![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerNew Zealand Travelog #1
SFO Airport lounge - Sat, 6 Apr 2024, 7:15pm
We officially began our trip to New Zealand today a bit after 6pm. That's when we left home and boarded... a Lyft car to SFO. Yes, a journey of 16,000 miles— about how far we'll travel in the air and on the ground over the next 17 days— begins with a Lyft ride.
One interesting thing about this Lyft ride is that as we sat in the car the driver was still fiddling with his app to find the "Start Ride" button. While he was swiping through screens I saw how our ride appeared to him. The ride, which showed a charge of almost $54 on my app, showed him a payment of just $29 and change for providing the ride. That's... astonishing. The driver is paid only a little more than half what we riders pay. The rest goes to Lyft. Lyft, which is... running an app.
That's not just astonishing, it's disgusting. It's made me reconsider whether it'd be better, from a workers' rights perspective, to take a taxi. Except I know that as bad as this is, the taxi industry is worse. 😱
SFO Airport lounge - Sat, 6 Apr 2024, 7:15pm
We officially began our trip to New Zealand today a bit after 6pm. That's when we left home and boarded... a Lyft car to SFO. Yes, a journey of 16,000 miles— about how far we'll travel in the air and on the ground over the next 17 days— begins with a Lyft ride.
One interesting thing about this Lyft ride is that as we sat in the car the driver was still fiddling with his app to find the "Start Ride" button. While he was swiping through screens I saw how our ride appeared to him. The ride, which showed a charge of almost $54 on my app, showed him a payment of just $29 and change for providing the ride. That's... astonishing. The driver is paid only a little more than half what we riders pay. The rest goes to Lyft. Lyft, which is... running an app.
That's not just astonishing, it's disgusting. It's made me reconsider whether it'd be better, from a workers' rights perspective, to take a taxi. Except I know that as bad as this is, the taxi industry is worse. 😱
