Reasons not to use Lyft

<!DOCTYPE HTML> <html lang="en-US"> <head> <title>Reasons not to use Lyft</title> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <link media="all" href="/common/stallman.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"> <link rel="icon" href="/common/rms.png"> </head> <body> <h1>Richard Stallman's personal site.</h1> <h2><a href="/">https://stallman.org</a></h2> <p> For current political commentary, see the <a href="/archives/polnotes.html">daily political notes</a>. </p> <p> <a href="/biographies.html#serious">RMS's Bio</a> | <a href="http://gnu.org">The GNU Project</a> </p> <hr /> <div class="c2"> What's bad about: <a href="/airbnb.html">Airbnb</a> | <a href="/amazon.html">Amazon</a> | <a href="/amtrak.html">Amtrak</a> | <a href="/ancestry.html">Ancestry</a> | <a href="/apple.html">Apple</a> | <a href="/change.org.html">Change.org</a> | <a href="/chatgpt.html">ChatGPT</a> | <a href="/cloudflare.html">Cloudflare</a> | <a href="/discord.html">Discord</a> | <a href="/disney.html">Disney</a> | <a href="/ebooks.pdf">Ebooks</a> | <a href="/eventbrite.html">Eventbrite</a> | <a href="/evernote.html">Evernote</a> | <a href="/twitter.html">Ex-Twitter</a> | <a href="/facebook.html">Facebook</a> | <a href="/flixbus.html">FLIXbus</a> | <a href="/frito-lay.html">Frito-Lay</a> | <a href="/frontier.html">Frontier</a> | <a href="/google.html">Google</a> | <a href="/gofundme.html">Gofundme</a> | <a href="/food-delivery.html">Grubhub</a> | <a href="/in-n-out-burger.html">In-N-Out Burger</a> | <a href="/intel.html">Intel</a> | <a href="/linkedin.html">LinkedIn</a> | <a href="/lyft.html">Lyft</a> |  <a href="/eventbrite.html">Meetup</a> | <a href="/microsoft.html">Microsoft</a> | <a href="/netflix.html">Netflix</a> | <a href="/patreon.html">Patreon</a> | <a href="/pay-toilets.html">Pay Toilets</a> | <a href="/privatization.html">Privatization</a> | <a href="/skype.html">Skype</a> | <a href="/slack.html">Slack</a> | <a href="/spotify.html">Spotify</a> | <a href="/tesla.html">Tesla</a> | <a href="/threads.html">Threads</a> | <a href="/ticketmaster.html">Ticketmaster</a> |  <a href="/uber.html">Uber</a> | <a href="/wendys.html">Wendy's</a> | <a href="/whatsapp.html">WhatsApp</a> | <a href="/zoom.html">Zoom</a> | </div> <h1>Reasons not to use Lyft</h1> <ul> <li> <p> Uber, Lyft and Doordash have <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/08/uber-lyft-doordash-panned-new-lobby-group-fight-worker-rights">set up a lobbying group against workers' right to unionize</a>. </p> </li> <li> <p> Lyft has donated 14 million dollars to <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/19/lyft-makes-largest-donation-massachusetts-history-keep-drivers-down">buy a ballot initiative</a> to deny Lyft's drivers the rights of employees. </p> </li> <li> <p> Uber and Lyft Drivers Say Apps <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/18/uber-lyft-drivers-surge-pricing-wages">Are Short-Changing Wages While Raising Fares</a>. </p> </li> <li> <p> Lyft <a href="https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/02/04/all-the-bad-things-about-uber-and-lyft-in-one-simple-list/">increases car traffic</a>, increase wasteful driving, reduce use of other transit modalities, and undermine public transit. </p> </li> <li> <p> Independent analysis of independently collected data says that Uber and Lyft <a href="https://jalopnik.com/uber-and-lyft-take-a-lot-more-from-drivers-than-they-sa-1837450373">keep 10% more of the customer's payment than they claim to keep</a>. </p> <p> The companies say that is false but refuse to cooperate with trying to verify it. </p> </li> <li> Lyft requires users to identify themselves, first to make an account and then to pay for a ride. <p> This is described in Lyft's (very long) <a href="https://www.lyft.com/privacy">privacy policy</a>. </p> </li> <li> The Android app demands access to <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.lyft.android">lots of personal data</a>. </li> <li> Lyft employees <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/25/lyft-god-view/">frequently look at the movements</a> of various customers. </li> <li> Uber and Lyft have substantially increased <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Uber-Lyft-San-Francisco-pros-cons-ride-hailing-13841277.php">pollution and congestion</a> in San Francisco, and cut the ridership of buses and trains as well as the amount people walk. </li> <li> <p>Not the Onion: Lyft told some users — including Cara Dick and Nicole Cumming that <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/12/19/lyft-said-their-real-names-are.html">their accounts would be cancelled if they did not change their names</a>.</p> <p>This impudent demand is a secondary injustice. The primary injustice is that Lyft demands the passenger's name at all. It should be illegal to ask for that. Taxi companies should use an anonymous payment system <a href="http://taler.net">such as GNU Taler</a> and respect users' anonymity.</p> </li> <li> <p>Lyft makes drivers <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/25/poverty-mode-app-based-drivers-slam-lyfts-latest-pay-cut-scheme">compete for rides by accepting lower pay</a>.</p> </li> <li> <p>Lyft and Uber are lobbying against the PRO Act, which would facilitate <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/05/06/pro-act-uber-lyft-doordash-instacart-lobbying/">forming unions</a>. <p>So are Instacart and some of the food-delivery companies. This is another reason to boycott them all. (I won't use them anyway since they won't let me pay anonymous cash.) </p> </li> <li> <p>Uber and Lyft <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/21/uber-lyft-fares-surge-drivers-dont-get-piece-of-pie">are cutting pay for drivers</a> even as they charge customers more.</p> </li> </ul> <hr /> <p> Copyright (c) 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, Richard Stallman. Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire page are permitted provided this notice is preserved. </p> </body> </html>

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Reasons not to use Lyft