<story><title>How Lyft screwed me out of a $350 referral bonus</title><url>http://imgur.com/gallery/QZbvw</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bosdev</author><text>Not just that, but RideAustin is a non-profit and mimics virtually every feature of Uber.  I seriously wonder if non-profit versions of the business will expand into other cities and challenge Uber and Lyfts margins.</text></item><item><author>ajford</author><text>So Lyft and Uber recently threw a tantrum and fled Austin TX when a vote on legislature regarding TNCs didn&amp;#x27;t go their way.&lt;p&gt;A few new local companies have popped up to fill the hole in the market, and many have attracted drivers who were formerly with Lyft and Uber.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve talked to a few of them about the new companies versus Lyft&amp;#x2F;Uber, and every single one of them has voiced the same thing; Lyft and Uber treat their drivers like shit, pull questionable stunts like this (one even mentioned something similar, except his app kept crashing or signing him out for 48 hours before the deadline for his 100 ride bonus, preventing him from getting the last few rides), and generally being dicks towards their &amp;quot;independent drivers&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Every single driver I asked said they wouldn&amp;#x27;t go back to Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft. Most even indicated they wouldn&amp;#x27;t go back even if Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft returned and drove the new companies out of business.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve had great experiences with many drivers, and I hate think that they&amp;#x27;ve been getting such a rotten deal from these companies.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chimeracoder</author><text>&amp;gt; I seriously wonder if non-profit versions of the business will expand into other cities and challenge Uber and Lyfts margins.&lt;p&gt;Why would non-profits inherently be able to beat Lyft or Uber&amp;#x27;s margins?&lt;p&gt;Non-profits, despite the name, are not prohibited from making a profit. Conversely, the &amp;quot;profit&amp;quot; referred to in &amp;quot;for-profit companies&amp;quot; doesn&amp;#x27;t come out of their margins.&lt;p&gt;And even if you&amp;#x27;re talking about their bottom line rather than their margins, it&amp;#x27;s not like venture-backed companies are required to run at an operating profit anyway. To my knowledge, Uber has never actually issued GAAP accounting demonstrating that they&amp;#x27;re turning a profit[0]. Which makes sense - the whole point of raising outside capital is to spend money faster than you&amp;#x27;d otherwise have access to it. &lt;i&gt;Both&lt;/i&gt; non-profits and for-profit companies do this.&lt;p&gt;Non-profits are functionally equivalent to for-profit companies. The only distinction in this case is that a non-profit would have a harder time raising money, because they &lt;i&gt;can&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; provide equity in exchange for the outside funding they obtain, whereas a for-profit company can.&lt;p&gt;[0] They&amp;#x27;ve made plenty of &lt;i&gt;non&lt;/i&gt;-GAAP claims, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean anything.</text></comment>
<story><title>How Lyft screwed me out of a $350 referral bonus</title><url>http://imgur.com/gallery/QZbvw</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bosdev</author><text>Not just that, but RideAustin is a non-profit and mimics virtually every feature of Uber.  I seriously wonder if non-profit versions of the business will expand into other cities and challenge Uber and Lyfts margins.</text></item><item><author>ajford</author><text>So Lyft and Uber recently threw a tantrum and fled Austin TX when a vote on legislature regarding TNCs didn&amp;#x27;t go their way.&lt;p&gt;A few new local companies have popped up to fill the hole in the market, and many have attracted drivers who were formerly with Lyft and Uber.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve talked to a few of them about the new companies versus Lyft&amp;#x2F;Uber, and every single one of them has voiced the same thing; Lyft and Uber treat their drivers like shit, pull questionable stunts like this (one even mentioned something similar, except his app kept crashing or signing him out for 48 hours before the deadline for his 100 ride bonus, preventing him from getting the last few rides), and generally being dicks towards their &amp;quot;independent drivers&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Every single driver I asked said they wouldn&amp;#x27;t go back to Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft. Most even indicated they wouldn&amp;#x27;t go back even if Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft returned and drove the new companies out of business.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve had great experiences with many drivers, and I hate think that they&amp;#x27;ve been getting such a rotten deal from these companies.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikefivedeuce</author><text>I was in Austin two weeks ago and was worried about the lack of Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft. I had great experiences using RideAustin. A driver even mentioned that they pay him 2x fares to drive out to areas like the F1 track because it&amp;#x27;s outside of the city.</text></comment>