Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over

#161

Post by majormajor » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #151

nannal wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? If I'm a poor speeding Fin, then a non-scaled speeding ticket could cost me a good number of days food. If I'm a rich speeding Fin then a non-scaled ticket is just the cost to travel quickly. When you're wealthy enough fines don't matter there's no point in the police enforcing them aside from as an additional income stream.

Speeding has a constant negative effect on society. It doesn't vary based on how wealthy the speeder is. Therefore, if the rate is higher for some people, it's either insufficiently disincentivizing poorer people from speeding, or excessively disincentivizing richer people. Pigovian taxes should be constant. And if it's not pigovian, why give tickets at all?

It has a constant negative effect so you need a penalty that has a constant discouraging effect.

A flat fee doesn't discourage those with more money to pay it. It simply says "speeding is OK if you have enough money."

Re: Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over

#162

Post by sidechaining » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #31

> ...the company’s upcoming pricing algorithms, which they hinted might be able to more precisely predict what riders might be willing to pay for a ride. I hate the whole idea of this. If they track you around, maybe realize you order from fancy places on uber eats, then they will raise prices on something that costs them the same. There's something that strikes me as especially awful about automating the "how much i…

This right here is already happening in pricing for Uber passes. I’ve had the first month’s pass for a dirt cheap price and then it kept increasing over the months until I discovered I was not happy paying an increasing price. So, one month I did not renew my pass and bam - the price went back to its lower default price again...

Re: Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over

#163

Post by john-radio » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #151

nannal wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? If I'm a poor speeding Fin, then a non-scaled speeding ticket could cost me a good number of days food. If I'm a rich speeding Fin then a non-scaled ticket is just the cost to travel quickly. When you're wealthy enough fines don't matter there's no point in the police enforcing them aside from as an additional income stream.

Speeding has a constant negative effect on society. It doesn't vary based on how wealthy the speeder is. Therefore, if the rate is higher for some people, it's either insufficiently disincentivizing poorer people from speeding, or excessively disincentivizing richer people. Pigovian taxes should be constant. And if it's not pigovian, why give tickets at all?

> Therefore, if the rate is higher for some people, it's either insufficiently disincentivizing poorer people from speeding, or excessively disincentivizing richer people.

I don't understand how you reached this conclusion.

> Speeding has a constant negative effect on society. It doesn't vary based on how wealthy the speeder is.

The point of a speeding ticket isn't to make things right or to make amends for the bad effects of irresponsible driving. That would be impossible, since people die. The point of a speeding ticket is to serve as a carrot, or to be "pigovian" to use the term that you just made me look up. Since you understand that well enough to apply the word, I don't see why you could possibly argue that they should be constant, since 1% of people or so can (and do) just straight up ignore the law otherwise. A frequently reposted thread explains the reasoning well - https://i.imgur.com/3OeKrA2.jpg

Re: Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over

#164

Post by wutbrodo » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

seriesf wrote: post #30

ghaff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a reasonable working assumption that "ride share" prices end up somewhere around where taxi prices are--with the possible exception of places like London where black cabs are somewhat of a premium service relative to minicabs, etc.

I don’t see how the Uber model can ever approach the price of a taxi. Traditional taxis had purpose-built vehicles, shared garages, parts bought at wholesale, and cars on duty all day every day. Uber drivers have disposable Toyotas, pay individually retail prices for insurance, maintenance, and parts, and their vehicles are usually parked. The traditional model has the advantage on cost.

There's some surplus, in theory, from increasing utilization of privately-owned cars: they're a pretty huge capital investment that no one wrings 100% of the value out of. Though I don't think this counterbalances the points you bring up

Re: Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over

#165

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #136

cortesoft wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. What we want is for no one to drive dangerously. To discourage this, we give tickets for speeding. For rich people, the fine doesn't mean anything to them because it is not enough money to matter, so they have no incentive to stop speeding. They keep speeding, putting everyone in danger. The point of a fine (at least for something like speeding) is to discourage the behavior. If you want th…

The discouragement is "demerits on your license"[1] which go toward revoking it. Hence why you don't see rich people speeding around all the time even though the they can afford to pay the fines - they don't want to lose their license. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_system_(driving)

Except rich people do speed more: https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/wealthier-drivers-get-more-t...

