Why Didn't Sidecar's Flex Pricing Work?

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Why Didn't Sidecar's Flex Pricing Work?

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 15, 2014 @03:48AM from the you-get-what-you-pay-for dept.

Bennett Haselton writes Sidecar is a little-known alternative to Lyft and Uber, deployed in only ten cities so far, which lets drivers set their own prices to undercut other ride-sharing services. Given that most amateur drivers would be willing to give someone a ride for far less than the rider would be willing to pay, why didn't the flex-pricing option take off? Keep reading to see what Bennet has to say.

I live in Seattle, and nobody I know here has significantly changed the way they think about getting around in the city, as a result of Uber or Lyft. Of course it's more convenient to open an app on your phone and press a button to summon a driver, than to call a taxi company and wait on hold until an operator picks up. And it's reassuring to see a little dot moving across a map on your phone screen showing you how far away your Uber driver is, instead of staring out the window and wondering when your cab is going to arrive. But on price, UberX and Lyft are about the same price as a taxi or less (UberX being the cheaper version of Uber), and sometimes more during "surge pricing" periods. It sounds hip to drop a reference to "taking an Uber" instead of taking a cab, but when cost-conscious people need to get somewhere, they still drive themselves or take a bus, just like they always have.

So I was noodling about writing an article suggesting that a ride-sharing company should try to grab all the market share by implementing a "set-your-own-price" model, which would allow drivers to name their own price for how much they would charge to take a rider from A to B. I even had a specific company in mind: Sidecar, sensitively referred to as the "forgotten stepsister" of Uber and Lyft, should up-end the came and challenge the titans by undercutting them on price. My reasoning was simply that if I want to travel from my house to a location 30 minutes away, a cab might cost $30. But if anybody close by (with a reasonably modern car and safe driving record) can compete on price to take me on that trip, I could probably find someone willing to do it for $10. And with Sidebar not being able to compete with Uber and Lyft on funding or marketing, what have they got to lose by trying a game-changer?

So, beginning of an article sketched out in my head, only to find... that Sidecar has been doing this since February. And nobody noticed. Well, apart from some guy named "Richard Branson", but he hasn't been getting the word out. (All right, be honest: If I hadn't told you that this was an idea backed by Richard Branson, and went with the original article saying it was just my suggestion, would you already be composing comments in your head about what another half-baked Bennett Haselton idea this was?)

So why didn't it change everything? Why do none of my friends talk about "grabbing a Sidecar" to downtown or to the airport?

Well, trivially because there are fewer Sidecar drivers than Uber or Lyft drivers, but that just begs the question: Once a preferable (cheaper) option existed in the form of Sidecar, why didn't more users start trying it out, which in turn draws in more drivers to serve those greater numbers of users? This is the standard textbook economic prediction of what should happen. And while the real world doesn't always follow textbook economic predictions, it's a little surprising to see the reality this far off in this case. A competitor offered a service 50% cheaper than the leading brands, and nobody noticed.

Driver-set pricing has another advantage, which is to blunt criticism of "price-gouging" during periods of high demand. Economists have long puzzled over why Apple and Microsoft don't charge more for their new gadgets, since as long as people are lining up to buy out the stock, sellers could raise the price and still be assured of selling out completely. Various theories abound, including that the act of raising prices would create too much resentment that would cost the company more in the long run. This seems to be the case with Uber, which has long been the target of sarcastic jibes about its "surge pricing", and which was charging four times its standard rate to transport people out of Sydney during a hostage crisis, before the company reversed course after an outcry and offered free rides to passengers trying to leave the city.

Now, most economists would say that raising prices during periods of high demand is what suppliers should do, for various reasons. First, you're going to be providing the good/service to somebody, so by providing it to the people willing to pay the most, you are at least making an effort to provide the service to the person who needs the most. Second, the widely publicized high prices will draw more suppliers into the marketplace to meet the demand, which helps bring prices back down (the standard "surge pricing" notification in the Uber app tries to make this point: "Rates have increased to get more Ubers on the road"). That means even if you're an altruist who planned on burning all the money that you got from driving during "surge pricing", you're still doing more good for the world by charging the highest rate the market will bear. (If you're still feeling guilty about all that extra money, you can donate it to charity rather than "donating" it to your customers by offering them below-market fares.) But I've never heard of a company successfully fighting off charges of price-gouging, by making the economic argument that they were doing the right thing. Usually they just don't engage in a discussion at all, or they cave like Uber did.

But with driver-set pricing, companies could say that they have nothing to do with the sudden price hikes. That's your driver gouging you! And then the driver could justify it to the rider by explaining -- truthfully, in at least some cases -- that they were in the middle of doing something else, when they suddenly got the alert that they could make extra money by providing rides, and it was only because of the high price point that they could justify interrupting their work to come out and drive. By putting it in these personal terms, the drivers would essentially be imparting to their riders the aforementioned economic lesson, the one that no company has ever tried to explain to its customers when it's the company itself jacking up the price. (Although, I expect this would create a new running joke about ride-share drivers: during surge pricing, everybody claims that they stopped whatever else they were doing and came out to "help meet demand", even though some of those drivers must be liars who were already out on the road when the surge hit.)

But in most cases, driver-set pricing would be cheaper than the standard fare set by Uber or Lyft. So why didn't the cheaper option take off? Maybe Sidecar underestimated the disadvantage of only being rolled out in 10 cities -- because Uber and Lyft are deployed in far more markets, they also get name-dropped in vastly more news stories and pop culture references, so even Seattleites won't know what Sidecar is if they only hear about ride-sharing services on TV. Maybe people taking Uber and Lyft rides are consciously or subconsciously trying to be trendy, and there's no point in using the less popular alternative. (Hipsters, on the other hand, now there's a marketing opportunity -- "I'm using this really obscure ride-sharing app, you've probably never heard of it...")

But I think the simpler answer is that the free market is just not the meritocracy that people think it is, or that it's portrayed to be in textbook economic exercises (which would predict that Sidecar should have captured 100% of the market by now). People use what they've heard of, and if a critical mass of influencers happen to talk up a particular product or service at the same time, that gets the snowball rolling, so that still other users will be attracted to the product or service because of the large numbers already using it. Whether the product is objectively "the best" has little to do with the outcome. In a plausible parallel world, Sidecar could have captured more of the initial buzz purely by accident, and led the pack with its flex-pricing model, and now we'd all be talking about Richard Branson's brilliant move that "shook up the industry."

190 comments

Duh. by Squash · 2014-12-15 03:51 · Score: 1, Funny

It didn't work because they didn't get a Slashvertisement soon enough.

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Squash
1. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:06 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Literally every comment, including this one, is complaining about ol' Benny's worthless post. It's about time to take a hint, slashdot: nobody gives a shit about Bennet's puerile drivel.
2. Re:Duh. by ganjadude · 2014-12-15 04:09 · Score: 0, Offtopic
  
  I thought it didnt work because of bennetts annoying use of slashdot as his personal blog
  
  --
  have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
3. Re:Duh. by Richard_at_work · 2014-12-15 04:40 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You mean some selfish posters are ruining certain articles for others, who don't particularly mind if Bennett Haselton posts or not...?
  If you don't like him posting, SKIP OVER HIS FUCKING POSTS. No one is requiring you to click on that link to read his post, SO DONT FUCKING DO IT.
  Coming in here and posting drivel because you dislike him and his is nothing more than you thinking you own this fucking place and your opinions matter more than everyone elses - its as bad as the bullshit "bring back classic" posts which did the same - yeah, ruin it for everyone because you don't personally like it.
  How about you go fuck yourself?
4. Re:Duh. by ganjadude · 2014-12-15 04:44 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  its not about disliking him or not, its about the clear abuse of slashdot by this one person trying to use the site as their personal blog.
  
  If people want to read his stuff, there is a section in the site under the user name that allows him to write his crap, and his friends to see his crap.
  
  He could actually post useful info, but the abuse is what is turning me off and i would wager many others
  
  --
  have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
5. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:50 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Dude, get a grip. The slashdot "audience" doesn't like Bennet's posts. Not just one person, or a few, but the *overwhelming* majority of commemorators..
  Frankly, if you don't like these comments, don't read them, don't respond to them, take some of your own medicine and when you pull bennet's dick out of your ass you can go fuck yourself too.
6. Re:Duh. by ottothecow · 2014-12-15 04:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I think it is a two-fold issue.
  First, most of us think Bennett is an idiot and simply don't want to read his drivel. Slashdot doesn't provide an easy way to ignore his stuff (although other users have written greasemonkey scripts to get rid of him). If he posted comments like that, I personally think that he would be moderated away. If stories were subject to moderation, I think the same would happen. If this were reddit, his posts would never see the light of day.
  Second, and more importantly IMHO, is the issue of why is Bennett special? Slashdot links to articles. With the exception of things like ask-slashdot and posts about slashdot itself, everything is cited to an external source. RTFA is a thing, because usually there was an actual article with content. Why does this Bennett guy get to use slashdot as his personal editorial platform? He should have to post this on his own person blog, just like everyone else. And like everyone else, I believe it used to be frowned on to self-promote to slashdot. If you want your articles to show up on slashdot...write good articles and hope other people post them. I 100% believe that if he was posting this stuff on his own blog, it would either not get submitted at all, or the editors would reject it. It simply doesn't meet the quality standards of slashdot (at least the quality standards that there *used* to be). If the articles aren't good enough to stand on their own, why does this post-Dice slashdot feel the need to give this guy a soapbox to stand on?
  Slashdot will probably never be what it used to be...but Bennett's crap is one of the most noticeable things that numerous long-time users absolutely hate. The articles often hook you in with an interesting prompt...but the writing is terrible and you soon realize you are reading a moron's rantings. This isn't an ad-hominem attack--I don't reject his articles because they are written by him. I usually don't notice it is a Bennett piece until I am halfway through reading it and say "Oh man, this is terrible" only to look and realize that it is another one of his poorly thought-out editorials which has been given free web-hosting and promotion by slashdot. Every single one of them is bad. If he were to write a decent piece (and preferably post it elsewhere with just a summary and a link on slashdot), I wouldn't complain. But they are all *awful*.
  
