5 Reasons To Become An Uber Driver In 2024

Jul 03, 2024

Being an Uber driver has become highly controversial in today's time. Can you make a lot of money with Uber or are you actually losing money? Is it safe, or is it probably the most dangerous thing you can do? Well in this article, I'm going to give you five reasons why I became an Uber driver and why you might want to consider it and if these reasons align with what you want.

As someone who has done it for a while and has a whole separate channel on how to be successful with Uber and Uber Eats, I say I'm qualified to talk about it. Unlike certain people on YouTube and the web who just talk about these numbers, but haven't actually got behind the wheel, driven a few people around, and had the experience themselves. So if that interests you, stay tuned and stick around to the end, where I'll be sharing with you exactly how being an Uber driver actually played a role in me making money, how I do nowadays. So, let's get into it!

I'll say this right off the bat. That there's a lot of negative criticism of this way of making money on floating around out there. Some of it comes from drivers, but some of it comes from people who have actually never done it before. I'm just going to be honest, I don't think they're really qualified to talk about it. They'll run these numbers and say that, "Hey, you're losing money per mile," but they don't know a few factors:

They don't know if you're starting your own business and while you're taking people to their destination, they ask what you do. Conversation happens and you just got yourself a new client.
They're not taking into consideration that you just quit your full-time job, you're pursuing something on the side and now you have the time to fully develop that skillset or pursue what you want to pursue.That means within a year or two, you've actually stopped being an Uber driver, because that allowed you to have that opportunity to pursue that.

They don't talk about that probably because they can't relate to it, and if we're going to be honest, the reason they can't relate to it is because they've never done it. All they can do is crunch these numbers in front of you, so I'm here to tell you the other side of the coin, as someone who is in the personal finance niche and someone who actually was behind the wheel, when it comes to being an Uber driver.

Let's get into it and for those y'all that are thinking that I'm saying all of that because I want to get referral money, well, guess what? Uber has changed their policies so that no one person can receive more than 50 referrals. I have more than 50 referrals so I don't qualify to get referral money. In other words, this is someone that's not being financially incentivized either. It's just a personal view and recommendation based on my experience. So let's go ahead and get into it.

1.You make money driving

The 1st reason why I became an Uber driver and why you might want to consider it, if this lines up for you is the obvious one. You make money to drive. Now the rate's going to vary depending on your particular market, but at the end of the day, you're making money to drive and driving is something that most of us have to do in our everyday lives, anyway. Why not just monetize that thing that you're already doing. Regardless of what you hear about it, it's still a way to make money strictly from driving and you could always test it out in your market to see.

2. You make money from socializing

That's a soft transition into our second reason which is, you can make money while socializing. This a great if you're a very sociable person or an extroverted person. Even if you're an introvert, you can still like talking to people. A lot of people think that just because you're introverted, you don't like talking to people. Introverted just means you get your energy from being solitary. In other words, you need your alone moments so that you can recharge. That's all it means. You still might like talking to people and if that's the case, this is something that you're going to enjoy because people get in your car and most people are very chatty and they want to tell you about their day or ask what you do or how your day's been.

And this is an honorable mention, or really just an extension of this one, but if you have other ways of making money, then they're going to ask you what you do anyway. You share what you do, a lot of times they may actually have a need for that service or product that you're selling. I've gotten clients and even sold product strictly just off of people in the back of my car as an Uber driver. They're going to ask you anyway. I say, don't be pushy or bring it up, but most of them ask any way. Share it, and if they're intrigued, they'll ask you more that might even result in a few sales of your services or products.

See, that's something that people online that haven't driven won't actually share, because they haven't done it. Which is ironic to me because a lot of these people were in sales or they have services to offer so they would actually benefit greatly from doing it. They can get some new clients. I just find that ironic that they just crunch the numbers, how much you're making per mile when you can make more money from the service that you offer outside of Uber and they are perfect candidates. They would know that if they actually drove.