Re: Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over

#166

Post by ikeboy » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #161

ikeboy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speeding has a constant negative effect on society. It doesn't vary based on how wealthy the speeder is. Therefore, if the rate is higher for some people, it's either insufficiently disincentivizing poorer people from speeding, or excessively disincentivizing richer people. Pigovian taxes should be constant. And if it's not pigovian, why give tickets at all?

It has a constant negative effect so you need a penalty that has a constant discouraging effect. A flat fee doesn't discourage those with more money to pay it. It simply says "speeding is OK if you have enough money."

A constant fine has a constant discouraging effect.

Re: Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over

#167

Post by majormajor » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #39

seriesf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see how the Uber model can ever approach the price of a taxi. Traditional taxis had purpose-built vehicles, shared garages, parts bought at wholesale, and cars on duty all day every day. Uber drivers have disposable Toyotas, pay individually retail prices for insurance, maintenance, and parts, and their vehicles are usually parked. The traditional model has the advantage on cost.

The Uber model relies on an underclass whose need for cash right now overrides any concerns they might have down the line about vehicle depreciation, the consequences of operating a taxi on a consumer insurance plan, the high self-employment tax burden, health insurance or actually breaking even after taking those factors into account.

I think the Uber model has more specifically relied on massive driver incentives and high acquisition costs.

People quit when the numbers stop making sense for them, they don't always just stay in the underclass. The high cost of acquisition and incentives they did historically reflect a lot of driver churn.

Re: Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over

#168

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

altmind wrote: post #121

paxys wrote: post #85

Honestly, it's probably for the best. Over the last decade it has become the expectation that - at the tap of a button - a taxi will appear and take you across the city (or three blocks over) for a few bucks. People need to realize that this isn't reality. The entire industry has been subsidized by VCs and desperate drivers working below minimum wage since day 1. If, after paying drivers fairly, complying with local…

From what I've heard, this industry works reliably in Eastern Europe and Asia. Uber, or any company of this sort is not magical lifestyle company, its merely an app for a driver and a rider. This is easily replicated. Uber became a poster child only because the barrier to enter is so high in so many western economies. There is a ton of smaller competition elsewhere.

It doesn't work too well in high-income countries anywhere, because cost of living is relatively high and then people don't want to pay those kinds of fares to support taxi drivers entering the industry. You don't really see this in Korea or Japan, for example. Where this kind of informal taxi arrangement happened in the US pre-Uber (e.g. New York dollar vans) it was mostly lower-income immigrant communities willing to accept a lower standard of living.

It's similar to why you don't really see, for example, maids in middle class homes in high-income countries, but those are relatively common where wages are lower.

Re: Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over

#169

Post by aabhay » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #11

Prices have been more expensive than traditional taxis in my market for over a year now.

This. Clearly this has to be the stable state for these services. A taxi is naturally free to operate in a way they see fit (finding narrow strategies and routes) while an Uber is constrained by a routing system. If you find a taxi, you can expect to pay a more optimized fare considering market dynamics, while an Uber has to suffer very suboptimal requests.

In cities like Vancouver, taxis seem to spend much less time idling than Ubers in SF.

Re: Uber and Lyft Suggest the Days of Cheap Rides Could Be Over

#170

Post by leetcrew » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

input_sh wrote: post #86

suyash wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland traffic tickets sounds like a horrible idea.

Yes, because it's really fair for both a billionaire and someone living on 40k a year to pay the same price (let's say 2k) for a speeding ticket. Both of those people will be impacted accordingly I'm sure.

there are less than three thousand billionaires in the whole world. they could all drive like it was a formula 1 grand prix 24/7 and it would create a barely measurable blip in traffic fatalities. somewhere between ten and fifteen percent of americans are driving without insurance. I'm a lot more worried about them than the one lambo I see every couple months.