Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

It's what would be true for the situation outlined in the root comment of this subthread to pertain: that it was "an intentional product decision."

For that to be true, there would need to be an individual that made that decision, with the thought-process I outlined in my first comment. Such a thought-process wouldn't just be sociopathic (zero-sum), it'd be negative-sum/"evil". It would be a choice to hurt both drivers, and the corporation itself (when people inevitably find out), and oneself (when blame is inevitably pointed at them.) For what? Who knows. Evil. (Industrial sabotage, maybe.)

Obviously, like another commenter said, this wasn't an intentional product decision. (It was maybe an intentional project management decision, but one made in by no one individual.)

But that same commenter rhetorically asked why it mattered whether it was an intentional product decision or not. That's why I explained the difference. Acts of evil individuals that have parasitized good companies shouldn't reflect on those companies (once the evil individual is removed.) Acts of structural evil — acts that are generated from an algorithm the corporation is following as a whole, and would still follow if you replaced every employee ship-of-Theseus style — should reflect on the company itself.

This, of course, is an example of the latter kind of act, one that should reflect on the company itself.

But it's important to distinguish these acts from acts that are, in fact, committed by bad actors that have "infiltrated" the company. For the same reason that we distinguish "terrorism" from "domestic terrorism." The latter — domestic terrorism — can, in some ways, be "a reflection of the culture of the country." When there's a school shooting, we can ask what the country is doing wrong that leads to people like this cropping up. But the former — plain old terrorism — is not, and cannot, reflect on the country. The person who committed the act wasn't even an enculturated citizen of the country, so what would it tell us about the country?

No reason a taxi service couldn't offer the same experience, but you see a lot of scenarios where that's not an option.

Before Covid, I'd go to the head office in the suburbs of Chicago twice a year. The first few times, I took a taxi from the stand and watched powerlessly as the meter ticked up and up, not knowing when it would stop. With Lyft, I could at least see if it would be $25 or 65 before I agreed to summon the vehicle.

In other news, I wish Metra would go straight to and from O'hare.

How did this "attack" work, did the driver override the destination somehow?

It's not weird to take issue with mendaciousness and pass moral judgment on it. Most of the responses here take the form of an argument that says, essentially, that if something is possible and/or not illegal, then it's okay, which fundamentally recasts the context of the conversation to give that perspective a kind of leverage that it doesn't have in the original, moral context.

This is all moot regarding the specific case, of course, given the reply of the original commenter, who clarified that it was not intentional (and who agrees that it would be scummy if it were intentional). But I find it disturbing the number of people here who were willing to jump in and argue for the "nyah, nyah, I'm not touching you" take, as if that were a serious argument, i.e. in the event that it were taking place in the context they desire.

But on the topic of litigating the point both figuratively and literally, legislatures and courts, not to mention private businesses, do have the power to say, essentially, "We see what you're doing. Knock that shit off." E.g., a law that addresses unfair practices by laying out that something can be a cause for action not only if a person makes an untrue statement of material fact, but also if they fail to state "a material fact necessary to make other statements made not misleading". The responses here are pretty devoid of any kind of indicator of an awareness of this, and instead come off as My First Attempt to Exploit a Legal Loophole.

> No time travel required; "update" meant

Thanks for clearing this up.

> If riders change destinations in such a way enough, Uber can start lowering guarantees or

... or charging those riders a fee that happens to correspond with the delta between the original and the new destination, or firing the rider.