The GIG Economy Podcast
Talks about our Gig Economy adventures and breaking down the Gig Economy News
The GIG Economy Podcast
Uber's War on Third-Party Apps: Drivers Fight Back. Cherry-Picking Your Way To Profit | Ep 261
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We discuss how Uber and Lyft are pushing back against third-party apps like Maximo, Maestro, and GigU that allow drivers to cherry-pick more profitable rides. These apps have become essential tools for maximizing earnings, but platforms claim they violate the terms of service.
• Uber and Lyft are threatening to ban drivers who use apps that help them filter ride requests
• Security footage capturing a delivery driver assaulting a 67-year-old customer who questioned her package delivery
• Problematic AI customer service bots completely misunderstand basic customer complaints
• Financial analysts recommend Lyft stock despite skepticism from actual drivers
• Uber is testing a feature that allows women riders to be paired with women drivers
• Amazon package deliveries by drone and the potential HOA backlash
• The potential for tax-free tips for gig workers with a possible new federal tax deduction
Join our Telegram group to connect with other gig workers, share experiences, and get real-time advice on which apps are currently paying the best. Visit patreon.com/thegigeconomypodcast to support the show and get access to our exclusive content.
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Hello, hello, welcome to the Gig Economy Podcast, episode 261. I use ChatGPT for the titles and I love sometimes it comes up with some great ones. It was like Uber we care about drivers Also. Uber blocks helpful apps. We'll talk about that tonightber's blocking some third-party apps that some of us use on a pretty regular basis. So how's your internet larry?
Speaker 3:it's uh picking up, it's doing better, so keep your fingers crossed yes, sweet, yeah, uh, thank you for uh last week and well, you're here every week and gabe filling in for me where I was at my concert had a great time. I know we missed one button when we were starting the stream, but that's okay. You talked for eight minutes and then you had to do it again and pretend that you were laughing at all Gabe's jokes.
Speaker 1:It's a swarm of that. We put some professionalism and acting into it Some showmanship. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 3:Go to gigaconomyshowcom for everything podcast related. Thank you guys. So much for the Patreon members Samson from Grand Rapids Where's my slide Bud Dickman from North Carolina, omar from Detroit, delivery Cats from Michigan, frank from Philly, tom from Chicago, jim from Connecticut, miguel from GR, linda from Tampa, jerry Gillette from Kentucky and Faith from Vegas. If you want to join the show or join the pod, jesus, join the Patreon. Go to patreoncom. Slash the GigaCon podcast.
Speaker 3:There you get it At the $7 tier. You get an extra podcast a week which we will be podcasting at 8, 10 pm tonight. If you want to join us there, live. If you're a $7 tier uh, there's also a $3 tier. You get the pre-show banner and all that fun stuff and it really helps us pay the bills, uh, cause all this shit costs money. And uh, it would be an honor for you guys, uh, to join the Patreon, so appreciate that. Uh, we also have a? Uh, a telegram group or a couple people have joined recently, josh included. Thank you for that and uh, where we can talk to people, and larry's going to talk about that yeah, so our telegram groups.
Speaker 1:this way we communicate, it's uh, it's kind of like a texting app, except you can also do video or voice messages, which is really nice when you're out driving you can do a voice message or you can listen to voice messages instead of trying to read people's texts. We get in, uh, we have a lot of fun. We get to know each other a lot better. We talk about gig work. We talk about what apps are popping right now, any new apps that are coming out that we've tried. Uh, we, we bitch about bad customers and we, we, um, we talk about those great unicorn rides that we used to get.
Speaker 3:The multiplier surge.
Speaker 1:Multiplier yes, but yeah join our Telegram and just jump in. Get in, get to know everybody and you won't feel so lonely when you're out there doing gig work.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and everything that we talk about on the show, even the show links, the news stories, those won't come out until Monday, but all our links for the Telegram group, the Patreon, it's all in our description, so check that out. Josh said what concert did? I see it was the Louder Than Life Tour, so it's basically metalcore bands. So it was Parkway Drive. I Prevail. The Devil Wears Prada. Who else Kill Switch Engage, which which I did not like. I did not like them. Um, what other one am I thinking of? Oh, beartooth, and there were a bunch of other shitty ones that we didn't even go to. We came in late because we didn't want to sit there for like eight hours for shitty bands. But no offense to them, not that they're ever going to hear this, but so that was good. So, yeah, go to tell or, sorry, go to tick tock and follow us. We're trying to hit a thousand so I can stream normally through tick tock instead of just Larry and I?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be nice. So go to tick tock search the gig economy podcast Stories from the road. Larry, I'll let you go first because I know you've got a lot of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I don't. This summer has been the summer of taking off. I've been busy with schoolwork and stuff around the house you can't see it because I've got the virtual background on but we've redone the man cave up here. My wife painted it, we flipped the room. Everything was on one side, pretty much on the other side. We're getting ready to put in a sectional up here and stuff's still kind of kind of out of whack. So between that and then we also went out of town.
Speaker 1:This weekend we ran down, made a quick trip down to atlanta, down to hotlanta, uh, just went. On saturday went to the aquarium there, which is really great. I can't recommend the aquarium there enough. It's fantastic. They have only place, I think, in in the united states as well sharks in their brain, which are humongous, yeah, and also big manta rays had three manta rays in there with them. And then, um sunday, we got up, went to stone mountain, georgia. Which stone mountain? A lot of people don't know about it. Um, it's just, it's a, the biggest, uh, standing piece of, I guess, what they call it granite in the world. It's 800 feet of. It is above ground, then it goes below the ground like three and a half miles and then it's underground. It goes like two miles one way, three miles another way, but you see 800 feet of it.
Speaker 1:Then they've done a carving on there, kind of like mount rushmore, but it's confederate generals, so oh jesus, oh man this is that long time ago yeah they have hiking trails around there, a lot of good stuff like that, but uh, yeah very cool, very cool.
Speaker 3:Well, we'll be looking forward to you getting back and doing some work students are coming back.
