Today in the Connected Economy: Uber Offers Drivers Perks, Debit Card

Today in the connected economy, Uber debuts new features designed to offer more flexibility to its team of drivers. Also, Hertz reaps the benefits of investing in connected cars, while Amazon and Google see growth in their cloud operations.

Uber Unveils Driver Perks, Debit Card

Uber has launched a pair of features — and a new debit card via Mastercard — that it says are aimed at offering more flexibility and opportunities to the company’s drivers.

The new features are known as Upfront Fares, which involves the way drivers accept rides, and Trip Radar, which gives drivers new options for picking rides.

“With Upfront Fares, we’ve completely reimagined the way drivers accept rides,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. “Our new trip request screen makes it easier for drivers to decide if a trip is worth their time and effort by providing all the details — including exactly how much they’ll earn and where they’re going — upfront.”

Hertz Gets Boost From Tech Investments, Travel Rebound

As Hertz continues transitioning its rental car fleet to connected cars, it’s finding that the technology is offering a broad range of benefits.

“As an example of technology investment benefiting financial performance, we are making progress with telematics,” Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said during an earnings call.

With its telematics-equipped cars, Hertz has realized financial benefits from higher fleet uptime, better damage monitoring, more accurate fuel measurements, and fewer thefts and bad debt.

“By example, repossession recovery times are reduced by 50% on connected vehicles,” Scherr said. “At [a revenue per unit] of more than $1,600 per month, that time savings matters.”

Demand for Amazon, Google’s Cloud Offerings Spotlights Connected Economy’s Unstoppable Rise

Earnings reports from the companies like Google and Amazon — and hyper-growth in their respective cloud operations — show that inflation, supply chains and Russia/Ukraine war cannot stop the unyielding rise of the digital way of life.

Google Cloud was a significant contributor to Alphabet’s consolidated revenue boost, where total sales rose 13% year over year. Within those sales, Google Cloud contributed $6.2 billion, compared to $4.6 billion last year, a gain of almost 35%.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s push into the cloud has seen growth rates year over year of more than 30%. Amazon Web Services brought in $19.7 billion in sales, an increase of 33%.

Twitter Bumps up Prices for Blue Subscribers

Twitter is raising its subscription plan from $2.99 to $4.99 for subscribers to Twitter Blue in a bid to build new features and “sustain our mission of supporting journalism,” social media consultant Matt Navarra said in a post on the social media platform.

He said the higher price is in effect for new subscribers now, but early adopters are locked into original pricing until October. Subscribers under the lower rate have at least 30 days to cancel before the new rates go into effect. The price increase applies to users in the U.S. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

An email sent to subscribers points to a “more frictionless reading experience” among changes being rolled out and added features in Twitter Blue Labs.