Can't provide any links as I can't find any in English, but...
Uber was launched in Denmark today.
The same day it was reported to the police for violating the taxi laws, which are very strict, by the Center of Traffic Control, a public institution. The action stems from reading Uber's policy and deeming it unlawful in regards to taxi driving.
The key difference here is that you have to be a certified taxi driver to drive a taxi. Failure to have a license while operating as a taxi driver is known as Taxi Piracy (sounds cooler than it is), and is punishable by law.
The interesting aspect here is how Uber intends to get around this law. I am not sure if the tested and tried method of "contracting" a driver (who lacks the license) works here since Danish law tends to look at the relationship between companies / contractors and assign blame as appropriate.
Ex. it doesn't matter if it is the driver who lacks the license. If Uber willingly agreed to let an unregistered taxi driver use their services, then the blame hangs on both the driver and Uber.
I believe that the police report focuses on Uber Black specifically as it is more difficult to assign blame to a company for having developed an App and used by third parties of which they have no direct involvement with.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
I don't have much issue with punching through artificially created scarcities, though I am worried about the debts of medallion holders if it is broken without compensation.
When this liberation happened in the Netherlands it happened bluntly and swiftly, and people who had their medallions tied to their mortgages basically lost everything. It was handled real shittily by politicians at the time, and caused an actual wave of violence between new and old drivers.
Such scarcity seems a large factor in removing any need to work on quality of service and innovation.
I do believe that taxis need regulation, for safety, price visibility and insurance though, and Uber seems to be carefree at best on at least two of those three.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I was responding to IrondWill's response to syndalis, who said: "Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can."
I was suggesting that perhaps drivers and passengers should be able to make that choice for themselves rather than eliminate that enticement and that choice.
Like, maybe you have a point, but that applies to the point I was addressing.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
The idea is surge pricing occurs in pockets which attract more drivers due to higher fares. Even if bad weather affects the entire island of manhattan there are likely to be hotspots.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
non-motorized transport is the preferred method for lower income people, when they don't have a car, which the majority of them actually use. they are not relying on taking taxi's. the most substantial surge pricing increase that would affect the commuting poor are gas increases as a result of natural disasters. less so the surge pricing found in Uber.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
I take issue with necessary transportation services being run for profit by private companies.
If people need to take taxis to get around the the government should be solving that problem by working on public transport to replace those car services. Or they should be running one of their own.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
I spent two years broke as shit with no car. I took a sum total of one cab ride during that time, and it was on my birthday.
Taking a cab home from the grocery store on a regular basis is a particularly bad way of saving money. You get in the habit of doing that and you'll run through the cost of a (shitty, used) inside of a year and a half. Or at least that was the break even point when I ran the numbers at the time.
If having someone personally drive you from place to place doesn't count as a luxury then I don't know what does.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
I spent two years broke as shit with no car. I took a sum total of one cab ride during that time, and it was on my birthday.
Taking a cab home from the grocery store on a regular basis is a particularly bad way of saving money. You get in the habit of doing that and you'll run through the cost of a (shitty, used) inside of a year and a half. Or at least that was the break even point when I ran the numbers at the time.
If having someone personally drive you from place to place doesn't count as a luxury then I don't know what does.
This assumes you grew up in a household in which you were taught how to drive and/or given access to cars. This isn't true for a significant percentage of the poor who will make the occasional cab trip to the supermarket and bring home food for the next 2-3 weeks.
I don't really have any comment on the bigger picture, but I'd still like to share my experience.
So I was actually a Lyft driver for a few months a bit ago. The work itself was actually pretty okay, drove around a lot of college kids for the most part, but I stopped doing it because the whole insurance situation turned out to be god damned terrifying.
During my interview I asked my mentor about the insurance situation and was informed that I did not have to worry or even inform my insurance about what I was doing, whenever I was driving for Lyft I would be protected under their insurance. Eventually I started reading a bit about Lyft's insurance and discovered some interesting things about it: like the fact that there was a $2,000 on it at the time, or that it only applies when you actually have passengers in the car (not when you are waiting for a request or heading to pick them up), or that if almost any car insurance company discovers that you are driving for the service they will drop you in a heartbeat which can leave you with no insurance whatsoever in the aftermath of an incident if you do something like tell the police that you are a Lyft/Uber driver after an accident.