Speaker 1:I'm actually going to go out, uh, tomorrow night to be my first thursday out in in a while I'm getting the getting the reminder from octopus tablet.
Speaker 3:Your tablet has not been active yeah, but you can just, you can just pause it or go on.
Speaker 1:I know I do, yeah, forget, yeah for sure so, yeah, I think some of the students will be back. Um, athletes always come back early and a lot of sororities and fraternities come back a little early start start doing their rush activities.
Speaker 3:So looking forward to getting back and seeing some my frequent riders again yeah, is this like the longest stretch you've ever gone without doing gig work like? I mean I know you've done a little bit here and there, but yeah, I have done a little bit now.
Speaker 1:Probably the longest stretch since I started doing gig work was probably after my wreck.
Speaker 3:Oh really, yeah, because you didn't have a car for a while Right, A long while right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a little bit, it was several weeks anyway. Okay, even when I got the car, I wasn't eager to jump back in.
Speaker 3:Well, that's tough, that's a little traumatic. Even when I got the car, I wasn't eager to jump back in. Well, that's tough, that's a little traumatic.
Speaker 1:I mean that shit's. Yeah, I mean in town it's not bad. I still, when I'm on the interstate and I look up and there's an 18-wheeler behind me, still don't like it, I will switch lanes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't blame you. That stuff sticks with you.
Speaker 1:It does. I don't blame you. That stuff sticks with you, it does it really does, for sure.
Speaker 3:I actually have been doing gig work and the story I want to talk about tonight is really not a story, but I think it's a cool perspective. I took a Lyft this past weekend and I took it there and back. I volunteered at another concert, uphe Evil, which is another metal one. This is different kind of bands, but the parking is a disaster where it's at. So I thought you know, I'm just going to take an Uber. I say I'm going to take an Uber. Well, I go to Uber and Lyft's cheaper.
Speaker 3:You know by like three bucks and I'm like I know it doesn't sound like all, but I'm going to tip the driver too.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. So it's going to save me some money. So here's some, just some screenshots. It's just interesting to look at If you take a little time. One thing I'm pointing out here it says billing reminder you will now pay once at the end of the day for all your rides you took. So I'm guessing it, it it pings your car just to make sure you have money, but then you, you know, at the end of the day it actually, you know, finally goes through. So I I thought that was kind of cool on this, in this lady's uh name I couldn't pronounce it, she was not talkative, um, very nice, uh. And then this thing I thought was kind of cool, and maybe this was we talked about this, I don't remember. But you can add a rider even though you're on a ride. You can send another driver to pick somebody else up. So I oh nice.
Speaker 3:I didn't know if we've ever talked about this, but it popped up and I'm like okay, I mean I, because you should not be able to do that. No, I didn't think so.
Speaker 1:I mean you were kind of locked in because I was on a ride one time and I was trying to send one for I think it was one of our kids, yeah and um, and it would not let me do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's a great feature um to be able to add another one, because you never know like, oh my god, you fucking left me, or whatever you know what I mean. Like hey I got you, like you know yeah, I'll send in.
Speaker 3:Send one your way I think it would be a little clunky though, because most of these apps like grab your g GPS to know where you are, and stuff like that, so I didn't actually obviously go through it to see what the process was, but I just thought that was kind of cool. And then, what other picture do I have in here? I don't know why I had that one, maybe request a second ride, maybe and it says it's new. So I guess I bet we haven't talked about it and didn't see it in the news, so, but yeah, it says it's new right there. So yeah, I thought that was kind of cool.
Speaker 3:The the first, the first ride was with this gal and she was fine, there was no problem, did not have the air on, but turned it on when I got in. She was fine, there was no problem, did not have the air on, but turned it on when I got in. So at least for that, I think you know there's the myth out there that says that if you don't use your air, you save gas. But Mythbusters busted that myth. Yeah, so it's not a thing, but you know it's one of those. I don't think it's the Mandela effect, but that's if you think you've seen somebody in something else, but I don't know why people just continue to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's yeah One. If I'm driving, I'm going to want it to be cool when I'm in there. Yes, regardless of whether I have a rider or not there. Yes, regardless of whether I have a rider or not. Yeah, if I'm, if I'm trying to save pennies by turning off the air, then yeah, I probably need to be looking at doing something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got bigger problems. Right, I shouldn't be doing gig work. Um, yeah, I think so. Yeah, the value, even if it does yeah, even let's say it does and you're saving pennies an hour.
Speaker 3:Let's say, two pennies an hour if that, whatever it's not even worth it, but she turned it on right when I got in and then the second guy I was uh just chatting with him on the way back and he was cool and you know we're talking. I was like, hey, I gotta shoot my shot. I I'm one of the or I host the gig economy podcast. He's like, yeah, I think I, I think I've heard of that. I was like, all right, well, check us out on wednesday. So, um, I thought that was kind of cool.
Speaker 3:He had uh been driving for a while um so but yeah, no real stories on that other than it's.
Speaker 1:It's really nice to take it as a customer, to kind of oh shit, this is interesting yeah, I actually when I was in atlanta I looked for waymo cars and if we were going to go anywhere we were going to take one. Um, but by the time we got but we got time we got out of the aquarium and everything it was we didn't even eat till like 9, 30 wait.
Speaker 3:You had the opportunity to take one and you didn't we did not.
Speaker 1:We did not because we didn't, we didn't go anywhere I would have been like take me to the speedway if I was not so hot and tired you were, you were cranky, you were ready, we were we were. We had to wait like an hour and a half to get an aquarium. It was ridiculous. Yeah, oh so many people there.
Speaker 3:No, I don't wait that long. I don't wait for shit like that, like if I you know, even like going to an amusement park now that I mean I'll do it, but like god, I'm fussy yeah I might buy the fast pass or whatever, just to skip by everybody but as soon as they come live in nashville I will go down and take a ride, for sure, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:Uh, bubba sue says ac is actually cheaper due to the aerodynamics I don't know if that is, I never watched the mythbusters episode, so I think that's true because of the drag on your car when you have the windows down yeah, that doesn't make sense because all the air is going in and out and yeah it doesn't make sense and if you want to if you want to save gas, just tailgate a trucker.
