Slashdot Mirror
Uber Accused of Cashing In On Bomb Explosion By Jacking Rates (thesun.co.uk)
After a bomb exploded in Manhattan, leaving 29 injured, people leaving the scene discovered Uber had doubled their fares. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes The Sun:
Traumatized families caught up in the New York bomb blast have accused Uber of cashing in on the tragedy by charging almost double to take them home. Furious passengers have taken to social media to slam the taxi firm in the wake of the blast... Uber reportedly charged between 1.4 and 3 times the standard fare with one city worker saying he had to pay twice as much as usual. Mortgage broker Nick Lalli said: "Just trying to get home from the city and Uber f****** doubled the surge price."
"Demand is off the charts!" the app informed its users, adding "Fares have increased to get more Ubers on the road." Uber soon tweeted that they'd deactivated their surge pricing algorithm for the affected area in Chelsea, "but passengers in other areas of Manhattan said they were still being charged higher than normal fares." One of the affected passengers was Michael Cohen, who is Donald Trump's lawyer, who tweeted that Uber was "taking total advantage of chaos and surcharging passengers 1.4 to 1.8 times." And another Uber user tweeted "I'm disgusted. People are trying to get home safe. Shame on you #DeleteApp."
"Demand is off the charts!" the app informed its users, adding "Fares have increased to get more Ubers on the road." Uber soon tweeted that they'd deactivated their surge pricing algorithm for the affected area in Chelsea, "but passengers in other areas of Manhattan said they were still being charged higher than normal fares." One of the affected passengers was Michael Cohen, who is Donald Trump's lawyer, who tweeted that Uber was "taking total advantage of chaos and surcharging passengers 1.4 to 1.8 times." And another Uber user tweeted "I'm disgusted. People are trying to get home safe. Shame on you #DeleteApp."
Take a taxi?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Supply and demand. Market is efficiently allocating scarce resources. Price increase will increase supply providing consumers with more of the scarce resource. It's a thing of beauty really.
After a bomb exploded in Manhattan, leaving 29 injured, people leaving the scene discovered Uber had doubled their fares.
People called an Uber driver *into* a disaster area and/or potential terror/war zone for a ride home and are pissed that the rates went up? Hazard pay people. And private companies w/o public supervision can do whatever they want. If you don't like it, take a taxi or the subway, or fucking walk. First-world problems for sure.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Uber is exploiting people by using them as cheap labor. They need to be forced to pay them a living wage......... except when I need a cheap ride.
Uber drivers all leave Hell's Kitchen (aka Chelsea) to get surge rates in rest of Manhattan.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Headline should read "Uber Increases Driver Pay to Help Meet Emergency Demand."
But you've completely mischaracterized what happened. Uber didn't raise prices to take advantage of a terrible situation. Rather, a terrible situation triggered a surge in demand, to which Uber's algorithms correctly responded. A lot of people suddenly wanted rides, and Uber used it's algorithm to activate more drivers. That's not a market failure, That's the market "magically" solving the problem, efficiently and effectively. Regulation would have interfered with the response, as iikely did Uber's reaction and artificial price clamping. People likely waited much longer for rides than they would have if Uber had just let things play out.
How would you make the uber drivers go into an area they don't want to go into, if it isn't by offering them more money?? Armed police?
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Yeah, why would you, as an Uber driver, work in a much more risky environment if there's no additional pay? You barely make profit as it is and these assholes are whining about paying extra in chaos?
Allocation of scarce resources by price is not market failure. This is of particular importance during unusual circumstances.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
That's not a free market, that's a PopeRatzo strawman free market. Namely it's one that doesn't and can't exist as it's a fundamental oxymoron.
I think sane people want a "free market" to the extent possible. The government should only interfere when there's an actual problem and that problem is greatly damaging to society.
Paying $40 extra to an Uber driver - that's not one of those times. Paying $100k for a $5 drug because of a monopoly granted by the government in the _first place_ probably is.
So when you hear those evil capitalists carrying on about a free market, don't imagine Anarchy. You'll waste less of people's time deciphering your nonsense.
If the market was truly free, I could buy that drug for $5 (I don't have cancer), and turn around and sell it somebody with cancer for $50 and a tidy markup for my trouble. And so could anyone else, or they could undercut me and sell it for $25; the company trying to sell it for $100,000 wouldn't get any takers.
I can't, because the government won't let me. That particular market is not free.
-- Alastair
This is why the government regulates these services in the first damn place. Because once you step outside of an overall civic transportation solution, you're an opportunist.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
"the market trumps basic morality"
No one says that.
The market only trumps wishful thinking.
You have no idea what market failure or profiteering look like, do you?
This is not a "market failure". When supply is constricted, prices should go up so the rides go to those who need them most. There are two choices: higher prices, or some sort of rationing. The higher prices are always better for sellers, and usually better for buyers as well.
"Without Uber you wouldn't have had a ride at all."
or worse! you would have to ride on public transportation with actual poor people!
Yeah I dont feel bad at all for Uber riders.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
> you find other means to deal with the situation up to and including the national guard.
The National Guard was ordered deployed to Louisiana on Friday, August 26, 2005. On September 1st, five days later, they arrived at the Super Dome. On September 3rd and 4th, they evacuated the people waiting in the Super Dome.
Personally, I'd rather pay an extra $20 than wait five to seven days for a ride out.
The US government is designed to be *fair*. It is not designed to be *fast*. Uber is fast.
The OP worded it badly shouldve said "so rides go to those who value them the highest"
(Un)fortunately you choose to live in a capitalist society. While it is a good system, it has its flaws, and the biggest one is that resources go to those who will pay the most for them. This is just an example of those wonderful words "market forces". Amazingly this is one of the times where everything is working as it should. Unfortunately that is a bad result from a moral viewpoint.
But devils advocate:
If they kept normal pricing and that only attracted 1000 drivers, but 2000 people need rides how do you propose to choose who get them? First in will not give any more of an equitable outcome, some of those who need it most will still miss out.
If surge pricing meant they attracted 1200 drivers to the area, is that not a better solution as only 800 people are left "stranded"
yes, but Uber's excuse was to raise prices to get more cars on the road fleecing people. Why didn't Uber just lower their cut they take from the drivers if they are so socially aware?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)