Weekly Roundup: A New App Called Throo Is Undercutting Uber and Lyft

A new rideshare app just launched in NYC and is trying to compete with Uber and Lyft on price, while paying drivers more per ride. New York’s mayor says his crackdown on delivery apps has already put $104M more in tips into workers’ pockets. Uber’s AI-driven job cuts now have a paper trail. Lyft is expanding bike sharing internationally. A driver who took one long-distance job and has spent more than 500 days in jail. We break it all down for you.

A New App Called Throo Is Undercutting Uber and Lyft

SOURCE – The New York Times

Throo, an app from Singapore-based TADA, is trying to break the Uber-Lyft duopoly that controls about 80% of New York’s for-hire and taxi rides. Its pitch: charge drivers a small fixed fee, around $1 or less per ride, instead of the roughly 20% commission the big apps take, which means lower fares for riders and more pay for drivers. Throo launched in June and says 50,000 drivers have installed it.

• On a Long Island City to LaGuardia run, one driver said he keeps about $11 or $12 from the big apps after commission and fees, versus roughly $19 through Throo. A Port Authority to JFK trip ran $80 on Throo against $136 on Uber and $134 on Lyft.

• Another driver quit Throo in July after finding he did not earn more. TADA’s founder concedes Throo will not beat the big apps on every ride, but claims most trips pay drivers 10 to 15% more.

• Empower also operates in NYC, although the city says the app is operating illegally, owes more than $45,000 in fines, and does not share trip data with regulators.

New York’s Mayor Says His Delivery-App Crackdown Won $104 Million in Tips

SOURCE – Business Insider

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani touted a city report finding that new rules against what it called “deceptive tipping practices” have produced an additional $104M in tips for delivery workers since January. The city says tips doubled after the protections took effect, and that its 70,000 delivery workers are on track to earn an extra $2,287 each in tips per year. Mamdani says this is only the beginning.

• The January rules force delivery apps to show the tip option at checkout rather than after, and set a minimum recommended tip of 10%. The city says Uber Eats and DoorDash had hidden tip buttons and set defaults below 10%, and that tips had fallen 79% as a result.

• The city also increased funding for the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection by more than $4M in June to boost enforcement, on top of a January settlement that required delivery apps to pay over $5M.

• DoorDash and Uber sued the city over the tipping laws in December, arguing they violate state and federal law and pressure customers into tipping. DoorDash’s policy head called the city’s findings “flat out wrong.”

Lyft Rebrands Bay Area Bikeshare and Goes Global

SOURCE – Fast Company

Lyft is renaming San Francisco’s Bay Wheels program to Lyft Bike and rolling out redesigned pedal and electric bikes plus modular, solar-powered docking stations. Lyft has quietly run bikeshare since 2019 across systems like New York’s Citi Bike, Chicago’s Divvy, and Boston’s Bluebikes, and it is now using San Francisco as a launch pad for a broader push into Europe and beyond.

• The new stations work off-grid on battery and solar, can be placed one at a time like parking meters, and are pre-wired to charge ebikes while docked, which cuts the costly van-based battery swapping that eats into operating costs.

• The hardware was built in-house and stress-tested against theft, vandalism, and weather, including a demo where a tester takes a hammer to the bike’s screen. Lyft is betting that owning the design lets it move faster than third-party partners.

• Bikeshare is where Lyft has diverged most from Uber. The company operates or supplies 55 programs and recently announced plans to buy Spanish operator Serveo, framing micromobility as a real growth lane alongside rides.

Uber’s AI Job Cuts Now Have a Paper Trail

SOURCE – Yahoo Finance

A California WARN notice reviewed by TheStreet confirms Uber will permanently cut 41 positions at its San Francisco campuses and among its remote California workforce on Sept. 21. The cuts hit customer-service roles: service-team analysts, Community Operations managers, Centers of Excellence staff, and program managers. The filing is dated July 22, the same day Uber told employees about the broader restructuring that Bloomberg reported as a 10% cut to Community Operations.

• Community Operations is the team that supports riders, drivers, couriers, and merchants. As Uber layers AI onto that work, drivers lose human help right where account and pay problems get sorted out.

• The notice brings Uber’s publicly reported California layoffs to at least 73 positions this summer, and Uber’s own letter says the reduction extends beyond California to unnamed states. Affected workers are not unionized and have no bumping rights.

• Uber says AI coding tools are now used by nearly all its engineers, letting it slow hiring. It is still recruiting for hundreds of roles, including engineers for its robotaxi partnerships with Waymo and others.

A Driver Took One Long-Distance Job. He’s Been in Jail Over 500 Days.

SOURCE – The New Yorker

Wenjian Zhuo started out driving for Uber, then went independent, booking long-distance trips through Chinese social apps like RedNote and WeChat. In January 2025 he accepted a $940 job to drive nearly 400 miles to New York’s North Country, near the Canadian border, and pick up a passenger’s boxes. The passenger never got in. The boxes held more than 200 pounds of marijuana. Border Patrol had been watching him for hours. He was convicted and, by mid-July, had spent nearly 550 days in jail.

• The cautionary thread for drivers: cash jobs booked off-platform, over social media, with a vague passenger and a lot of luggage, carry real legal exposure. Zhuo suspected something was wrong on the drive back and said so on a recorded call, but did not check the boxes.

• That is the trap. He was convicted under a doctrine called willful blindness, which lets a jury treat strongly suspecting and choosing not to look as the legal equivalent of knowing. His own recorded words about the smell became the case against him.

• The stakes are higher for non-citizen drivers. Zhuo, a legal permanent resident, turned down a misdemeanor plea that would have freed him and likely avoided deportation because he wanted to fight for acquittal. He is now awaiting sentencing, having missed the birth and first year of his daughter’s life.

QUICK HITS

• Ben Minicucci, CEO and President of Alaska Air Group, is joining Lyft’s board of directors. – Lyft blog

• Rivian and Uber might be “sneaky” robotaxi winners, according to the Motley Fool. – Fool

• Uber Eats is getting sued over priority delivery fees. – NRN

• For more coverage of the autonomous-vehicle industry, subscribe to The Driverless Digest, Harry’s newsletter and podcast covering robotaxis and AVs.

Must Listen Or Watch RSG Content

Here are this week’s featured podcast episode and YouTube videos:

• RSG269: This $12K EV Could Change Uber Driving Forever With Bingo Tech

• Uber’s New Audio Alerts Could Make Drivers Safer

• Would Waymo Survive New York City?

• Is This The TOP Earning Uber Driver?

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