# Pulled the plug. Thanks for everything guys. (caution: TL;DR wall-O-text inside)



## Cape67 (May 17, 2016)

So you clicked on this thread anyways despite the title? Well good on you!
Seriously though. Just wanted to say to the website owner and members of this here virtual 'Berg, thanks for the entertainment and insights. It's been fun.

They say that the lifespan of the average Uber driver is about six months. I lasted for just shy of ten, and I'm not even sure how I lasted that long. But it was, at the end, an overall neat experience. It truly is a shame to watch Uber spiral down into it's current iterative form, such as it is.

My story is nothing new, most of my reasons for scrubbing the app from my phone and deactivating my account have been posted before and mentioned by many. So briefly, to wit, why I left (IE my Great Wall Of Text, for anybody who cares):


The Ratings System - Clearly a flawed system that continues to hang unreasonable powers over the driver's head and stress in their heart. Giving the riders the power of a five star system with many pax either not understanding that anything less than five stars is detrimental to the driver, combined with the abusive, vindictive special snowflakes who use the ratings system as a tool of coercion and derision makes it an effective weapon for the socially not-so-well. Examples, younger riders one-star an older driver simply because they hate anyone over 35 (post-election.) Feminist women may one-star a male driver for no good reason, even if the ride was truly a five star ride, smooth as glass, no wrong turns, car immaculate. One-star for the penis, a passive-aggressive mini-castration performed from her bejeweled iPhone from miles away. O the power! Since Trump's winning the election, my rating spiraled down to as low as 4.73, which is where I parked it. Before November 11th, I ran much higher on the same effort with the same driving style and the same car. I literally changed nothing about my ride experience. Unfortunately, I have the misfortune of being a caucasian male over 40 with many pax being younger, many of whom were Hispanic. Never once talked politics (not crazy about either side honestly,) just wanted to continue doing what I was doing, but I can't very well change who I am. Yes, people are judgmental and yes, obviously there are a lot of butthurt millenials out there, which is fine, but sadly they use things like the star system as a passive-aggressive way to 'get back' at whatever perceived problems they believe are out there, even if you have nothing to do with said problems. Remember too, that it doesn't matter who you are, whatever race you are or wherever you are from, this country is more polarized than ever, and "X percent" of your pax are going to be juxtaposed to you in some way. *More and more pax are judging their drivers based on anything but the actual ride experience*. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just some dude with a car, you need to go somewhere, who cares about what's going on there in CrazyLand, but sadly, *it's that one out of 15 pax that kind of kills the whole affair*. Sure, you may disagree with me, or judge me based on ridiculous precedent, and that's cool, that's just how it went down for me. I'm not going to sweat out the next twenty rides because one person with a chip on their shoulder decided to one-star me simply because I am older, white, or a male. That's not what America is all about, and no, it's not a one-way gate. I've heard stories of younger drivers getting one-starred by older people, female drivers getting one or two-starred because they weren't flirty enough, black drivers getting one-starred simply because they are black, or Hispanic, or Asian. And this is why the Ratings system is an utter failure. *Nobody should be afraid of who they are, or what the opinion of 'the next ping' is going to be*. We are drivers. We actually want to get you to where you want to go, cheaply. Period. Clearly, Uber does not understand this, and continues to use their ******ed Star System as a whip to keep the drivers and their cars submissive, overpolished and overly clean. 


Uber has driven the earnings to the point where you are basically converting the market equity value of your car into cash. Unless you are absolutely willing to live in your car parked in a 7-11 parking lot, sometimes for hours at a time, most of the areas that Uber serves (geographically) are what is called low density urban populations. I happen to be in one of those areas. Even for bigger cities, often the destination will be an outlying suburb or even exurb. What this results in are a lot of 'dead' miles and this has been talked about to death, so I won't go into it much. My car happens to be one of the most efficient cars out there, a Chevy Volt, and I run about 78 MPGe off a full charge, the remaining miles in hybrid mode. I have yet to change the oil in it since it only needs that every 20k miles. The tires are still great since an electric car uses linear traction for propulsion (at least that's how GM engineers explain it, I dont fully understand it honestly) and detailing/cleaning is relatively easy. Thankfully I was able to run this car in my particular market, my cancel ratio was at 5% when I quit, so no problems there. So I can safely say that, since my cost-per mile to run my car is far lower than just about any other car, I was realistically only netting about 35-40 cents a mile, and that factors in dead miles and everything else, or about $40 for every 100 miles or thereabout. I can't imagine what the true net revenue would be for a Toyota Corolla or a Hyundai Elantra but whatever it is, it is far less. Personally, I don't know how anyone can still do this for the money. Even the most basal minimum wage job would be about as profitable and honestly, driving strangers around in traffic should not be a minimum wage job. Your personal risk and sacrifice of time and property is much, much higher than working at Wal-Mart or Subway. It should not be this way, but it is. 