Speaker 3:I mean honestly, you don't even have to tailgate if you get close enough shit will go right over you so yep, that is true yeah, all right, the gig, gig economy. In the news um larry, you're I kind of okay you're sending me for a loop, man you.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, I forgot to warn you about that for whatever reason I do, I go to edit on the doc and I so find a replace, and so I did that, and then it put you first and I'm like I'm I'm too lazy to change this tonight, so Larry's going first.
Speaker 1:That's all right. That's no problem, man, I don't mind at all, but I was looking through it and I'm just always used to looking at the even numbers and when I look down there I'm like, oh, wait on, wait a minute here.
Speaker 3:Oh so you? So you're looking at the numbers, you don't look at the colors. The colors don't. That's interesting, that's so interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we just focus on different things.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's funny. Yeah, I looked at it and I was like, okay, okay.
Speaker 3:We're mixing things up. Yeah, hey, you know what? Next week you're running the board.
Speaker 1:We're going to be doing every other week back this week, because I it's good to do, man, it really is, because because doing it once a year you're like. You know, I'm old, I forget everything.
Speaker 3:No, and there's no hate on you and in fact, oh, I know I know I would have done the same thing. I forget shit I mean, I did my last show or the uh the, the one I do by myself. I forgot to hit record on the fucking board, did you? Yeah, I mean, obviously I just ripped the audio, which isn't as clear as I would like, but you know I I've done it this a thousand times and I still forget.
Speaker 1:So it happens. Yeah, it's all good, man, all right. So, yeah, our first story uh, we're talking about ride share drivers. We're hearing a lot and reading a lot of stories and seeing a lot on message boards about ride your drivers using apps. You know that to kind of help them cherry pick the rides and we talk about it all the time cherry pick your rides the way they've changed everything. It makes it. If you're just going to take every ride they throw at you, you're not going to maximize your profits. But now Uber and Lyft are starting to kind of push back on them and you know they're warning about people using apps like like Maximo and Maestro and GigU, which kind of weed out. You know you set a limit of what you want to take or what you're willing to take.
Speaker 3:Yeah parameters.
Speaker 1:Right, I know you've used these apps for a long time and you set your parameters of what you'll accept. You know you can do distance, you can do price. I think you know all sorts of parameters you can set on there. But Uber and Lyft are warning. They're saying you know these, these are against our terms of service. You know you're liable to be. You know you're liable to be banned from driving for Lyft or Uber if you continue to use these. And Lyft said they haven't really banned anybody yet, but they don't say that they won't.
Speaker 1:It's so funny they talk about in this article how these companies, especially Uber, when it first started out it was this big technology disruptor taking on the taxi companies and breaking all the rules and local rules. Yeah and uh, you know they mentioned. They talk about this and forget about this sometime. They even had, you know Uber had a project that was named gray ball that they use for years. That um, it was a fake version of their app that they would, that they would give to um, apple, um, because their real app would not meet the standards to be on the app store no way, yeah, that's wild yeah uh, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So now, and now they're the ones who are cracking down on these apps. You know, right, uh, I know they sued gig you uh app called gig you uh, which launched here in may. They. They got sued by uber over in brazil. Um, I don't know gig you uh, which launched here in may. They, they got sued by Uber over in Brazil.
Speaker 3:Um yeah, I don't know, gig you.
Speaker 1:Uh, I don't either. I have to investigate that one, but it did. I guess it it's. Uh, it launched here in may. So um, um. Again, uber says using any automation tools, apps or bots to manipulate the Uber app or access Uber data is not allowed in any way. So yeah, give us your perspective. Like I said, I know you've used a couple of these apps, at least for quite a while.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've used Maestro back in the day before it got bought over and, in fact, fact, I think maestro was actually a fucking sponsor for a while, uh, but then they kind of flaked on me. Uh, I found it very clunky, it didn't work very well, um. And then, of course, gary's apps with maximo and driver utility helper uh, those work great. I mean, I've had issues with, of course, but Gary's always on top of it.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of moving parts in that stuff and these apps like Uber, lyft, doordash they're changing it constantly and if it gets changed then Gary's got to change it. Like you know what, it might break one of your parameters, but to me I don't feel like it violates terms of service because it's basically just affecting your, like, acceptance rate. Right, that's all it's doing. It's making it easier to decline or accept the rides and, according to these apps, right, you can, acceptance rate doesn't matter. Now I get it back when, uh, para, if you remember para they were, they had that where they would be able to see the tips in the background.
Speaker 3:That starts getting a little saucy gray area as far as like, okay, now you're kind of pulling information out that no one else can see, but on these other apps you're able to. That's all it's doing. It's just declining and accepting for you without having to touch your phone. So what's the big freaking deal? You know what I mean? I don't, I don't understand the problem with it, but uh, I'd be interested to uh see uh people that actually are getting banned. I mean, I'm not worried about it until I'm getting like real world experience, where a person in michigan or grand rapids or whatever gets banned right, right, right now.
Speaker 1:It's you know, just kind of kind of a I'll talk right now, uh and I do need to.
Speaker 3:I, I would love to have, um, uh, gary, to gary's input in regards to like, is he worried about getting shut down?
Speaker 1:and you know, because I'm sure he makes, you know, good money on it I mean, yeah, yeah, and it's affordable sure, and it's got to be, I mean, it's got to be at least in the back of his non, if not the front of his mind yeah, gordon said gig you ceos were both on ride share uh rodeo last week.
Speaker 3:Great interview, great. I have that has not dropped in my podcast player yet, um, so I'll check it out. The gig you is definitely something from or at least the creators are from overseas, because everything's in, like the videos I'm seeing, is in kilometers and like the money is a little different, which is it doesn't matter, I mean at all. I'm just saying that's not from somebody from the states that have, uh, have worked on it. The only caveat on all these is you got to have an Android phone. Maestro will work on iOS. I guess I don't know. That's gotta be a fucking disaster. I mean, ios is so strict on stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they really are, and uh, yeah. So, if you have an iPhone, yeah, most of these apps will not work for you.