  --
  Bottles.
7. Re:Duh. by AmiMoJo · 2014-12-15 05:04 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  You must be new here, complaining about TFA is the reason most of us come to Slashdot...
  Seriously though, the lack of a filter option and the fact that any worthwhile content is invariable lost in wall of textual diarrhoea are quite annoying. If Bennett could learn to condense his ideas down by about 95% and get his own editor tag so he can be filtered out easily people wouldn't mind for the most part.
  This is supposed to be "news for nerds", not Bennett's personal blog. Unless you are going to argue that posts about ponies and restaurant reviews would be fine too because, hay, you can just skip over them and let others comment, then complaints about content are valid. This isn't Reddit, the content is supposed to be filtered and on-topic, otherwise why not just go to Reddit or any number of other sites that cater for low quality editorials?
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
8. Re:Duh. by Shalian · 2014-12-15 05:10 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  I would think that crappy front page editorials from a single individual would make long time readers Feel right at home
9. Re:Duh. by Opportunist · 2014-12-15 05:20 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  DON'T YOU DARE keeping him from posting!
  Not that I would miss his drivel (actually, I never read a word), but the comment section is more fun to read than the cartoon page of any newspaper there is!
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
10. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 05:48 · Score: -1
  
  At one time this was a good website, it was made so by the users and their commentary.
  Those people have been driven away, in part because of bullshit non-articles like this.
  Just close the commentary section if you don't want comments. Or else read them, and maybe - you know - use some of the user feedback to improve the quality of the site.
  You go fuck yourself, and Bennet too. You can read his tumblr if that's important to you.
11. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 06:02 · Score: -1
  
  how do you get modded down while the idiot defending bennet gets modded up???
12. Re:Duh. by Austerity+Empowers · 2014-12-15 06:29 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  The difference is that Katz posts were entertaining. Perhaps entertaining in entirely an unintended way, but they possessed a level of surrealism which felt like high art. It's like if The Jerk were to take up editorialism, I think that's how his stuff always read.
  These posts are just dumb.
13. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 06:33 · Score: -1
  
  Perhaps if they had been a frequent contributor things would have gone differently.
14. Re:Duh. by Triklyn · 2014-12-15 06:35 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  i also show up for the venom.
15. Re:Duh. by Hognoxious · 2014-12-15 06:55 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  I thought it didn't work because he's a tedious, ill-informed windbag.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
16. Re:Duh. by dnebin · 2014-12-15 06:58 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  That and no one asked Bennett how to fix the problem incorrectly! http://petitions.moveon.org/si...
17. Re:Duh. by Crashmarik · 2014-12-15 07:00 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  It's comments like the above that make me think Slashdot has become some college frat's drinking game.
18. Re:Duh. by dnebin · 2014-12-15 07:02 · Score: -1
  
  Help give them the hint, sign the petition: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/drop-bennett-haselton.
19. Re:Duh. by dnebin · 2014-12-15 07:05 · Score: -1
  
  Flaming each other won't help, sign the petition instead: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/drop-bennett-haselton
20. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 07:08 · Score: -1
  
  Shill for Bennett is obvious shill
21. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 07:13 · Score: -1
  
  others, who don't particularly mind if Bennett Haselton posts or not...?
  But that's precisely the problem -- YOU, and others like you, who don't mind that Bennett posts here. Bennett postings are an affront to what used to make Slashdot attractive site to read. Tolerating these posts is a form of acquiescence that allows the site to continue its downward slide into mediocrity. You need to do your part -- reject the notion that this site should allow submissions of half-informed over-inflated op-ed blog postings.
  (Now, is what I'm saying serious, or satire? You decide.)
22. Re:Duh. by oldmac31310 · 2014-12-15 07:21 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  Drole? what is that supposed to mean? It is not even a word. If you're going to set up a petition, please have the decency to be able to write something that makes sense. If you mean 'droll' you have managed to misspell the wrong word. Bah.
  
  --
  http://www.acetonestudio.com
23. Re:Duh. by smellsofbikes · 2014-12-15 07:23 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  I'm (in a more civil way) with the GP: the distaste for Bennett and the vitriol in the comments feels like people driving across town to picket a porn store, when they could just stay home and not buy porn.
  But your post -- "I usually don't notice it is a Bennett piece until I am halfway through reading it and say "Oh man, this is terrible"" -- makes me realize a lot of people read Slashdot differently than I do. I see Bennett's name before anything else, like this big BLINK hashtag, and know what I'm going into when I choose to click on that 'read more' link.
  I'd love moderation on articles, but in the same way that groupthink buries unpopular comments with no basis on their actual merit, we might lose some good material.
  I'm not saying Bennett's articles are chock-full of merit. He definitely has a higher word-to-concept ratio than I'd use. But I can't help feeling like at least some of the hatred for his stuff is because those of us who are both socially aware individuals and geeks cringe when we hear someone monopolizing a conversation by holding forth on his/her own pet subject of interest.
  Maybe Bennett should set up an amazon turk survey for figuring out just how much text on a given subject is too much, and how much is just right.
  But in the meantime, the internet is a dynamic array and I'd much prefer someone spend his time vastly expanding one small chunk of it, behind a link, than a lot of other things he could be doing.
  
  --
  Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
24. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 07:50 · Score: -1
  
  He definitely has a higher word-to-concept ratio than I'd use
  Modded up for that gem!
25. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 07:57 · Score: -1
  
  Looks like it is an accepted English word
26. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:05 · Score: -1
  
  If they don't care why should we care? If they don't care, I don't care. I cared for Slashdot. I don't care for DiceDot.
  The question is - why do you fucking care?
  captcha - chided
27. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:07 · Score: -1
  
  FAGGOT NIGGER
28. Re:Duh. by u38cg · 2014-12-15 08:18 · Score: 0
  
  That's what we have moderation for. Also, fuck Bennett.
  
  --
  [FUCK BETA]
29. Re:Duh. by Hillgiant · 2014-12-15 09:09 · Score: 0
  
  All of this Bennett Haselton hate sure make me miss the Jon Katz hate.
  Wait... nevemind. I don't miss it.
  
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  -
30. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 11:57 · Score: -1
  
  Why does this Bennett guy get to use slashdot as his personal editorial platform? He should have to post this on his own person blog, just like everyone else.
  Why does HE get one?! Its not fair!! I want to be on slashdot toooooooooo!
31. Re:Duh. by Darinbob · 2014-12-15 12:11 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  Aren't there web sites other than slashdot that lets someone post their blogs rather than having to run their own servers? If not, someone should create one, and call it something like "the spot for blogs" or "blogspot.com" for short. Then we can isolate blogs in their own niche of the internet separate and distinct from the news part of the internet.
32. Re:Duh. by Darinbob · 2014-12-15 12:17 · Score: 0
  
  No one abuses slashdot as much as he does though. No one else turns slashdot into their private blog service.
  Every other poster typically has a short summary (as this article does) which is then followed by a link to a longer article on some other site. However in this case the short summary is followed by an extremely long article in-line. Why is Hasselton exempt from the editing that other posters are given?
  And people do not know in advance if they're getting rickrolled by Hasselton or not. We don't see the author's name in the RSS feed, only the subject.
  We have specialized web sites devoted to publishing a bloggers rambling stream of consciousness posts. Slashdot has never been about being a blogging site but instead a site that presented news followed by responses and commentary from readers. Whether you like Hasselton or hate him, he is definitely abusing the Slashdot service.
33. Re:Duh. by Darinbob · 2014-12-15 12:27 · Score: 0
  
  I don't get a "read more" link. How can I get that so that I don't have to page down many times before I can see the comments. The only other things on slashdot this long as the in depth movie and book reports, which I also wish were just links to another website.
  I didn't care about Hasselton that much before, but recently he's been showing up with terrible regularity.
  Some of this is frustration over the bait-and-switch I think. We see what looks like an interesting subject in the RSS feed, then when we look at the article then its disappointing. Similar to the disappointment of being sent to a paywalled site, or a click-bait site, etc. It's a continuing reminder of the decline and fall of Slashdot.
  And then there's the question of how this guys sneaks past the moderators and editors. Does he have blackmail material on them, is he a part of the inner circle of friends that run the place, or what?
34. Re:Duh. by Darinbob · 2014-12-15 12:30 · Score: 0
  
  But it's still the wrong word. Droll means amusing.
35. Re:Duh. by Darinbob · 2014-12-15 12:30 · Score: 0
  
  A tedious ill-informed windbag who hasn't heard of blogs.
36. Re:Duh. by Bite+The+Pillow · 2014-12-15 12:33 · Score: 0
  
  Stop clicking, stop commenting.
  As it is, Dice is getting a kick out of these replies.
  Also, how long is your reply? Too long. I look for the factual correction, where Bennett didn't read the literature first. Now I'm going to point out that you are the problem. Don't click, don't comment.
37. Re:Duh. by ottothecow · 2014-12-15 13:11 · Score: 0
  
  Did you even read my comment?
  I click because the headline interests me and I don't immediately recognize it as a Bennett post. He often picks interesting topics, but his actual responses are awful.
  I comment because I choose not to just ignore it. Sure, I could install a greasemonkey script to eliminate Bennett, but that is not going to help slow the downfall of slashdot. I comment because I want to make sure Dice knows that there is public opinion that doesn't want this crap. I comment so that any new users who happen upon slashdot and click on Bennett's junk aren't led to believe that his content is accepted as reasonable discourse by the community.
  FWIW, I don't usually check the "Disable Advertising" box that they give you for having good karma (it eventually unchecks itself and you have to re-check it). But when I read a Bennett article, I immediately go and check that box. They aren't getting any extra ad revenue from me out of Bennett's drivel.
  
