# Lyft rate cut up to 20% in Denver



## bondad (Apr 4, 2015)

Just when I thought Lyft was a better company to drive for, they announced a 20% rate cut in Denver and even tried the Uber line of "now our drivers will make more". They still have a $750 new driver bonus here and will be running a marketing campaign so I expect this market is about to be over saturated with drivers...


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## txdriver (Mar 15, 2015)

They are cutting 25% here in Austin and have a $500 new driver bonus. I'm exclusively Lyft and don't drive for Uber so this is bad news. They're using the same tatics as Uber, rate cuts to increase ridership to increase earnings, which I doubt. Looks like I might have to work twice as hard now with all the drivers here and the rate cut just to make what I'm making now.


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## corrado (Jan 19, 2015)

W


bondad said:


> Just when I thought Lyft was a better company to drive for, they announced a 20% rate cut in Denver and even tried the Uber line of "now our drivers will make more". They still have a $750 new driver bonus here and will be running a marketing campaign so I expect this market is about to be over saturated with drivers...


Here did you read this please?


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## duggles (Aug 25, 2014)

bondad said:


> Just when I thought Lyft was a better company to drive for, they announced a 20% rate cut in Denver and even tried the Uber line of "now our drivers will make more". They still have a $750 new driver bonus here and will be running a marketing campaign so I expect this market is about to be over saturated with drivers...


I never received any email about this. Where did you hear this?

Current rates on the app are still the $1.41.

Really hope this isn't the case, otherwise I'll pretty much be done driving rideshare.


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## KevRyde (Jan 27, 2015)

duggles said:


> I never received any email about this. Where did you hear this?
> 
> Current rates on the app are still the $1.41.
> 
> Really hope this isn't the case, otherwise I'll pretty much be done driving rideshare.


I received this e-mail on 6/24. I was pissed of course, but I assumed this was coming since Lyft has completely oversaturated the Denver market with drivers. I'm getting even more aggressive about promoting Lyft to Uber riders and handing out my Lyft promo code. FYI, for new accounts, Lyft is currently giving away $100 in ride credits in the form 5 free rides up to $20/ea, so with my promo code new riders get 6 rides up to $20/ea.


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## duggles (Aug 25, 2014)

KevRyde said:


> I received this e-mail on 6/24. I was pissed of course, but I assumed this was coming since Lyft has been adding new drivers non-stop.


Well. ****.

Right before the July 4th weekend, too. Really?!

What also sucks is that this will hamper Uber surges as well. As more drivers will start driving for both services again, since their rates will be closer in line with each other. Additionally, this could hurt Lyft, as availability of drivers will decline with drivers on both platforms again. So many riders lately tell me they've been using Lyft because Uber cars are so often unavailable.


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## KevRyde (Jan 27, 2015)

My scheduled airport riders - who up until now have accounted for a significant portion of my Lyft business - have all agreed to pay me directly via QuickBooks GoPayments that I already have in place for my LLC. Screw Lyft's rate decrease, SRF, airport fees, and especially their 20% commission. Now I'll get 100% of what they these riders have been paying (minus the 2.4% cc swipe/processing fee). I was okay "following the rules" until Lyft decided to join Uber in the race to the bottom.


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## Ziggy (Feb 27, 2015)

KevRyde said:


> My scheduled airport riders - who up until now have accounted for a significant portion of my Lyft business - have all agreed to pay me directly via QuickBooks GoPayments that I already have in place for my LLC.


You do have commercial livery insurance now? It would suck to get in an accident without valid commercial insurance; since you're obviously not going to qualify for Lyft insurance when you bypass them


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## KevRyde (Jan 27, 2015)

Ziggy said:


> You do have commercial livery insurance now? It would suck to get in an accident without valid commercial insurance; since you're obviously not going to qualify for Lyft insurance when you bypass them


I do not have and will never obtain commercial livery insurance. It would suck to get into an accident period. My scheduled airport riders all know that in the event of an accident, I am simply a friend who is taking them to or picking them up from the airport. They are all aware that my personal auto insurance coverage is minimal - $100,000 liability per accident; $100,000 medical payments each person - and that my insurance carrier has no idea that I drive for Uber and Lyft. They are also aware that I have a negative net worth (hence my minimal coverage).