Speaker 3:And Gabe says I can't add any more apps to my phone. I've overloaded different noises. Yeah, earlier this week I'm going to talk about it on the um shift hustle show on monday, but we were talking about an app. And then he's like oh yeah, I have that. He turned it on. And then he's like driving and then all of a sudden he hears a random fucking ping.
Speaker 1:He's like what, the what is that he's like?
Speaker 3:oh, shit, that's from that app, uh. But yeah, we'll talk about that app on monday.
Speaker 1:Uh, it was okay, yeah, yeah, gordon said they're.
Speaker 3:They're from brazil, oh okay yeah, that's fine, it doesn't matter. I was just, it was just curious. But yeah, my opinion is that I think those apps are great. I don't think they violate terms of service, but I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't read the terms of service either, so it could be who, who can I mean you know they, they pop it up when you're going out to. You know, go do it work a shift. You know work, work one day before you can work.
Speaker 1:You got to agree to this. You know who's going to sit there and uh, um, read through all that. While you're sitting in your driveway waiting to take off, when you're when you're busy, you know you want to get out there and make some money wouldn't be so fun now wouldn't be fun, but I mean it would be a riot I.
Speaker 3:The next time they come out, I'll print them out and I'll do a live stream. I'll read the whole fucking thing, okay yeah, I'll download.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I usually download it so I can, or you know, bookmark the page so I can thanks pete. Uh, I usually bookmark the page so I can thanks Pete. Uh, I usually bookmark it so I can read it later. Not you know, but I mean I've already usually, usually you know already agreed to it, because I'm wanting to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and by another for a long time. They always have something in there about how you can opt out of the arbitration and for many times I've done, I've done. You know, I've followed the, the, I followed the, the instructions to do that, to opt out of the arbitration yeah, bubba seuss, are you talking about me reading it live?
Speaker 2:you're you shut up you'll be here you'd be in here commenting.
Speaker 3:I'd be like reading it.
Speaker 1:I'd be like three probably be your one.
Speaker 3:Your one, yeah, I'd be three hours in and then she comments about something I was like see, I told you you'd be watching.
Speaker 1:hey, that's, that's what Mr Beast used to do. He used to do videos of it, like him counting from one to a million.
Speaker 3:No like early on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's how he started out. He would do stuff that just took, you know, that just took forever to do, and people would tune in and, yeah, different stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Well, it sounds dumb, but it actually is kind of unique, like who's?
Speaker 1:going to sit there. Who's going to do that? I?
Speaker 3:mean how long? Do you know how long it ended up taking him to do?
Speaker 1:that. I don't remember what number he counted too, but I'll look it up while you're doing your story. But uh, uh, and I'll look and see if I can figure it out.
Speaker 3:I was just. I wonder how long it took but yeah, uh, this is a crazy customer. Oh, my god, I gotta sneeze again. Gordon says just put in chat gbt and have it give you the highlights. A fucking I gotta give faith. A shout out because I use that shit all the time. Now I rarely use google. I go to chat gbt. In fact I need to put it on my front page because I I have to swipe down and search for it because it's not.
Speaker 1:I need to put it down there right next to google, because it's yeah, yeah, we, we, uh, we use microsoft teams at work and they put co-pilot in there recently as a part of it, which is which is their version of chat gbt. And so me and my co-worker were messing around yesterday. We, we got to doing this, you know, having to create some crazy things, and so I was telling him the one that that faith I told him do, the one that you know faith mentions, like knowing everything you know about me, tell me what. You know what kind of person I am, and don't hold back. And it came back with my co-worker, you know, just gave some crazy and there's like, would you like a poster? And it created like a little picture of him. Yes, it's fairly, fairly close to what he looked like, but he, he's never uploaded his picture or anything oh, that's a little weird it is
Speaker 3:yeah, I know, I just downloaded it for my son and I actually had to look. I had to look and he can listen. I was like can you get porno on chat? Gbt.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean and you can't.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:And so I'm like okay, I'm good then, and I'm going to let him do it. And he uploaded a selfie and it said create a Simpsons character.
Speaker 1:And it was wild Nailed it didn't it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it only nailed it, didn't it? Yeah, it only gives you three without the paid version. Like, right, yeah, that's what I was doing yesterday because, like his, his, and then he started messing around like this caricature made of him. He's like, okay, uh, use this picture and make a poster of me riding a like a t-rex or something, and then add in my five it co-workers and stuff, and you know it's so funny because half of them like the guy, the little person that was, it was on the dinosaur was like melded into the dinosaur. Like you know how it messes up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, yeah. Well, one one thing I think is cool and I know Mo has talked about using this for like personal stuff Once it gets like, once you give it your name and it starts figuring you out like you can, like legit, have a conversation with them.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and it starts figuring you out like you can, like legit have a conversation with them. Oh yeah, yeah, there's, there's many people nowadays that are using, uh, one version or another as almost a therapist yeah, yeah, I mean now again, that data is just, it's like using google.
Speaker 3:It's just more organized. Really, if you think about it, I don't think you're getting anything different. It's just more organized. Really, if you think about it, I don't think you're getting anything different. It's just grabbing stuff from the internet and then putting it in a nice little package, I think so. Anyways, gary, real quick.
Speaker 3:We talked at the top of the show about these apps trying to kill third party, or, sorry, uber and Lyft trying to kill third party apps. Have you heard anything about that? Have you gotten anything from these? I mean, I'm sure we would find out about it, but I was just curious what your thoughts are on that. I know you're only texting there, but yeah, I was just curious. All right, moving on, 28 minutes in, we're on the second story, which is fine, it's totally fine, my type A, we'll deal with it. So it's totally fine, my type A, we'll deal with it. So this is a driver. What the fuck is this one? Okay, so this is a video and I realized after I went and looked at the comments this guy is speculating what it is Because there's no audio. So we'll watch that and then I will tell you what actually happened.