  --
  Bottles.
38. Re:Duh. by Noah+Haders · 2014-12-15 18:24 · Score: 0
  
  dude, lots of hate, but I don't see YOU offering solutions for distributing ice at burning man! maybe instead of trying to tear down others you should work to solve the world's problems one by one.
39. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-17 05:57 · Score: 0
  
  I'd love moderation on articles, but in the same way that groupthink buries unpopular comments with no basis on their actual merit, we might lose some good material
  Slashdot used to have the ability to users to vote up or down stories that have already been posted, but that quietly went away some time ago.
40. Re:Duh. by Hognoxious · 2014-12-17 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  He has. We're in it!
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Just to make one thing clear: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 03:52 · Score: 4, Funny

I did not click on "read more" to read what Bennet has to say.
1. Re:Just to make one thing clear: by Ecuador · 2014-12-15 03:55 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  You still clicked though, didn't you? That's all it takes. And.. oh, damn, I did it too! We seriously have to stop if we ever hope to have a Bennett-free slashdot...
  
  --
  Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
2. Re:Just to make one thing clear: by Opportunist · 2014-12-15 05:22 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  Nobody has. Some of us are here for their daily two minutes hate, some are here to read the comments.
  To be honest, I have no idea what the text on top is about, I just read Bennet and knew I had to hit the comment section!
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
3. Re:Just to make one thing clear: by Cro+Magnon · 2014-12-15 07:24 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  I clicked on "read more" to see if any of the 100+ comments were something besides complaining about Bennet. :-P
  
  --
  Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
4. Re:Just to make one thing clear: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 07:42 · Score: -1, Redundant
  
  It's like watching a slow-motion train-wreck and then seeing a slow-motion airplane crash into the train. Exciting, and quite possibly the only thing slashdot is good for any more.
5. Re:Just to make one thing clear: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 11:31 · Score: -1
  
  A couple weeks ago, while browsing around the library downtown, I had to take a piss. As I entered the john, Bennett Haselton -- the messiah himself -- came out of one of the booths. I stood at the urinal looking at him out of the corner of my eye as he washed his hands. He didn't once look at me. He was busy and in any case I was sure he wouldn't even acknowledge a mere mortal like me.
  As soon as he left I darted into the booth he'd vacated, hoping there might be a lingering smell of shit and even a seat still warm from his sturdy ass. I found not only the smell but the shit itself. He'd forgotten to flush. And what a treasure he had left behind. Three or four beautiful specimens floated in the bowl. It apparently had been a fairly dry, constipated shit, for all were fat, stiff, and ruggedly textured. The real prize was a great feast of turd -- a nine inch gastrointestinal triumph as thick as his cock -- or at least as I imagined it!
  I knelt before the bowl, inhaling the rich brown fragrance and wondered if I should obey the impulse building up inside me. I've been on the internet a long time, but Bennett Haselton is the first real Voice of the Internet, bringing new for nerds and stuff that matters back to Slashdot! Of course I'd had fantasies of meeting him, sucking his cock and balls, not to mention sucking his asshole clean, but I never imagined I would have the chance. Now, here I was, confronted with the most beautiful five-pound turd I'd ever feasted my eyes on, a sausage fit to star in any fantasy and one I knew to have been hatched from the asshole of Bennett Haselton, the chosen one.
  Why not? I plucked it from the bowl, holding it with both hands to keep it from breaking. I lifted it to my nose. It smelled like rich, ripe limburger (horrid, but thrilling), yet had the consistency of cheddar. What is cheese anyway but milk turning to shit without the benefit of a digestive tract?
  I gave it a lick and found that it tasted better then it smelled.
  I hesitated no longer. I shoved the fucking thing as far into my mouth as I could get it and sucked on it like a big half nigger cock, beating my meat like a madman. I wanted to completely engulf it and bit off a large chunk, flooding my mouth with the intense, bittersweet flavor. To my delight I found that while the water in the bowl had chilled the outside of the turd, it was still warm inside. As I chewed I discovered that it was filled with hard little bits of something I soon identified as peanuts. He hadn't chewed them carefully and they'd passed through his body virtually unchanged. I ate it greedily, sending lump after peanutty lump sliding scratchily down my throat. My only regret was that Bennett Haselton wasn't there to see my loyalty and wash it down with his piss.
  I soon reached a terrific climax. I caught my cum in the cupped palm of my hand and drank it down. Believe me, there is no more delightful combination of flavors than the hot sweetness of cum with the rich bitterness of shit. It's even better than reading one of Bennett's articles!
  Afterwards I was sorry that I hadn't made it last longer. But then I realized that I still had a lot of fun in store for me. There was still a clutch of virile turds left in the bowl. I tenderly fished them out, rolled them into my handkerchief, and stashed them in my briefcase. In the week to come I found all kinds of ways to eat the shit without bolting it right down. Once eaten it's gone forever unless you want to filch it third hand out of your own asshole. Not an unreasonable recourse in moments of desperation or simple boredom.
  I stored the turds in the refrigerator when I was not using them but within a week they were all gone. The last one I held in my mouth without chewing, letting it slowly dissolve. I had liquid shit trickling down my throat for nearly four hours. I must have had six orgasms in the process.
  I often think of Bennett Haselton dropping solid gold out of his sweet, pink asshole every day, never knowing what joy it could, and at least once did, bring to a grateful Slashdot reader.
6. Re:Just to make one thing clear: by Darinbob · 2014-12-15 12:52 · Score: 0
  
  I get all this from the RSS feed, no link to click on. There is no hint whatsoever that it's a Bennett posting until after the article has shown up.
Please, learn to summarize by itsenrique · 2014-12-15 03:53 · Score: 0, Offtopic

No one wants to read this much about a service that didn't work by Benny Horribleton.
The real answer by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 03:53 · Score: -1

Their celebrity endorsement from Bennett Haselton came too late.
1. Re:The real answer by TWX · 2014-12-15 04:00 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Who?
  
  I'm not proud of myself for knowing who people like Meghan Trainor and Ariana Grande are, but I guess I pay enough attention to what passes for culture these days to usually have a clue when names come up. And I have no idea who Bennett Haselton is. So much for celebrity endorsement.
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
2. Re: The real answer by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:06 · Score: 0, Funny
  
  He's a frequent contributor.
3. Re: The real answer by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:10 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  What? Like a repeat offender?
4. Re: The real answer by TWX · 2014-12-15 04:17 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  So, like a super-fan?
  
  For those that don't know what I'm referring to, give Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun a read. It's a tongue-in-cheek murder-mystery set at a science fiction convention. The murder victim is essentially Harlan Ellison, if not in name.
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
5. Re: The real answer by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:49 · Score: -1
  
  Sorry, I only read the writings of Bennett Haselton. I'm still working on an article of his that I started reading several months ago. I'm about a third of the way through.
6. Re: The real answer by TWX · 2014-12-15 04:54 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  Does Slashdot pay by the word?
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
7. Re: The real answer by Opportunist · 2014-12-15 05:25 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  More like an inverted Simon Cowell.
  You watch American Idiot to hear how he berates and annihilates the idiots that dare to come on stage while having exactly zero discernible talent whatsoever.
  You read the comment section of his postings to read how the commentators berate and annihilate him for daring to ... you get the idea.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
8. Re: The real answer by CronoCloud · 2014-12-15 07:30 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  give Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun a read.
  Didn't it win an Edgar? Yep, Best Paperback Original. Original edition published by TSR...when there still was a TSR.
Fuck off by sholden · 2014-12-15 03:55 · Score: -1, Troll

Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.
Fuck Bennett ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 03:57 · Score: -1, Flamebait

Look ... will you assholes either make him a fucking editor and give us an exclusion for the fucking crap which comes out of Bennett ... or stop fucking posting this goddamned fucking crap to the fucking front page.
You useless cocksuckers.
How much profanity and rage do you want to see expressed in every mother fucking story written by this self aggrandizing fucking douchebag?
Fuck you dice. Fuck you Samzenpus. Fuck you every editor who posts one of these fucking useless fucking Bennett Fucking Haselton fucking stories.
Fuck you you fucking fuck.
1. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:01 · Score: -1, Flamebait
  
  mod fucking parent up
2. Re: Fuck Bennett ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:09 · Score: -1
  
  Fucking A.
3. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by Whatanut · 2014-12-15 04:18 · Score: -1, Flamebait
  
  agreed
  
  --
  
  yvan eht nioj
4. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:37 · Score: -1
  
  I have never seen so much swearing in a /. post. This is not insightful or even funny. Is Slashdot really willing to head towards the dumps just for some short term advertising revenue?
5. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:55 · Score: -1
  
  Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays.
6. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:58 · Score: -1
  
  Seems pretty insightful since it looks like they are willing to do exactly that. (And they've been headed for the dumps for a while)
7. Re: Fuck Bennett ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 05:57 · Score: -1
  
  I think it's best expressed in this comment
  
  Look ... will you assholes either make him a fucking editor and give us an exclusion for the fucking crap which comes out of Bennett ... or stop fucking posting this goddamned fucking crap to the fucking front page.
  You useless cocksuckers.
  How much profanity and rage do you want to see expressed in every mother fucking story written by this self aggrandizing fucking douchebag?
  Fuck you dice. Fuck you Samzenpus. Fuck you every editor who posts one of these fucking useless fucking Bennett Fucking Haselton fucking stories.
  Fuck you you fucking fuck.
8. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 06:52 · Score: -1
  
  "I don't LIKE Mondays", BLAM, BLAM.
9. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by dnebin · 2014-12-15 07:17 · Score: -1
  
  Sign the fucking petition too! http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/drop-bennett-haselton
10. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 07:26 · Score: -1
  
  Damn dude. I hate Bennett posts as much as anyone else, but that is just entirely too much anger to be healthy.
  Hope you feel better soon buddy!
11. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by neonfrog · 2014-12-15 08:00 · Score: 0
  
  How very interesting. You're a true vulgarian, aren't you?
  
