Name: ユーバーの経済学 (The Economics of Uber)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T11:21:45.000Z
Duration: 9 min 42 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

基礎受動態

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Uber is the highest-valued private company in the world,

More than Airbnb, SpaceX, and Lyft combined.

Every day, 15 million rides are taken across 600 cities in 78 countries -

Everywhere from the Southern Tip of Africa to the tiny town of Gridley, California - home

of the Red Suspenders Festival, I'm sure you're familiar.

Uber is so successful because it's so convenient.

Open the app and choose a ride - standard, or luxury, or, in India, rickshaw.

Afterwards, you rate the driver, and they rate you.

1 through 4 stars being the worst experience of your life.

And five stars, anywhere from Mostly Tolerable to Absolutely amazing.

I'm only slightly kidding: a 4.6 average can get a driver deactivated.

Still better than Netflix's thumbs up or down, which is 80% sure I'll like The Emoji

Finally, Uber calculates the price, it's really very simple:

Start with the regular base fare, add the per minute rate multiplied by time spent in

car, plus distance times the per mile rate, all of which depend on the city.

A $40 ride in Tokyo costs $1.62 in Cairo.

Then add the booking fee, and possibly airport, toll, cancellation, cleaning, and lost item

UNLESS there are too many riders and not enough drivers, in which case multiply by a surge

2, 3, or, on New Years Eve Two-Thousand-Eleven, seven times the normal price.

And as YoutUBERs have shown, algorithms can be manipulated:

If drivers log out at the same time, they create a shortage and trigger a surge.

Oh, it also uses machine learning to predict how much you're willing to pay based on

so maybe don't call an Uber from the Burj Khalifa to The Bellagio, besides the fact

Even despite this, Uber is almost always cheaper, faster, and easier.

It took the most outdated, inefficient industry,

sprinkled in something called “Technology”

Oh, come on, you should know by now, there's always a twist…

In the 1930's, The Great Depression… happened.

Every fourth American was unemployed and desperate for work.

Especially low-skill, low barrier-to-entry jobs,

But, YouTube hadn't been invented, so, they drove taxis - lots and lots of taxis.

Meanwhile, fewer people could afford a ride.

And, as I was taught by a monopoly educating me about the danger of monopolies, When this

line goes up, and this ones goes down, prices fall and drivers get angry.

Like, violent protests in the street angry.

Now, to legally operate a taxi, you'd need one of 17,000 licenses called medallions.

But 81 years later, with a million more people, it's only 13,000.

The number of medallions issued is more political than it is practical.

Before, extreme competition made prices unsustainably low.

And then, the pendulum reversed - too little competition made taxis expensive and inefficient

One medallion, the right to operate a single taxi, was once worth over a million dollars.

But advice like this hasn't aged so well.

Its drivers flood the market by not requiring medallions, draining their value.

High competition, low prices, and angry calls for regulation - Sound familiar?

This time, we aren't in an economic depression, but many households are, which means lots

For you and I, Uber is revolutionary - the low prices of last century plus the magic

If you ask Uber what the average driver makes an hour, they point you to this study: $19.19.

Not too bad - unless, you look under the hood.

What they don't include are the car, its depreciation, maintenance, gas, and some of

Adjust for these and things aren't so rosy -

This study estimates the median hourly profit is eight fifty five before taxes,

less than minimum wage for 54% of drivers.

You might say: But Uber is supplementary - a quick way to make extra cash between jobs.

And, that's mostly true, about 60% have another primary income.

Plus, unlike taxis, who are even legally required to wear black socks in LA, with Uber, you

But the reason people don't drive more might only be they can't.

Because Uber considers its drivers not employees, but independent contractors.

Employees are entitled to minimum wage, gas reimbursement, overtime, breaks, collective

bargaining, paid leave, and health insurance,

Which would cost the company about 4 billion dollars a year.

So they're extremely careful to call drivers “partners”, and itself, not a transportation

Simply connecting riders to drivers, who decide when to work, what to wear, and so on.

And that's the catch - if drivers are just independent businesses, Uber setting their

That depends on who you ask and when, and the answer will shape the future of the industry.

But something doesn't add up, The golden age for drivers came from regulating competition,

the same regulation Uber spends millions of dollars fighting.

Going back to the days of high competition and low prices.

If Uber takes a cut from drivers, their interests should be the same.

Regulation, of course, slows its growth, but there's also another reason:

Drivers compete - but Uber makes the same commission regardless of who picks you up.

But drivers want the opposite - less competition.