Speaker 2:So few as brutal as this. It's a late afternoon and an unmanned security camera records a delivery person standing outside an apartment building in castro valley, california. A tenant emerges wanting a word. The 67 year old woman is apparently upset after receiving notification that her package had been delivered, when in fact it hadn't, and when she asked the same delivery person about it 15 minutes ago, she was told she'd get it soon. The two women then engage in a heated back and forth which apparently sets the delivery person off. The delivery person unleashes a hail of fists on the customer, finishing with an uppercut to the face, directly to her nose okay, so you watch.
Speaker 3:So I only watched the beginning of it and then when I watched the full thing I was like jesus criminy, like so, um, I went to this, I pulled this off facebook, pete finisher, finisher. Uh. So I don't know if this is true or not, but they said the customer came out if the package, said, was delivered, and asked dsp driver where it was and she said she would have it soon. So she waited in the lobby for 15 minutes and still didn't have her package. So she went out to ask the dsp a driver again and the driver said something about white privileged lady and customer said you don't have to be a bitch. That's when the property manager said happened per the article. So both of them were on. But that driver I mean you can't, I mean she would.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was thought like maybe there's some racist stuff or something happened. But yeah, you, you can't do that. But that was knows how to fight that lady. That lady is a scrapper.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's definitely not someone you want to mess with. No, and honestly it was probably during COVID because the driver was wearing a mask on yeah for sure.
Speaker 3:Kind of a dead giveaway. But, yeah, don't hit. If you're delivering packages and someone calls you a bitch, just walk away, yeah. Or at least, if you're gonna say something, just say some words. Don't yeah. There's no reason to to beat the crap out of them, right? Uh, next, larry. Uh, it's customer service again and I feel like, larry, we need to start a thread with these.
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean this has got to be, you know I don't have any waymo tonight, but like I feel, like it's getting to be like the waymo I know, it's just this, ai bot shit. So yes, it is. And uh, just before we start, it took mr reese 40 hours to count to 100 000 and he did it straight, did it straight well, he had to take key breaks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I mean, yeah, I'm sure you have, you have to, but he doesn't have a thirsty goose. That came out after his video.
Speaker 1:That's right. I mean, he could have had a homemade thirsty goose and that was in, I think. What did they say? 2017.
Speaker 3:But, seriously that's what you know now. I don't think that would survive now, but, like back then, they're like this motherfucker is going to come to a million. He's crazy. Yeah, this motherfucker is gonna. Yeah, he's crazy yeah he's crazy.
Speaker 1:You know people are gonna check back in to see if he's still going. Oh yeah, they're like oh, wait a minute, this guy, surely he's not going like three hours later. It's like dude, he's still going the next day you wake up, damn, he's still going.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna have to watch the end of this yeah, yeah, and then you keep checking back so he gets more views. Uh, I have you heard anything about beast games too? Are they coming out? Are they working on it already? Yes, they are working on it. They are working on it, okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, they are.
Speaker 3:I'm excited for that.
Speaker 1:Okay. So yeah, this is a Reddit post, and the poster said earlier today I had a poor experience with Uber. My driver didn't arrive in the vehicle that was listed in the app. When she did get there, she missed my exit on the highway and then came to a complete stop while we're on the highway and waited for cars to pass so she could drive over to the left lane and turn around, instead of just turn around at the next exit. She also wasn't stopping at stop signs, so I decided to report it, and my original message to Uber went into detail about this experience and the car she was driving, and so this is Uber's response.
Speaker 3:So it says Just read the second paragraph.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're starting to hear about the difficulty with the price of the trip. We can confirm that you were charged $17.92, which matches the estimated price range shown to you before you requested the trip. As a result, no changes are needed. And then, yeah, the other one also. We've created a separate thread for another team, as you mentioned that your driver missed an exit. So this is, yeah, this is what's going to happen. Uh, with, with ai, you know, chatbots, yeah, you're going to have stuff that doesn't have any relevancy to what you're asking about or what you need help with. You know, sometimes they can get it right, but a lot of times they don't.
Speaker 3:I feel like chat GPT could do a better job than that.
Speaker 1:Yes, it probably could.
Speaker 3:If you look at like she says on the next picture, I never said anything about the price of my trip. Did you read what I wrote? I'm concerned about my driver not arriving. Blah, blah, blah, just like you said. She says that's what I'm reporting and then it goes back and talks about again the price and yeah, that's, obviously they're not.
Speaker 1:You know. Again, you know, we always, uh, we always thought, okay, this is somebody who doesn't know. You know, english is their second language. But at this point I mean that has no, there's nothing that even hints about the price.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's what I'm saying, like I literally we should try to have this conversation and chat gbt and see what it responds back with, like I mean, it would probably do a better job.
Speaker 1:Yeah I mean, yeah, the bar is pretty low.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true, that's true. I mean I get not have I. I'm fine with the bots, like in some bots with customer service I go to, they're fine, they work out, and I would say eight out of ten times I don't get my answer from the bot, but some, you know, two times out of ten. Sometimes I get my answer um, but they're not like that, they're.
Speaker 1:They're accurate, at least yeah, yeah and yeah, and it's not just only related because we deal with them, the chatbots at work. We do Dell warranties on, you know, requesting warranty work on our computers, and they always send you to chat and it's always the chatbot first and then they'll usually take a little bit of information and they're usually, they're usually on point, I mean, and they'll be like okay, now I'm transferring you to an agent so they can.
Speaker 3:They're collecting data to speed up. When you actually talk to human. I get what it says. Pete in the chat is victim blaming and I don't like it very much, but he does have a good point. What if they were in the wrong? In the wrong, like?
Speaker 2:you know, there's so many different things to report.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But but it still doesn't make it easy to find, like I know what. Uh, how many times have we gone to report, like a driver you know, threw up in my car driver, left something and they've changed where it's at and sometimes it's not in there, this is not in there, and so you just have to click on a general one and say, okay, this is what happened. And you know, yeah, they change that stuff so much and make it so hard to find. Of course, they do.