  --
  I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
12. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:29 · Score: -1
  
  Why, thank you. You cunt.
13. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by neonfrog · 2014-12-15 08:43 · Score: 0
  
  (ooooh! geek reference fail!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
  
  --
  I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
14. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by neonfrog · 2014-12-15 12:38 · Score: 0
  
  For the young or humor-impaired, the string of epithets simply reminded me of a great Kevin Kline scene in a super funny movie, A Fish Called Wanda.
  
  Otto: You pompous, stuck-up, snot-nosed, English, giant-twerp, scumbag, fuck-face, dickhead asshole!
  
  Archie: How very interesting. You're a true vulgarian, aren't you?
  
  Otto: You're the vulgarian, you fuck!
  
  "Bennett" irks me just as much as the next guy, but this was a late-80's joke set-up, not a troll. It's a good movie. You should see it.
  
  --
  I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
15. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by Anrego · 2014-12-15 13:58 · Score: 0
  
  Of all the weird scenes in that movie, the one where the guy gets fries stuck up his nose sticks with me.
  I'm sure this probably reveals something dark and scary about my personality, but damned if I know what!
16. Re:Fuck Bennett ... by neonfrog · 2014-12-16 02:11 · Score: 0
  
  You meant chips. :-P
  
  --
  I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
I don't know by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 03:57 · Score: 0, Troll

Perhaps this will be an interesting article.
Oh noooo! Fuck shit arse! It's Bennett fucking Haselton yet again!
Just link to goatse or tubgirl with Rick fucking Astley playing in the background, so that I know that you're just fucking with me, Slashdot.
My eyes are bleeding by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 03:57 · Score: -1

From the wall of text with no substance.
Bennett Haselton writes by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:01 · Score: -1

I live in Seattle, and nobody I know here has significantly changed the way they think about getting around in the city, as a result of Uber or Lyft. Of course it's more convenient to open an app on your phone and press a button to summon a driver, than to call a taxi company and wait on hold until an operator picks up. And it's reassuring to see a little dot moving across a map on your phone screen showing you how far away your Uber driver is, instead of staring out the window and wondering when your cab is going to arrive. But on price, UberX and Lyft are about the same price as a taxi or less (UberX being the cheaper version of Uber), and sometimes more during "surge pricing" periods. It sounds hip to drop a reference to "taking an Uber" instead of taking a cab, but when cost-conscious people need to get somewhere, they still drive themselves or take a bus, just like they always have.
So I was noodling about writing an article suggesting that a ride-sharing company should try to grab all the market share by implementing a "set-your-own-price" model, which would allow drivers to name their own price for how much they would charge to take a rider from A to B. I even had a specific company in mind: Sidecar, sensitively referred to as the "forgotten stepsister" of Uber and Lyft, should up-end the came and challenge the titans by undercutting them on price. My reasoning was simply that if I want to travel from my house to a location 30 minutes away, a cab might cost $30. But if anybody close by (with a reasonably modern car and safe driving record) can compete on price to take me on that trip, I could probably find someone willing to do it for $10. And with Sidebar not being able to compete with Uber and Lyft on funding or marketing, what have they got to lose by trying a game-changer?
So, beginning of an article sketched out in my head, only to find... that Sidecar has been doing this since February. And nobody noticed. Well, apart from some guy named "Richard Branson", but he hasn't been getting the word out. (All right, be honest: If I hadn't told you that this was an idea backed by Richard Branson, and went with the original article saying it was just my suggestion, would you already be composing comments in your head about what another half-baked Bennett Haselton idea this was?)
So why didn't it change everything? Why do none of my friends talk about "grabbing a Sidecar" to downtown or to the airport?
Well, trivially because there are fewer Sidecar drivers than Uber or Lyft drivers, but that just begs the question: Once a preferable (cheaper) option existed in the form of Sidecar, why didn't more users start trying it out, which in turn draws in more drivers to serve those greater numbers of users? This is the standard textbook economic prediction of what should happen. And while the real world doesn't always follow textbook economic predictions, it's a little surprising to see the reality this far off in this case. A competitor offered a service 50% cheaper than the leading brands, and nobody noticed.
Driver-set pricing has another advantage, which is to blunt criticism of "price-gouging" during periods of high demand. Economists have long puzzled over why Apple and Microsoft don't charge more for their new gadgets, since as long as people are lining up to buy out the stock, sellers could raise the price and still be assured of selling out completely. Various theories abound, including that the act of raising prices would create too much resentment that would cost the company more in the long run. This seems to be the case with Uber, which has long been the target of sarcastic jibes about its "surge pricing", and which was charging four times its standard rate to transport people out of Sydney during a hostage crisis, before the company reversed course after an outcry and offered free rides to passengers trying to leave the city.
Now, most economists would say that raising prices during periods of high demand is what suppliers should do, for various reasons. First, you're going
1. Re:Bennett Haselton writes by Noah+Haders · 2014-12-15 04:08 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  I don't need to read this to tell you why it didn't work. in my area we had sidecar service but didn't have too many cars. in theory, with flex pricing, boom, creates more incentive and we get the cars we need. instead, nobody wanted to drive over here regardless, so they all tripled their prices. a short ride went from $5 to $15. This made them way overpriced compared to Lyft and Uber.
  I applaud Sidecar for trying something innovative. Flex pricing is a great idea in theory. if a driver has a sweet car, he can try to extract a couple bucks more. Similarly if the driver is a she and a hottie. if a driver wants to boost volume he can take a couple bucks less. but in practice it did not help increase service or competitiveness in my area. it's a shame cuz I really liked sidecar, they were the "funnest" of the three services.
2. Re:Bennett Haselton writes by oldmac31310 · 2014-12-15 07:28 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  I started reading this and assumed it was a poorly written satire of the 'article' - NO! it is the article. Nice troll douchebag!
  
  --
  http://www.acetonestudio.com
Bennett Text WallMart by oldmac31310 · 2014-12-15 04:02 · Score: -1, Offtopic

For all your useless bullshit needs.

--
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Since you have forced your opinion on me yet again by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:02 · Score: -1

Uber has great marketing
Lyft has OK marketing
Sidecar has shit marketing
That's it.
Bennett confuses me by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:05 · Score: -1, Troll

What does Bennett get out of this that makes it worth the immediate hate he gets for every thing he posts? I assume he is paid for his entries, but is it really enough to have this black eye on his resume for the rest of his life? I mean really, how awful would it be that every time a potential employer Google's your name they turn up a ton of results detailing just how much you are hated and how half backed everything you say is.
I don't get why he keeps posting.
1. Re:Bennett confuses me by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:10 · Score: -1
  
  I don't get why he keeps posting.
  Because he has no life.
  I for one am hoping he soon gets anal cancer, which given his sexual
  proclivities is only a matter of time before it occurs.
2. Re: Bennett confuses me by O('_')O_Bush · 2014-12-15 04:52 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  I'm not convinced "he" isn't one of those article writing software algorithms being used by Slashdot for Google click baiting.
  
  --
  while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Opinion columnist? by hawguy · 2014-12-15 04:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why is an opinion column being presented as "news"? There's nothing here to suggest that any research or study has been done, it's all Mr. Haselton's opinion of what he thinks is happening. Either stop branding yourself as "News for Nerds", or stop running opinion columns under the guise of "News".
1. Re:Opinion columnist? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 05:21 · Score: -1
  
  They dropped the "news for nerds, stuff that matters" a while ago from the front page, sadly.
2. Re:Opinion columnist? by Opportunist · 2014-12-15 05:29 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  Now you're being unfair. Slashdot just wants to be a news medium just like all the others.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
3. Re:Opinion columnist? by schnell · 2014-12-15 05:42 · Score: -1, Offtopic
  
  Shame on you for making me remember the Jon Katz era of Slashdot. As I recall, it eventually got so bad that turning off Katz stories became an option for users built into the site.
  
  --
  "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
Supply and demand by NewWorldDan · 2014-12-15 04:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

What an idiot. He spells out the whole thing but can't see the big picture. Sidecar is hampered by a lack of drivers. Drivers are making more money on Lyft and UberX, so that's where they go. And those companies also have better marketing departments so they get more business. It's really not that complicated.
1. Re:Supply and demand by bluefoxlucid · 2014-12-15 04:23 · Score: 0
  
  Pretty much. You can get more money doing X, so you do X. This is why free markets raise prices above the minimum when competition is hot, instead of doing an infinite downward spiral.
  In negotiation, we use a tactic of carrying about public standards of fairness to negotiate. This is why I argue for a repeal of minimum wage: once we've instituted a Citizen's Dividend, a minimum wage becomes a tool for hiring managers to pin all basic labor jobs to a published figure, which increases the belief that this figure is "Fair" even though most people would flatly refuse to work for so little if such a figure weren't published. It's the same with published standard rates: that looks like a fair rate, drivers feel it's unfair to get paid much less, and passengers are encouraged to not blame the driver for the rate being high (and to believe more that the rate is fair, or at least more fair than they would otherwise think).
  This is why published standards are dangerous when done wrong and when done in the wrong market. Minimum wage is the poster child for context-sensitive effect: in scarce employment markets, people are desperate and will take low wages, and so a minimum wage increases unemployment but sets a minimum standard of working-man income; in markets where demand for employment is more casual (i.e. you don't absolutely need a job, but life is considerably bad without one; or there are hundreds of jobs for you to take), people will argue for higher wages, and minimum wage helps managers convince people that $8/hr is silly and demanding and that they only deserve the $7.25 standard minimum wage for a minimum wage job.
  Uber is just suffering from published baselines. It's impossible not to have market input; but it's authoritative when someone runs the numbers and sets a de-facto standard for drivers and passengers to reference.
  