I e-mailed Lyft about this and, after several attempts over several weeks, received a canned e-mail about how in their view it wasn't their place to get involved with a driver and their personal insurance. I posted the situation and the e-mail on the local Lyft Facebook page and was pretty shocked to discover that basically no one had any idea that they could be dropped from their insurance, and even had 2 replies from people who had incidents where they were dropped from their insurance instantly and Lyft's insurance wouldn't cover whatever the incident was.
I don't know about other Rideshare companies, but Lyft did an abysmal job of letting their drivers know what they are getting themselves into.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
I spent two years broke as shit with no car. I took a sum total of one cab ride during that time, and it was on my birthday.
Taking a cab home from the grocery store on a regular basis is a particularly bad way of saving money. You get in the habit of doing that and you'll run through the cost of a (shitty, used) inside of a year and a half. Or at least that was the break even point when I ran the numbers at the time.
If having someone personally drive you from place to place doesn't count as a luxury then I don't know what does.
This assumes you grew up in a household in which you were taught how to drive and/or given access to cars. This isn't true for a significant percentage of the poor who will make the occasional cab trip to the supermarket and bring home food for the next 2-3 weeks.
This is a thing? Can we cite this (taxi usage numbers by bottom quintile earners)? Also, is this a NYC specific thing?
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
I spent two years broke as shit with no car. I took a sum total of one cab ride during that time, and it was on my birthday.
Taking a cab home from the grocery store on a regular basis is a particularly bad way of saving money. You get in the habit of doing that and you'll run through the cost of a (shitty, used) inside of a year and a half. Or at least that was the break even point when I ran the numbers at the time.
If having someone personally drive you from place to place doesn't count as a luxury then I don't know what does.
This assumes you grew up in a household in which you were taught how to drive and/or given access to cars. This isn't true for a significant percentage of the poor who will make the occasional cab trip to the supermarket and bring home food for the next 2-3 weeks.
This is a thing? Can we cite this (taxi usage numbers by bottom quintile earners)? Also, is this a NYC specific thing?
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
I spent two years broke as shit with no car. I took a sum total of one cab ride during that time, and it was on my birthday.
Taking a cab home from the grocery store on a regular basis is a particularly bad way of saving money. You get in the habit of doing that and you'll run through the cost of a (shitty, used) inside of a year and a half. Or at least that was the break even point when I ran the numbers at the time.
If having someone personally drive you from place to place doesn't count as a luxury then I don't know what does.
I don't drive, I have never taken a cab by myself. I either walk, or I take the bus.
Do people really take taxi's at pax? Why not just walk/use public transit?
My assumption would be a lack of knowledge of options. From WSCC in Seattle there's a wealth of great options (restaurants, shopping, events, etc) in walking distance or easily accessible via public transit.
0
Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Do people really take taxi's at pax? Why not just walk/use public transit?
At PAX East, there was a lot of social stuff happening in the larger boston area that was not really public-transit friendly.
And its nice to step out of the fancy dinner, hail a car through some manner of witchcraft, and go right to the next party some miles away.
everywhere you would want to go in boston & cambridge is easily accessible by public transit.
boston's cold in march, though, and nothing is more convenient than your phone beeping when a warm car is outside ready to drive you direct to your destination.
0
Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
The "underclass" really shouldn't be taking taxis or livery. Both are most certainly absolutely a luxury. If you see a surge multiplier, that means Uber's drivers are getting PAID. Good for them.
Do people really take taxi's at pax? Why not just walk/use public transit?
I was at PAX with my girl and her bad back. Lyft was a godsend. Even healthy, saving 30-60 minutes of PAX time is worth the fare, I think. Why would I want to spend time walking when I could be spending time waiting in a line?
0
Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
I live in a city that has a pretty decent public transportation infrastructure. I generally only take cabs late at night (past midnight) in situations where public transportation would take forever for me to get home or it was really late and I just wanted to get to bed.
Depending on where you go to grab a cab, many times (even though it is illegal) they will ask you where you're going before they let you in and if you're not going somewhere that lets them easily get a return fare, they'll just drive off. Credit card machines are mandated now, but many times you'll get the "oops, my machine is broken" and when you point out it is illegal and that they can't actually be driving with it being broken, they bring it out and now it miraculously works.