Speaker 3:But shouldn't the technology be able to grasp that and say, oh, this, okay, we're clearly not talking about yeah, there's some key words in there that it's easy to figure out what they're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, for sure I know that it doesn't have anything to do with the price of the ride no, no, it doesn't.
Speaker 3:Um, I'm gonna briefly talk about this. I don't still have a lot of information and I haven't uh, oh, I didn't upload the screenshot like a fucking idiot. Um, I still don't have a ton and I want to watch um mo's stream. She had a? Uh, the tax lady that she's had on before, but the no tax on tips uh, this was shared from gabe. I think. This is instacart. As you may have seen, federal lawmakers recently passed a law that will provide certain independent contractors with new federal tax deduction for tips. We were proud to advocate in strong support including Instacart shoppers in the provision and help secure this important victory for app-based workers. As this moves to final rulemaking in October, they still need to confirm the final list of eligible eligible occupations, so it doesn't look like it's a hundred percent sure. But, um, do you have any information on this at all? Do you have? Or are we both like out of the blue on that?
Speaker 1:uh, yeah, I mean, um, I haven't heard a whole lot about it. Uh, the little bit I've read in the you know, rideshare forums most people think it, it's gonna end up applying to gig workers, but okay again.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, if we're gonna talk about it in depth, I'll definitely have to do some research yeah, maybe we'll spend some time uh next week uh there'll be a patreon, yeah it could be something like that, but I need to spend some time like watching Mo's expert on there and stuff like that. Gary, everyone claiming they advocate Well, of course, yeah, yeah, everybody's going to take credit, of course, of course. Yeah, it's not just, it's well, I think it's 25K. I mean you ain't making 25K on tips, like I mean even. I mean you ain't making 25k on tips, like I mean even gabe, with the amount of work he does. I don't think I mean maybe he's making 25k on tips, but I don't know what do you say? You got a sus.
Speaker 1:Look on your face no, yeah, 25k, I mean that's, that's a pretty good chunk.
Speaker 3:Well, he's full-time worker, though I mean none of us are gonna do that yeah, no, I'm talking about me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think gabe could do it for sure. Uh, he, you know full time and he grinds it out, makes good money at it yeah, so it definitely, it definitely.
Speaker 3:I think it's 25k, but obviously we're not experts at anything, um, except bitching at pete. All right, uh, larry, oh this. You should put a little caveat before you talk about this one too. Isn't that like against the law? You can't talk about investing stuff, or you have to be like we're not professionals, or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're not financial advisors. None of this can be considered as advice of what to buy, what to buy, not to buy. This is just commentary on information that we have come across.
Speaker 3:They're perfect.
Speaker 1:Take it for what it's worth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1:There we go. So yeah, this article is from Yahoo Finance. They're talking to some of their financial people that are recommending buying Lyft stock. Uber stock has done well, lyft stock not so much, but this is their reasoning. They give a couple of reasons why they think that Lyft is a good stock to buy. Right now they're talking about Uber has multiple business like ride-sh sharing, food delivery.
Speaker 1:Lyft pretty much focuses just on US and Canada ride sharing, so they have a lot of room for growth. They do partner with DoorDash, so if you're, if you link your Lyft account with your DoorDash account, you can enjoy some benefits, some reduced prices, things like that. Lyft is also trying to make some changes to go after particular demographics. You know they have a woman plus connect, which allows female riders to have female drivers if they want to have female drivers, if they want. It also has Lyft Silver for senior citizens, which is geared toward providing vehicles that are easy to get it out of for older people. They also have live phone support. Of course, as we'll talk later in the podcast Uber, they tend to copy each other, so if one of them comes out with one of these things and if it works out pretty well, the other one's going to copy it. Let's see. They're also partnering with May Mobility for their driverless services in Atlanta. So that's another option people are going to have in Atlanta for the autonomous cars.
Speaker 1:The second thing they talk about is Lyft's growth. I think it's very impressive here. Lately Quarter one of 2025, lyft set new quarterly records for the amount of drivers and rides taken. They said the bookings were up over 13% year over year and that's the 16th straight quarter of double-digit growth for them. Also, they're heading into profitability company. You know we used to talk about both of these companies Uber. Lyft uses burn through cash just as fast as they could, but their new CEO, you know, david Reicher, started back in 2023. He's kind of turned the ship around and they now generate positive cash flow. As a first quarter, it's generated 920 million in free cash flow over the past year. And the third thing they talk about Lyft stock is dirt cheap.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It really is. It's just I don't even know what it's going for right now, but I think it's what it's $14. $14 is what it is now.
Speaker 3:I think I clicked on it and I was just looking at the it's $14. $14 is what it is now. I think I clicked on it and I was just looking at the article $14.73.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you know, they think, with the profitability and the different markets they're just getting into and things like that, they think it's a good buy at that price right now. So, again, this is not financial advice. This is just just us talking about, uh, talking about this story of people on yahoo finance, uh, and what they think about lift right now what well.
Speaker 3:It is interesting, as I'm looking at it and like it was really down in like april and then it had a huge spike in may and then it stayed relatively consistent to that, uh, yeah, to between.
Speaker 3:I mean, obviously in may it was may, in july, yeah and then it's now it's back down to kind of the average. It's been for a while. But one thing I have to comment on this uh, you didn't bring up and which is totally fine I was looking at, but it's like the key points. The first point is bullshit because it says lyft is carving out its niche in the market by offering differentiated products and services. I mean really, I mean you talked about like the silver and stuff like that, but that's not going to put them on the map right and again, um, it's things that I think one of our later articles talks about.
Speaker 1:uh, talks about uber, about Uber doing the same thing as the Women Plus Connect. So it's very hard for them to differentiate themselves with things like that, because if it's successful or it looks like it's successful, the other company just adopts it and offers the same thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do have a little lift stock, typically.
