Showing posts with label pink mustache. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pink mustache. Show all posts

Friday, October 3, 2014

Lyft Loses the Fluff


So Lyft is finally ditching the ‘stache. Got the email yesterday:



Sure took them long enough. I’ve been ragging on that god-awful monstrosity since day one. Back when I drove for Lyft exclusively, I've always said, I don't use the mustache because I am the mustache



Of course, as always, Lyft can’t catch a break. Last weekend, there was a good old-fashioned ‘stache burning down in LA. Vice Magazine posted a write up on the event. That kind of attention can’t be good for morale.

Oh, Lyft. At least you have your plush offices to cheer you up.


photo by Gabriel Zamora


Monday, September 29, 2014

How to Fix Ridesharing: Kill Lyft


Photo by James Klevin from the Vanishing SF Facebook page


A Modest Proposal

Last night, I had dinner with a friend and her sister, whom I’d never met before. The topic of Uber came up when I mentioned I drive for Lyft and Uber. My friend’s sister said she really likes taking Uber. She’s a performance artist and often needs to get around the city at night. Before Uber, she was regularly stranded by cabs, which would invariably pick up a street hail on the way to her location, leaving her in the lurch and forced to seek other options. With Uber, she’s never had this problem. She just requests a ride and the car shows up.

Awesome. The only problem is, well… Uber. And the way they’re treating drivers. As I mentioned to her the struggles drivers face when dealing with the lowered fares, the lack of tips and the general unpleasantness of Uber as a company, I began to feel like a dick. There I was, shitting on something that fulfilled a need in her life both personally and professionally. Without Uber, she, like a lot of people in the city, would once again be at a disadvantage. It seems the only thing everybody can agree on when it comes to this new trend in transportation is that cabs suck.

This got me thinking… If I owned a business that made a product people loved—one they loved so much they would be disappointed not to have anymore—why would I lower the price? I’m not business-minded in the least, but it just stands to reason that if somebody really wants your product, you could charge whatever price you wanted for it. So why is Uber continuously lowering fares?

Then it hit me. Fucking Lyft. Lyft is the problem. They keep picking fights with Uber. And Travis Kalanick, Uber’s founder and CEO, isn’t somebody you want to trifle with. But Lyft, the quirky kid with bad acne, thick glasses and a pepertual cowlick, does just that: day after day, they walk across the playground and challeng the biggest bully in school.

It’s not much a shock that Lyft is getting pummeled in the rideshare wars. It’s almost embarrassing how badly Lyft is losing this David and Goliath showdown. But you can’t feel too bad for Lyft. They asked for this. Unfortunately, the drivers on both platforms are suffering because of Lyft’s hubris.

The price wars have been going on for a while. It's hard to imagine a time when the minimum fare for an UberX ride was $10. But back in 2013, that what the going rate for a ride. Nowadays, in San Francisco, it's $5. In LA, it's $4. That's highway robbery at its very essence. Not to mention how drivers face serious risks with insurance gaps, troublesome passengers, potential health problems, damage to our vehicles, the financial hardships of constant repair and maintenance and we are denied tips. On top of all that, with the rating system, we don’t even have job security. Any passenger on a power trip could easily have us deactivated.

I started driving for Lyft in March of 2014. I made decent money. A few months later, to combat Uber's growing domination of the rideshare market with UberX, Lyft lowered their fares and stopped taking a commission. The price cut was supposed to be a test. Around the time they planned to return to the original rates, Uber lowered their rates, forcing Lyft to make their temporary price cut permanent and start collecting commission again, pissing off all but their most loyal drivers.


The Rideshare Wars


Uber is definitely winning the rideshare wars. In their calculated, underhanded assault on Lyft, Uber shows no restraint. They even announced UberPool, a carpooling feature that wasn’t active, the day before Lyft announced their own carpooling service, LyftLine, which was ready to launch, effectively stealing their thunder.

Even without public support, Uber is racking up victories. A month ago, when Uber’s Operation Slog was exposed, everybody felt bad for Lyft. But then Lyft lowered prices again and drivers started burning their mustaches.

Before this happened, Uber had started poaching Lyft drivers. I was one. I joined Uber during their $500 sign-up bonus. $500 to take one ride? Where do I sign?! The gimmick was that newly recruited drivers would see how much better Uber was compared to Lyft and switch sides. And it worked. As a regular Lyft driver, I was blown away by how much more business I got from driving for Uber. (Lyft tried to get Uber drivers to switch sides, or double down, by making a counteroffer of $500 plus a taco, but just came off looking silly, as usual.) 

These are the kinds of tactics that show who is really in charge when it comes to ridesharing: Uber.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think Uber, with Kalanick at the helm, is an evil, unscrupulous company along the lines of Wal-Mart. Kalanick comes across as an antisocial, libertarian scumbag who’d stab his own mother in the back to get ahead. He probably has a cum-stained paperback of The Fountainhead under his pillow that he strokes gently as he falls asleep at night. But he’s not stupid. He knows how to run a business, even if it is at the expense of workers. Lyft, on the other hand, has yet to display any business acumen. Their entire platform lends itself to mockery.

