Lyft and Uber said they will cease operations in Minneapolis after the city’s council voted Thursday to override a mayoral veto and require that ride-hailing services increase driver wages to the equivalent of the local minimum wage of $15.57 an hour.
Lyft called the ordinance “deeply flawed,” saying in a statement that it supports a minimum earning standard for drivers but not the one passed by the council.
It’s more that all of these rideshare companies rely solely on undercutting every other cab company in the area - by not paying a living wage and forcing drivers to use their own vehicles (thus paying for their own gas and maintenance), they avoid a lot of operating expenses. They manage to do this by billing themselves as tech companies instead of any sort of transport company, and cities have been forced to go along with it purely out of convenience and mass adoption.