Uber is ridiculously easier to use, better service, and generally cheaper (minus surge pricing).
+2
El SkidThe frozen white northRegistered Userregular
Well I'm glad that Uber investors are certainly ok with using money to silence criticism.
Im not going to dive 30 clicks deep into articles that consist of a paragraph and a few tweets. Who is this journalist and what did Kutcher do?
Uhhh he posted a few tweets. Specifically supporting the Uber exec who thought it would be a fine idea to dig up dirt on any journalist who criticized Uber's practices.
Well I'm glad that Uber investors are certainly ok with using money to silence criticism.
Im not going to dive 30 clicks deep into articles that consist of a paragraph and a few tweets. Who is this journalist and what did Kutcher do?
Uber exec said this.
At the dinner, Uber CEO and founder Travis Kalanick, boyish with tousled graying hair and a sweater, made the case that he has been miscast as an ideologue and as insensitive to driver and rider complaints, while in fact he has largely had his head down building a transformative company that has beat his own and others’ wildest expectations.
…
Michael, who Kalanick described as “one of the top deal guys in the Valley” when he joined the company, is a charismatic and well-regarded figure who came to Uber from Klout. He also sits on a board that advises the Department of Defense.
Over dinner, he outlined the notion of spending “a million dollars” to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. That team could, he said, help Uber fight back against the press — they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine.
Michael was particularly focused on one journalist, Sarah Lacy, the editor of the Silicon Valley website PandoDaily, a sometimes combative voice inside the industry. Lacy recently accused Uber of “sexism and misogyny.” She wrote that she was deleting her Uber app after BuzzFeed News reported that Uber appeared to be working with a French escort service. “I don’t know how many more signals we need that the company simply doesn’t respect us or prioritize our safety,” she wrote.
Basically using money to silence journalism they disagree with. Ashton Kutcher who is an investor in Uber supports the idea of using money to silence journalism and accuses Lacy of being a shady journalist because uhh she wrote stuff he didn't like. Classic kill the messenger campaign.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
I spent two years broke as shit with no car. I took a sum total of one cab ride during that time, and it was on my birthday.
Taking a cab home from the grocery store on a regular basis is a particularly bad way of saving money. You get in the habit of doing that and you'll run through the cost of a (shitty, used) inside of a year and a half. Or at least that was the break even point when I ran the numbers at the time.
If having someone personally drive you from place to place doesn't count as a luxury then I don't know what does.
This assumes you grew up in a household in which you were taught how to drive and/or given access to cars. This isn't true for a significant percentage of the poor who will make the occasional cab trip to the supermarket and bring home food for the next 2-3 weeks.
Just to be clear, we are talking about the subset of people who use livery to do grocery shopping after 10 pm on Halloween, New Years, and St. Patrick's Day or during the first hour immediately after major football game or concert concludes.
If somebody is working three jobs and is literally so busy that they must rely on livery AND cannot wait until the afternoon of January 1 to go shopping, surge pricing is the least of their problems.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
In the UK, according to figures from the Department of Transport, "the poorest 20 per cent of households take more expensive taxi journeys per year than any other income quintile" (pdf). This is linked to the dereguation of regional bus services outside London, but the best solution would be to improve and subsidise bus services in rural areas, rather than anything to do with Uber's surge pricing.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
The idea is surge pricing occurs in pockets which attract more drivers due to higher fares. Even if bad weather affects the entire island of manhattan there are likely to be hotspots.
So basically you are diverting supply from one area to another? That would certainly raise the roof on the effectiveness of surge pricing.
I was responding to IrondWill's response to syndalis, who said: "Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can."
I was suggesting that perhaps drivers and passengers should be able to make that choice for themselves rather than eliminate that enticement and that choice.
Like, maybe you have a point, but that applies to the point I was addressing.
Right, but part of your argument was that "If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation". To which I pointed out that this only happens if the cap is low enough that it actually effects the number of vehicles available. And then pointed out reasons why surge price's ability to put more options on the road is rather limited. Which means any negative effects of a cap you mention are equally limited. Because a surge pricing cap set above the level where you max out the supply of drivers will have no effect on the supply of drivers.