Look at their signature branding: the pink mustache. While it’s proven to be an effective symbol to get attention, it’s so ugly and goofy and alienating and … shit, the list goes on and on. Most people don’t like the stupid thing and very few drivers have them on their cars anymore. Lyft, realizing this, developed what they call a “cuddlestache,” a smaller version that goes on the dash instead of the grill. But from a distance, it just looks like a pink turd. Another Lyft fail! [UPDATE: Lyft is ditching the 'stache.]

Where Lyft supposedly excels is through creating a sense of community. I prefer the social aspect of driving for Lyft. It makes for better stories. Driving is more fun when you are free to chat with the passengers. The time goes by so much faster. And Lyft encourages tipping, which is awesome. Uber tells their users the tip is included in the fare. (It’s not.) But the whole “Cult of Lyft” mindset is a niche market at best. In order to fall for it, you have to drink the Kool-Aid. Lyft fanatics are a brutal lot of mustache-waving zealots who will try to stifle any dissent in order to protect the brand. Still, there’s no way they can corner the entire rideshare market based on jingoism alone. In fact, I’m willing to venture that the community aspect hurts Lyft more that it helps. Some people just want to get from point A to point B without making a friend along the way.

There are folks to whom Lyft’s transportation model is appealing and Lyft needs to cultivate those users. Not the market as a whole. They will never be able to compete with Uber, financially or logistically.

As cutthroat as they are, it’s not surprising Uber is resisting Lyft’s attempts to corner the market. Lyft is fighting with a ruthless bully. Their only move at this point is to beg for mercy. Even their cries of “that’s not fair” have fallen on deaf ears. If this were a schoolyard fight, we’d all be standing there with out arms folded going, “Dude, you asked for it.”

The question of who started the price wars doesn't even matter anymore. Even if Lyft were out of the picture, it's not likely the prices go back to what they were at the beginning of the year. It doesn't even matter that, except for surge pricing, passengers weren’t complaining about the prices before the price war started. 
What's done is done. At this point, Uber could charge as much as cabs and still be profitable and control the market. 



The Writing on the Wall


Oh sure, there are plenty of problems with ridesharing. Killing Lyft might not fix them all, but the only way to end the price wars is for Lyft to be better than Uber. Or die.
I’m not the only rideshare blogger who’s come to the conclusion that Lyft isn’t going to win. They are perpetuating the price wars in a futile attempt to compete with Uber and yet they’ve lost each battle.

Somebody needs to put a stop to the price wars. Despite what the their computers tell them, raising prices would benefit the company and improve the rideshare experience for passengers. Of course, if Uber and Lyft did raise the prices, the users who take advantage of the five-dollar rides would drop off. And while those short rides are fine for a computer to just add to the ultimate tally, earning those five-dollar rides as a driver is no easy task. The five-dollar rides need to end anyway. The minimum fare for an on-demand ride should be ten dollars. If you can’t afford ten bucks to get from one neighborhood to another, you really shouldn’t be using an on-demand car service. Why waste an Uber driver’s time by having them spend several minutes driving to you just to take you a few blocks? That’s plain lazy and a waste of everybody’s time.

It’s time for passengers who want quality transportation options provided by drivers paid a fair wage to expect more than a race to the bottom. 

As a driver, the end of Lyft cannot come soon enough. There are very few drivers who are even loyal to Lyft anymore. Lyft is the losing team. All roads lead to Uber. Whether we like it or not, they are going to win the rideshare wars. Anybody who can’t see that is obviously drinking too much Lyft Kool-Aid.



---- 

FOLLOW UP POST: Should We Really Kill Lyft?