 Uber X has turned into what I call the "welfare momma taxi" service for my area (and probably yours too) since the rates hit the floor. How much fun is it to have someone come out of their house on pickup with three kids rambling behind them? Sure, you refuse and yes, you'd be nuts to drive kids with no child seats. But you know what? That person just wasted my time and money. I drive out to their location only to cancel the ride because they think it's "fine" to break the law. Towards the end, this happened more than I would have liked. But who cares? Uber could care less, the pax could care less too, they will simply ping driver after driver until they find that one person dumb (or desperate) enough to roll the dice. And so it goes. The clientele, I have noticed, have dropped like a stone. While I don't judge people if they are poor (we've all been poor at some point, well, most of us) but I do judge people if they reek of BO because they clearly have not bothered to shower in four days. You can buy an 8 pack of Irish Spring soap for $3.00 at Dollar General. If you are so poor that you cannot afford a 38 cent bar of freaking soap, you probably don't have any business hailing an Uber because you obviously have much, much bigger problems going on right about now.
 
Too many drivers. There's nothing that can be done about this, hell, at least there's now one less. I won't miss watching the poor shmucks on the pax app sitting at the nearby parking lots for hours on end, waiting for a single ping, sometimes in 110 degree heat. Poor bastards. They must be so hungry, unemployable, or both. Via con Dios, fellow former co-workers, whoever you were, equipped with what I imagine must be gallon-capacity urinals you perhaps have esoterically tucked in the bowels of your car somewhere. 
So, in the end, my good friends, I must say that driving with Uber was kind of like getting a lap dance from a drug addicted stripper for the first time. In the beginning, you can't believe it's happening its so amazing and new. In the middle, the cracks show, flaws become apparent, her breath hints of bile and ash, probably from meth or another drug of choice, her foundation crinkles in the strobe, she's no longer twenty-two but now fourty-something in a mere pulse. 
 And then, the song predictably ends far too early and she asks you if you want to go again sweetie, eyes transfixed, arms on your shoulders, legs still pulsing from the last dropped beats. 
At which point, you smile back, you say thank you, you were great but I'm good. 
Thanks, but no thanks miss Uber, I'm good.

The end.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far. Take care, good luck and be safe, all.
-Cape67


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## NachonCheeze (Sep 8, 2015)

You know way to much about strippers.


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## 4Wheels (Jan 10, 2017)

Wow you're really bumming me out. When people complain but stay it's hard to believe it all that bad. When people complain and quit ubering it kind of makes me reconsider whether I want to do this.


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## Over/Uber (Jan 2, 2017)

Creative Writing class project?


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## Mars Troll Number 4 (Oct 30, 2015)

NachonCheeze said:


> You know way to much about strippers.


About 90% of the time strippers end up paying me for their cab rides in singles...

And it's really nice because it's actually really hard to get small bills to make change at night.


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## Over/Uber (Jan 2, 2017)

4Wheels said:


> Wow you're really bumming me out. When people complain but stay it's hard to believe it all that bad. When people complain and quit ubering it kind of makes me reconsider whether I want to do this.


Don't do it as a career. Try it for awhile. Consider it a temporary gig or a side gig (as I do). Take good day and weeks with the bad and figure it may or may not average out to what another decent paying job will provide.

I work PDX and surrounding communities and it is a busy market. I rarely wait more the 5 mins for a ping and sometimes they overlap. Still, some weeks it's about $12-$13/hr before expenses and others it's $18-$22/hr. Drive 5-10 hours per "shift."

A lot of your earning ability will depend on market and your ability to play it, and play it you must. The cheap transportation world is a cold b!tch. Cabbies hate you. Pax rarely tip and aren't looking for a new friend...they rarely look you in the eye. Uber slaps your hand with petty little app access games and may even send you a message regarding some arbitrary issue they have with your work habits, which you learn about as you go because they don't explain it all up front.


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## Mars Troll Number 4 (Oct 30, 2015)

Over/Uber said:


> Don't do it as a career. Try it for awhile. Consider it a temporary gig or a side gig (as I do). Take good day and weeks with the bad and figure it may or may not average out to what another decent paying job will provide.
> 
> I work PDX and surrounding communities and it is a busy market. I rarely wait more the 5 mins for a ping and sometimes they overlap. Still, some weeks it's about $12-$13/hr before expenses and others it's $18-$22/hr. Drive 5-10 hours per "shift."
> 
> A lot of your earning ability will depend on market and your ability to play it, and play it you must. The cheap transportation world is a cold b!tch. Cabbies hate you. Pax rarely tip and aren't looking for a new friend...they rarely look you in the eye. Uber slaps your hand with petty little app access games and may even send you a message regarding some arbitrary issue they have with your work habits, which you learn about as you go because they don't explain it all up front.


I don't hate you, I pity you.

I basically feel the same way about you that South Korean Soldiers feel about North Korean Soldiers.

We're the same... but your starving under an opressive regime. Same but so much worse off...


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## Over/Uber (Jan 2, 2017)

Mears Troll Number 4 said:


> I don't hate you, I pity you.
> 
> but your starving under an opressive regime. Same but so much worse off...