Speaker 1:I don't buy.
Speaker 3:What I do with my stash is I look when I'm ready to buy. I do $5 a week. I go in there and I'm like, all right, who's a little cheap right now, like they've had a bad day. I was like, okay, I'm buying them. But I usually start when it's at the negative percentage. But I never get down to lift because it's always way down there. So I've bought. I literally have like five dollars and I of stock and I think you know it's.
Speaker 1:I've lost every time, so but yeah, yeah so comments from, uh, from from our listeners, that is, they're, they're, they're dead against it.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean if you have a little extra money. I mean they always do say buy low and sell high. You know, Gary did, he sold. I mean I don't know how much he had, but he sold when it jumped up to $20 roughly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Gary, said it's Lyft stock's never good stock to buy. Bubba Sue, don't waste your money. Lyft's the bottom feeder of gig work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, like I said, I I don't know well, I mean what? What do you buy instead? Like in that, do you just stick with uber? I mean, again, you want to buy cheap. If you just look at the mentality that you're buying when it's low. But it's been low for a long time, it's not, it's not been great, and I don't even know what uber's at. It's probably oh, uber, let's see, let me click on it. Yahoo site's pretty nice. Oh, they're at 89.94 yeah so they're doing pretty good.
Speaker 3:Then doordash, I think, is like 250 or something like that. It's some insane. 240, 240. Okay, I was pretty close, but yeah, that's, that's high. So, all right, I guess no one wants to buy lift stock. Geez, we try to give you this, not advice to buy low, sell high and you guys are all negative.
Speaker 1:That's all right when we go on our Caribbean cruise. On the lift stock that we sold.
Speaker 3:Larry Gary's like if you buy lift, keep in mind it's a pump and dump. Yeah, like your high school career, right in mind it's a pump and dump. Yeah, like your high school career, right. Oh, boom, oops. Wait, what Rock in the news? Wrong one it was right next to the other one, so I quickly did it, josh, like send me the money and I'll put a bet in and give you a better roi. All right, next week I'll give you five bucks. You see if you can return better for me um all right.
Speaker 3:Uh, another ai nightmare. This one, I think again, is with uber. Uh no, that's not it. Which one is this? Oh no, this is just an asshole. Dasher. This is first the Dasher speaking. I'm not going to serve homeless people in this rain. Cancel the order. I won't bring it to you. If you don't have money, you should make coffee at home. Customer, homeless people, what the F? I'm reporting you to DoorDash. Dasher. Accordingly, you have to pay it if you want your order to be delivered or you will suffer from hunger. Uh, okay, and then, uh, customer, how can someone be homeless in order from doordash? It was already paid and you can't order if you don't pay first. You should not have chosen the order if you didn't want to deliver it. Uh, there's an epiphany.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there are two. Uh, dasher, there are too many such bad orders coming in every day. I'm not going to bring that. Three dollars is ridiculous. So it sounds like the person even tipped right. I would guess I don't know. So yeah, I don't have any waymo in the news. I know we played the sounder. I know everyone got excited because we thought we had waymo in the news, uh, but but unfortunately we don't.
Speaker 3:If you ever see any waymo in the news, meaning like I don't care about the news, I want shitty driving waymos, that's what we're going after. Uh, feel free to send it to us. Tag me on social media somewhere like josh. Does uh really appreciate that? Uh, okay, octopus tablet. If you do not have this tablet in your car, I don't know why. If you're driving rideshare around because that is, although I'm not hearing myself on tiktok either, although I wouldn't hear myself, right, I'm stupid. Anyways, I gotta turn this down. Anyways, you'll start talking. It'll mess me up, sorry, uh. Go to uh a link in our description and you can uh get the tablet for free. And you get everything for free. Everything's great, and you can earn up to a hundred dollars a month. Passengers love it. Just don't link your Uber account. Other than that, it's a great service to have it's. I mean it's small residual income, but I mean every little it's going to. It's going to save you more money than turning your air conditioner off while you're driving around in hotlanta you know what?
Speaker 1:get the, get the tablet, and then you can turn your air on and leave it on. You know, I think you have to keep switching yeah, there you go, that you have enough money to pay for the air your tablet can pay for the air. That's why definitely definitely, oh my gosh, but yeah, so we need people to um to subscribe on tiktok so we can stop streaming this yankee way. Yeah, oh, is that what?
Speaker 3:your comment was is that? Is that a saying? The yankee way is like yeah I never heard of that is.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know janky, oh, janky, yeah, yeah all right.
Speaker 3:Uh, larry, I I grabbed this tiktok for you. It's very short, but it's uploading there. We go um and we'll just watch it.
Speaker 1:Because you love drones and you're a nerd, I do so yeah, the title of it's like the perks of living close to delivery station yeah, and the comments are just off the chain, because it's all drivers like oh god forbid.
Speaker 3:I like because, sorry for the audio listeners, it drops and then it blows like it drops from, like I don't know, 15 feet, yeah, and then it ends up, uh, getting blown from the, the, the blaze or whatever, but the comments god forbid. I lightly toss a package on someone's boards, though, and then the second comment is watch those hoa ban these deliveries, uh. Third comment and I get mishandled package for dropping a foot off the ground, but I get yelled at for sliding a package across the bars.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of funny how they uh yeah, the rotor wash from the drone blows the package off the driveway Right right right, yeah, that's.
Speaker 3:It's so weird, but I think that's the future. It was pretty loud. It was pretty loud. I mean that comment about the HOA is not far off, especially. You know. They can obviously say hey, in in our community, we're not going to accept drone deliveries. If you do, you'll be fined. I mean it's as simple as that f-h-o-a.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know they're terrible.
Speaker 3:I would never live in one, um, but you know, this is the future, y'all we're gonna get our shit drones yep, uh, it's going 54 minutes. Wow, uh, okay, uh of the well, we'll probably do this one and then we'll we'll do you know what. Let's do year one. As we talk about AI, till that we're blue in the face, We'll just say that. For the Patreon, let's talk about the one about the women driver preference, which this is where little brother was first and big brother follow Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that happens sometimes. You know. Know it's not not often, but it does. So this is uh.
