> According to my weekly reports from Uber emails, I average anywhere from $40 to $50 an hour doing this shit—by my count, it's less.

You know, when I read that I thought he meant "it's less" in the sense of "It's not worth that much to me" rather than literally, "Uber's average wage statistics are incorrect." But I'm probably totally wrong.

If I'm wrong, it's weird that Uber's calculations are wrong there. I wonder if they're like, not calculating time spent waiting for a fare?

Uber just adds up the transactions that you've been a part of.

Then they take their 25% fee, then the driver has to subtract whatever they paid in insurance + gas + tolls + maintenance + amenities (food or water). For most (who can't buy a car outright) they have to pay their car loan/lease payments.

Then to really calculate "take home pay", like the rest of us, you have to subtract taxes. Another 25%-35% depending on state+federal tax brackets.

P.S. Hopefully they do their taxes correctly. I imagine if you did it as a "small business" you could subtract all of your expenses first and even subtract depreciation of your capital (depreciation of your car), then do your taxes on the far smaller amount rather than on $50 per hour gross income. Honestly, if they weren't curious enough to educate themselves about their taxes, I don't even know how it would be profitable.