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## Ziggy (Feb 27, 2015)

KevRyde said:


> I do not have and will never obtain commercial livery insurance. It would suck to get into an accident period. My scheduled airport riders all know that in the event of an accident, I am simply a friend who is taking them to or picking them up from the airport. They are all aware that my personal auto insurance coverage is minimal -


well, my friend you are willing to take more risks than I am ... Good Luck! and I hope you never get into an accident


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## ElectroFuzz (Jun 10, 2014)

Ahh... the 1, 2 punch..... right to your balls.
Cut off 20% (aka 50% to your net profit)
Then hire a bunch of new driver to to make sure you get much less rides.
Nice!


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## duggles (Aug 25, 2014)

ElectroFuzz said:


> Ahh... the 1, 2 punch..... right to your balls.
> Cut off 20% (aka 50% to your net profit)
> Then hire a bunch of new driver to to make sure you get much less rides.
> Nice!


And sure enough, rates now almost perfectly match Uber's. And there's still plenty of cars back on the road.

Guess I'm back to Uber only these days, since there's never any doubt about whether a ride is surge on Uber or not, unlike Lyft's dinky little zones. And, as with past rate cuts, looks like my avg hours worked is greatly decrease, as I'll only drive at sustained surge rates of 2.1x.

In other words, I don't think I'll be do this much anymore.


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## bondad (Apr 4, 2015)

Lyft must be taking math lessons from Uber. My email said rate cuts would be up to 20% in Denver. They actually dropped from $1.41 to $1.10. That's 22%. I think that's greater than 20%, right? 

Dumb asses! They just don't get it.


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## duggles (Aug 25, 2014)

bondad said:


> Lyft must be taking math lessons from Uber. My email said rate cuts would be up to 20% in Denver. They actually dropped from $1.41 to $1.10. That's 22%. I think that's greater than 20%, right?
> 
> Dumb asses! They just don't get it.


#truthfact

Is it really, truly cheaper/faster to acquire new riders by lowering rates and increasing their (Uber/Lyft) revenues than it is to spend money on acquiring new riders at pre-existing rates? Wouldn't that also give them a higher gross margin per ride? Is the gross margin per ride decrease made up for by an increase in total number of rides, really?

Does driver churn not factor into longterm sustainability of their business models? Presumably their has to be a bottom. And is that where you really want to operate a service from, the bottom? A service business, nonetheless. Then again, these are TNCs, they aren't service businesses, they are _TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES_. So big, so powerful, so zeitgeist-y.

If only this rate cut (or any of the previous rate cuts) resulted in me, as a driver, having little to zero dead miles. If any of these rate cuts could achieve a point where I always have a pickup within a mile of a dropoff, maybe then, they could argue that these rate cuts increase earnings. As ****ing illogical as that sounds. But, in reality, the level of business stays the same, driven more by demand in the city, than any natural rhythm of regular rideshare users, which isn't enough to sustain the number of drivers in a city. 2 dead miles for every pax mile, amiright, veterans?

Same old story though, driver saturation, decreasing earnings, high driver churn rates, lower quality, passengers expecting high levels of service for decreasing pay and are oblivious to the truth, the real cost of using your car for income, and the biggest factor at this point, that drivers do not have any control in setting their rates (aside from opting out of earning) and shouldn't that alone disqualify their claims that we're independent contractors. Then again, maybe that's why Uber and Lyft never deactivated me for my roughly 40% acceptance rate, choosing only to take high surge or PrimeTime rates. Was I, indeed, setting my rate? Maybe so. And maybe, just maybe, if they keep lowering rates, the bottom will be so low, that only the scum will suck off the top. No surge needed. Equilibrium. IPO time, baby.

