Rideshare services - Uber, Lyft, Hailo, etc.

that and the fact that uber takes the lion's share of surge pricing dollars

they have to give something to incentivize more drivers to actually show up though

how uber splits up the ca$h is a separate issue though

the surge price downside is if I'm not in that neighborhood and break my arm. now not only do I wait much longer, I pay significantly more to get to the hospital because a bunch of assholes went to a giant concert

the incentive they give is... business
if they have the majority of the taxi-like vehicle traffic in their system, then the times when people use your service instead of uber is limited to surge periods when you would have been busy anyway

the incentive they give is... business

no that's the incentive under fixed rates

i don't see why broken arm dude is better off in a fixed rate system. what if he lives somewhere it wasn't worth it for fixed ride cabs to go?

like let's be real, on-demand automobile transportation in a large urban area is ideally a luxury or used for special cases of need. the reality is that public transportation is not there, and in mid-sized cities (or ones that are large but with shitty public transport) uber is succeeding in expanding the user base but has a number of regressive practices that screw over some drivers and passengers who need basic on-demand transportation

Uber's been a huge story in Toronto the past month or two. I never use cabs, so I haven't been following closely.

xp that's the problem with private taxi systems in general. some places have regulations in place guaranteeing you will get a ride eventually, but uber's trying to work around that, too

I get that more cars showing up when a huge event ends is definitely an opportunity to charge more money for prioritized service, but other than the increased price part, don't taxis tend to swarm around those events anyway, since it's an easy source of guaranteed fares?

most taxis working during a surge would go to the surge, the rest would go scoop up fares elsewhere. the problem isn't cabs being directed to surge areas, the problem is not enough cabs during the surge, which pricing fixes by giving drivers who wouldn't have gone out incentive to do so

people were pissed cause they raised prices during a power outage in affected nabes. I get the knee jerk moral disgust, but the effect is more cabs for ppl who need to gtfo of the power outage

*people in Toronto were pissed

http://i2.wp.com/thelibertarianliquidationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Mises-thumbs-up.png?resize=1800%2C1947?w=580

i don't think there's anything austrian about this argument?

nobody seems to mind surge pricing for airlines, hotels, etc etc basically everything. in the long term more cabs and market pricing is gonna make cab rides more affordable and accessible, surge pricing once in a while doesn't change that. it was almost impossible to hail a legal cab and take it to a poor / far out part of the nation's biggest cab city until recently and nobody seemed to care.

uber is a terrible company for totally different reasons.

what are they?

it flaunts the law openly which gives it an advantage over anybody playing fair and had the venture money to get away with it, pretty clearly aims to be a monopoly, brags about how well paid its drivers are when they'll pretty obv have their wages driven down to oblivion eventually, gets its way via lobbyists / behind closed doors

oh, lyfe

agree wth the breaking the law/lobbyists stuff being shitty. but i'm not so sure about wages & monopoly. i mean, i'm sure they aspire to be a monopoly (don't we all) but will they? are taxis a natural monopoly? there's still competition among taxi companies, right? why would rideshare apps be any different then? i guess downloading two apps onto your phone is a bit more of a pain in the ass than saving 2 separate taxi company numbers

it flaunts the law openly which gives it an advantage over anybody playing fair and had the venture money to get away with it, pretty clearly aims to be a monopoly, brags about how well paid its drivers are when they'll pretty obv have their wages driven down to oblivion eventually, gets its way via lobbyists / behind closed doors

this is like, all interweb companies since the 90s

uber's insane valuation shows that a lot of people think that it's more than just a company that eats the taxi industry - like if that's all that happens in the end then yeah it will have to compete on price. if it ends up serving as the technology for a deeper transportation network then it might actually end up w/ a pretty scary monopoly.

yea but then we can just anti trust it

more like goober

I stand with iatee

......

waiting for public transport?

:)

lol

some rich ppl put money on it becoming 'technology for a deeper transportation network' isn't justification for doing anything now though

well yeah esp since it isn't a monopoly yet, but I do think not giving your money to a thuggish company when there are other alternatives is probably a good idea

also cars suck? this isn't hard.

the conviction that it's absolutely necessary to be able to travel anywhere at any time for the right market price is so fucking gross and unhealthy.

meanwhile fossil fuel extraction is destroying all the poor rural areas that these companies and their users won't give a shit about until coastal flooding gets bad and it's way too late. fuck yeah they should be blocked but more than that literally all their resources should be redirected toward alternative energy development.

this kind of energy being invested in a "new" form that is really just a more efficiently parasitic version of the old one, while the new forms that earth wants for survival are put on the backburner is so infuriating.

where are the wind turbine thugs? we need amoral assholes making a shitload of money on solar panels. the possibility is there. if a company can make their dream of strong arming taxis out of existence a reality surely we can dredge up an incentive of billions in an artificial market of solar panel bucks or w/e. we have smart economists, even on this board, maybe they could combine a model for an alt energy market with one for being kewl and kill two birds with one stone.

mega otm

nobody seems to mind surge pricing for airlines, hotels, etc etc basically everything.

People freaking hate airline pricing, are you kidding me? And what they especially hate about it is the unpredictability and time-dependence.

There are def amoral asshole thugs making bank off of solar panels are u kidding

Xxp

They just arent as sexy or visible or clownish as these jokers

ppl shouldn't charge for stuff other ppl want or need tbh

/nobody seems to mind surge pricing for airlines, hotels, etc etc basically everything./

People /freaking hate/ airline pricing, are you kidding me? And what they especially hate about it is the unpredictability and time-dependence.

they might not love it but it I don't see articles on 'why we need to regulate airlines so they can't charge more for holiday flights'

idg matt's rant. money spent on cab rides you call from an app on your iphone wouldn't have otherwise been spent on r&d for renewable energy. the rich dudes who fund uber also throw insane amounts of money at tesla.

also more cabs makes it easier for people not to own cars

I think surge pricing feels particularly predatory because most cities don't have good comprehensive 24 hr public transit. In the absence of good PT, cabs fill some of that role (practically and...emotionally, say), and the idea of a public good suddenly being subject to surge pricing doesn't sit well with most ppl.

uber itself doesn't help matters by being so nakedly malevolent and shitty

I would be interested to hear or read an analysis of uber in the framework of the "right to the city" http://newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city

my friend drives for uber, or did drive quite a bit til she found out what see you next tuesdays they are

ppl shouldn't charge for stuff other ppl want or need tbh

― irl lol (darraghmac), Sunday, 28 June 2015 14:26 (Yesterday) Permalink

excuse me didn't give u permission to blow my mind dude

I've become hooked on Uber tbh. I don't drink like I used to but the peace of mind is awesome.

https://speedbird.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/uber-or-the-technics-and-politics-of-socially-corrosive-mobility/