And this all becomes especially relevant with bad weather issues since bad weather tends to cover a rather large area and so moving services from one area to another is just shuffling the options around not adding new ones.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
I spent two years broke as shit with no car. I took a sum total of one cab ride during that time, and it was on my birthday.
Taking a cab home from the grocery store on a regular basis is a particularly bad way of saving money. You get in the habit of doing that and you'll run through the cost of a (shitty, used) inside of a year and a half. Or at least that was the break even point when I ran the numbers at the time.
If having someone personally drive you from place to place doesn't count as a luxury then I don't know what does.
This assumes you grew up in a household in which you were taught how to drive and/or given access to cars. This isn't true for a significant percentage of the poor who will make the occasional cab trip to the supermarket and bring home food for the next 2-3 weeks.
Just to be clear, we are talking about the subset of people who use livery to do grocery shopping after 10 pm on Halloween, New Years, and St. Patrick's Day or during the first hour immediately after major football game or concert concludes.
If somebody is working three jobs and is literally so busy that they must rely on livery AND cannot wait until the afternoon of January 1 to go shopping, surge pricing is the least of their problems.
Yeah, I would support the idea that poor people use cabs. You see them use it alot for grocery trips (large trips to the store are a pain in the ass to impossible on public transit).
I doubt surge pricing has any effect on their use of these services though.
Reading this thread it kinda strikes me that Uber's probably a bit of a shitty company in it's attitude but it's doing so (and meeting success) because alot of places in the US seem to have really bad similar services?
Like all the bits about skirting the local laws seem to come down on 'and it's probably not quite legal but they're definitely better than Taxi's still'. So maybe the issue is less Uber (though burying jouranlists is a shitty thing to talk about) and more that there exists a climate in which merely being a modern and well run taxi firm (because that seems to be what they're doing really) is the ingredient for massive success.
Reading this thread it kinda strikes me that Uber's probably a bit of a shitty company in it's attitude but it's doing so (and meeting success) because alot of places in the US seem to have really bad similar services?
Like all the bits about skirting the local laws seem to come down on 'and it's probably not quite legal but they're definitely better than Taxi's still'. So maybe the issue is less Uber (though burying jouranlists is a shitty thing to talk about) and more that there exists a climate in which merely being a modern and well run taxi firm (because that seems to be what they're doing really) is the ingredient for massive success.
They also go "fuck the law" in countries where taxi services are way better.
I could also start a modern and well run firm in any sector if I got to ignore the regulations about insurances and equipment and licences and such.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
Well, in the current regulatory framework, there shouldn't be a rigid cap. People should say, "Hey, I mad X dollars due to surge pricing for 10 minutes work!" and their buddy will say, "Damn, I wouldn't mind doing that." and then the magic of supply and demand works.
Plus, if you have 10 drivers and 100 passengers, well, you need some way to pick which 10 you pickup, and surge pricing is a good method in some respects (see below):
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
You're arguing (in no substantial part correctly, mind you) against all of western, modern capitalism at that point. Uber isn't unique or especially egregious in this regard*.
* This is a great example of especially egregious:
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
Well, in the current regulatory framework, there shouldn't be a rigid cap. People should say, "Hey, I mad X dollars due to surge pricing for 10 minutes work!" and their buddy will say, "Damn, I wouldn't mind doing that." and then the magic of supply and demand works.
Except it doesn't work that simply because that makes alot of assumptions about people's ability to do that work, their desire to do it and their even knowing it's possible. And all within a small time frame.
These all do a huge job of dampening any effects of "the magic of supply and demand". In the short term, shit don't work like that.
Plus, if you have 10 drivers and 100 passengers, well, you need some way to pick which 10 you pickup, and surge pricing is a good method in some respects
In some respects. And a bad one in other respects.
I'm on the side of surge pricing being dangerous and exploitative After about 3x.
I think Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can.
I would rather there be no cars on the road then that.
i hadn't really thought about it that way. i guess i'd be supportive of straight-up blackouts if safety is a concern.
in general, though, the idea that high multiples would incent more taxis at scarce times/ locations is IMO an elegant solution to the problem.
I'm not familiar with the internal rules that Uber drivers follow; are they somehow required to be on the road by the company or is it just money/rating incentives?