Speaker 1:This article came out, said uber ads woman driver and rider pairing option in new test. Says matches aren't guaranteed, but uber says the setting increases the chance of riding with a woman driver. So yeah, it's given. It says it's giving women riders and drivers more ways to choose who they ride with. It's rolling out a pilot program that will allow women to opt into being matched with other women on the Uber app. It gives women riders the ability to request a woman driver and lets women drivers choose to pick up women riders.
Speaker 1:They're going to start testing in LA, san Francisco and Detroit over the next few weeks. Again, it's something that they can opt in. They have the option when requesting a ride if they reserve a ride in advance or it's a preference they can turn on in their app settings. Again, it's not guaranteed, but it says the setting increases the chances of being paired with a woman driver. Again, this is we talk about it. They just, you know, they mimic each other. If one of them introduces a feature that works well or sounds good, then the other one's going to do it as well.
Speaker 3:I wonder, when they do these like new updates, why do they only like they do an article and they are only testing it Like something like this? Don't you think they could just like open it up? Or are they worried, like in the smaller markets? Although that said, it wasn't guaranteed, so you just then just don't guarantee it, I guess yeah, yeah, I don't know that may.
Speaker 1:Maybe you know, they may be still trying to work out some of the technology kinks, or you know something like that. It seems like they always you know, they rarely ever, uh, release something just yeah, everybody.
Speaker 3:Well, I wish if they were just going to do it in the markets, just don't say anything. I mean, maybe they, you know, they want to get a little pr but I love that detroit was included in one of the markets, because we. Michigan gets left out of a lot of stuff, like when they're testing. It's always like you know, and detroit's a big, big city. Oh, I mean bowling green.
Speaker 1:We're always on the cutting edge, oh god, god, I mean, you can't even.
Speaker 3:What's the population of Bowling Green?
Speaker 1:About 80,000.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's a good size. That's a really good size yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean we do have to pipe in sunshine. We're out in the boonies.
Speaker 3:Right. I mean you do have high-speed internet, so I mean you've kind of made Corvette Museum, what?
Speaker 1:more can you ask for? Look at him, he's like yep, come to point.
Speaker 3:That's why, when we all got together, we went to Bowling Green and not Nashville.
Speaker 1:Hey, that was my suggestion. I know Well, it was a good suggestion I was trying to make it good for you guys. With it being summer, here downtown would have been very dead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but still.
Speaker 1:We would not have had the fun we would have had but honestly I I love hanging out at home and having fun and like, oh yeah, yeah, like if we ever, if you ever, you know, if we ever do want to do bowling green sometime, uh, we could do it for sure here, and you know, one night I'm sure we could all eat dinner, you know, yeah well, next year we're doing clear water.
Speaker 3:We've already kind of, I think we've all, and larry loves clear water like I do so oh yeah, clear water.
Speaker 1:Dunedin, st pete, that whole area down there is just sweet, it's great, it's nice, it's a. I don't know why we're gonna go. We're going down the summer. I don't know if that makes much sense, but well, why? Because it's 8 000 degrees well, it's 8 000 degrees.
Speaker 3:Here it's. We got a heat advisory. Tomorrow it's supposed to be like 105 in the index, like oh, that's what it was here today. Yeah, like 105 yeah florida's not gonna be much hotter than that, and at least we'll be by water hopefully, yeah, yeah, that's the plan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, for sure, um, it'll be great, all right so tonight, patreon 8 10 you still have 11 minutes to join. Uh, the seven dollar you can join us live. We're going to talk about DoorDash loses its challenge to Uber lawsuit, and then we're going to talk about Uber going all in on robo taxis. And then one other thing that Faith shared I thought would be good for the Patreon. So Pete says I ate at a steak joint in Bowling Green once.
Speaker 1:Montana Grill. I've eaten there many times, Pete.
Speaker 3:Is it good?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not bad at all.
Speaker 3:Where are we talking for a steak? What's this A?
Speaker 1:la carte. Yeah, gosh.
Speaker 3:I mean, is it more expensive than Texas Roadhouse?
Speaker 1:It's probably similar, okay, yeahhouse.
Speaker 3:It's probably on par with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. Probably on par with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love steak, god. I mean, we have a lot of restaurants here You're not going to go away hungry.
Speaker 1:in Bowling Green we used to have more fast food restaurants per capita than anywhere, All right.
Speaker 3:Don't you have an obesity problem there too?
Speaker 1:We're the Olympic capital of the United States. I'm serious. That was in the New York Times.
Speaker 3:I don't doubt it.
Speaker 1:No, they did. They did a story and they interviewed doctors here and I forget all the reasoning about it with the prices and this and that.
Speaker 3:But Bowling Green, kentucky, we are number one as far as per capita people using Ozempic. Before the ozempic came out, I swear I read an article at one point that there was something with the obesity thing. Like I'm not talking shit, I'm fat as fuck. But I'm just saying I remember something about that a long time ago, like that was a struggle down there. But yeah, it's all that sweet tea yo yeah, hey, you know it's gotta have something.
Speaker 1:It's so delicious, so it is it is for sure all right, so any plans for the weekend as we wrap it up um, this weekend not really, my wife's cranking up getting ready to start her new position, so, uh, she's gonna be pretty busy, so I'll probably I may actually go out and do some rideshare. You know I will be out doing gig work this weekend too.
Speaker 3:I I got a little volunteer gig Saturday morning, but for the most part, and I think I drive Sunday night for the old people. But Friday, saturday, I'm kind of open, which is pretty shocking for me. Well, let's race some hell on Telegram. Yeah, let's race some hell. Come join Telegram, for sure, all right. All right, as always, don't put up with anyone's bullshit. We'll see you on the road. Peace out. Hey, good night. This podcast is produced and edited by hey guys media group. Want to start a podcast? Check out hey guys. Thank you.
