Payment/ride summary: August 1-7

Uber

So during the August 1-7 week, I did something kind of crazy - I drove both Uber and Lyft. Well, it's not that crazy, because it had been my plan / reason for signing up for Lyft all along - to drive it when Uber seemed too slow.

What ended up happening this week is that I drove Lyft for two evenings at the beginning of the week, then when I went online on Saturday I decided to go Uber. I really like that Lyft explicitly includes how long you've been online in their calculation of who gets allocated the next ride, but I just haven't really been feeling like there's as much activity, even when Uber is somewhat over-saturated. It seems like the ridership just isn't quite there on the Lyft platform yet (hence why they're advertising so heavily in this market, I presume).

Lyft

As you can see, I made more with Uber than with Lyft, and the total time online was actually comparable. The "type" of hours was very different though - weekday evenings vs Saturday daytime - and the weather was probably also different, so I'm not sure how much to read into it. My gut, though, says Uber is just busier. Also, maybe some of the drivers who were oversaturating the market left? It's really hard to tell.

Uber had 3 hours 6 minutes online, 16 trips, and $96.95 total payout. Some portion of that was probably tolls, but it's not that easily broken out on the summary screen and I'm too lazy to dig it up. I didn't get any tips from Uber passengers.

On Lyft I was online for 3 hours 18 minutes, 7 trips, and $49.40 paid out, including $3.00 in tips and $1.00 in tolls.

Overall, it continues to be the case that Lyft is better for getting tips, and also seems to have somewhat higher base rates, but if you're not getting as many rides, it doesn't seem to make up for it. My Uber rating at the end of this week was either 4.93 or 4.94 - I got another 4 star review that dragged it down. I haven't yet figured out how to actually find my Lyft rating, go figure.