Not All Uber Drivers Like Surge Pricing, Either 250
CNET reports that Uber's practice of surge pricing, which sometimes raises the ire of passengers, isn't universally acclaimed by the company's drivers, either. "[M]ost Uber riders," according the the linked article, "despise surge pricing," though it's not clear quite how that "most" is arrived at. From the piece: They've complained about running up bills totaling hundreds of dollars, and have criticized the company for using surge pricing during emergencies, like Hurricane Sandy and the Sydney hostage crisis. The San Francisco Better Business Bureau gave Uber the grade of an F because of complaints related to surge pricing. And New York lawmakers have even proposed legislation to put limits on how high fares can go. Now some drivers, like [San Francisco Uber driver Peter] Ashlock, are also having second thoughts on surge pricing."
On the other hand, what system would you propose to better reward drivers for working at high-demand times?
Why do they hate capitalism? (Score:3, Funny)
...
(I hope the sarcasm is obvious...)
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Just call a taxi... (Score:4, Funny)
If uber is too expensive, just call a taxi?
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It's near impossible to get a taxi to pick you up during peak hours from your house to go to a bar. The taxi drivers just plain won't do it for the $6 or so they get, plus time/gas lost going to pick you up, it's not worth risking missing an airport ride.
With Uber though, the invisible hand of the market selects them, and they must respond. I get rides to work on time, nearly every day. You can't reliably use taxis as transportation in my town, sadly.
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The competing service just means that prices race to the bottom even faster, which makes the problem of lack of maintenance even worse. Eventually people start dieing and the people demand regulations.
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... which makes the problem of lack of maintenance even worse. Eventually people start dieing and the people demand regulations.
Nearly all crashes are caused by human error. Very few accidents, and even fewer fatal accidents, are caused by "lack of maintenance". If you skip changing your oil, your motor will wear out sooner, but that doesn't make you crash. Also, you don't save money by skipping maintenance.
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Elastic is an understatement. In any given city, Uber can literally go away at the push of a button should the company get control of local transportation and want to teach the town a lesson. They can dump into a market or vanish away into the night as quickly as the flip of a bit.
And will, whenever such a point 'needs to be made'. These are not nice people, nor are their defenders.
Surge Pricing - Why The Hate? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't get the hate for surge pricing; it feels, to me, like a cry for education.
For example, an Uber where I live costs around half or less that of a regulated taxi. *Some* of my friends complain like crazy when the surge modifier is like 140% - not realising that it's STILL cheaper to have Uber around than use the old system. Then they suggest a "remedy" for surge pricing, that is basically moving back to something closely resembling the old system. Essentially, their proposals would result in a "constant 100% surge pricing" just to have predictable prices.
Surge pricing achieves two things:
1] Encourages drivers to work peak times in peak areas, increasing service.
2] Prices a scarce resource accordingly, meaning that people can choose an alternative (wait, don't go, use a different transport system) appropriately instead of just having a fucking LOTTERY of who gets the only cab available.
Surge pricing is good for everyone, and just about everyone I have ever explained it to has gone "Oh yeah I see what you mean". We just need to educate people.
That said, I am curious to hear of any legitimate arguments against surge pricing - anyone got any?
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Surge pricing achieves two things: 1] Encourages drivers to work peak times in peak areas, increasing service.
Well, in theory. Perhaps with a few caveats. [washingtonpost.com] Personally I could understand the time constant factor, and why others have a problem with it.
To me, it would appear that it's simply a problem of having enough information to make most people happier not being the same thing as having enough information (or a sufficiently good model) to eradicate most (or all) of the highly undesirable outliers.
Re:Surge Pricing - Why The Hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Surge pricing is Good, but there are also valid laws against Price Gouging during and before an emergency.
Uber just needs to pay attention and modify it's surge pricing accordingly, so as not to cross the line between "economic incentive to work instead of fleeing with your family" and "gouging during that emergency".