3. You’ll know what’s happening in your city

The third reason I became an Uber driver and why it might be appealing to you is because you get the inside scoop of what's going on in your city. I don't care what anyone says. If you become an Uber driver, you're going to know what's going on in your city. Why? Because you're going to be taking people to these events and they're going to be telling you about "This is happening," or "that's happening." Or if someone else is in the car, let's say you're taking a couple or some friends while they're having a night out on the town, they're going to be talking about what they're doing all this weekend or next weekend. You're going to quickly realize, "Man, all this stuff is going on in my city. Do I actually want to attend?" Just something to think about.

To be honest, this is one of the parts that I've really enjoyed about it. I mean, I just have the fond memories of taking people SMU students, which is a college in Dallas in my market from point A to point B while they're having a night on the town. Now I've had plenty of interesting conversations with the SMU students, the typical frat boys where we're talking about ... well, what do you think a bunch of young males are going to be talking about?

4. Freedom & Flexibility

The fourth reason, and probably the most stereotypical is the freedom and the flexibility. You get to work whenever you want and however you want. You might be wondering exactly what do you mean by however you want? You’ve likely heard A lot of the dangerous stuff about being an Uber driver. As far as the crazy YouTube videos that have no shortage on this platform, I'm not going to lie and say, none of that stuff happened. It did happen but I will say that, most of it tended to happen at night. This makes me think that it probably happened during the bar rush. The bar rush is between 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM. That's when you're taking people to and from the bars. When you're transporting drunk people, there's money there because there's going to be a lot of surge, but you run the risk of running into that kind of stuff.

If you don't want to deal with those types of people because of that scenario that I told you about, you can just take people to and from airports. I know people who do strictly airport runs. They don't take people around the city or none of that. They take someone from the airport, then they put their destination filter on, which filters out certain requests, to try and get a request back to the airport. Then they repeat. There are people that do that and they make great money and they don't have to deal with all that stuff. You know, the stuff that you see on YouTube as far as a dash cam and videos. When you're dealing with people going to and from airports, by default, they usually a more affluent crowd. Lawyers, CEOs, bankers, families going on vacation, stuff like that. They're just are a better quality of customer, if I'm being honest.

I actually have gotten my highest tips from people coming from the airport, too. The reason being is they're going to be in your car for a while, usually, because they're going far. If you got a great personality and social skills, you're going to talk their head off and they're going to appreciate it and show you with the tip.

5. Work hard or don’t

The fifth and final reason why I became an Uber driver and why it might be appealing to you, is because you can work as hard or as little as you want. There are people who are part-time drivers and people who are full-time drivers. As someone that's been both sides of the spectrum, I started out part-time, then I went full time and went back to part-time when some of the stuff I was telling you about started taking off. I can honestly say that it's just beautiful to have that ability, to work as hard or as little as you want.

A lot of times you can use it to compliment something you're already doing. Sometimes I might be having a night on the town myself, so I'm heading to central Dallas around 10:00 PM. Well, I live in the suburbs so I can just put on the destination filter and put it to Central Dallas. I often end up getting a group of young people who are on their way to Deep Ellum. I just take them to Deep Ellum, then I go out to my own night on the town. That means I got paid to drive to Dallas, which is what I was doing anyway! That's the flexibility coming in and I just love it.

Being an Uber driver helped me launch what I'm doing now and the reason it helped is because this is what I was doing largely while I was building my online business. Now I did have things that I could've sold, but I really just liked being an Uber driver. I just kept doing it while I was building this on the side. I gradually started putting less hours in being a driver with Uber and putting more hours into making money in the ways I'm doing now. Eventually the scale tips, so that I'm doing this more than being an Uber driver.

Those are five reasons why I recommend being an Uber driver. If those reasons are something that you can get behind, I still recommend it. Now if you looking for some kind of sign-on bonus, a guarantee, I would recommend you find someone locally, sign up with them because maybe both of y'all could benefit for something.