Ep 9: Drive to Survive - How to Beat the Uber/Lyft Rideshare System

We know it’s been a little minute since you last seen us. As we build, we need time to reflect. During the reflection, plenty of real reminders that it takes true self-believe and belief in God to overcome any obstacle that impedes your destiny.

Lyft was the obstacle that impeded our destiny. Why? Because we were driving to survive.

This is a true story. Buckle up kiddos.

Survival for us was beating the odds. Beating the trouble we caused in the past. At first, the ambition only was to fix the credit problem, then buy a home and get on “track” with a life I thought I wanted. Plus, I loved driving. I loved helping people. I loved learning from people and if I couldn’t give them money or love, I could at least listen to their problems.

Well, listening long enough taught me quickly, there’s nothing in my plan I really wanted the way my rideshare passengers wanted. I just wanted to pay some bills, but more or less, I live a very blessed life. Couldn’t see it that way at the time. The socioeconomic taunt from my ego reminding me we’re not able to go on fancy international vacations as frequently, started to sting.

Life before the pandemic, we were kicking it with Kimi Raikkonen. Now we’re kicking guys who think they might puke outta the Jeep 😒

But these customers. They had real problems. Real trouble. My morning runs would be to methodone clinics, daycare centers and the one off bail bonds or penitentiary pickup. Yes, the majority of my customers were not wealthy vacationers, but people in funky situations. Battling poverty, addiction, violence. Battling betrayal. One evening,  in the city Trayvon Martin was murdered, definitely picked up a lady who was being thrown out by her boyfriend. The whole ride, she tried her hardest over the phone to negotiate, beg and plead for him to forgive her. “Baby I didn’t want to fuck him. But you were acting crazy!” She screamed as we zoomed down I-4. I looked in the rear view briefly. She caught me, and grinned with a crooked smile but soft eyes. I smiled back, but quickly fixed my eyes back in the road, but could only think of the hell people go through. On a daily.

Don’t get me wrong. Every customer felt like I was relearning something about myself. While I worked, and did the small money rides, I would get so frustrated and want to quit. I got tired of having to clean my Jeep everyday. I got tired of staying out late. I had people worried over me, cause I was still working a regular full time job. My job was actually worried. It did feel special to know they cared, but they didn’t wanna pay me a wage that wouldn’t require me to do this work. But that was the dangerous trap and lie I fell for.

Yes, we gave speeches on panels with sports industry titans at the Jacksonville Jaguars stadium. Took off the suit, drove Lyft that same night.

Yes, we were there for the debut of LMDh / GTP. Went back to Florida, drove Lyft the next day.

Survival isn’t about how much you accumulate. It’s truly about how long you put to use what you accumulate. That’s why many systems crumble. And businesses. And my Lyft driving I treated like my own little business. By the time I was 32, I had a reality check. I’ve touched the garments of the racing Gods, but unless I made real money, that’s forever where they would keep me. Touching garments. Feeling up fabric. No, lol, not interested in going out like that. Plus,

in my mind was behind all my friends. Smh, comparison is the devil.

To survive in America, I gotta swing for the fences and stop playing myself small. My mentality was right but execution was flawed. I was still too timid to put myself online, especially since I wanted to keep my job with IMSA. Plus, I had to admit my experience being an engineer, while glamorous, I knew couldn’t last forever.

I drove Lyft to give myself time to try and fix my money problems, but truly figure out the bigger solution to the age-old problem.

But could you survive the boredom? Could you survive the repetitive nature of driving down the same streets, days on end? I’m a traveler by birthright. I love to drive, but I love having a purpose behind the destination. Lyft makes you realize quickly, your journeys have no purpose. Peak repetitive motion. Fixed earnings. Unbalanced ride rewards. Challenges that are only meant for major metropolitan areas like Miami. Learning going to work in Miami to earn the bigger dollars was always canceled out by travel costs. And I’m not sleeping in my car for three days and no shower to earn a few extra bucks. That stage of my life had passed.

Reviewing CAD drawings while I take a Lyft lunch break.

See what I mean? It’s not enough to want to earn and it will happen. Lyft will put you through repetition hell. Payment hell. Customer hell. Worst part of it all, Lyft’s payout system paints a false narrative to riders that they are in full control of their earnings. They aren’t. How so? Let me break it down:

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Ok, so let’s say it’s 2022. The average Lyft driver would earn $16-20 per hour in central Florida. This doesn’t sound too bad at first. And if you can keep a five star rating, you could earn at the higher end of that pay scale. What you don’t see is what goes on behind the scenes of how they come to that summation. In Orlando, in one hour a five-star driver with a vehicle that can hold 4+ passengers may at best get 3-4 rides in an hour. Each of those rides will average between $6-8 dollars. Or at least the first one or two does. So now you’re up $16 in 30 minutes, cause each $6 ride is about 15 minutes from customer pick up to drop off. Not bad. Quick $16. But here’s the game Lyft and Uber love to play. There will be a now 15-20 minute delay before you get another ride. You may want to stay in the zone and keep on that same warpath of getting those decent rides, but that second $8 ride took you out to the boondocks. So now it’s a 30 minute drive back towards the airport or downtown, cause it’s always popping there. But you and up spending $4 in gas on the rush to get back. And when you do, guess what ? Your next ride is something super small. $3. That’s it. And you’re in downtown Orlando, where traffic is now jammed up, and you aren’t getting any extra pay for sitting in between stop lights like Lyft used to before the pandemic. So the system profiting off the time wasted that you were booked, and keeping the fee low cause the distance was only 1.5 miles away. That’s what we mean by survival. You only made $19 bucks but lost $7. Fuel was burned fast hustling back to the busy area in town and then sitting in traffic. So omitting any extra expenses, that’s at best  $12 per hour in one of the busiest cities in America. And gas was extra high in 2022 due to the USA awaiting Ukraine with what they had going on. And of course, you aren’t the only Lyft driver working this area. There are wolves out there with V8s and XL black trucks who want the same clients you’re getting. Competition was everywhere.

That’s the harsh tax of survival in the rideshare economy. And customers, we get it. If you’re reading this, that $6 we were paid from Lyft came out of the $20 you paid.

How? Ok, let me say this, in the clearest way possible. THE DRIVER DOESN’T GET PAID WHAT YOU PAID FOR THE RIDE. They took $14 and gave us the $6. Why? Cause that’s how online gig rideshare businesses work.

You are an independent contractor and are subject to being ok with the terms and agreements. Is it fair? No. But survival isn’t fair. We’re both getting robbed. And I know deep down, that $20 you spent was your last, cause your baby mom’s has you headed to court right now for some mess, and I’m driving you there!

The OG Moonlight Mango Logo, circa 2022.

We hope you’ve learned a valuable lesson. You can only beat the rideshare system by outlasting the challenges of survival. And hopefully, we shed some light on the challenges many drivers like myself faced at the time. The money will come, but you won’t survive on their money just because you were paid a little more. And the end of the day, they are the ultimate business, and you’re an underpaid contractor. Never forget that truth.