Why pity when you don't even know me or my situation (or that of many others here). Yet, you seem to believe it's your calling to be the voice of what you feel is everything bad about being a rideshare driver.

Don't pity me. I run an annual $6figure household. I only rideshare to keep a little cashflow going and stay busy when my regular work is slow, and I love driving around my beautiful city.


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## noobiznessdriving (Sep 12, 2016)

6 figure household and drivin for uber.
so much lols.


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## Over/Uber (Jan 2, 2017)

noobiznessdriving said:


> 6 figure household and drivin for uber.
> so much lols.


I know, right?

I did leave out that there's 5 adults contributing to income and we have a communal living arrangement.

Just keepin' up a hustle.


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## ChortlingCrison (Mar 30, 2016)

Cape67 said:


> So you clicked on this thread anyways despite the title? Well good on you!
> Seriously though. Just wanted to say to the website owner and members of this here virtual 'Berg, thanks for the entertainment and insights. It's been fun.
> 
> They say that the lifespan of the average Uber driver is about six months. I lasted for just shy of ten, and I'm not even sure how I lasted that long. But it was, at the end, an overall neat experience. It truly is a shame to watch Uber spiral down into it's current iterative form, such as it is.
> ...


Leaving uber is a great decision on your part. Good luck with your future endeavors.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

Cape67 said:


> So you clicked on this thread anyways despite the title? Well good on you!
> Seriously though. Just wanted to say to the website owner and members of this here virtual 'Berg, thanks for the entertainment and insights. It's been fun.
> 
> They say that the lifespan of the average Uber driver is about six months. I lasted for just shy of ten, and I'm not even sure how I lasted that long. But it was, at the end, an overall neat experience. It truly is a shame to watch Uber spiral down into it's current iterative form, such as it is.
> ...


Uber Ratings are racist
White males over 40 are Government Mules.
Uber pay cuts have turned the Garden of Eden into the back Alleys of Hell. Pax and scenery display the change.
Uber has saturated the market.
It is the only area they can show a growth algorithm to bilk investors.
Irish spring is 2 bars for a dollar at dollar tree. Not 38¢.
Be sure to brush cooties from your lap after the lap dance.
Good bye and good luck.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

NachonCheeze said:


> You know way to much about strippers.


Lmao
It's only fun when they buy you drinks.


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## Julescase (Mar 29, 2017)

Cape67 said:


> So you clicked on this thread anyways despite the title? Well good on you!
> Seriously though. Just wanted to say to the website owner and members of this here virtual 'Berg, thanks for the entertainment and insights. It's been fun.
> 
> They say that the lifespan of the average Uber driver is about six months. I lasted for just shy of ten, and I'm not even sure how I lasted that long. But it was, at the end, an overall neat experience. It truly is a shame to watch Uber spiral down into it's current iterative form, such as it is.
> ...


I know this thread was created over a year ago but I just read it and it was AMAZING. OP took the words out of my mouth and the thoughts out of my head. Spot on. All of my feelings in one concise post.

Sadly, I'm reading threads on this "I quit" forum as I pace around my home, trying to achieve at least 10,000 steps on my Stepz app, while procrastinating about getting in my car to drive atrocious, entitled, cheap, obnoxious pax around the city tonight.


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## Julescase (Mar 29, 2017)

transporter007 said:


> * No way am I reading that. Post outline or cliffs notes
> *


Sadly, this forum seems to be populated with an over abundance of folks who are anti-reading. Anti-written word.

It's too bad, they don't know what they're missing!


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

Cape67 said:


> So you clicked on this thread anyways despite the title? Well good on you!
> Seriously though. Just wanted to say to the website owner and members of this here virtual 'Berg, thanks for the entertainment and insights. It's been fun.
> 
> They say that the lifespan of the average Uber driver is about six months. I lasted for just shy of ten, and I'm not even sure how I lasted that long. But it was, at the end, an overall neat experience. It truly is a shame to watch Uber spiral down into it's current iterative form, such as it is.
> ...


White Male Over 40 is the" GOVERNMENT MULE "!

OFFICIAL BEAST OF BURDEN FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY !

They are taught it is GOOD TO ABUSE AND TAKE FROM THE GOVERNMENT MULE !

Tax him and ruin him.
Make him pay for FREE COLLEGE FOR ILLEGALS !

Its o.k. to hate the Govt. Mule according to Democratic Party.

( who will pull their free loader Wagon when he is gone ?)


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## transporter007 (Feb 19, 2018)

Julescase said:


> Sadly, this forum seems to be populated with an over abundance of folks who are anti-reading. Anti-written word.
> 
> It's too bad, they don't know what they're missing!


It's not so much this forum, it an entire generation 
One could chalk it up to having a typical Millenial attention span -one that understands thoughts in 140 characters or less

In other words, get to the point, period

http://www.millennialmarketing.com/2010/05/do-millennials-read-yes-but-they-read-differently/


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