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Re:Surge Pricing - Why The Hate? (Score:4, Insightful)
If humans with our puny brains can't see that it still saves more money on average as it is, average it out just a little bit.
You expect *way* too much from humans. Way, way, way too much.
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Surge pricing is Good, but there are also valid laws against Price Gouging during and before an emergency.
Why? The problem here is that you have two bad alternatives: either jack up pricing during the emergency, meaning people have to pay more, or have a lack of drivers during the emergency. Would it make you feel better if there were a fraction as many drivers out there during the emergency, but at least the few people lucky enough to get rides aren't paying too much? What about all the poor sods who ar
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You, and everyone else, would do well to realize that those are the exact same thing.
I, fr one, would rather pay $20/gallon of gas during a power outage to keep my generator, and thus my refrigerator and freezer running, than not have any gas at all. In addition, if I would get thrown in j
Re:Surge Pricing - Why The Hate? (Score:4, Interesting)
I, fr one, would rather pay $20/gallon of gas during a power outage
I, for one, am prepared for power outages.
What did YOU do during Katrina?
Watched the NOAA website, and had some foresight, you ignorant fucking blowhard.
Saw that it was coming, insisted that the wife+kids pack up the valuables -- documents, photos, little bitty computer -- in the minivan, stuffed as much gasoline, water & non-perishable food as possible in the remaining space (Dodge minivans are surprisingly spacious), and... evacuated.
Or Rita?
Wrong storm.
Oh right, fucking nothing.
Know-nothing shitheads need to keep their god damned mouths shut until the find a fucking clue.
Re:Surge Pricing - Why The Hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
ANd before you start bitching at me for being $HUMANCHARACTERISTIC, think about what YOU do during a disaster. What did YOU do during Katrina? Or Rita? Oh right, fucking nothing.
Actually, at the time I worked in Dallas for a local helicopter flight school. We took our Bell 206 Jetranger and our Robinson R-44 helicopters and loaded up with supplies and flew down there. We spent all day picking up people off rooftops and other locations that were trapped by water and flew them to safety and didn't charge a penny for it, the owner ate the cost.
Why?
Because that is what decent people do in times of need.
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The point of the government (in the US, originally) was to regulate interstate, international trade and provide a common defense. At some point along the lines, states lost a lot of their power to the federal government and we've moved in to a welfare state model (i.e. socialism). That's not a bad thing, especially as manufacturing is increasingly automated, and computers replace white collar jobs at an alarming rate, we're probably going to need some sort of guaranteed minimum income, but to answer your qu
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Surge Pricing is *still* a good idea during an emergency.
Person A and Person B are in a city during an emergency. Person A wants to go to the party at his friends as he doesn't view the emergency as "a big problem" whereas person B wants to go to the hospital to visit his badly injured partner.
With surge pricing, person B will be able to basically say "this is really important to me, I am willing to pay more based on the urgency of my need" while person A might say "Hmm I want to go the party, but I'm not p
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There is only a difference of semantics between the following two statements:
1) Conserving resources during an emergency by strongly discouraging the waste of a suddenly valuable commodity.
2) Taking advantage of an emergency by gouging customers in need of a suddenly valuable commodity.
There is literally no difference in practice between the two, the difference is intent of the seller, the actions could, quite literally be exactly the same. If we can use greed to make a bad situation better, shouldn't we?
Th
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Re:Surge Pricing - Why The Hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
> having a fucking LOTTERY of who gets the only cab available.
I don't get the hate for this approach. Perhaps some education is in order. When there aren't enough resources to go around, there are different ways to perform allocation. Each method has different moral implications. For example, a lottery implies equality between all people and is best used for resources that are perceived as utilitarian or necessary. Fair market pricing implies that the more money you have, the more important you are and is best used for resources that are perceived as a luxury. Of course this can be argued about all day, but it's not shocking that some people would find fair-market pricing to be inherently unfair.
