When I'm asked to provide a quote for service, I estimate the amount of time it will take me, and send the customer a quote based on this. But I don't tell the customer that they are paying me by the hour -- I say this is what I am charging you for me to do X.
If I estimate 40 hours but it takes 37, the customer still pays for 40. If it takes 43 hours, the customer still pays 40.
I believe this is how a good portion of contract work works.
That doesn't seem to be quite the whole story, though.
Suppose I'm a contractor you've hired to remodel your house. I tell you that I can get a plumber to do it for $5,000, of which I'll get some cut, and you agree. Then I go to a plumber and tell them you're willing to pay $4,500 for the job, and they agree. I pocket the extra $500.
No I think you've got it wrong. Drivers are paid by miles and minutes after the trip is done. It's like "I'm a contractor you've hired to remodel your house. I tell you that I can get a plumber to do it for $5,000, of which I'll get some cut, and you agree. Then I go to a plumber and ask them to do the work, of which I'll pay them $50/hour. If the actual work take them more than 100 hours (>$5000). Then I'll pay the difference. If the actual work take less than 100 hours then I pocket the difference." Have I been honest in this scenario?
It's very similar to that Jobs and Wozniak story, about how Jobs scored a contract and split it with Wozniak, and much later found out that the contract was actually for a way higher price and Jobs pocketed almost all of it.
Weird to see "hacker" news full of people defending Jobs/Uber, but I guess it is what it is.
These aren't just estimates, they are minimum bills that are purported to be based on "time and distance of the route"[1] and if they systematically and intentionally padding time and distance that sounds an awful lot like fraud. IANAL and it may not be technical fraud but it is at best a deceptive business practice and again one of the reasons we have taxi regulators.
If I estimate 40 hours but it takes 37, the customer still pays for 40. If it takes 43 hours, the customer still pays 40.
I believe this is how a good portion of contract work works.