3 Reasons Why It Sucks Working for Rideshare Companies

The huge trend of working for a rideshare company has come to a calm. However, the streets are still saturated with drivers in all major cities. Many drivers do Uber or Lyft full-time and earn a decent living. Other drivers, do it for fun or to earn some extra bucks, hence working part-time. It is these part-timers that probably benefit without having to deal with stress in the long run.

See, full-time drivers make the real money, but, in the long run, working in the rideshare business is not beneficial at all. There are many reasons as to why it eventually sucks working for companies like Uber and Lyft. In the end, there are three major reasons, and this piece will point them out blatantly.

Rideshare drivers never move up the ladder.

That’s right, rideshare drivers never move up the ladder with the company they are working with. When a driver works, the pay is dictated by the company, and the driver only makes money on how many hours they put in a week. For the most part, the pay is not that rewarding, so drivers are not that of high paying workers. Basically, the pay is stagnant forever, pretty much.

Additionally, it does not matter how many years a driver works with a rideshare company. At the end, the driver will remain a driver. He or she will only make money on how many hours is put into the week, month, and/or year. Uber and Lyft will never promote a drive for a higher position in the company. So, once a person becomes a driver for a ridesharing company, that person will remain a driver unless they move on to another job.

Uber and Lyft drivers basically get to see how cheap people are. Seriously, the percentage of people that tip when riding a rideshare company is super low. While the companies love to boast about how much people tip, supposedly making drivers happy, the reality is that most don’t. The percentage of tippers are somewhere around 10 percent. That is super low!

During the taxi days, people tip even when the service is bad. Heck, people tip waiters even when the service is bad. One usually tips very low to show the worker that they did a terrible job. But at least, a tip was left! For rideshare drivers, that story is science fiction.

Seriously, Uber and Lyft drivers provide the best transportation service in any town, and they usually get zero for tips. Every once in awhile, a drive might see a tip, but it is rare. In saying that, society has become a cheapskate community. For some reason, customers think that rideshare drivers make a ton of money. So, as a result, most of rideshare customers are too cheap to even for out a cheap one dollar tip.

Another factor why it stinks working for rideshare companies is that these companies want the incentives to be the reason why drivers make good money. Uber and Lyft offer bonuses for a certain amount of rides given by the end of the week, or they give drivers guaranteed surge pay. Guaranteed surge pay is simply when the company boosts pay even when there is no high demand of customers. These incentives practically apply to the full time drivers.

Anyway, these incentives should be more like prizes that drivers get after making good money on their own. See, drivers pay the price for leased cars. If the car is owned, believe it or not, drivers add a lot of miles to their cars. This cost a lot of money as brakes, tires, are constantly being changed. The maintenance costs are doubled compared to the regular city driver.

In saying that, Uber and Lyft love to make drivers think that these incentives are great. They are, but those incentives have to be achieved in order for drivers to make a decent earning. Again, a decent earning is what comes out of these incentives when achieved. Instead, rideshare companies should pay better and make the incentives more like super rewards, because drivers’ cars take a huge beating.