What if there isn't enough food or medicine to go around? Is a lottery the best approach? Or the fair market? Or perhaps rationing? Should a person with more money be able to redirect resources to themselves, even if it is not as important to their survival as someone who has less money? Transportation can be vital to maintaining a job or caring for kids - it can also be a luxury. I can see an argument either way.
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The problem is that you're assuming the supply is fixed. It is not. When you have strict price regulation in taxis, you wind up with insufficient drivers at certain times, so you get the "lottery" effect you mention. The whole point with "surge pricing" is that drivers get paid more (sometimes a lot more) to drive during these key times, so that makes more drivers available. With traditional taxis, this doesn't happen: why should a driver bother driving at odd hours if they're not going to get paid more
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With traditional taxis, this doesn't happen: why should a driver bother driving at odd hours if they're not going to get paid more for it?
There is a simple, middle-ground alternative: if you have regulated taxis and fixed prices, you increase the regulated rates that cabbies can charge at busy or antisocial times, providing that incentive while also retaining regulated and therefore predictable pricing. We've been doing this in the UK just about forever.
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You just explained surge pricing. But instead of a central authority deciding prices based on a committee-agreed set of variables (eg, time of day), there is some market based formula. That way, when the idiot governing body didn't expect the BaconFest convention to be big enough to warrant special event pricing, consumers aren't screwed with too little supply. Or, more importantly, when Carlos, who runs a music event in town, asks his brother, who is on this governing body, to vote against designating cent
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Humans aren't smart enough to do central planning well (even though many try with many things even today), and certainly humans *in government* aren't smart enough to do central planning.
And yet the last time I got the train home and couldn't get a cab immediately outside the station, whatever time it was, was probably in the last millennium. I have never had a problem booking a cab for exactly the time I wanted if I had more than an hour or two of notice, and without that, the worst I've seen in recent years has been a delay of maybe 20-30 minutes instead of the usual 10-15 if I'm not in a central location.
The regulated rates we have here in the UK are nothing like surge pricing. They are
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Fair market pricing implies that the more money you have, the more important you are and is best used for resources that are perceived as a luxury. Of course this can be argued about all day, but it's not shocking that some people would find fair-market pricing to be inherently unfair.
They find it unfair because they spend too much time focusing on the minuscule number of people who have so much money that market prices don't affect them. Yes there are some people who have so much money that a $100 cab ride is the same as a $10 cab ride. Lets call them the 1%. But the vast majority of people, lets call them the 99%, will alter behavior based on pricing. I don't want to go into the math in too much detail, but there are far more people in the 99% than in the 1%.
I am a member of the top 5%
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Yes there are some people who have so much money that a $100 cab ride is the same as a $10 cab ride. Lets call them the 1%.
If your annual income is above $34k, then YOU are the 1% [dailymail.co.uk]. Someone making $34k/year can certainly feel the difference between $10 and $100.
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On top of that, most people in this fancy new economy may not have immediate access to pay for resources. If the power is out they probably don't have the cash to pay for a market solution, or even the pricing before the disaster.
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While generally correct, the problem is that people are trying to apply the characteristics of a market in equilibrium to the case where there is an explicit shock. If a new equilibrium is achieved, then the price shift is obvious; if the market reverts to the old equilibrium after the removal of the shock then it is not so clear that you have induced supply in an efficient manner.
Buying == providing money TO someone (Score:2)
You forget that when someone spends, someone else receives.
When the Uber driver gets $100, he can then buy things from someone else, or even bring on a couple of friends to help drive people around.
If the driver recieves 1/10th as much, that's worse for pretty much everyone. It look leave $100 sitting unspent in a bank account, rather than having the rider give it to the driver, who gives it to the carpenter, who gives it to his helper, who gives it to the dance intructor, who pays his rent with it.
All in
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One of the reasons a free market economy makes things better for everyone is because of specialization. This means we all don't have to do everything and we can delegate things so we can concentrate on what we are the best at. It doesn't make sense to make a wealthy person spend hours doing their own landscaping when they can hire people to do it which frees them up to concentrate on creating more wealth. The same logic applies. It makes sense to have surge pricing so the people with the most money can get
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Transportation can be vital to maintaining a job or caring for kids - it can also be a luxury. I can see an argument either way.
