Can Ride-Sharing Startup Lyft Survive the SoCal Heat? 133
First time accepted submitter Kyle Jacoby writes "The app-powered on-demand ride-sharing startup, Lyft, has brought its trademark pink mustaches to San Diego. After a successful venture in San Francisco about a year ago, Lyft has since expanded to offer their services to other congested cities, like Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago. Despite the utility of the service, Lyft (and related services Sidecar and Uber) has recently come under fire from the city of Los Angeles, whose department of transportation issued cease-and-desist letters to the startup. It seems that the service has the taxi community in an uproar, who believe that Lyft ride-share drivers should be required to obtain the permits similar to those required of taxi drivers." Nothing like some regulatory capture for Independence Day. Amid the ongoing strike of BART workers in the Bay Area, I bet some people are using on-line organization tools for ride-sharing with a similar upshot.
Re:Sharing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, the prices are definitely more taxi-like than rideshare-like as well.
If you look at ride-sharing via places like Craigslist, payment is usually roughly on the order of the cost of gas, maybe rounded up. E.g. if you get a ride from SF to LA, a typical asking price is for you to pitch in $50.
But the prices on Lyft seem to be on the order of $15-20 for a short ride within SF, which is more like taxi prices. At that cost you're hiring a paid driver, not pitching in for gas in a rideshare.
the price is not the distinctive thing.
the distinctive thing is simply if the driver would have made the trip regardless. if the driver makes the trip because of the cash, then he is a hired driver...
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pretty tired of people like the GP apoligizing for mafia shakedown tactics.
That's all these protected industries are - state-created monolopies that get to use the force of law to enforce their turf and enrich a few taxi drivers, city employees, and politicians at everyone else's expense.
If people are able to use technology to outmaneuver and bypass indefensible laws then good for them.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
You do need a special license to run a day care service, and you should need a special license to drive people around unless you have a few million in the bank to pay for the damage you cause.
Lots of people work in the underground economy to avoid taxes, and while there is some short term gain to be had be outside the system, there are reasons why the system exists. Some of it bullshit, like wars and NSA and so forth, but some of it comes out of the labor movement and is designed to help and protect workers. Things like unemployment and workers comp. By working under the table, when something goes wrong, you are really screwed. And big business is always looking for ways to shift the costs of doing business onto the worker. This is probably one of those ways.
I don't know about every state, but one of the big games businesses try to play is telling people to become independent contractors. They think that if their workers are ICs, they won't have to pay workers comp premiums. Except the WA state statute doesn't talk about "employees" -- it talks about "workers where the essence of the contract is personal labor." So a while back, it was a popular way for taxi companies to shirk their responsibility by leasing cabs to drivers and making them independent contractors. Didn't work and they got spanked because the drivers provided only personal labor.
In the case of this company, where they act as dispatcher arranging payment, pick up, drop off and act as boss (they'll essentially fire you if you don't live up to their standards) -- that's personal labor. And while you may provide your own car, that isn't good enough to get beyond the "worker" definition (been tried). So anyway, if this company is operating in WA and not paying premiums, it's going to get fined, and if a worker gets hurt while driving, they'll be on the hook for all the claim costs.