While Americans patronizing the country’s two largest unregulated cab companies may not have noticed much difference, the firms have dramatically shifted in three ways.
The first happened when, as per “Uber and Lyft Drivers in
California Will Remain Independent” by Kate Conger in the November 4th
New York Times, the state’s hotly contested “Proposition 22, a ballot
measure that allows gig economy companies to continue treating drivers as
independent contractors,” passed with 59% of voters agreeing, despite solid
conceptual reasons why workers called by apps were true employees. While only in one state, the result has taken
the wind out of the sails of status-conferring efforts elsewhere, has damaged
true taxicab providers, and was described by Conger as “a bitter loss for state
and local officials who have long seen the ride-hailing companies as obstinate
upstarts that shrugged off any effort to make them follow the rules.” Following reactions were well summarized in
the titles of two other articles, “Fight Over Gig Workers Persists Despite Win
for Uber and Lyft” (Noam Scheiber and Kate Conger, The New York Times,
November 11th) and “New U.S. rule could boost ‘gig economy’
companies while costing American workers billions” (Levi Sumagaysay, MarketWatch,
January 6th). Since then,
though, we learned from Henry Grabar in the April 30th Slate “What
Uber and DoorDash’s Investors Are Suddenly Afraid Of,” that being a comment by Secretary
of Labor Marty Walsh that “in a lot of cases gig workers should be classified
as employees.” Perhaps such a
pronouncement, here applied to a local delivery service as well, will direct
legal changes, but for now California’s decision is fully in effect.
The second change was in what Uber and Lyft are
planning. That was shown by three
divestments of what these companies were developing to rescue them from
indefinite money losses, as “Uber, After Years of Trying, Is Handing Off Its
Self-Driving Car Project” by Cade Metz and Kate Conger in the December 7th
New York Times, “Uber Jettisons Flying Car Project” also by Metz in the December
8th Times, and “Lyft sells self-driving unit to Toyota’s
Woven Planet for $550M” by Kirsten Korosec on April 25th in TechCrunch. While it’s no surprise that after the past
two years driverless vehicles have lost their immediate promise, it is
noteworthy that Uber and Lyft, neither of which have ever been profitable as
public companies despite billions in annual revenue, are seemingly staying the
same.
The final large ridesharing swerve, actually a winding road,
was delivered by the coronavirus, as “COVID didn’t kill gig economy, the
pandemic accelerated it” (Brian Straight, FreightWaves, February 5th). The previous calendar year was a good one for
such positions, with a daVinci Payments survey showing that total payments for gigs
were one-third more, or $1.6 trillion-plus, than in 2019. However, USA Today reported on May 24th
that “Permanent jobs rise as employers sweeten pay, benefits for gig workers
amid labor shortages” (by Paul Davidson).
That will last only as long as high numbers of candidates stay off the
job, though, which will most likely end within a few months. That will leave Uber and Lyft once again in
doubtful territory. As I said years ago
and which still holds now, you can ride them to your heart’s content, but find
better companies in which to invest.