The thing is that demand for transportation isn't constant.
I need to go to the store sometime today. I can go at 8AM, or I can go at 10AM. If I go at 8AM I'm competing for transportation resources with all the folks trying to get to work. If I go at 10AM then I'm employing a driver who otherwise would probably bit sitting around unpaid.
If it costs me the same either way I'll go whenever I think it is most convenient for me. If I have to pay more for the trip at 8AM, I end up doing what is more convenien
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What if there isn't enough food or medicine to go around? Is a lottery the best approach? Or the fair market? Or perhaps rationing? Should a person with more money be able to redirect resources to themselves, even if it is not as important to their survival as someone who has less money?
When potatoes start costing $100/kg, growing potatoes is going to become really attractive. A high cost encourages production. A legislated price-ceiling depresses it. If you really want the government to subsidise transport during an emergency, then the government should provide the normalisation by paying the fair-market price themselves, and charging the public a subsidized rate. Trying to palm that off to the drivers just encourages them to stay home, and further decrease supply.
A service is a service (Score:2)
Either regulate UBER just like you would the competing service, in this case a Taxi service, or DON'T regulate the taxi service and let them openly compete with UBER. It seems foolish to have 2 standards. After having ridden in a cabs frequently, on a regular schedule I worked out a deal with the drivers myself and was never disappointed, as I headed out the door at 06:30 every morning to find one waiting at the end of my drive way.
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That's the point, though, isn't it? What does Uber really compete with? Uber is most like a private hire/limo service. Other private hire/limo services compete with taxis to some extent, but not as much as Uber. What has happened is that Uber has devised a mechanism to make private hire/limo services far more usable.
Re:Surge Pricing - Why The Hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
People will complain about anything more expensive than the absolute cheapest they've ever seen it. They're spoiled and entitled. Also, some people can't sleep at night thinking that someone, somewhere might be making a profit on something.
The real problem is that so many people take the complaining seriously without asking the complainers to justify it with rational arguments and propose a better alternative.
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Re:Surge Pricing - Why The Hate? (Score:4, Insightful)
You do understand that mentality comes from the world doing its best to suck out your wealth at every turn, right? What you call spoiled and entitled I call defensive and savvy.
I don't call it reasoned or thoughtful. It an understandable emotional reaction though.
Its a hard check on greed.
It IS greed. To want something for nothing, or to want something for below the cost of providing it is greedy. It may also be a reaction to perceptions of others' greed, but that doesn't make it any less self-serving.
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That's definitely not applicable in the surge pricing situation. The bitching about surge pricing is rampant economic ignorance, plain and simple. If the rabble understood supply and demand as well as they understand Brangelina, Uber would be receiving innovation awards for surge pricing instead of BBB downgrades in cities like San Fran.
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Call me crazy, but when I see apologists for eager would-be robber baron types speak of 'the rabble', I have to wonder whether perhaps they're revealing truths about the whole operation.
Rabble, eh?
rabble rabble rabble...
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No. Transportation is already too expensive, surge pricing is just plain robbery. You don't need an education to see that things like transport should not be subject to the same market forces as luxury items.
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Sorry, did I miss the part where Uber surge pricing wasn't a voluntary exchange? I use Uber all the time, and even stumbling out of the bar it's impossible to miss what the surge rate is. Now they even force you to type in the damn surge rate as a part of acknowledging that you can get it through your thick skull that this is a high demand time and you will pay more. How much more? Well you just typed it in. What more do you want?
So if you think it's robbery, don't pay it. Every city I know of with uber als
Makes no sense (Score:5, Informative)
This complaint just doesn't make any sense. We are moving to this pricing model all over the place, even in traffic control situations. Tolls on bridges and tunnels and express lanes are often "surge priced" these days. The express lanes into Miami on I-95 are only a quarter most of the time. But during rush hour and other heavy traffic times the lanes bump up towards $10.
