hour.
This ends up being amortized in per-minute increments, so that for every 15 minutes you’re driving a passenger, you make $4.
Now, this doesn’t mean that if demand is low in an area or its 2am and no one is searching for a car that drivers still get paid for time they drive around without working. There have been legislation attempts to do that, but they’ve failed (notably in California and other places).
You aren’t paid by any of these services for the time you spend seeking out a passenger — which is the same way taxi cabs work. Work time begins and ends with the ride itself.
That’s actually one of the criticisms made against these types of requirements, because there is an argument to be made that if fares rise too much, that will suppress demand (and especially suppress demand in lower-income areas), leading to drivers spending more time driving in circles trying to catch rides, so that their net income is less than it was before. The related part of that argument is that it will lower driver availability in areas that are hard to get to, leading riders in those areas with fewer options, regardless of how much they are willing to spend, because drivers are choosing to stick to heavily trafficked areas.
So a driver can still use both services, but they can’t double-dip, because it isn’t possible to drive two passengers at once (I mean, I guess it is, but that activity would get a driver banned from both services).
Also, if the demand doesn't decrease and stays the same, even then the drivers will earn less. How? Because, there will be a rise in number of drivers, due to it being more profitable now. This will lead to more drivers sitting idle at any given time. Overall incomes will initially decrease and then slowly come back to current incomes as an equilibrium is reached. In the end we'll have more drivers, each earning the same as now. I don't think the goal of minimum wage can be achieved by raising prices.
From skimming the bill, they assume you’re at 50% utilization, so for every minute you have a passenger, you must get paid at least two minimum wage minutes. So it doesn’t matter which platform or if you’re idling.