Like, if a person wants to make bank by taking a risky job, I don't feel like it's my place to tell him that he can't. Accepting some risk of bodily harm is something that should go into what a person makes.
If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation (maybe transport is safer than no transport?) AND there are fewer options available to people who need money.
That assumes that the surge pricing has an effect on the number of drivers on the road past a certain point.
how do you figure?
keeping surge pricing available puts an incentive in place and keeps the option available, for the drivers (to offer their services) and to the passengers second (if the drivers are given incentive to make themselves available)
capping surge pricing takes that incentive away
If you say surge pricing means fewer available options, you are contending that surge pricing has a monotonically increasing effect on supply.
I don't find this compelling. At some point, you run of people willing, able and prepared to be drivers. And I would bet that happens at alot lower values of pricing then the highs of surge pricing. You are talking about a business opportunity that comes and goes real damn fast. Essentially, there is a hard or at least very rigid cap on the available supply of drivers. Supply moves too slowly here to respond to surge pricing on a continuous basis. Likely the only effect of surge pricing past a low threshold is to reallocate the supply of drivers towards people willing/able to pay more.
Hell, surge pricing likely almost exclusively comes into play after that point since it's a result of a limited supply of drivers dealing with a large amount of customers.
Well, in the current regulatory framework, there shouldn't be a rigid cap. People should say, "Hey, I mad X dollars due to surge pricing for 10 minutes work!" and their buddy will say, "Damn, I wouldn't mind doing that." and then the magic of supply and demand works.
Except it doesn't work that simply because that makes alot of assumptions about people's ability to do that work, their desire to do it and their even knowing it's possible. And all within a small time frame.
These all do a huge job of dampening any effects of "the magic of supply and demand". In the short term, shit don't work like that.
Surge pricing obviously doesn't create drivers from clay, but it does two things:
a. as the average expected earnings and the marketing friendly, "I made a bajillion dollars in 30 minutes!" goes up, more people will become drivers long term.
b. in the short term, it will make some drivers decide to do "one more ride."
They are also uniquely positioned in that their business model assumes people can be "at work" after receiving a text message quite quickly, so it's not like surge pricing for male lead understudies of Romeo and Juliet productions with original Shakespearean pronunciations, which even if you have someone willing and able to do that, they need more than 5 minutes notice.
Plus, if you have 10 drivers and 100 passengers, well, you need some way to pick which 10 you pickup, and surge pricing is a good method in some respects
In some respects. And a bad one in other respects.
I'd argue it's the best, with my general strong caveats about pricing regulating scarcity when income inequality is too high.
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Uber was launched in Denmark today.
The same day it was reported to the police for violating the taxi laws, which are very strict, by the Center of Traffic Control, a public institution. The action stems from reading Uber's policy and deeming it unlawful in regards to taxi driving.
The key difference here is that you have to be a certified taxi driver to drive a taxi. Failure to have a license while operating as a taxi driver is known as Taxi Piracy (sounds cooler than it is), and is punishable by law.
The interesting aspect here is how Uber intends to get around this law. I am not sure if the tested and tried method of "contracting" a driver (who lacks the license) works here since Danish law tends to look at the relationship between companies / contractors and assign blame as appropriate.
Ex. it doesn't matter if it is the driver who lacks the license. If Uber willingly agreed to let an unregistered taxi driver use their services, then the blame hangs on both the driver and Uber.
I believe that the police report focuses on Uber Black specifically as it is more difficult to assign blame to a company for having developed an App and used by third parties of which they have no direct involvement with.
I mean, even after the supply caps out, you have n people who want a cab ride and n-m cab rides available, which means m people don't get to ride a cab. Is it unethical to "ration" luxury goods by price, now?
When this liberation happened in the Netherlands it happened bluntly and swiftly, and people who had their medallions tied to their mortgages basically lost everything. It was handled real shittily by politicians at the time, and caused an actual wave of violence between new and old drivers.
Such scarcity seems a large factor in removing any need to work on quality of service and innovation.
I do believe that taxis need regulation, for safety, price visibility and insurance though, and Uber seems to be carefree at best on at least two of those three.