And those are fixed resources - so there is no way to get more cars through the tunnel or over the bridge. With Uber the raised prices will theoretically get extra drivers on the street - limiting the surge in prices and getting service to more people.
And as others have mentioned - if you don't like the policy, you have alternatives.
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This complaint just doesn't make any sense. We are moving to this pricing model all over the place, even in traffic control situations. Tolls on bridges and tunnels and express lanes are often "surge priced" these days. The express lanes into Miami on I-95 are only a quarter most of the time. But during rush hour and other heavy traffic times the lanes bump up towards $10.
And those are fixed resources - so there is no way to get more cars through the tunnel or over the bridge. With Uber the raised prices will theoretically get extra drivers on the street - limiting the surge in prices and getting service to more people.
And as others have mentioned - if you don't like the policy, you have alternatives.
I suspect it's a question of predictability. You know the I-95 will be ridiculously expensive, but you might be counting on that affordable Uber to get home not realizing that there's a concert increasing demand and driving the price way up. Being told the price is $10 when you were expecting $10 is fine, but seeing $10 when you expected the price would be $0.25 is going to piss you off. I suspect a lot of people would be much happier waiting around a while for the regular price than having regular wait tim
Easy, Less Corporate Greed (Score:3)
Uber should just raise the % the driver gets during these peak times, it's stupid they don't already do that because everyone wins.
Customer: has good experience with über when they may not have used it before.
Driver: incentive to work during emergency / high demand time.
Uber: increases the likelihood of attracting new / more regular users by acting like a Good Samaritan not a corporate greed machine.
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Re: Easy, Less Corporate Greed (Score:2)
They'll make up any loss, and likely more, in the long run from all the benefits to both drivers and customers - and ultimately Uber - that it yields.
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No, my solution is for Uber to *not* keep their profits stable on these types of fairs.
That's not really in contradiction to what I wrote. I was talking about the total revenue of the company. Of course I was implying that it would make the per-ride revenue less stable.
They would/should take a fractional loss on this subset of fairs with Uber "footing the bill" on any deviation from a standard fair in these situations. They'll make up any loss, and likely more, in the long run from all the benefits to both drivers and customers - and ultimately Uber - that it yields.
I'm not an economist but I believe that's not Uber's job to decide - in any market, the general pricing should be much more a function of market elasticity which they don't have any real control over.
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Raising prices on customers during emergency situations - like Sandy - is disgusting and reeks of "price gouging" which, IIRC, is illegal in FL for supplies around tropical storms
So you would prefer that there are few to no drivers available during emergency situations? Without extra pay, why should drivers bother making their services available then, instead of joining the crowd and leaving the area as fast as they can?
As for supplies during storms, when you keep prices the same, then you get people hoard
Re: Easy, Less Corporate Greed (Score:2)
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Why should Uber make up the difference? Where are they magically going to come up with all this extra money? Oh, that's easy: they'll be forced to jack up their prices for all the other non-surge times. So now, instead of paying $8 to get a ride somewhere, you'll pay $20. That's just the way it is with regular taxi companies now. Why do you think this is a better model? Why should I be forced to subsidize surge-time riders when I don't use Uber during surge times?
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As a Floridian I can tell you what those laws do during storms. While you are working a bunch of unemployed rednecks get their big trucks and buy up all of the supplies at the box stores. Then they drive around selling it at a big markup on the side of the road.
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Not really. The rednecks are buying up the local supply and making a profit by creating a black market. What would really increase supply is allowing the big stores to charge the higher price. They could then roll those profits into moving new supply into the area.
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You just don't get it. The higher prices to consumers during high demand times is a feature not a bug. It sorts out the people who could wait 30 minutes if they needed to from the people who really need to get home now. It's not perfect because people value money differently, but it's way better than if the price to the consumer is not differentiated.