  --
  Support my political activism on Patreon.
2. Re: Supply and demand by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:36 · Score: -1
  
  "What an idiot. He spells out the whole thing but can't see the big picture."
  This describes EVERY article by Bennett Haselton, since the beginning of time.
3. Re:Supply and demand by cduffy · 2014-12-15 04:37 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Except that drivers aren't making more money with Uber or Lyft.
  Saturday night I took a Sidecar home, and our driver was talking about how Sidecar is currently offering better base rates (after accounting for deductions -- Uber shows drivers the price a customer is paying before their cut is taken out), and currently offering double payouts from their marketing budget as a limited-time promotion to attract more drivers.
  The premise that Uber or Lyft pays better is, presently, false.
4. Re:Supply and demand by Archangel+Michael · 2014-12-15 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  Price equilibrium is the hallmark of capitalism. The thing that people often miss, because of how much government interferes with pricing models is that Supply will meet Demand at a price point that makes sense for the economics to work. People like the author have almost no experience looking at Econ 101 style supply demand graphs, so they have no idea how economics really works.
  Eventually, Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar will all be priced about the same, for the same kind of ride. Sidecar is interesting, because it is demand side (Customers) driven, and Lyft and Uber are supply side driven. Eventually, these two sides will end up being about the same price.
  The real problem I see, are the people crying for "Regulation" simply because they don't like the new models. My answer is, you have a regulated industry (Cabs), use them and stop complaining about the others. If the others can't compete, then there is a problem with their economic model that depends upon Government regulation to keep prices artificially high.
  
  --
  Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
5. Re:Supply and demand by tmosley · 2014-12-15 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  Temporary is different from permanent.
6. Re:Supply and demand by plopez · 2014-12-15 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  There are quite a few assumptions there including the fact that a free market will spring up without government intervention. Actually the post did make a good point in that economics is never that simple. We do not live in an economics 101 universe. Supply and demand curves are unrealistic in that they do not take into account competition, captured markets, shortages of raw material, labor shortages, lack of capital, disruptive technologies, and they assume instant information exchange. Econ 101 is about as realistic as Physics 101 where they reference the 'frictionless plane'.
  And don't forget Psychology. Despite all the fancy equations and obscure terminology Econ. is essentially a Social Science. A sloppy and unethical one at that.
  It all comes down to this from the article "But I think the simpler answer is that the free market is just not the meritocracy that people think it is".
  
  --
  putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
7. Re:Supply and demand by jellomizer · 2014-12-15 06:14 · Score: 1
  
  Don't mess with the convergent point of the Supply and Demand curve!
  If you try to price outside of of that area. Too much or too little things just don't work well.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
8. Re:Supply and demand by cduffy · 2014-12-15 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  Did you miss the part where (per said driver's assertion) Sidecar paid a better post-deduction base rate even without the temporary promotion?
  Also, it's not exactly like there are substantial costs associated with switching which service a driver chooses to work from. If rational economic decisions were being followed, one would expect a driver to want to double their money while it was possible to do so, and then switch back to a different service if that paid better the rest of the time.
9. Re:Supply and demand by rwa2 · 2014-12-15 07:09 · Score: 1
  
  Plus, there's plenty of alternatives in the Seattle area. Most tech workers get a monthly bus pass for free through their work. Since Seattle doesn't really have a "major" mass transit network yet, the bus service it actually pretty good (as long as you're commuting to/from Seattle -- good luck if you're trying to commute between suburbs). The city of Seattle paid for everyone to get Car2Go memberships, and ZipCar has a pretty good presence here too. The airport shuttles are great if I have more luggage than I care to lug on transit, and they're cheaper than cabs since you can share the ride with others on the van. I have and use all of these things, but never used a cab or any of these new unlicensed / unregulated cab-like services. That's just not how I roll.
  Having lived in the third world, I think the only way taxi (and taxi-like services) will get cheaper is through a glut of competition through the right amount of regulation/deregulation (like the licensed taxis in Thailand, which are everywhere and you can summon them in minutes with a wave of your hand, yet metered so they don't rip off tourists as much as they used to), and shared jeepney services (like those used in Puerto Rico and the Philippines) which essentially work like airport shuttles. Both of these could be much improved and optimized with information technology, and large employers like Microsoft and Google already run their own intelligent taxi/vanpool services for their commuters and on campus, so it's likely just a matter of time before they start offering some of that publicly... if there wasn't so much competition from public transit.
10. Re:Supply and demand by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:21 · Score: -1
  
  MOD PARENT DOWN, PROLIFERATION OF ONTOPIC DISCUSSION FOR A BENNETT HASELTON POST
  Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
  Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
11. Re:Supply and demand by Archangel+Michael · 2014-12-15 11:02 · Score: 1
  
  upply and demand curves are unrealistic in that they do not take into account competition, captured markets, shortages of raw material, labor shortages, lack of capital, disruptive technologies
  Supply / Demand curves do explain all those things. The problem is, there are so many intersecting supplies (labor, goods, capital) that it gets very complex very quickly.
  
  and they assume instant information exchange
  No, actually they don't require instant anything. The only assumption is, that information is known eventually. Those that have access to more information can make better buying/production/selling choices and be more efficient. The whole supply / demand thing is not about maximizing profits, or lowering costs or anything else like that. It is about efficiency of capital/resources in production. Econ 101 is about gaining efficiencies in the marketplace to move the supply or demand curves along their axis.
  
  disruptive technologies
  Disruptive technologies are simply large changes in efficiencies within a market. We call them disruptive because of the effect on marketplace inefficiencies. I learned this almost 20 years ago, when the cost to do something is too expensive, you do not do it. Often we don't do things not because they are impossible, but rather they are too expensive. The issue is that we call those things "impossible" or "cost prohibitive", but when changes in technology vastly improve efficiencies they disrupt whole markets.
  Take a look at 3D printers, which are changing ALL sorts of industries. I had a plastic clip in my car break when I was fixing something else. The only place I could find the clip, was at the dealership, and they wanted $20 for $.10 worth of plastic. Disruptive technology allows me to print the thing (printer is sunk cost) for the price of electricity and materials. And my replacement is actually better than the part that was there (modified improvements). Do enough of that, and my $500 3D printer pays for itself.
  
  --
  Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
12. Re:Supply and demand by plopez · 2014-12-15 16:52 · Score: 1
  
  "it gets very complex very quickly."
  Which is part of the point. There is no quick easy or straight forward explanation. You can look at it from a modeling perspective as just an optimization problem but the number of factors and the fact that many of the factors may have feedback loops that practically speaking appealing to simple curves does not do a good job of explaining the observed phenomenon. The is more going on that simply some n-dimensional saddle point.
  "The only assumption is, that information is known eventually."
  But the information is not required "eventually" (eventually we are all dead, to mangle a famous quote). It is needed immediately by both buyers and sellers all up and down the supply or service chain.
  In terms of the rules of the game, disruptive technology is an important factor. The fundamentally attack pricing structure and I sincerely doubt that any human actor or organization can know what the fall out will be. Which muddies the decision making process. Should we continue to make carriage bodies or should we adapt our business to supply the guy down the road working on that new fangled auto-mobile thing? We can sell a good 10K carriage bodies a year while that geek only sold 200 of his auto-mobiles. The smart money goes with the sure thing, doesn't it?
  Should we continue making clips the old way or retool and spend huge sums on replacing all our injection and blow molding equipment? How do we know it is not a fad? How do we get the information we need to make a good market decision. Short answer, you can't. Ever.
  
  --
  putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Because... by rodrigoandrade · 2014-12-15 04:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

My life is more important than saving a few bucks by allowing a stoned 16-year-old to drive me around town in a rainy night.
FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:08 · Score: -1, Troll

I'm done with this website.
This used to be a Slashdot, news for nerds. Not Bennett's Blog.
Who the fuck is this guy, why should we fucking care ?
Goodbye and fuck you Dice.
1. Re: FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:39 · Score: -1
  
  Thing is, Slashdot absolutely refuses to listen to its readers on this. I think they think it's amusing. They won't be laughing when Slashdot has 0 readers left.
  When they go to get another job and it says they worked for Slashdot, I hope the interviewer says, "Oh, you mean that Bennett Haselton guys personal blog, right?"
Bennett go home by MagicM · 2014-12-15 04:08 · Score: 0, Troll

The only good think about this Bennett Haselton post is that it gives us a break from the HughPickens.com posts.
This place is going down the shitter quick-like.
1. Re:Bennett go home by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:41 · Score: -1
  
  The only good think about this Bennett Haselton post is that it gives us a break from the HughPickens.com posts.
  And the only good thing about cutting off your own dick is your hands are too busy to shove hot iron poker up your ass at the same time.
  
  This place is going down the shitter quick-like.
  Nope, that already happened years ago.
2. Re:Bennett go home by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:43 · Score: -1
  
  This place is going down the shitter quick-like.
  You should watch the documentary "Loaded Dice: How Slashdot Turned to Crap and Went Down the Shitter". It was released on SlashTV and you can buy it on DVD/BluRay from SlashdotDeals.
Bennett by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:08 · Score: -1, Flamebait

Seriously, Bennett doesn't like a lot of things, we get it. What we also get is that he hasn't learned how to concisely express his views in the form of a Slashdot comment. So instead we get these obtuse walls of text. Please Dice, Slashdot, whomever. Stop these posts. They're hurting whats left of this site.
1. Re:Bennett by dnebin · 2014-12-16 15:57 · Score: -1
  
  Slashdot et al now see me as a troll, but sign the petition anyway: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/drop-bennett-haselton.
summary by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:11 · Score: -1, Troll

This company you've never heard of, probably failed because you never heard of it.
*slow clap*
1. Re:summary by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:18 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  See, that's a nice, succinct summary. Now you just need to fill in out with another 10,000 words and maybe the slashdolt "editors" will let you too use the front page as your personal blog.
Shut up, Bennett by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:12 · Score: 0, Troll

Shut up, Bennett.
Bennet, please change your userid/post name by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:12 · Score: -1

Some of your questions and posts are interesting, and I'd like to read discussions about them, instead of just hate-ons triggered by your name. (It's too much to expect that all the hater/bullies will get banned: they'd just post as AC.)
Why so many opinions from this guy? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:13 · Score: -1

Long time reader of slashdot, never post though. But really why does this chap have an article posted to slashdot so regulary? In an internet world full of blogs and such, I dont come here to read his "opinion" articles. If I wanted to do that i'd go to his website, i'm here for news!
Why Didn't Sidecar's Flex Pricing Work? by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2014-12-15 04:14 · Score: 4, Informative

>> Why Didn't Sidecar's Flex Pricing Work?
Because they hired Bennett Haselton to promote it, and the target audience died of thirst waiting for BH to finish his pitch.
Economists... by gnasher719 · 2014-12-15 04:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

Now, most economists would say that raising prices during periods of high demand is what suppliers should do, for various reasons.

