See, there you're mistaken. I pumped $1400 into Lyft last year. I pumped maybe $90 into Uber. Lyft drivers are happy. They're being taken advantage of, no doubt, and they're not making enough, but they're making more. They feel more secure. They feel like they're actually a part of the company. Lyft doesn't go out of its way to fuck people the way Uber does. They ain't angels... but this is not an either/or situation.
That study is meaningless. It measures by "rides" and doesn't take into account the fact that Lyft drivers tend to drive for longer. I've met dozens of drivers who used to drive for Uber and now drive only for Lyft; I met a few who drive for Uber and Lyft, but the Uber drivers I rode with hadn't heard of Lyft. Also not mentioned in the article: Lyft requires their drivers to have rideshare insurance (and provides it) while Uber does not. Both companies take advantage of the naivete of the driver. Your graph says the "average ownership cost" of a 2014 Camry is like $11k; this is a ham-handed way of saying "to do this amount of mileage for Lyft the IRS allows you to deduct a gajillion dollars in depreciation because you're gonna put a shit-ton of miles on that Camry." But people do it. Last summer I rode in a 2015 Honda Civic with a blown CV joint. It had 140,000 miles on it. But you can't plug that in because NerdWallet is calculating per minute not per mile. Your infographic says a lot of shit but it doesn't say which is a better company. My buddy in the 2015 Civic? He told me he cleared $50k. Cleared. Whatever amortization the IRS was giving him on that Civic, he'd beaten it into the ground... and it's on the depreciation schedule for another 4 years. I'm not going to drive for Lyft. But I also know it's not as simple as Nerdwallet wants it to be.
Yeah. Completely anecdotal but every Lyft experience I've had has been much more pleasant than almost any Uber experience.