I was responding to IrondWill's response to syndalis, who said: "Uber has a responsibility to the safety of their passengers and drivers to not try and entice drivers onto the road during a snowstorm with 7x or 8x pricing, and in turn passengers in need of a ride shouldn't be bent over a barrel at rates like that just because uber can."
I was suggesting that perhaps drivers and passengers should be able to make that choice for themselves rather than eliminate that enticement and that choice.
Like, maybe you have a point, but that applies to the point I was addressing.
The idea is surge pricing occurs in pockets which attract more drivers due to higher fares. Even if bad weather affects the entire island of manhattan there are likely to be hotspots.
Short answer: it can be.
Long answer: First, I take issue with calling cab service a "luxury good". For a lot of lower income people, cabs are infrequent necessities - getting to an appointment, or bringing home groceries comes to mind. That considered, it becomes very problematic to use price as the means of rationing, because you basically wind up telling the underclass that they can go get lost.
I take issue with necessary transportation services being run for profit by private companies.
If people need to take taxis to get around the the government should be solving that problem by working on public transport to replace those car services. Or they should be running one of their own.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I spent two years broke as shit with no car. I took a sum total of one cab ride during that time, and it was on my birthday.
Taking a cab home from the grocery store on a regular basis is a particularly bad way of saving money. You get in the habit of doing that and you'll run through the cost of a (shitty, used) inside of a year and a half. Or at least that was the break even point when I ran the numbers at the time.
If having someone personally drive you from place to place doesn't count as a luxury then I don't know what does.
This assumes you grew up in a household in which you were taught how to drive and/or given access to cars. This isn't true for a significant percentage of the poor who will make the occasional cab trip to the supermarket and bring home food for the next 2-3 weeks.
So I was actually a Lyft driver for a few months a bit ago. The work itself was actually pretty okay, drove around a lot of college kids for the most part, but I stopped doing it because the whole insurance situation turned out to be god damned terrifying.
During my interview I asked my mentor about the insurance situation and was informed that I did not have to worry or even inform my insurance about what I was doing, whenever I was driving for Lyft I would be protected under their insurance. Eventually I started reading a bit about Lyft's insurance and discovered some interesting things about it: like the fact that there was a $2,000 on it at the time, or that it only applies when you actually have passengers in the car (not when you are waiting for a request or heading to pick them up), or that if almost any car insurance company discovers that you are driving for the service they will drop you in a heartbeat which can leave you with no insurance whatsoever in the aftermath of an incident if you do something like tell the police that you are a Lyft/Uber driver after an accident.
I e-mailed Lyft about this and, after several attempts over several weeks, received a canned e-mail about how in their view it wasn't their place to get involved with a driver and their personal insurance. I posted the situation and the e-mail on the local Lyft Facebook page and was pretty shocked to discover that basically no one had any idea that they could be dropped from their insurance, and even had 2 replies from people who had incidents where they were dropped from their insurance instantly and Lyft's insurance wouldn't cover whatever the incident was.
I don't know about other Rideshare companies, but Lyft did an abysmal job of letting their drivers know what they are getting themselves into.
This is a thing? Can we cite this (taxi usage numbers by bottom quintile earners)? Also, is this a NYC specific thing?
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I have evidence to the contrary, actually.
I don't drive, I have never taken a cab by myself. I either walk, or I take the bus.
Took tons of buses everywhere though. I would imagine that's more common.
At PAX East, there was a lot of social stuff happening in the larger boston area that was not really public-transit friendly.
And its nice to step out of the fancy dinner, hail a car through some manner of witchcraft, and go right to the next party some miles away.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
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My assumption would be a lack of knowledge of options. From WSCC in Seattle there's a wealth of great options (restaurants, shopping, events, etc) in walking distance or easily accessible via public transit.
Synd was talking PAX East, the one with a larger, sexier crew of cool people.
everywhere you would want to go in boston & cambridge is easily accessible by public transit.
boston's cold in march, though, and nothing is more convenient than your phone beeping when a warm car is outside ready to drive you direct to your destination.
Well I'm glad that Uber investors are certainly ok with using money to silence criticism.
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Im not going to dive 30 clicks deep into articles that consist of a paragraph and a few tweets. Who is this journalist and what did Kutcher do?