In the UK, a few years ago they had a "petrol strike" where drivers refused to transport fuel to petrol stations. Panic ensued. One owner of a petrol station who still had fuel left decided to double the price.

Three days later the strike was over. Two months later, the station closed down, bankrupt.
1. Re:Economists... by TWX · 2014-12-15 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  Economics is Machiavellian, in the sense that when one is in a position of power, one can use that power for one's advantage to the disadvantage of others, but one must understand that the others one harms will remember being harmed and might choose to harm in return. There are consequences for one's actions.
  
  Is there a price-point where raising it doesn't raise the ire of those wanting fuel? Possibly. Did this gas-station owner hit that point? Absolutely not. As a consequence his customers chose to shop elsewhere even once his prices returned to normal.
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
2. Re:Economists... by bennetthaselton · 2014-12-15 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  Odd that people resented the gas station so much -- suppose the situation had been reversed, and a sudden surplus caused the market price of gasoline to drop. Would drivers have paid extra at the pump to help out the poor gas station owner? :)
3. Re:Economists... by sysrammer · 2014-12-15 09:23 · Score: 1
  
  No, because all stations would have been on the same playing field. When one player decides to behave with especial assholiness, then, yes, people will remember that.
  
  --
  His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
4. Re:Economists... by 6Yankee · 2014-12-15 10:57 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I remember that one. The petrol in station was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere (for the UK, anyway), and was already on the expensive side as a result. The owner said that he wasn't profiteering, rather it was about conserving what little they had. Until they could get another delivery, he wanted to ensure that anyone who wasn't desperate didn't stop there, and anyone who was only bought enough to get them to civilisation.
  Made sense to me. Didn't make sense to the Daily Mail, of course.
el4! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:18 · Score: -1

the resignation over to yet anoteher that should be JOIN THE GNAA!!
good will by fermion · 2014-12-15 04:18 · Score: -1, Offtopic

There is also a surcharge of good will in economics. When one company buys another, there is good will. When people pya $1000 for a MS license instead of much less for Google docs, some of that is good will.
The taxi service in my area has had tracking of the cabs for a while and the ability to get a cab with an app for a very long while. The wait on the phone is not long at all. I am not in an area where cabs are used a lot, but sometimes a cab is better than a bus or driving.
I specifically use cabs because of lack of surge pricing. There have been times when I have had to get home at midnight, and it good that i can just take a cab and not get gouged. If one want to show appreciation, tip better.
In some ways I see these ride buying service as Walmart. Come in, chage less to drive out others, then raise the prices and the consumer is at the mercy of an unregulated monopoly.

--
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Re:Economists... MOD DOWN MOD DOWN by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:19 · Score: -1

ON TOPIC POST FOR A BENNET HASETLON POST - PLEASE MOD DOWN
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Re:good will MOD PARENT DOWN by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:23 · Score: -1

MOD PARENT DOWN - ONTOPIC DISCUSSION FOR A BENNETT HASELTON POST SHOULD BE MODDED DOWN
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
A few thoughts on why this might have failed .... by King_TJ · 2014-12-15 04:24 · Score: 1, Offtopic

I know someone, above, said "Hey idiot... it's about the lack of drivers!" I'm not going to even attempt to speak to that, because I don't know enough details to know if Sidecar's business model would attract "enough drivers" or not?
Off-hand though, I do know I've taken shuttle buses before where the driver only accepted cash and charged around $8 to drive me to an airport from a hotel, and he didn't have more than 1 or 2 other passengers when I got on the bus. So that tells me that yes, some people will gladly drive you around for lower rates than are charged by a typical taxi service or Uber.
I think one of the big obstacles to a Sidecar type business might simply be the fact that you're expected to essentially "make an offer" for what you'll pay. If you advertised a fixed rate that was clearly almost 50% lower than the competition -- it would probably do a booming business (provided it was advertised sufficiently, etc.).
I know where I used to live, several restaurants experimented with a "pay whatever you like" program for food, and truthfully? A large percentage of people who'd otherwise eat there avoided it while they did that. I think that's because, by and large, Americans are adverse to haggling/negotiating on prices. Sure, we have a culture that expects it'll happen on BIG purchases like a car or a house -- but for the "every day" stuff, not so much. (Even with cars, people are flocking to the "no haggle/no pressure" pricing models.) Even with something as simple as hiring a babysitter for a couple hours, people are always hesitant when the sitter says, "Just pay me whatever you think it's worth." Will you offer too little and offend the person, or cause them to prefer not to work with you in the future? Will you pay more than most people, essentially ripping yourself off?
Now add the fact that with a need for a ride someplace, you're probably in a compromised position. This isn't like going out to dinner where ultimately, you can just take it or leave it. You probably have a real NEED to get someplace by a certain time deadline. The last thing you want is to be late, simply because you didn't offer enough money vs. the next guy for a ride and got ignored.
So many words to say so little by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:28 · Score: -1

Can't this torrent of words be summarized into key points? This stream-of-consciousness, Kerouacian text has some sort of point hidden inside it, but who wants to try to find it? This whole thing could have been done in a paragraph or two.
1. Re:So many words to say so little by craighansen · 2014-12-15 07:23 · Score: 0
  
  Points for Kerouacian. On the Road sure did ramble (chatter, babble, prattle, prate, blather, jabber, twitter, maunder).
Theory v. Practice by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:30 · Score: 0

Since BH's posts usually turn into learning moments for same I will cut to the chase. Bennett, it's because a good idea on paper doesn't always translate to the real world. Logic can only take you so far and really has little to do with consumerism. Now, go look up all the topics and keywords from this thread so you will learn something else new about the real world.
Good god by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:39 · Score: -1

How much of a masochist are you, Bennett?
Do you salivate in anticipation of the comments sections you're going to get?
"Yeah I'm in for some REAL hardcore abuse today, uuuuuuuuuuunh"
Two theories on Bennett posts by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:39 · Score: -1

1) The amount of hateful comments they generate is more activity than Slashdot gets otherwise, Dice doesn't care that it's all negative. Views are views.
OR
2) Bennett pays to promote his posts because he needs the audience for his poorly thought out rants.
Has to be one or the other.
1. Re:Two theories on Bennett posts by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:42 · Score: -1
  
  Is it possible Bennett isn't a real person? Any human being would have run away long ago with the amount of hatred he receives here. Maybe its an AI bot, like those ones that always get submitted to journals as trolls. Would explain why the posts are so needlessly convoluted. Padding out to some word count.
JoshuaD by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 04:45 · Score: -1

I think the problem is the time-cost associated with setting up the logistics.
If I'm driving somewhere in 10 minutes, and someone shows up at my house and wants to give me $10 to get him close to where I'm going, I _probably_ say yes.
If I have to negotiate an app as I'm getting out of the shower, have a bunch of false launches, and then have a guy offer me not nearly enough money to go further out of my way than I would ever want, to, I stop using the app real quick.
1. Re:JoshuaD by mythosaz · 2014-12-15 05:13 · Score: 1
  
  You're not the market for this app then.
  I'm probably not either. I just want to know how much is it to get me from (A) and (B) with the least fussing and hassle. If it's a good deal, and it makes sense, I'll do it.
  ...but there's probably a segment of the population who's happy to play a game that gets them a cheaper ride at a discount with some hurdles. The question was probably if that segment of the market was big enough to be a viable alternative to Uber and Lyft. ...and it might be, in select large markets.
What a waste of time. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 05:15 · Score: -1

I started to read the article but it did not come to a point. There are not even links to some relevant research or other interesting articles.
Why is this piece of utter crap on the front page of my beloved Slashdot???
What is happening to the world?
Bennett Haselton writes by jeffmflanagan · 2014-12-15 05:18 · Score: -1, Troll

Why??? Hasn't he wasted enough of our time?
Brevity is the soul of wit by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 05:20 · Score: -1

"[Humongous block of text...] But I think the simpler answer is ..."
Couldn't you have just deleted that and everything prior, and saved a lot of man-hours spent reading this so-called article?
nc by Falos · 2014-12-15 05:36 · Score: 1

lawl, he thinks consumer purchases are exclusively inextricable to the objective merits of a product/service, and results are a direct reflection of said merits

allow me to break that illusion:

"apple"
This explains some political stances by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 05:40 · Score: 0

"First, you're going to be providing the good/service to somebody, so by providing it to the people willing to pay the most, you are at least making an effort to provide the service to the person who needs the most."
Did samzenpus just equate the amount of disposable income to need?
1. Re:This explains some political stances by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 07:26 · Score: 0
  
  The alternatives will involve inconstitutional government intervention, i.e. death panels & compulsory gay marriage.
  --
  roman_mir
Keep rubbing it in our face ... by kbahey · 2014-12-15 05:40 · Score: -1, Troll

Slashdot's editor team knows that the "audience" here hate Bennet Hasleton's continued long winded drivel, yet they keep posting his stuff regularly.
This yet another clear sign that Dice and Slashdot do not care about their "audience", continuing off from the Beta debacle.
Just keep ignoring your "audience" while expecting viewership to increase. Yeah, that will happen alright ...

