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Uber Pushing For Patent On Surge Pricing
mpicpp sends news that Uber is renewing its push for a patent on "surge pricing," the practice of increasing rider fees when many people are trying to find transportation.
The system measures supply (Uber drivers) and demand (passengers hailing rides with smartphones), and prices fares accordingly. It’s one of at least 13 U.S. patent applications filed by Uber or its founders to give it an edge over potential rivals ahead of a potential initial public offering. So far, Uber hasn’t had any luck. Ten applications were initially rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for “obviousness” or for covering something not eligible for protection.
It seems pretty suspiciuos that the USPO only now has started to do their jobs - just when UBER's patent-applications crossed their desks.
Requiem for the American Dream
It isn't the first time this has happened to Uber. Maybe they should adjust their system so that if they see a sudden spike in requests it alerts the humans for instructions instead of just jacking up the price. They could put in scheduled events, like the end of a sporting event or concert, so that it wouldn't bother them.
Really Uber is pretty much the definition of what a 21st century robber baron looks like. Attempting to set loose the rawest most destructive and most craven form of labor-competition on the people least able to defend themselves in a race-to-the-bottom style of economics which in the end benefits only the principals of Uber.
Giving the finger to the processes and results of democratic law-making that define civilization, as opposed to rule by the powerful or rule by fiat. The laws regarding taxis and transit are not some form of special interest gerrymander lawmaking which benefits some mythical taxi behemouth mega-corporation. They are the hard-won rules of the game which protect people who are constrained to drive others to make their living. They protect the drivers and the customers.
It's amazing to me any nation has tolerated the sheer criminality and public endangerment that Uber's "business method" represents to their people.
And now we're all treated to the spectacle of Uber dragging its overheated crotch along the carpet, mewling for "protection from competition" to those same exact government's whose laws they take a sneering "squat-and-shit on you" attitude.
And worse, crying for absolutely the worst, most anti-competitive, most anti--progress, anti-free market type, anti-innovation form of market protection- business method and software patenting.
Uber is *about* nothing more than the sociopathy and greed of its founders and investors. Nothing more. Nothing.