Lyft Love
While wrapping up a mentor session earlier, a glow stash & cuddlestache adorned Prius pulled in right behind us to take a break, so one of our newest drivers got to meet another driver! Now I only wish I'd taken a photo of the three of us to post here! Anwar is an avid Lyft-ONLY driver who completely stopped driving for the other platform due to what he referred to as exploitation. My mentee had been asking about "doing both" several times in the mentor session, so when Anwar spoke up on the topic, I just stayed quiet and let him tell his story. I always tell applicants it's not ideal because it will kill their bonus opportunity, but now that rationale is only impactful with folks who have newer cars. My mentee was in a 2013 vehicle, so she'd already sort of nodded her head in understanding on that, but I think the minute Anwar spent talking about his decision sealed the deal for her—she says she's just going to do Lyft and not even going to bother signing up on the other platform! I frequently try to talk to "uther" drivers about our PDB whenever I see them parked around town and offer the new driver bonus. The argument that shouldn't exist at all (because of the PDB) is "more rides" (on the other platform) since 10-20% from our PDB offsets earnings enough for most drivers so that the potential of a few more "x" rides a day doesn't matter much—or at all. I've talked to many who agree, after just running Lyft alone, the ride count difference isn't even huge. Of course, running both when the other one has more widespread acceptance and market share will net what seems like a huge difference in the number of passenger requests, but that's because when that app is 1-2 minutes between requests, Lyft may be 3-5 minutes. So the driver is constantly turning off Lyft and their takeaway/perception is that Lyft is slower. But since every ride can be so drastically different in length and pay rate between 1-2 mile or airport rides and regular or Prime Time priced rides, scientifically analyzing he difference only in terms of number of rides is almost impossible. But the earnings are clearly measurable. Drivers always make more driving for Lyft by qualifying for the Power Driver Bonus. Even without that, many drivers find they're getting nearly the same ride count anyway by just running Lyft.