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Uber Knows Exactly When You'll Pay Surge Pricing (yahoo.com)

Posted by msmash on from the battery-tales-are-the-weirdest dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Uber has figured out exactly when you are more likely to pay double or triple the cost of your ride: when your phone battery is low. Uber's head of economic research, Keith Chen, recently told NPR on an episode of The Hidden Brain podcast that people are willing to accept up to 9.9 times surge pricing if their phones are about to go dead. Data about user batteries is collected because the app uses that information to know when to switch into low-power mode. The idea being: If you really need to get where you're going, you'll pay just about anything (or at least 9.9 times anything) to ensure you're getting a ride home and won't be stranded. A person with a more fully charged device has time to wait and see if the surge pricing goes down.The company insists that it won't use this information against you.

25 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Ah, what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The idea being: If you really need to get where you're going, you'll pay just about anything (or at least 9.9 times anything) to ensure you're getting a ride home and won't be stranded. A person with a more fully charged device has time to wait and see if the surge pricing goes down.

    No, I'd bring up google, find the number to the local cab company, call them, and get a ride. D'uh!

    Secondly, WTF is it with Uber? Just to go to the pool 3x a week would cost me about $450+/- per month - it runs about $20 each way. Add in other places i frequent and it'd be cheaper to buy a Tesla Model S - including insurance and taxes.

    1. Re:Ah, what? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 3, Funny

      Secondly, WTF is it with Uber? Just to go to the pool 3x a week would cost me about $450+/- per month - it runs about $20 each way. Add in other places i frequent and it'd be cheaper to buy a Tesla Model S - including insurance and taxes.

      Why is that an Uber problem? If you take a taxi to the pool 3x a week, is that going to be much cheaper? Why are you paying for rides to the pool 3x a week anyway?

      This just in: if you use Uber to drive you 10 miles to and from work every day, it's going to cut into your budget.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    2. Re:Ah, what? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

      A bicycle is fairly cheap, and you can easily cycle past the traffic jams.

      You have obviously never been run down by a soccer mom trying to get her devil spawn to school on time.

  2. Very smart of them, if tru by mi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you really need to get where you're going, you'll pay just about anything (or at least 9.9 times anything) to ensure you're getting a ride home and won't be stranded

    Good for Uber, if really true.

    In a free market — and this aspect of it remains reasonably free in the US — the price of everything is the amount a buyer is willing to pay.

    Keep your batteries charged.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Very smart of them, if tru by mi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      At some point, users will catch on to surge pricing and will opt for a taxi or lyft instead

      Yes! That's what free market is all about.

      No need to petition the government. No need to raise awareness — just call a competitor and be on your way...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    2. Re:Very smart of them, if tru by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are violating one of the most important principles of the free market - free exchange of information. Go read Wikipedia, it will explain how free exchange of information is essential to a free market.

      What's going on here is that one side has all the information and the other side is blind, depending on Uber to be honest.

      Uber has no business learning about the state of your phone battery. It doesn't need it and it's YOUR private, personal confidential information that poor software design let Uber steal. They don't tell you about the desperate need for cash by their drivers because their rent is due and they would accept ANY fair.

      Uber is not being 'good', it knows that if they unethically use your private information they have unethically gathered, then it will piss us off enough to pass laws preventing them from gathering it.

      The price of everything is the amount a buyer is willing to pay AND a seller is willing to sell when competition keeps prices fair and information is fairly and ethically exchanged.

      When you ignore the rules that undermine capitalism, you aren't being capitalistic, you are being a thief. And people like you is why socialism has grown so popular - when you cheat the way you want to, it upsets people and they demand government intervention.

      --
      excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    3. Re:Very smart of them, if tru by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well Uber will use that information to charge you more, I think that is the point of this article.