*On a side note, this is either brilliant, or I'm really high. Well, I'm really high, but this could also be brilliant.


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## KevRyde (Jan 27, 2015)

I take Mondays off so I'm also high! I've attached my monthly spreadsheet for June, and I've updated my spreadsheet for July to add columns for "KevRyde" - the ride sharing division of [my business]". Ten of my Lyft rides in June were scheduled airport rides which paid out $420 (net pay plus the 20% tip my riders add). These same 10 trips on KevRyde - I'm charging $55/trip - would have paid out $530 after cc processing fees. At this point, the possibility of an added tip on a Lyft ride along with the $10 referral fee when an Uber rider uses my Lyft promo code will be the only meaningful differentiators between Uber and Lyft. Because I'm moving my scheduled airport ride business from Lyft to private pay, I have no doubt that my average $/Trip Hour for Lyft will probably now trend lower than on Uber considering that Uber's guarantees are much easier to work than Lyft's. Lyft's hourly guarantees are based on starting at the top of each hour whereas Uber counts your hours based on how many total hours you're in drive mode during a specified guarantee period. Also, Lyft pretty much factors all driver cancellations into their acceptance rate calculation making it nearly impossible to maintain a 90% acceptance rate.


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## Casuale Haberdasher (Dec 7, 2014)

ElectroFuzz said:


> Ahh... the 1, 2 punch..... right to your balls.
> Cut off 20% (aka 50% to your net profit)
> Then hire a bunch of new driver to to make sure you get much less rides.
> Nice!


POST # 11/ElectroFuzz: No shots to the
Twinkies involved here:

https://uberpeople.net/posts/338664

Top Fifth of 1% ....Not TOO shabby!

Bison Admires.
Bison Inspires!


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## happyinstance (Jul 7, 2015)

KevRyde said:


> I do not have and will never obtain commercial livery insurance. It would suck to get into an accident period. My scheduled airport riders all know that in the event of an accident, I am simply a friend who is taking them to or picking them up from the airport. They are all aware that my personal auto insurance coverage is minimal - $100,000 liability per accident; $100,000 medical payments each person - and that my insurance carrier has no idea that I drive for Uber and Lyft. They are also aware that I have a negative net worth (hence my minimal coverage).


 You are foolish and naive to think that in the event of an accident that all your little agreements with your"friends" will be held up when one of then has a broken leg and can't work.


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## KevRyde (Jan 27, 2015)

happyinstance said:


> You are foolish and naive to think that in the event of an accident that all your little agreements with your"friends" will be held up when one of then has a broken leg and can't work.


They're actually all _real_ friends - they even show up on my facebook page as friends - as opposed to _supposed_ "friends" as implied by your use of quotation marks. Also, they're all technology consultants and have access to a variety of productivity tools that enable each one of them to work with a broken leg.


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## happyinstance (Jul 7, 2015)

Oh I'm sorry. I didn't realize they were your Facebook friends. That totally changes my opinion of you


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## KevRyde (Jan 27, 2015)

bondad said:


> Lyft must be taking math lessons from Uber. My email said rate cuts would be up to 20% in Denver. They actually dropped from $1.41 to $1.10. That's 22%. I think that's greater than 20%, right?
> 
> Dumb asses! They just don't get it.


This popped up last night while I was in rider mode. Not to be outdone by Uber Math, Lyft is proud to bring you Lyft Math!


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## duggles (Aug 25, 2014)

KevRyde said:


> This popped up last night while I was in rider mode. Not to be outdone by Uber Math, Lyft is proud to bring you Lyft Math!
> 
> View attachment 9568


Saw that, too and was pretty pissed.

But love how there's a disconnect between, rates are 15% and, "you must make a lot doing this, huh? I heard about the $35/hr thing."


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