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Uber Starts Charging What It Thinks You're Willing To Pay (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Uber drivers have been complaining that the gap between the fare a rider pays and what the driver receives is getting wider. After months of unsatisfying answers, Uber is providing an explanation: It's charging some passengers more because it needs the extra cash. The company detailed for the first time in an interview with Bloomberg a new pricing system that's been in testing for months in certain cities. On Friday, Uber acknowledged to drivers the discrepancy between their compensation and what riders pay. The new fare system is called "route-based pricing," and it charges customers based on what it predicts they're willing to pay. It's a break from the past, when Uber calculated fares using a combination of mileage, time and multipliers based on geographic demand. Daniel Graf, Uber's head of product, said the company applies machine-learning techniques to estimate how much groups of customers are willing to shell out for a ride. Uber calculates riders' propensity for paying a higher price for a particular route at a certain time of day. For instance, someone traveling from a wealthy neighborhood to another tony spot might be asked to pay more than another person heading to a poorer part of town, even if demand, traffic and distance are the same.
"...How much you got!?"
(I think they call this a shake down)
This is why taxi companies have to post rates and those rates are based on a combination of time and odometer, at least in many jurisdictions it's mandatory for them to do this.
Uber is once again demonstrating why we have passenger livery laws, and in this case it might well be the first time that flouting it has a strong effect that's really felt by the customer.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
So now do you understand why taxi companies are regulated?
the gap between the fare a rider pays and what the driver receives is getting wider.
Uber's profit margin is none of the driver's business. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Uber. I think they're scumbags and you shouldn't work for them. And if you don't think Uber is paying you enough, then that's another good reason to not work for them.
...Uber starts paying its drivers what it thinks they're willing to accept.
Why should you have to do this?
Time to support your LOCAL taxi companies again. These guys are proven to be crooks over and over?
Donate your money to a good cause if you have too much.
isn't the purpose of Taxi regulations is to make sure that the price is consistent regardless of time of day or distance? Oh wait, Uber thinks they're exempt from taxi regulations
I honest didn't give a damn about all the weird stuff Uber and its CEO have been doing to various parties. All politics, embarrassments, etc. - don't care... As long as 1) the ride is cheaper, and 2) the drivers are good, that's fine.
This change, however, strikes a nerve for me personally. It's a combination of Big Brotherly data accumulation and usage against people, along with a heaping helping of, "Screw you, rich boy," shakedown.
If this is the way data collection is going, and how it'll be used, then THIS kind of abuse of people's wallets may finally be what wakes up the average Joe as to why privacy still matters.
It's really weird to me that people think that the fact that it's their right has anything to do with this discussion. The question isn't if it's their right, it's if they're exercising their rights in a way people are free to disagree with. And saying it's none of our business is a curious moot position to take: they volunteered the information. It's like somebody saying something really stupid, and you present a counter argument, and people say, "Yeah but, they have the right to say whatever they want." Yes they do. What does that have to do with breaking down what they said?
"Old man yells at systemd"
They have every right to charge what the market will bear.
The customer has the right to know how much it will cost before the transaction occurs.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Huge queues at all petrol stations. One owner of a petrol station decided to take advantage of the situation and doubled his prices.
There are plenty of people who would much rather pay double than waste an hour in a queue. These people would be grateful that someone had the sense to price to market.
People had to pay, he made a mint.
Except that no one HAD to pay. They could continue to wait in the queues at the other petrol stations. They were just offered the additional option of paying with money rather than time. Since he "made a mint" it is clear that many people preferred than option.
Then the strike was over. His petrol station was absolutely empty. It took six weeks until he was bankrupt.
Of course you just made all this up. In the absence of price controls, ALL of the stations would have raised their prices. Feel free to provide a citation to prove me wrong.
That's not true that no one has batted an eye, and it's also not entirely true that airlines have been doing exactly this either.
If I understand Uber and its ilk, the amount of time between booking a ride and taking the ride is short, minutes to hours, to the point that it's essentially a single act. By contrast, the amount of time between booking an airline seat and taking the flight is usually days or weeks, and sometimes even months, and since airlines themselves are financially tied to the aircraft (either leasing or outright ownership) they are paying for the the vehicle in addition to the staffing and everything else; the airline takes on the financial risk. Fares start low-ish to attract travelers, rise as time to the flight shortens, then may plummet reasonably close to the flight to try to fill-in seats, then skyrocket in the last couple of hours to profit off of demand for last-minute bookings before getting even cheaper as standby passengers are booked.
I do not care for how airlines price fares, but since airlines are the entity bearing the financial burden of the entire aspect of the flight then I am less annoyed by it. Uber doesn't own the cars, doesn't pay salaries to the drivers whether they're driving or not. If Uber is pushing the financial aspect of the risk to the drivers then it shouldn't claim one thing to the passenger and another thing to the driver.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Back to the robber baron times.
People think they are smarter than their grandparents when actually they are so much more dumb that they don't even notice it.
You see, there is a reason for regulations, for fixed fares, for trade union wages and all that "evil government" stuff. The reason is called peace of mind.
Sure I can go through life negotiating every small deal, always checking all the prices, always on the edge making sure nobody takes advantages of me while I try to use every opportunity there is. What a stressful way to live your life!
When you travel the same way multiple times, you learn very fast how much the taxi rate is. If you travel in the same city a lot, you can quickly make reasonable estimates. Because of fixed prices. I can decide to take the taxi to the airport tomorrow, estimating what it will cost me and deciding the saved time is worth it. But when prices change all the time depending on a hundred variables half of which I don't even know, then there is no such calmness. I need to check all the different driving services and compare, and just before booking, not the evening before. Then I need to make sure none of the surge charging or other modifiers changes the price at the last minute.
Why should I fuck my brain like that to maybe save a few bucks? Why should the driver go to work in the morning with not the slightest clue how much he'll earn today? The slavery to market mechanics sucks the souls out of all the human beings involved in the transaction. You can do business like that when you have machine-to-machine trading, but us humans, for us all of this dealing is not an end in itself, it is just a tiny part of the life we live, and the mental burden, the uncertainty and unpleasant surprises have an effect far stronger than the monetary optimisation effect.
The "gig economy" is not a new invention. Millions of people throughout the ages lived their lives like that. Short, miserable and poor lives. Nobody ever became rich with gigs. It's just a trick to swindle us out of the health care, unemployment and other social security systems that older generations fought and died for to establish. Everyone pushing this misery ought to be ashamed and beg for forgiveness at the graves of their grand- and grand-grand-parents.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org