    4. Re:Very smart of them, if tru by period3 · · Score: 2

      If you really need to get where you're going, you'll pay just about anything (or at least 9.9 times anything) to ensure you're getting a ride home and won't be stranded

      In a free market — and this aspect of it remains reasonably free in the US — the price of everything is the amount a buyer is willing to pay.

      In a democracy, the "free market" can kiss my ass.

    5. Re:Very smart of them, if tru by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's unethical because not only does it prey on you when you are at your weakest, it actively seeks to discover when that is. A barkeep is glad when depressed customers decide to come in on their own, because they'll buy more drinks. But an ethical barkeep will not pass out directions to his bar at a funeral parlor, charging those customers more. He also won't refuse to serve you if you don't tell him your mood 72 times a day. That's analogous to what Uber does. Can't use them if you don't install their app. Can't install your app unless you agree to constantly ping them your battery life.

    6. Re:Very smart of them, if tru by crabbz · · Score: 2

      Battery state is now considered private, personal confidential information also? Hey, my battery is at 78% right now, what are you going to do with that information?

      This has nothing to do with poor software design. Any application should be notified when the phone is entering a low power state, or a power saving state, so that the application can disable certain high-power features if the programmers decided to add that feature. Maybe Uber doesn't need a constant GPS feed until you're actually ordering, for example, but it's nice to have that position information if your battery is fine.

      There is nothing wrong with checking the battery state but they don't need to send the data back to their servers to put the phone in low power mode.

    7. Re:Very smart of them, if tru by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would argue NO app needs to know the level of my battery.

      this is meta data. should I have to explain that to a smart guy like you?

      if I'm powered from battery or ac, that is meta data. it means other things. add it up.

      yes, its private and yes, its WRONG to glean that because the os allows it. the os is a piece of shit anyway and that info should not be leaked to apps.

      yes, we live in a world where we now need to think and rethink about every bit of info and how it can (and will) be used against us.

      this is our info and its being used against us. how is that not a privacy issue, when they used priv'd info to gain an advantage over me?

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  3. Uber and Lyft - hitchhiking for money! by mmell · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Let's face it - the reason Uber and Lyft are so cheap is because they aren't regulated. Just like a hitchhiker, you're basically at the mercy of the guy with the car keys. Being not regulated (like, say, a taxi service) means Uber and Lyft can do all sorts of schiesty stuff and not be in violation of the law.

    I can't wait until they start doing things like "Oh, you're in a bad part of town - you're going to pay even more!", "Oh, you're leaving an event of some kind - you're going to pay even more!", "Oh, you're a woman/ethnic minority/religious minority - . . ." . . .

    Sorry to hear about you're driver taking you for a ride - that's what you paid for, right?

    1. Re:Uber and Lyft - hitchhiking for money! by known_coward_69 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      take the train, take the bus, keep numbers of local taxi services in your phone, take a regular street hail taxi, use a designated driver if you go out drinking with friends, sleep in the office and go home when day comes again free market is alive and well and people somehow coped with these problems as little as 10 years ago before we had smartphones

    2. Re:Uber and Lyft - hitchhiking for money! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is that the train, bus, taxi and your friend all need to obey the law, otherwise, they are in trouble.

      Uber's strategy is to play fast and loose with the law, pretending that they are/aren't a taxi company and that their drivers are/aren't contractors or that the do/do not work for Uber at all and such crap, while they become too large to dislodge from wherever they landed. Notice that since Uber doesn't obey the law (because they keep redefining what they actually are) they don't need to deal with costs that other entities have to deal with. They have an unfair (as in, illegal) advantage.

      In a functioning society, things aren't supposed to work like this. I'm glad that many places are pushing back and forcing Uber to play by the rules, or creating rules that allow everyone to play fairly.

    3. Re:Uber and Lyft - hitchhiking for money! by rockmuelle · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, they're cheap because they're burning through piles of cash from their investors and a (limited, but still large) pool of drivers willing to work a few months before they realize they got a bum deal. Both will run dry, at which point the TNC experiment will end.

