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

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

#301

Post by nswest23 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #242
ldoughty wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except corporations have already agreed to not seriously undercut each other... Geographic monopoly, understood collaborative price hikes... Forced plan changes post-capture that eliminate the most common plan and squeeze out an extra $5 per customer.... Simply having another player in the field is not competition, despite the federal government's claims.

That effectively requires a cartel with high barriers to entry, otherwise not doing that is an immediate competitive advantage to any new challengers. It's pretty hard to build your own last mile telecommunications network, how hard is it to build a ride sharing app?

> how hard is it to build a ride sharing app?

then why are there only 2?

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

#302

Post by ric2b »

nswest23 wrote: post #301
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That effectively requires a cartel with high barriers to entry, otherwise not doing that is an immediate competitive advantage to any new challengers. It's pretty hard to build your own last mile telecommunications network, how hard is it to build a ride sharing app?

> how hard is it to build a ride sharing app? then why are there only 2?

There aren't, there are at least 7 (that I know of) in my city: Uber, Lyft, Cabify, FreeNow, Bolt, Taxify, MyTaxi.

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

#303

Post by mpweiher »

ikeboy wrote: post #299
mpweiher wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not set the fine to a million dollars for everyone Because that is a disproportionate punishment for speeding for most people. We don't do disproportionate punishment. It's also why we don't hang people for stealing. Any more. > [it's not a tax] Why? Because allowing speeding and taxing it is not the goal. We don't want people to speed. Even rich people. > same amount of deterrence for everyone Exactly. > which…

You haven't answered the central question, which is why you want a punishment outside of the deterrence effect. And I've addressed the deterrence issue at length, just asserting that my model is wrong without explaining why won't cut it.

> And I've addressed the deterrence issue at length

No you haven't. You've just asserted a random formula, without any supporting evidence.

> just asserting that my model is wrong without explaining why won't cut it.

“That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” (Christopher Hitchens).

You haven't provided any evidence for you "model" (=random formula), so there is no reason to demand evidence for dismissing it. However, multiple people actually have provided that evidence and explained in great detail why your idea and formula is wrong.

Also, multiple countries have based parts of their legal systems on this model (relative fine). So if you want to figure out why you are wrong, which you are, feel free to examine the legal systems of those countries.

For example: "Ziel ist es, Menschen mit unterschiedlichem Einkommen verhältnismäßig gleich hart zu bestrafen." → "The goal is to punish people with different incomes equally hard." From the Wikipedia entry on "Tagessatz" that I pointed out to you earlier.

Outta here.

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

#304

Post by KorematsuFred »

LeftHandPath wrote: post #142
KorematsuFred wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is how the market works even today without Uber and Lyft too. Everyone is trying to figure out the max you are willing to pay for something. It is just that finding that out is expensive and sometimes exceeds the benefits of bigger margins. Some business like Costco on other than totally opt out of the whole guessing game and would rather offer few choices at fixed price. Willingness to pay more also tells you a…

> Willingness to pay more also tells you a lot about the person's need and if the person is willing to pay more it is a signal that the person needs to more. Servicing those needs first is often beneficial for the whole society. However, in this case, Uber and Lyft are not actually using willingness to pay. They are using ability to pay. To make the system more efficient, as you suggested, they would do best to imple…

> To make the system more efficient, as you suggested, they would do best to implement a bidding system so that customers could directly opt to pay more (directly indicating their level of need).

You are absolutely right here. A bidding system would do wonders IMO but they are likely to release their version of auto-bidding system that would use person's personal data to approximate the bid.

You might be mistaken that personal wealth would be a big factor. I think the target destination would be a bigger factor. For example drops to international terminals, Urgent Care, romantic dinner target locations would have a higher price rather than home, 7/11 or social security office.

If I was an engineer or product manager that is how would I design the algorithm to maximize the margins. But sooner I would move to user bid prices.

(Asking rich people to pay is not bad either, you can think of it as voluntary redistribution of wealth from rich to poor drivers).

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

#305

Post by ikeboy »

mpweiher wrote: post #303
ikeboy wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't answered the central question, which is why you want a punishment outside of the deterrence effect. And I've addressed the deterrence issue at length, just asserting that my model is wrong without explaining why won't cut it.

> And I've addressed the deterrence issue at length No you haven't. You've just asserted a random formula, without any supporting evidence. > just asserting that my model is wrong without explaining why won't cut it. “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” (Christopher Hitchens). You haven't provided any evidence for you "model" (=random formula), so there is no reason to dema…

>However, multiple people actually have provided that evidence and explained in great detail why your idea and formula is wrong.

This is false. The only comment that actually purported to respond said there's an issue with an error rate in applying the fine. This is a minor problem, nowhere close to justifying a massive differential across all income levels.

>So if you want to figure out why you are wrong, which you are, feel free to examine the legal systems of those countries.

Of course, the fact that a country does something does not imply it's economically sound, and your implication of such is absurd. You've yet to give any economic rationale for "punishment" as opposed to deterrence, yet continue to cite "punishment" as a justification.

I'm happy to concede that this does, in fact, "punish people with different incomes equally hard", but since punishment is a stupid goal, this is useless.

>You haven't provided any evidence for you "model"

I provided all assumptions required to derive it; you need to disprove some explicit or implicit assumption, or agree.

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

#306

Post by Max_Mustermann »

blhack wrote: post #146

Here’s how I wish Uber pricing worked: When I hail a ride, I say: I’m going from A to B and am willing to pay C (which Uber can recommend to me) for it. Now if nobody responds, I increase C until they do. This way the drivers know where they are going, how much I’m paying, etc. When a driver “accepts” a ride, I see their vehicle and rating, and get to choose from the people who have accepted. And on the other end, th…

That's how InDriver works, a fairly popular app in Latin America, originally created in Russia.

More info: https://www.businessinsider.co.za/indriver-lets-drivers-hagg...

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

#307

Post by bransonf »

cheriot wrote: post #240
bransonf wrote: post #28

This article’s a couple months old, so it misses what I think is going to be a lot more definitive against Uber/Lyft. That is, workers are starting to successfully unionize. Both companies have delayed it as long as possible, but it’s going to happen. And when it does, it will either burn more of their cash or up the customer cost.

Would a union be able to stop non-union drivers from signing up? It seems too easy for new workers to cross the picket line for a union to have much power here.

To clarify, in many cases it’s actually states declaring Uber/Lyft as employment. They’ve managed to stay legally bound to the terms of hiring ‘contractors’ but states like CA are putting an end to this.

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

#308

Post by brokenmachine »

ric2b wrote: post #302
nswest23 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how hard is it to build a ride sharing app? then why are there only 2?

There aren't, there are at least 7 (that I know of) in my city: Uber, Lyft, Cabify, FreeNow, Bolt, Taxify, MyTaxi.

Personally I've never heard of any of those except Uber and Lyft.

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

#309

Post by brokenmachine »

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…

Hypothetically could I open a restaurant where someone at the door made a judgement call on how much a customer could afford, and changed the prices for them on that basis?

That sounds like something discriminatory that should be illegal to me.

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

#310

Post by brokenmachine »

mirekrusin wrote: post #203
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…

Hey, we need a name for that "predictive discrimination"?

Asshole AI?
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