Friday, August 1, 2014

It's Not About The Mustache... Except When It Is


The Pink Mustache
Okay, let’s talk about the pink mustache. First, you have to earn the fucking thing. They don’t just give ‘em away. You gotta give thirty rides before they mail it to you. It’s not hard to give thirty rides—by my third day I’d done almost forty. It took another week to arrive, wrapped in plastic in a fancy cardboard box. They included a phone mount and a charger. I think that’s it. I left it all in the fancy box and threw it in the corner of my living room with all the other boxes. So what’s the big deal? Why don’t I“rock the ‘stache,” as the die-hard Lyfters say in the official Lyft Driver Lounge on Facebook? Or at least place it on the dash, where it looks like what you’d find on the floor after a fluffy convention?
When passengers ask me about it, my answer varies. It depends who’s asking. I’ll say I forgot it at home. Sometimes I say it’s dirty. Or if it had been raining, I say I took it off so it didn’t get wet. Or I just came back from the airport. Once I told these two drunk girls that I’d attached it one day, drove over the Bay Bridge during a wind advisory and never saw it again. After which I pointed out that the mustache came with explicit directions: don’t drive over 40 miles per hour. Which of course is impossible to avoid if you live in a city with a freeway.
The real reason, though, is that the pink mustache, despite its nauseating ugliness, has become the perfect symbol for the backlash against all “ride-share” services, not just Lyft, but Uber and SideCar as well.
The term “ride-share” itself is such a completely and utterly outrageous misnomer that it would be laughable if so many people weren’t buying into it. The entire concept of the shared economy is based on deception so the founders can avoid regulation. Everybody knows it. The companies know it. They call themselves tech companies, not transportation companies. Particularly when the shit hits the fan. The taxi drivers who protest the loss of their monopoly know it. The state legistlature knows it. This whole sharing economy could easily dissipate like a puff of smoke from an e-cigarette with one pen stroke. But instead, they set up what’s called Transportation Network Companies to give them a name more appropriate to the paid service they provide. Venture capital firms, of course, don’t give a shit. They’re just gambling on whether unfavorable laws will be upheld or reversed. Like betting on the ponies, but with politicians and lobbyists. Not to mention that Mayor Lee likes tech. Some of his detractors claim that Big Tech has him in their pocket. He certainly hasn’t done much to reel in the tech companies that have begun to infringe upon the rights of San Franciscans. Mayor Lee has pissed off a lot of people.
A few months ago, I began noticing RECALL MAYOR LEE bumper stickers on cabs. It’s not clear whether they are protesting the surge of ride-share vehicles or just his policies in general, but it’s undeniable that the cab companies and drivers have been hit hardest by the emergence of Uber and Lyft. Cabbies make about 30 grand a year. They lease their vehicles from the cab companies and usually start their shifts 100-150 bucks in the hole. Faced with a major threat to their livelihoods, they have been fighting back. And despite being regarded as less significant than Uber, the Lyft pink mustache is usually on most of the placards waved during protests outside City Hall. Circled and crossed out.
The fact is undeniable: the pink mustache is the ultimate symbol of an unregulated, scofflaw challenger.
Before I drove for Lyft and was just a passenger myself, I got a ride from a guy who had a pink shirt tied up to look like the puffy monstrosity on his dash. He said a taxi driver had ripped his mustache off the grill of his car. Since becoming a driver, I’ve read several posts on the Lyft Facebook group about cabbies yelling at Lyft drivers and taking pictures of their license plates to report them to insurance companies, or so the posters speculate. No matter what the motives of these cabbies are, it’s understandable that they would be upset. And I can hardly blame them. It’s one thing to know that these rideshare companies exist, but the pink mustaches most definitely add insult to injury.
That’s the thing about symbols: they can go either way. They mean one thing to the supporters and another to the opposition. There are a lot of Lyft drivers who happily drink the Kool-Aid and parade around town dressed in pink, waving their pink mustaches in the air as a counter protest to the cabbies. They defend their right to not just drive for Lyft but to promote the Lyft brand by brandishing the mustache at any opportunity. It boggles my mind how grown adults can be so proud of something so ugly. Do they not realize how stupid they look on cars? I’ve spent my entire adult life avoiding the need to wear a uniform and look like a jackass. I see no reason to start now. And the way I see it, I started driving without a mustache, so why not keep going without one? Passengers have a picture of my car and my face prominently on their phone. They know who they’re looking for. I can see them and know who I’m looking for. I greet each person that gets in my car by name. Most passengers do the same. There is no need for a mustache to enter the equation.
In fact, I’d say that 90% of the people I’ve talked to in my car about it say they prefer cars without mustaches. There will always be drunk girls who feel cheated when they get into a car that doesn’t have one, but they are easily distracted by something else shiny or bright.
“If you don’t want to rock the ‘stache, then maybe you’re on the wrong team.”
I’ve seen this comment in the Driver Lounge as a response to queries on whether to use the mustache. These Lyft drivers have no qualms about adhering to a group mentality. Most are also major sports fans, as evident in their profile pics and comments during major sporting events. So it makes sense that they would root-root-root for the home team.
But maybe they’re right. Maybe I should drive for Uber. Their drivers use a subtle neon blue “U” that illuminates oh so elegantly from their windshield. I have to admit, they look classy as fuck. But I’m sure my car would qualify. I’ve heard they have stricter limits on which cars are eligible. My Jetta is four years old. But it’s still in great shape and it’s the California Edition, so it has leatherette seats, a spoiler, 17” alloy rims, an iPod jack build into the dash. There’s a chance I could pass their requirements. But I’m lazy. And I don’t deal well with change. Also, the owner of Uber is supposed to be a real asshole. Maybe if I were to get called out for not using the mustache, or the mustache becomes some requirement—that is, if they are able to program the app to detect one on your grill—then I might switch services. I have absolutely no loyalty to Lyft or any other corporation, regardless of how they want to frame their corporate image.
That’s why I don’t use the mustache. Because I am the mustache.