Inefficiencies with The Current Rideshare Giants

As rideshare giants grew in size and popularity, they started to be seen as less of a “partner” and more as a one-sided, monolithic, profit-driven entity that ignores their most valuable resource — the drivers. In fact, improving employee relationships to maintain the current supply of drivers became crucial for companies like Uber and Lyft. This task is becoming more difficult as driver relationships deteriorate, primarily due to low earnings for drivers.

Uber is also known to use a combination of subsidies and promotions to grow its driver pool. The company also uses a process called slogging — singling out drivers on competing services such as Lyft to convert them to Uberl.

However, after completing their first handful of rides, many of these newly-recruited drivers notice a significant drop in the number of ride requests they receive. This obviously results in a drop in earning. For many drivers, the decrease in revenue can be so severe that they choose to stop driving for Uber altogether.

In addition, the subsidies Uber offers mask the true cost of a ride. In 2015, passengers that used Uber were paying only 40% of the actual cost of their trips and new drivers were receiving less than 70% of the fair.

Over the past 4 years, the ride-hailing giant has also had a series of scandals that put the company’s ethics into question. To cite one example, in October 2016, Uber deliberately concealed a massive breach of the personal information of 57 million users and drivers. A year later, in 2017, revelations about Uber using custom-built tools to deceive law enforcement came to light.