      For a really good discussion on the economics from the driver's side, check out any of the recent reddit threads in Austin discussing Uber and Lyft's decision to cut off 10k drivers and split town. Here's one to get you started: https://www.reddit.com/r/Austi...

      -Chris

    4. Re:Uber and Lyft - hitchhiking for money! by Ichijo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Oh, you're in a bad part of town - you're going to pay even more!"

      That already happens, not because Uber consciously decides to charge more for customers in bad parts of town but because drivers refuse to go to those areas until the price goes high enough to make the risk worth the reward.

      It's unfortunate how we've created and worsened bad parts of town by abusing zoning laws in order to segregate the rich from the poor. Middle- and upper-class members of the ethnic majority call it maintaining community "character" but that's just a euphemism for keeping the poor and minorities away. Meanwhile, the wealthy suburbs siphon money from the poor but tax-efficient (per acre) urban areas in a legalized form of reverse welfare, and after discouraging productive uses of land in this way, we wonder why we can't afford to keep our bridges from falling down. Seriously, you just can't make this up!

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    5. Re:Uber and Lyft - hitchhiking for money! by rockmuelle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "And why do you think they're going through the effort to keep the prices low?"

      To wipe out the competition and then raise prices when there's no more competition. Pretty much what every good capitalist wants to do.

      The only competition Uber and Lyft they have at the low end of price spectrum is each other. Of course, they need each other in the same way Intel needs AMD - to demonstrate to regulators that they aren't a monopoly. The competition they need to wipe out is taxis and other TNCs (transportation network company) that pay fair wages and follow the laws. Wiping out taxis is pretty easy, since there have been structural issues with the taxi business for decades. Wiping out the other TNCs is going to be a little harder since the new services are demonstrating that you can run a TNC that follows the law and pays its drivers a reasonable wage.

      As Austin will likely demonstrate, the race to the bottom in compliance and wages being run by Uber and Lyft is probably not the real race to provide alternatives to taxis. Business that respect their drivers, communities, and passengers will emerge as the winners here.

      -Chris

  4. Pfft. Okay... by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A company is promising they wont take advantage of a way to charge you 10x more for their service?
    Is there a way to turn off the battery monitoring on their app by any chance?

    1. Re:Pfft. Okay... by shawn2772 · · Score: 2

      Is there a way to turn off the battery monitoring on their app by any chance?

      If that sort of thing bothers you, don't use Android? It's unlikely Uber has access to that information on iOS.

      iOS apps have access to battery level and state: https://developer.apple.com/li...

  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. Ahem by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 4, Funny

    "The company insists that it won't use this information against you."

    Heh! There goes another keyboard!

    --
    Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  7. 50 attourneys general would like a word with you by pla · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At least in the US, exploiting that particular style of price optimization quite often breaks the law:

    Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to when a seller spikes the prices of goods, services or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair, and is considered exploitative, potentially to an unethical extent.

  8. Know how I stopped Uber? by bjamesv · · Score: 2

    through information Uber accidentally shared with ME, I stopped them from unfairly learning the state of my mobile's battery!

    After I signed up for their service, the Uber webpage asked me to install an Android app I've never seen the source code for. (actually, send me to a 'Play store' web page for a 'Play store' program I've never installed or seen the source code for.)
    There was no clear way to use their service without this program. (No website, no phone# to call)

    I went back to my web browser, searched for and called a local cab company. $13 and 20min later I was at my destination, easy! Take that Uber! : )

  9. in other news by heson · · Score: 3, Funny

    In other news, your phone now gets mysteriously hot when you leave the home.

  10. Re:Truth has a Libertarian bias by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

    We are easy to find — just go, where truth is.

    The truth is that there has never been a "free market" and that there has never been a successful society based on libertarian principles. Go ahead, name one. I'll wait.

    Libertarian are basically anarchists who want police protection from their slaves. It helps conservatives pass off a patently probusiness political agenda as a noble bid for human freedom.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...