Uber filed in advance of its IPO, it warned that the new regulations, including the wage hike,"had a negative impact on our financial performance in New York City in the first quarter of 2019 and may have a similar adverse impact in the future.", Lyft said that the regulations had a"negative impact on driver earnings," which almost certainly meant that they affected its business as well.
In other words, the companies' services aren't nearly as competitive or attractive to consumers if the companies have to pay their drivers fair wages.Lyft customers will soon be able to get rides in self-driving Waymo vehicles in suburban Phoenix.Both companies have indicated they believe the long-term solution to the problem is to move to driverless vehicles. If they had robo-taxis instead of human driven ones, they wouldn't have to worry at all about driver compensation.
But the idea of fully replacing human Uber and Lyft drivers with self-driving cars may be a distant dream. I've spoken with numerous investors lately who focus narrowly on the self-driving car space. It's in their interest to promote the market and for their investments to pay off sooner rather than later. Their general assessment is that the technology is not mature enough to be used outside of suburban, or fixed, environments right now.
So I'm not sure how Uber or Lyft solves this conundrum. What I do know is it's not going away. And if the strike Wednesday is any indication, the problem may get much worse before Uber or Lyft solves it.Contact this reporter via email at twolverton@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter
The drivers better capitalise before self driving vehicles hit the market