--
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
It was CmdrTaco's blog by tepples · 2014-12-15 05:48 · Score: 1

its about the clear abuse of slashdot by this one person trying to use the site as their personal blog.
Slashdot itself started as Rob Malda's personal blog.

If people want to read his stuff, there is a section in the site under the user name that allows him to write his crap, and his friends to see his crap.

And for each journal entry, there's an option to post it as a submission. Or do Bennett's journal entries skip the submission queue?
1. Re:It was CmdrTaco's blog by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 06:08 · Score: -1
  
  Or do Bennett's journal entries skip the submission queue?
  Yes, they do. That's a big reason for the negative reaction to his postings.
2. Re:It was CmdrTaco's blog by Austerity+Empowers · 2014-12-15 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  Rob Malda's personal blog.
  Rob Malda's blog was more interesting, that's the real complaint. He did a good job of separating the wheat from the chaff. Articles like this one reduce the usefulness of slashdot, which was always a monoculture that ignored significant, but off-topic developments elsewhere.
  Uber is technologically noteworthy due to how they are using technology, I think they get a bit too much air time, but it's interesting to see the taxi industry get shaken: they are relatively poor and survive only due to their government regulations. They serve as an example to any who might try to use technology to try to overthrow more well heeled industries, like say, Hollywood or publishing in general. How long are we going to fight that particular battle?
  This, however, is clearly a post about business models and the economy, or I assume it is, tl;dr The business side of technology is irrelevant to my interests, business is just a bad reality TV show.
3. Re:It was CmdrTaco's blog by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 06:46 · Score: 0
  
  yeah nasty intrusive government regulations like requirements for commercial-grade liability insurance so when some Uber driver screws up and a passenger gets hurt, the passenger isn't both crippled AND out of luck regarding medical care.
  I'm waiting (and if you have it, post a link here) for the inevitable hassle: "I got hurt in an Uber, and the driver's non-commercial auto insurance has told me to go fly a kite regarding payment for treatment of my injuries" linked to the Uber driver's note that their auto policy has been unceremoniously dropped by the insurer.
4. Re:It was CmdrTaco's blog by gumbi+west · 2014-12-15 13:39 · Score: 1
  
  This, however, is clearly a post about business models and the economy, or I assume it is, tl;dr The business side of technology is irrelevant to my interests, business is just a bad reality TV show.
  I am an economist and this drivel is more like, "what I think I recall based on having taken econ classes a long time ago" than it is about economics or business. I would never endorse any of the above logic attributed to economists, with the possible exception of the first day Apple pricing which I would talk about simply in a college class even though actual economists know full well why a company might use that pricing model.
  News flash: what's taught in college economics is known to not be correct, it's just part of a liberal arts education.
5. Re:It was CmdrTaco's blog by Noah+Haders · 2014-12-15 18:21 · Score: 1
  
  News flash: what's taught in college economics is known to not be correct, it's just part of a liberal arts education.
  whaaaa? if i wanted to be wrong, I didn't have to go to college for that! srsly tho, do marginal costs equal marginal benefits? cuz I've structured my entire life around this single idea.
Simple by adiposity · 2014-12-15 05:56 · Score: 2

It didn't work because drivers quickly realized they would be forced down to the lowest price that someone was willing to pay, and they can make more working for Uber.
1. Re:Simple by bennetthaselton · 2014-12-15 06:25 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Right, assuming that rider demand never switches over to a lower-priced option, it's obvious why drivers would prefer working for Lyft or Uber. The curiosity is why the marketplace is so inefficient that rider demand doesn't switch over to the lower-priced option.
  
  We have a widget marketplace where widgets cost $1 to make, and Lyft and Uber are charging $10 each for widgets. Sidecar is trying to undercut them by selling widgets for somewhere between $1 and $9. In an efficient marketplace, a price war should result, driving prices down to somewhere between $1. Instead nobody's even heard of the new entrant, suggesting the marketplace is really inefficient, to the detriment of consumers and price-competitive suppliers.
2. Re:Simple by adiposity · 2014-12-15 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe the drivers aren't interested in being the commodity that's pricing is in a race to the bottom, though.
3. Re:Simple by bennetthaselton · 2014-12-15 07:32 · Score: 2
  
  I'm sure that's true for most of them, but if only some of them were interested in competing on price, that ought to be enough to start a price war. Surely there must be some drivers out there who are willing to drive for 75% of what UberX drivers are making. If they're not able to grab the business though by undercutting on price, then that suggests the market is too inefficient.
4. Re:Simple by rockout · 2014-12-15 10:04 · Score: 2
  
  This assumes that passengers are willing to put up with waiting a lot longer for a Sidecar driver (of which there were always fewer) instead of paying a little bit extra and getting an Uber driver very quickly. They're not; Uber wins this one every single time. There's more drivers (in the four cities I've used it, I've never waited more than 5 minutes for a ride), and contrary to the drivel in this blog entry - "UberX and Lyft are about the same price as a taxi" - bullshit. Uber, at least, is waaay cheaper than a taxi (i haven't used Lyft yet).
  The added incentive of being able to save a few dimes on a Sidecar ride was not enough to move passengers from Uber to Sidecar. Uber's just plenty cheap already.
  
  --
  I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
5. Re:Simple by bennetthaselton · 2014-12-15 10:27 · Score: 1
  
  Initially of course many people would prefer a more expensive Uber ride that arrives sooner, but in an efficient marketplace, there should have been some people who would wait an extra 20 minutes to save $20, on, say, a ride to the airport. Then as the number of Sidecar drivers increased to meet that demand, the average wait time would be lower, thus roping in a few more potential customers who would be willing to wait 10 minutes, thus creating demand for more drivers, etc. The problem is that even among the people who are willing to wait, there's not enough awareness of the cheaper option, because the information marketplace is not efficient enough, so the ball never gets rolling.
6. Re:Simple by rockout · 2014-12-16 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  There's two problems with this theory - 1:
  
  there should have been some people who would wait an extra 20 minutes to save $20
  According to who? Maybe there weren't any, or the amount of people was small enough to where it didn't matter. "Should've been" is pretty arbitrary.
  The other problem is that you still need drivers who are willing to take less for making the same trip. If drivers are making more with Uber, and there's plenty of passengers available, you have a chicken-and-egg problem: Drivers won't move to Sidecar because it pays less, and passengers won't move to Sidecar because there aren't any drivers. If Sidecar had come first, and established a critical mass, they might have become a sustainable business. They were late.
  
  --
  I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
I probably shouldn't have clicked this by Slashdot+Parent · 2014-12-15 06:09 · Score: -1, Troll

Now that only drove up Bennett's click count. I guess commenting only drives up his comment count, too.
Oops.
But I just can't help myself. I have to click so that I can comment, and I have to comment so that I can bitch about what a shitty writer Bennett is.
One day I'll have to write a greasemonkey script to filter Bennett Haselton out.

--
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Poor implementation by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 06:13 · Score: 0

It didn't work because the implementation failed the end user. I'd used Sidecar many times here in SF as they were a little bit cheaper than Uber. But then they started allowing driver to bid on rides and often the prices were now higher than Uber. Worse was that every time I choose a driver from Sidecar bid list where the cost seemed as good as Uber that driver was suddenly no longer available. After this happened a handful of times I just went back to Uber and gave up on Sidecar.
1. Re:Poor implementation by craighansen · 2014-12-15 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  This may be fundamental to the variable pricing model. It takes time to negotiate a price, and as the well-known adage goes, t=$.
Why is this even on Slashdot? by MrEricSir · 2014-12-15 06:45 · Score: -1, Troll

Can we stick to "News for nerds", please?

--
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Bennet is a douche by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 06:55 · Score: -1, Troll

Taking a moment out of my busy day to help the community--
Bennet you're a stain left over from a douching session during a yeast infection. Pleasant, eh?
Won't read. Would make offensive comment again.
Captcha: kindest.
It's not just this place he spams... by MMC+Monster · 2014-12-15 07:07 · Score: -1, Troll

Looks like he's editing his own wikipedia article. Why is this guy noteworthy enough to have a wikipedia article?

--
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
1. Re:It's not just this place he spams... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:44 · Score: -1
  
  he shit peacefire.org out of his butt and jerks off to self aggrandizing fantasies involving bestial, bondage, torture and orgy fantasies with various dicedot staff members. morale is up.
Move away from /. by bradley13 · 2014-12-15 07:10 · Score: -1, Troll

I still visit /. occasionally. The last two times, it was to find a Bennett Haselton article. Just to add fuel to the fire: have you read Bennett's Wikipedia page? I do believe he wrote it his very own self.
I think I'm going to stick to Soylent in the future...bye bye again, /., it wasn't nice coming back...

--
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
1. Re:Move away from /. by dnebin · 2014-12-16 16:00 · Score: -1
  
  Not only does he write his own wikipedia page, he goes back in on a regular basis to remove valid edits from people who don't believe his bs.
  Sign the petition: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/drop-bennett-haselton.
Buck feta! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 07:36 · Score: -1

Yeah! you tell'im, mister!
Poorly applied economics by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 07:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

Ugh, the lack of knowledge regarding economics in this article is shocking. I won't hit all of the issues, but these two stood out:

Economists have long puzzled over why Apple and Microsoft don't charge more for their new gadgets, since as long as people are lining up to buy out the stock, sellers could raise the price and still be assured of selling out completely.
I don't know what "Economists" are being referred to, but no one I'm aware of puzzles over this. Electronics such as phones and game consoles are a highly competitive market. Sure, people may line up at release to buy an XBox, but a game console has a multiple-year life cycle and the lines only happen the first week at release. MS is playing the whole life cycle, and people are not lining up to buy game consoles during it's several years of life. Same with iPhones; a new release may have people line up but that's simply the passionate early adopters; the iPhone is an ongoing family of products with new releases over time; raising the price may be nice to consider on a new release but the long term damage to the brand/family of products could be existential. Economists do take this into account by removing time from their models and aggregate demand across a product life-cycle, or take into account surge interest in time-based models and use a moving average over time to reference real life data.

