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Don't Sass Your Uber Driver - He's Rating You Too
HughPickens.com writes David Streitfeld reports at the NYT that people routinely use the Internet to review services from plumbers to hairdressers, but now the tables are turned as companies like Uber are rating their customers, and shunning those who do not make the grade. "An Uber trip should be a good experience for drivers too," says an Uber blog post. "Drivers shouldn't have to deal with aggressive, violent, or disrespectful riders. If a rider exhibits disrespectful, threatening, or unsafe behavior, they, too, may no longer be able to use the service." It does not seem to take much to annoy some Uber drivers. On one online forum, an anonymous driver said he gave poor reviews to "people who are generally negative and would tend to bring down my mood (or anyone around them)." Another was cavalier about the process: "1 star for passengers does not do them any harm. Sensible drivers won't pick them up, but so what?" In response, some consumers are becoming more polite and prompt. "The knowledge that they may be rated is also encouraging people to submit more upbeat reviews themselves, even if the experience was less than stellar," writes Streitfeld. "When services choose whom to serve, no one wants to be labeled difficult."
So, first Uber thinks they're exempt from the laws, and now they expect their customers to fawn over them to protect their fucking fragile egos?
These guys sound like uber assholes.
Sorry, but nothing I've ever heard about this company makes me think I'd ever want to have anything to do with them.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They aren't "ride sharing". Stop using that ridiculous phrase. When you wait around for someone to ask you for a ride somewhere that you weren't going to go otherwise for money that isn't ride sharing.
AirB&B faces a similar issue where they need to have service providers and guess rate each other.
What Air B&B does to prevent people leaving less than honest reviews out of fear, is to have both sides finish rating the other before they can see what each other left for feedback.
That way you can leave an honest review without fear of getting dinged.
The summary tries to cast a lot of shade on Uber for allowing this but honestly doesn't this put them 1000 years ahead of the cab industry where you cannot even see ratings for cab drivers AT ALL?
If you really want to imagine future issues, think of this - an obnoxious rider of the future who only cab companies will serve. Can you not imagine some kind of law passed requiring a driver of any service to pick up even the most threatening person for the sake of "fairness"...
Should it be possible that a person annoying or violent enough cannot get cab service at all? Or is cab service a right...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm only pointing out the arguments that have already been made, both by columnists and by your average poster on Slashdot and other forums. I've never used a ride-sharing service and I can count the number of times I've used a taxi on one hand; my point is that it sounds like these ride sharing services are in-effect becoming taxi companies and that is being recognized by regulatory agencies. I don't put a value judgement on these companies, but we hear of prices going up, we hear that cities are banning the companies outright, we hear that drivers lack insurance that's mandated when providing service-for-hire, so we start to see structural problems that will only be overcome by the implementation of conventional taxi or sedan service practices.
I'll let you in on a secret though, while the laws and regulations governing passenger livery vehicles may be overly-influenced by those livery companies at this point, they came to be in the first place because of abuses by those ferrying people from place to place, in a manner very much like how these ride-sharing companies operate where the rubber meets the road. That's why I personally think they'll eventually be forced into operating as taxis or licensed sedans, or be forced out.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Eh, I think the restaurant business was looking into doing something like this as well... (maybe they do now that FourSquare is processing payments). Imagine if a restaurant knew as soon as walked in how much you tipped them (or other restaurants in the "socio-financial network") last time?
Happens all the time. Waiters/waitresses recognize past customers. A little mark on the ticket lets the cooks know the good tippers.
Restaurants with delivery service recognize addresses. Good tippers get moved to the head of the queue, a little extra care is taken with their order, etc.
I can't help but wonder how long it will take the less savory drivers to develop code words for the following:
"Too black."
"Too Jewish."
"Lives in a neighborhood that's too black."
"Too black, and was rude when I called him a nigger and accused him of trying to carjack me because he wouldn't give me a tip of ten times the fare."
Uber is about a hundred different kinds of lawsuits that have found a place to happen.
Now, it's 101.
If customer A consistently gives lower-than-average ratings, scale their reviews upward to that a "3" from them is a "5" from someone else. If they consistently give "5" rating but give a "1" to a particular driver, then pay attention to that deviation.
Same for drivers: if B frequently gives "1" ratings to passengers, then that's a roundabout way of saying that B is a difficult jerk and you can ignore those.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
"Attractive female customer did not respond well to aggressive sexual advances" - Uber Driver #756234
And thus, the cycle continues. Why would you tip for good service if you have been systematically ignored, served lower-quality food and have to wait longer?
Actually, I travel a lot in Europe, and take a lot of taxis. I have only had very positive experiences with taxi drivers . . . because I treat them with respect.
Taxi drivers are the eyes and ears of a city . . . the NSA should drop all this online monitoring crap, and just put some taxi drivers on the payroll. They know everything. I was joking with one in Brussels, and asked him if he knew the address of the mistress of the Prime Minister. He answered, "Which one of his mistresses?"
Which is why this scares me a wee bit, when I hear that Über or whoever is harvesting data on passengers. And who will have access to that data . . . I think you know who.
Anyway, I have recently been in Delft, Holland, Paris, France, not Hilton, Nice, France, Birmingham, Southampton, UK, Brussels, Belgium, Zürich, Switzerland, Böblingen, Germany, Stuttgart, Germany, Darmstadt, Germany . . .
And where-ever you are . . . there you go. There is a taxi driver who will take you to where ever you need to go . . . if you treat him or her with respect!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Why is this reverse feedback mechanism not in every business?
Other businesses do this. For instance, eBay allows both buyer and seller to rate each other. Airbnb allows both hosts and guests to post reviews.
Regulation is one thing.
Artificially restricting the number of cabs with medallions that then cost $1 million dollars, locking out rookie entrepreneurs, is crony capitalism.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Putting a rating on the buyer was just insanely stupid. All they need to know is if the buyer paid up or not. If the money arrives then mail the product, it's not that hard and there should be no way to rate other than "paid" versus "not paid". 99% of the sellers are companies using eBay as their intermediary, it's not been a peer-to-peer services for ages.
Buyers whine about things before, during, and after the sale, make up lies about never receiving the item, about it being defective when it's not or not-as-described when the description was perfect and with numerous detailed photos of the exact item, try to return it when it was sold AS-IS no returns, return a DIFFERENT item than the one they were actually sent and then whine when you call them on it, wait until the last possible day/hour/minute to finally get around to making payment, retract bids for no apparent reason, constantly nag sellers to re-negotiate prices or make excuses to try to buy or make payment outside of the site (usually in an attempt to scam the seller), etc. That's in addition to people who just fail to make payment or communicate so you have to sit on the item for days at a time before being able to re-list it, but in your world that's apparently the only possible thing a buyer could do wrong, and in eBay's world you can't even complain about that anymore (or if you do, it simply goes down to "positive" feedback with no way to identify "bad" buyers by statistics and you'd have to read every single feedback entry).
In short, you have no idea what you're talking about and a lot of the REASON WHY eBay is less peer-to-peer than it used to be is exactly because of policies that favor the buyer so thoroughly that they can often end up totally screwing over the sellers. Big companies can afford that, but individuals trying to sell just one item here and there (especially if it's an expensive item) can end up not just failing to make money but actually losing a significant amount of money if they unknowingly deal with a couple of the wrong type of "problem" buyers.