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All that will do is allow the rich guy whose family drove out of the area in a convoy (peeling off $1000 at the gas station on the way out) so neither the Mercedes nor the Hummer would get scratched to thump his chest and declare that the poor who got flooded and ended up caught in a riot later brought it upon themselves for not leaving.
Solution: Embrace an actual free market (Score:5, Interesting)
"On the other hand, what system would you propose to better reward drivers for working at high-demand times?"
If we want to stick with Uber's claims about simply being an app that enables a market, there's an easy solution. But first we have to be honest about one of Uber's core claims: Uber is not engaging in any form of free market capitalism. Uber sets the rates consumers pay and drivers receive. Their is no market driven supply and demand in Uber's model. Sure, they can say "but... algorithms" and confuse people into thinking this is a pure form of free market capitalism. In reality, it's just an authoritarian scheme controlled by a few people at the top. Hell, they use their massive VC warchest to rewrite regulations in their favor - you know, manipulate the market.
For Uber to really to do market driven ride-sharing, they would simply provide a bid/ask platform for riders and drivers. Riders could post what they're currently willing to pay per mile/minute/what-ever-metric-makes-sense, drivers could post what they're currently willing to work for. Transparency on both sides as to price and other factors (e.g., location, number in party, etc) would allow each to adjust their rates according to current market conditions. That's how a free market for ride-sharing would actually work and provide a natural (invisible?) method to reward/incentivize drivers during surge times.
-Chris
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Taking it a step further, the core platform could be a general "market" engine that simply provides a method for posting bids and asks. Immediately on top of it could be a meta-data engine that allows market-specific parameters to be attached to the requests that refine them (e.g., location, car size, etc). Developers could then leverage this to provide vertically oriented apps for different types of end users (UberX, UberBlack, UberPool, et) that filter the bids/asks based on that specific market's needs.
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Do we know what Uber's price floor is?
Do they have a model that says what the minimum price they can charge and actually attract enough drivers for the service to work?
It seems to me there's a price floor they really can't go below without driving away so many drivers that you can't reasonably get a ride, risking losing customer interest.
Bid/ask sounds interesting, but it also sounds like it has too many transaction costs in the near term. Now, if I want to go to the airport I just request a car with a set
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Bid/ask sounds interesting, but it also sounds like it has too many transaction costs in the near term. Now, if I want to go to the airport I just request a car with a set price. Would I have to risk making my flight or set aside a bunch of additional time for a price negotiation if I did bid/ask?
If you can't get a service at the first try, and the deadline is approaching, offer more. Surely these things could be automated? You wouldn't be the one making the negotiation itself, after all.
Bid/ask seems like it would work better for planned trips or trips of a longer distance where there was likely to be more time involved in planning.
I don't think this model actually has any hard timing limitations. Longer lead time allows to lower the price, but it's fundamentally a similar process. Negotiating half an hour in advance is less beneficial than two weeks in advance for sure but still better than just accepting a taxi fare whatever it turns out to
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Whoever said a company operated as its own free market? That doesn't make sense at all. A company competes with other entities in the market. What determines prices is what people are willing to agree to. If you have a better way to predict prices you can try to set up a competing service and see how well you do.
I do agree with you that companies engage in regulatory capture but that has nothing to do with a free market.
what system would you propose (Score:3)
what system would you propose to better reward drivers
Time and a half for the drivers, with no increase share to Uber itself during times of emergency or extreme demand (it is easy to justify an incentive to get the drivers to work during the crisis, Uber should be working anyway.). Any more would be (and is) gouging.
Make the reasons transparent - problem goes away (Score:2)
1) There are not enough drivers and we all want to encourage more drivers to get out of bed and drive. In this case 100 percent of the addition money goes to the drivers, Uber gets none of the increase.
2) Uber is profiteering/gouging. There are plenty of drivers, but Uber raises rates and keeps all the addition money.