That's the kind of nerdery we do here on our good days
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Does Kutcher actually think the plural of journalist is journalist?
Depending on where you go to grab a cab, many times (even though it is illegal) they will ask you where you're going before they let you in and if you're not going somewhere that lets them easily get a return fare, they'll just drive off. Credit card machines are mandated now, but many times you'll get the "oops, my machine is broken" and when you point out it is illegal and that they can't actually be driving with it being broken, they bring it out and now it miraculously works.
Uber is ridiculously easier to use, better service, and generally cheaper (minus surge pricing).
Uhhh he posted a few tweets. Specifically supporting the Uber exec who thought it would be a fine idea to dig up dirt on any journalist who criticized Uber's practices.
Uber exec said this.
Basically using money to silence journalism they disagree with. Ashton Kutcher who is an investor in Uber supports the idea of using money to silence journalism and accuses Lacy of being a shady journalist because uhh she wrote stuff he didn't like. Classic kill the messenger campaign.
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Just to be clear, we are talking about the subset of people who use livery to do grocery shopping after 10 pm on Halloween, New Years, and St. Patrick's Day or during the first hour immediately after major football game or concert concludes.
If somebody is working three jobs and is literally so busy that they must rely on livery AND cannot wait until the afternoon of January 1 to go shopping, surge pricing is the least of their problems.
So basically you are diverting supply from one area to another? That would certainly raise the roof on the effectiveness of surge pricing.
Though it does nothing for the safety argument.
Right, but part of your argument was that "If there's a cap on surge pricing related to safety it means that there are fewer options available to people who may legit need transportation". To which I pointed out that this only happens if the cap is low enough that it actually effects the number of vehicles available. And then pointed out reasons why surge price's ability to put more options on the road is rather limited. Which means any negative effects of a cap you mention are equally limited. Because a surge pricing cap set above the level where you max out the supply of drivers will have no effect on the supply of drivers.
And this all becomes especially relevant with bad weather issues since bad weather tends to cover a rather large area and so moving services from one area to another is just shuffling the options around not adding new ones.
Yeah, I would support the idea that poor people use cabs. You see them use it alot for grocery trips (large trips to the store are a pain in the ass to impossible on public transit).
I doubt surge pricing has any effect on their use of these services though.
Like all the bits about skirting the local laws seem to come down on 'and it's probably not quite legal but they're definitely better than Taxi's still'. So maybe the issue is less Uber (though burying jouranlists is a shitty thing to talk about) and more that there exists a climate in which merely being a modern and well run taxi firm (because that seems to be what they're doing really) is the ingredient for massive success.
They also go "fuck the law" in countries where taxi services are way better.
I could also start a modern and well run firm in any sector if I got to ignore the regulations about insurances and equipment and licences and such.
Well, in the current regulatory framework, there shouldn't be a rigid cap. People should say, "Hey, I mad X dollars due to surge pricing for 10 minutes work!" and their buddy will say, "Damn, I wouldn't mind doing that." and then the magic of supply and demand works.
Plus, if you have 10 drivers and 100 passengers, well, you need some way to pick which 10 you pickup, and surge pricing is a good method in some respects (see below):
You're arguing (in no substantial part correctly, mind you) against all of western, modern capitalism at that point. Uber isn't unique or especially egregious in this regard*.
* This is a great example of especially egregious:
Except it doesn't work that simply because that makes alot of assumptions about people's ability to do that work, their desire to do it and their even knowing it's possible. And all within a small time frame.
These all do a huge job of dampening any effects of "the magic of supply and demand". In the short term, shit don't work like that.
In some respects. And a bad one in other respects.
Surge pricing obviously doesn't create drivers from clay, but it does two things:
a. as the average expected earnings and the marketing friendly, "I made a bajillion dollars in 30 minutes!" goes up, more people will become drivers long term.
b. in the short term, it will make some drivers decide to do "one more ride."
They are also uniquely positioned in that their business model assumes people can be "at work" after receiving a text message quite quickly, so it's not like surge pricing for male lead understudies of Romeo and Juliet productions with original Shakespearean pronunciations, which even if you have someone willing and able to do that, they need more than 5 minutes notice.
I'd argue it's the best, with my general strong caveats about pricing regulating scarcity when income inequality is too high.