Now, most economists would say that raising prices during periods of high demand is what suppliers should do, for various reasons.
Yes, and they wouldn't do it the way it's described in this article. The answer is even mentioned in the article without even realizing it: it's because customers don't know Sidecar exists! So the problem is that consumers simply do not have perfect information, which is both normal in nearly every market and also extremely hard to rectify. Good economists can actually model imperfect information on the part of the consumer and make predictions on what would happen, such as exactly why Sidecar is not as successful.
This article attempts to explain a highly complex market with basic economic theory you learn in a beginning microeconomics class, but no one in their right mind would even consider the assumptions made.
MOD PARENT DOWN ONTOPIC by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:12 · Score: -1

MOD PARENT DOWN ONTOPIC DISCUSSION FOR A BENNETT HASELTON CONTRIBUTION HAS BEEN VOTED PROHIBITED BY THE SLASHDOT AUDIENCE
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
MOD PARENT DOWN ONTOPIC FOR BH POST by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:16 · Score: -1

MOD PARENT DOWN ONTOPIC DISCUSSION FOR A BENNETT HASELTON CONTRIBUTION HAS BEEN VOTED PROHIBITED BY THE SLASHDOT AUDIENCE
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
MOD THIS PARENT POST DOWN by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:20 · Score: -1

MOD PARENT DOWN PLEASE. PROLIFERATING ONTOPIC DISCUSSION FOR A BENNETT HASELTON POST HAS BEEN DEEMED MENTALLY HAZARDOUS
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
MOD DOWN ONTOPIC BH POST DANGER by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:26 · Score: -1

PLEASE MOD DOWN COMPLICITY IN PROLIFERATION OF ONTOPIC DISCUSSION FROM A BENNETT HASELTON POST HAS BEEN DEEMED MENTALLY HAZARDOUS -- PLEASE MOD PARENT COMMENT DOWN --
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
MOD DOWN Supply and also MOD DOWN PARENT POST by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:29 · Score: -1

MOD PARENT POST DOWN - PROLIFERATING ONTOPIC RUMINATION OF A BENNETT HASELTON POST HAS BEEN DEEMED MENTALLY HAZARDOUS. MAY CAUSE SUDDEN JIHAD SYNDROME. PLEASE MOD DOWN YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
1. Re:MOD DOWN Supply and also MOD DOWN PARENT POST by rwa2 · 2014-12-15 09:28 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  Heh, I lol'd .
  But anyway, to go off on a tangent, where was the /. coverage of the Car2Go outage from Friday? The one caused by the meltdown of their "German-based" mobile carrier due to some network roaming bug? I assume they're trying to deflect the blame to T-mobile without directly impacting their stock price...
  http://www.thetruthaboutcars.c...
2. Re:MOD DOWN Supply and also MOD DOWN PARENT POST by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 09:30 · Score: -1
  
  Sir, I apologize but I do not know.
Hey Bennett, by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:38 · Score: -1

How about considering a radical new idea: where instead of amateur drivers who are probably not covered by their insurance companies to provide commercial taxi services (which is what Uber et al are doing) how about a system that uses professional drivers with the appropriate insurance cover? A bit more expensive, but a lot more peace of mind.
MOD PARENT DOWN by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:40 · Score: -1

PLEASE MOD PARENT DOWN PROLIFERATING RAMBLING SLIGHTLY INCOHERENT ONTOPIC DISCUSSION FOR BENNETT HASELTON CONTRIBUTIONS HAS BEEN KNOWN TO CAUSE SUDDEN JIHAD SYNDROME IN SOME INDIVIDUALS. THIS IS REAL RISK HERE, PLEASE MODE PARENT DOWN.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Keep reading to see what Bennet has to say. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:44 · Score: -1

No thank you.
NO MORE BENNETT TAG by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:50 · Score: -1

How does this actually happen? http://i.imgur.com/lkt91ge.jpg
How can i assist
MOD PARENT DOWN by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 08:57 · Score: -1

REPLYING TO WRONG POST AND PROLIFERATING ONTOPIC DISCUSSION FOR A BENNETT HASELTON CONTRIBUTION PLEASE MOD DOWN
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
fuck off bennett haselton by ihtoit · 2014-12-15 10:57 · Score: -1, Troll

you waste of fucking space

--
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
tags by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 12:13 · Score: -1

Why is it you can look at a story by Bennett, see the "bennett" tag there, click on it, and yet, NOT find that story in the list of items tagged "bennett"?
Shouldn't a list of all items tagged "bennett" include all the items tagged "bennett"? or is there something I'm missing about tags?
1. Re:tags by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 15:29 · Score: -1
  
  I'm tagging them as "nothanks", "!bennet", "!haselton", and "nomorebennett"
BENNETT SHITCOCK HASELTON, tags by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 13:00 · Score: -1

i click on 'nomorebennett' and it gives me the current story 1 item list -- http://i.imgur.com/lkt91ge.jpg
i dont know. i dont understand how that's even up there really.
Re:A few thoughts on why this might have failed .. by Darinbob · 2014-12-15 13:22 · Score: 1

I hate to give any answers when Bennett has already provided several pages of answers to his own question, but...
It failed because success has nothing whatsoever to do with the business model, or economics, or novelty, or any of the things that people traditionally tell you matter. It failed because someone else had a similar product but with better marketing. The hype drove that industry, not issues of economics or convenience. Once Uber become the fashion then everything else was destined to lose.
For someone who writes so much... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-15 16:39 · Score: -1

Well, trivially because there are fewer Sidecar drivers than Uber or Lyft drivers, but that just begs the question: Once a preferable (cheaper) option existed in the form of Sidecar, why didn't more users start trying it out, which in turn draws in more drivers to serve those greater numbers of users?
Seriously? Begs the question? On this site? What the hell is wrong with you? Just further proof that you are quantity over quality in the writing department.
You suck Bennett, please just fuck off and crawl back under whatever rock you came out of. You're not important and from what I can tell, you have never done a single thing that actually warrants any kind of respect. You wikipedia page reads like a kid who setup an lemonade stand.
"Bennett started a lemonade stand when he was 5. He was so successful he was able to open a franchise for his brother. They then setup a meeting to discuss the ramifications of their success on the working class. Upon their insights, Bennett chose to retire while his business was still seeing massive profit gains, going from $2 to $4 a day."
I still can't believe the take down of your wikipedia page failed. You're pointless.
Flamebait? Idiot mods! by kbahey · 2014-12-16 04:20 · Score: 0

Flamebait? Idiot mods! I am serious! The only sarcasm is the very last sentence. The rest of it is what has been happening for over a year.

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2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Holy Shit by balbus000 · 2014-12-16 09:22 · Score: 1

Who gave Bennett unlimited mod points?
Let's take a look at comments modded as Troll in past Bennett articles:
2014 Geek Gift Guide 2 comments marked Troll, both of them by Bennett
An Algorithm To Prevent Twitter Hashtag Degeneration 5 comments marked Troll, 3 of them by Bennett
Clarificiation on the IP Address Security in Dropbox Case 1 comment marked Troll
Big Talk About Small Samples 2 comments marked Troll, both of them by Bennett
Debunking a Viral Internet Post About Breastfeeding Racism 0 comments marked Troll
We Need Distributed Social Networks More Than Ello 0 comments marked Troll
An Algorithm to End the Lines for Ice at Burning Man 0 comments marked Troll
Now look at the mods on comments in this article - 40 comments have been marked as Troll. And most of them are comments badmouthing Bennett. Slashdot, you have some 'splainin' to do.
1. Re:Holy Shit by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-17 01:25 · Score: 0
  
  Wow, something smells fishy. Mod this up.
Re:A few thoughts on why this might have failed .. by King_TJ · 2014-12-16 10:46 · Score: 1

That's arguably true... I think your point has a lot of merit.
I don't think it's the whole story though.
Uber is "trendy", without a doubt. But people still only use it because they have a real need to get from point A to B. I think people like to do that at the lowest possible cost, as long as we're talking "apples to apples" types of transportation. (You might well pay more to ride in a car than take a cheaper bus that gets you to the same place, but that's because of all of the disadvantages of using a bus instead of a car.)
So no... I don't know that everything else like Uber was "destined to lose". I think competitors that couldn't differentiate from Uber in any meaningful way were destined to lose though. (That's why Lyft is struggling.)
A service like Uber that has an equivalent app and costs 50% less though? That has room to compete, potentially.
(But whatever.... for SOME reason, Slashdot readers decided I was "off topic" and got modded down for adding my own thoughts about the topic.)
None the wiser by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-17 03:07 · Score: 0

I didn't know why Sidecar's Flex pricing policy didn't work so I read Bennett Haselton's very long article and paid very close attention. I still don't know why Sidecar's Flex pricing policy didn't work.
To explain one must first explain by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-17 03:14 · Score: 0

An INTELLIGENT article on this subject would start off by telling us what form this failure to "take off" actually took. Was the failure one of supply or demand? Did Sidecar drivers refuse to implement it? Did they desert Sidecar for Uber and and Lyft? Did the Sidecar drivers offer the supply side but the demand side never materialized?
Bennet Hasselton's article does none of these things.
Until these questions are answered one cannot really answer the question WHY it didn't take off. After those have questions have been answered, the explanation will probably be self-evident. Of course then Bennet will have no excuse to wax lyrical - not to say long-winded!