I cannot imagine anybody objecting to #1, it solves a profound scarcity problem in an elegant way for tiny amounts of money, plus
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Except it's probably NOT either (1) or (2), but both. It's probably (1), but Uber is keeping an additional or lion's share of the amount of the additional money (As much as it can, after figuring out the price elasticity of the market), and then sharing the additional fares with drivers (Probably a significant portion, BUT as little as they think is necessary to achieve the desired incentivizing affect).
How about this (Score:2)
Drivers set price (Score:3)
The problem here is the fact that the current price scheme is mostly arbitrary.
Demand is it's own reward... (Score:2)
If you "work" at a time of low demand, then you don't really work.
If you work at a time of high demand, then you'll get lots of business.
Don't make it part of the fare (Score:3)
Surge pricing is a good idea; the problem seems like the amount is too much.
So during a surge.... instead, warn would-be passengers about high demand and offer them the chance to place an additional payment to "bid" for the next ride as a prepaid fixed dollar kickback, not an increase in fare or not additional $$ per mile travelled, but a payment for increase in priority ---- with bid taken into account, as well as total time spent in the queue, when deciding who is next in line to be matched
The passengers will then have to wait, and the bid will be taken into account before matching up a driver with riders.
Then, instead of the driver actually receiving the bid --- the bids are pooled and distributed to the drivers fairly based on their percentage of fare dollars collected for passengers moved per mile driven within the surge area.
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One problem with this whole perspective is, you're placing a huge discretion burden on the actual taxi passengers, for the benefit of the company alone.
People make their plans for doing a thing based on their estimation of what it's gonna cost, how dangerous it is, how practical it seems. The stability of this estimation has huge social value, and these 'old fashioned' institutions being 'disrupted' have typically been through all this years or even centuries ago (for instance, stuff that dates back to befo
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You are suggesting removing the existing 'old' infrastructure where you can plan for things,
No I am not suggesting removing things... there will always be demand for traditional hotels and commercial transportation arrangements. These things will likely have a higher price, since services such as AirBnb and Uber will inexpensively service people who don't need pre-defined committed and guaranteed arrangements.
As the demand falls, some but not all players go out of business...... But entities like
Uber costs too high? Take a taxi. (Score:3)
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Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to regulate pricing, so that you have a corrupt cartel which keeps competition limited and prices high?
Because that's what we had before Uber came around.
We don't need regulated pricing, we need competition. And that's what we have with Uber and Lyft (who compete against each other). What we need is a few more services like those, and then several apps which do for them what PadMapper does for the rental market, and aggregates them and lets you quickly find out which service will give you the best combination of fare price and convenience (e.g., a cheaper fare probably isn't worth it if you have to wait an hour to get picked up).
All this whining about surge pricing is silly. The pricing is not a surprise: Uber's app tells you before you ride how much it's going to cost. If the price is too high, don't buy it. Most of the time, Uber rides are far cheaper than regular cabs, and you get to ride in a much nicer vehicle. Without surge pricing, drivers wouldn't bother driving during certain times.
Re:If only... (Score:4, Insightful)
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And bridges serve as a daily reminder of what gravity DOES, but we're not clamoring to have them all removed, are we?
Bit less ideology and a bit more practicality, please? We stabilize that stuff for a reason.
Potholes are a daily reminder of what road wear DOES, and that's surely legitimate too, but it is a worthwhile convenience to have those repaired lest cheap and expensive cars alike lose an axle. And no one car's presented with the bill. That would be silly...
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Gravity and road wear are fairly constant forces (well, road wear is higher for bigger vehicles, and surprise, states usually tax trucks more as a result).
Public transit usually has peak and off-peak rates. The idea is that if you don't care when you make the trip, then you tend to save money by doing it off-peak. Then you're one less body on the standing-room-only train.
Many argue for electric rates to be demand-based so that people will conserve electricity during peak hours, or deploy solar/etc. It do
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You want to regulate pricing, so that you have a corrupt cartel which keeps competition limited and prices high?
Because that's what we had before Uber came around.
