Tag Archives: sharing economy

Sharing tractors? There’s an app for that.

The company is reportedly focusing instead on developing software for driverless vehicles that could be used by other car companies.

The shift has led to a mass exodus at Apple’s secretive car division, Project Titan, anonymous sources tell Bloomberg News. Hundreds of people from the once-1,000-person-strong team have either been reassigned to other divisions, been let go, or quit, though some new people have also been added.

In 2008, after Apple released the iPhone, Steve Jobs talked with Tony Fadell, a senior VP at Apple, about taking on a car as the company’s next game-changer, and redesigning it from scratch. “What would a dashboard be?” Fadell said, describing one conversation. “What would seats be? How would you fuel it or power it?”

But those big dreams seem to have hit hard realities. Among other things, Apple had trouble getting suppliers to make small quantities of parts, Bloomberg reports. Ultimately, it’s very difficult for a company to get into the car manufacturing business — even an established tech behemoth. And for those of us who’d like to see more innovation in the transportation sector, that’s too bad.

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Sharing tractors? There’s an app for that.

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These Mailbox Stickers Help You Borrow Stuff You Need

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These Mailbox Stickers Help You Borrow Stuff You Need

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Uber says half its drivers make $90K a year — yeah, right.

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Uber says half its drivers make $90K a year — yeah, right.

While we’re technically pro- anything that can convince people to ditch their cars, we can’t ignore that Uber has come under fire for underpaying its workers, undercutting taxi regulations, and just generally being a pushy dudebro tech company.

Recent fare cuts have driven drivers to the streets to ask for better treatment, even as the company burns rubber in the profits department: In just four years, the upstarty start-up has gone from 0 to $17 billion, and it’s still growing to the tune of 50,000 new jobs a month.

But when the company claims that UberX drivers in New York City make a median income of $90,776 per year — meaning the average Joe with a Prius and some free time could theoretically catapult to the top third of the city’s earners — something smells a little off. Some have already pointed out that this number is gross income, before all the expenses that drivers are expected to cover kick in — like, you know, gas.

Luckily — for us, because this sounds like a lot of work — Slate’s Alison Griswold took a hard look at the math, then talked to some actual UberX drivers, and now she is calling shenanigans:

[UberX driver Jesus] Garay says that on average, a ride takes him 20 minutes from start to finish: five minutes to reach the pickup location, five to wait for the customer, and 10 to drive to the destination. For a trip of that length, Garay says he’ll make $10 or $11. “So if you’re busy, you’re going to make three rides in an hour,” he explains. “That’s $30 an hour. That’s before commission, taxes, the Black Car Fund, before you take off your gas …”

For a driver like Garay, all those deductions mean an initial $30 in fares leaves him with about $21 for the hour. According to statements Garay provided Slate, he made $1,163.30 in fares for 40 hours of work in the week ending Oct. 13. From that, he took home just under $850. In any given week, Garay expects to lose a bit more than $350 to gas, car cleanings, insurance, maintenance, and parking costs. That leaves him with about $480 before income taxes. Effectively, he’s making $12 an hour.

That’s still not terrible, but it sure isn’t $90k. And there’s more. When Griswold just flat-out asks an Uber rep to show her ONE driver in NYC who is making the alleged median income, she got nothing. Here’s a quick math refresher — “median” means half of the drivers in NYC should be making MORE than that. So why is it so hard to dig up just one?

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Uber says half its drivers make $90K a year — yeah, right.

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Here’s one more thing you can share: Kids

Here’s one more thing you can share: Kids

We’ve written a lot over the past month about the sharing economy — how people are using apps and technology that make it easy to share cars, bikes, homes, couches, offices, tools, pets. More sharing = less resource use = all-around goodness.

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Kid-sharing: so much better than kid-hoarding.

And now the latest addition to the list of shareable items: kids. Yes, people are using websites and Facebook pages to find like-minded people with whom to share children. From The New York Times:

[A] new breed of online daters [is] looking not for love but rather a partner with whom to build a decidedly non-nuclear family. And several social networks, including PollenTree.com, Coparents.com, Co-ParentMatch.com, and MyAlternativeFamily.com, as well as Modamily, have sprung up over the past few years to help them.

“While some people have chosen to be a single parent, many more people look at scheduling and the financial pressures and the lack of an emotional partner and decide that single parenting is too daunting and wouldn’t be good for them or the child,” said Darren Spedale, 38, the founder of Family by Design, a free parenting partnership site officially introduced in early January. “If you can share the support and the ups and downs with someone, it makes it a much more interesting parenting option.”

The sites present what can seem like a compelling alternative to surrogacy, adoption or simple sperm donation.

The article highlights a few brave new parenting pioneers, including Dawn Pieke, a straight woman, and Fabian Blue, a gay man, who met on a Facebook page for Co-parents.net and now share parenting responsibility for their daughter Indigo, who was born last October. “[T]hey never drafted any kind of legal agreement, which they both agree was unwise,” the Times reports, but I’m sure that’ll all sort itself out. Right?

Having a kid is by far the most carbon-intensive activity a normal person is ever likely to engage in. Think of the climate benefits if more broody singletons shared those munchkins instead of each having their own. And why just singles? Couples could get in on the fun too. And parents who already have kids and want to dump them at someone else’s house for a few days generously share them with other nurturing adults.

Good news for kids: Coming next is a site for parent-sharing. Not fully satisfied with yours? Find another couple down the street!

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on

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Here’s one more thing you can share: Kids

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RE-volv is making a community pot of solar gold

RE-volv is making a community pot of solar gold

What if every dollar you donated to a worthy cause generated two, three, or more dollars? That’s the idea behind the RE-volv community solar fund project, currently closing in on the end of its first stage of fundraising.

Like Mosaic, RE-volv is tapping the collective for funding to back solar projects. But instead of individuals investing for their own individual good, RE-volv envisions a big pot-o-gold seed fund that would be invested and reinvested in community solar infrastructure. These are investments in solar’s future — essentially donations to RE-volv’s fund. Here’s how RE-volv explains it:

The Solar Seed Fund will use the donations to finance solar installations on community-serving organizations such as schools, universities, hospitals, and places of worship. RE-volv recoups the solar installation cost and earns a return on the investment through a 20-year solar lease agreement. The lease payments go back into the Solar Seed Fund allowing the fund to continuously grow, and finance an expanding number of solar installations.

According to the group’s numbers, once 14 RE-volv systems are in place, the revenue from those systems will be able to fund another solar-power system of roughly the same cost — and on, and on.

RE-volv has already raised almost $12,000 via its crowdfunding campaign at Indiegogo, surpassing its initial goal by nearly $2,000. Combined with $20,000 raised from other sources, that’s more than enough funding to install its first solar project.

“This confirms our idea that lots of Americans support renewable energy, and are excited to have a tangible way to invest in neighborhood solar as part of a collective effort,” said Andreas Karelas, executive director of RE-volv.

If you’re looking to make your money back, Mosaic is a great, and feel-good, way to go. But RE-volv is kind of like a solar Rolling Jubilee, knocking out unsustainable energy by leveraging community cash. Collaborative consumption has become collaborative construction. Um, sharing economy, anyone?

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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RE-volv is making a community pot of solar gold

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