We don't need regulated pricing, we need competition. And that's what we have with Uber and Lyft (who compete against each other). What we need is a few more services like those, and then several apps which do for them what PadMapper does for the rental market, and aggregates them and lets you quickly find out which service will give you the best combination of fare price and convenience (e.g., a cheaper fare probably isn't worth it if you have to wait an hour to get picked up).
All this whining about surge pricing is silly. The pricing is not a surprise: Uber's app tells you before you ride how much it's going to cost. If the price is too high, don't buy it. Most of the time, Uber rides are far cheaper than regular cabs, and you get to ride in a much nicer vehicle. Without surge pricing, drivers wouldn't bother driving during certain times.
It is equally about keeping demand in check as it is encouraging more supply. Without surge pricing there simply wouldn't be uber rides to be had for 90% of the interested buyers. What would a rider rather have, a low price for a ride they almost certainly won't get because there is a 4 hour wait, or a high price for a ride they can get immediately.
Re: If only... (Score:2, Insightful)
How would you like it if your grocery store had "surge pricing"? Let's double your grocery bill just because you are shopping at the same time as a lot of your peers.
Or how about you doctor doing " surge pricing", so you pay double during flu season because there are a lot of others trying to see a doctor too.
Yeah, "surge pricing" doesn't look so good now does it? Perhaps Uber should do what every other fucking business does when they get a ton of customers: expand, hire more staff, and *shock* lower pric
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How would you like it if your grocery store had "surge pricing"?
I would like this very much. Then I can shop at non-peak hours when there's less people and get a discount besides. Of course, if I had to shop during peak hours then I'd go to one of their competitors that doesn't have surge pricing. Just so long as there's no monopoly, because then you get FU pricing at all times.
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My doctor's clinic does charge more for evening or Saturday appointments.
I image that's so they can pay extra to the doctors who work those shifts.
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The taxi companies already DID figure it out, that's why they lobbied for Uber to be shut down in the first place.
The taxi companies WROTE the rules that Uber is breaking and they are not fair at all.
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It is often said that our needs are "infinite", but I sort of disagree. Humans have their fundamental limitations when it comes to consumption.
I need the entire galaxy to turn into a massive supercomputer. Where do you plan to live?
Re:how about none? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've only used Uber a few times, but every time I used it, I was given an estimate of the cost beforehand. The pricing isn't a surprise.
Now of course, if you're in a bind and need a ride NOW, and surge pricing is in effect, you may have little alternative, but that's what you get for making yourself dependent on a for-profit company: when they have you locked in, they screw you over. We see this in the software world all the time, where the term "lock-in" is common. I don't think I need to elaborate on it in this forum. The same principle applies with Uber: if you don't want to get screwed, don't make yourself dependent on a for-profit company. It's very simple. Either get your own car, use public transit, or move to someplace where you aren't dependent on them.
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Because your ability to deal with a predictable outside world has value and affects your own ability to be consistent and reliable in turn.
The only time you want to play the market lottery with literally everything in life is if you figure your resources are (and always will be) superior to any possible thing that will happen to you. For most people, that's not the case.
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Taxi drivers don't do this. Why should Uber?
Because paying more allows Uber to drive supply to meet that demand. If Uber drivers aren't paid anymore during high-demand times, then there is no incentive for more than normal drives to work during those times to meet the additional excess demand.
Because Taxi drivers are more like employees, and Uber drivers are essentially "independent contractors"
Taxi drivers get paid but have to meet daily targets, otherwise they get paid less, or lose it all. The dri
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"Extreme surge pricing just means the cabs are reserved for upper income people, which some of you find perfectly acceptable. I don't, especially in an emergency."
Then what is the point of having more money? You seem to be implying that it shouldn't be used to buy harder to get services or items? Frankly that is precisely why I spent 15 years investing 50% of my earnings, so now I can have 3 houses, and work for fun, and drive a shiny car and go on fantastic holidays. I wouldn't have bothered if it just mea