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Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

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Re: Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

#161

Post by eropple »

bena wrote: post #151
mikeash wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not in any way committed. Imagine waking up to a taxi and offering $10 to go somewhere, and they tell you no thanks but they’ll do it for $15. These drivers are just negotiating the price. The platform tries to block negotiation but it does not quite succeed.

You think that's why taxis maybe have the regulations they do? You get in a taxi and you know the base rate and the metered rate. And taxis can't adjust the rate either. They don't get to argue and neither do you. The problem I have with this isn't that negotiation is happening, is that it's happening between the wrong parties.

There's no negotiation happening, though. You don't negotiate in a bid-ask market. "I want X for $Y." "I will give X for $Y." "Done."

(And it functionally is a bid-ask market, though I'll acknowledge that it's made a bit messier by Uber and Lyft fiddling in internal-and-undocumented ways with the prices and offers that they quote.)

Re: Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

#162

Post by zentiggr »

exabrial wrote: post #29

This is hilarious. Props to the drivers. Capitalism at it's finest: assumption of information imbalance. If uber and lyft do nothing, this behavior will autocorrect itself: expect a few drivers to rebel/revolt after the news of the behavior spreads. Keeping the secret will get harder and harder.

But it doesn't have to be secret, ad defectors only hurt themselves by accepting lower pay for the same fare. That seems like a strong incentive to play along.

Re: Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

#163

Post by momokoko »

dmbaggett wrote: post #116

I've definitely experienced this at DCA, and it's worth nothing as well that it sometimes take hours to get out of the airport due to the insane traffic jams right around the terminals and in the parking garages. DCA has gone from my favorite airport to literally my least favorite over the last year or so. I've been using Dulles instead even though it's way less convenient.

DCA is also one of the easiest airports in the US to access the metro(public transit) out of the terminal. Is there a reason you just don't hop on the yellow line and get off at a less congested stop closer to your final destination?

Re: Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

#164

Post by learc83 »

mikeryan wrote: post #145
radcon wrote: post #59

This seems like it could also torpedo their Contractor vs. Employee argument. Contractors get to set rates, employees don't. So you can't say they're contractors AND accuse them of committing fraud when they try to set their own rates. Now if only someone would develop an app that does this for entire cities. The app could be their version of a union.

Contractors get to set rates, employees don't. So you can't say they're contractors AND accuse them of committing fraud when they try to set their own rates. This isn't how it works? Rates of pay are mutually agreed upon between an employer and employee regardless of classification.

They're not just talking about how much of the fee that drivers get to keep, but the rate they charge riders.

>Uber sees itself as an “agent” acting to connect the actual “merchant,” the driver, and the customer. [1]

Under the theory Uber is operating on, it's weird that drivers can't directly set rates with riders.

1. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-an-early-adopter-of-n...

Re: Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

#165

Post by NotPaidToPost »

eropple wrote: post #123
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems the very definition of fraud, though. Edit: Fraudulent: "intended to deceive someone in order to get money or property". The collusion is intended to deceive Lyft (and in the end customers) for financial gains.

By leveraging the supply controls, which are explicitly theirs to use to communicate willingness to take on work , in a two-sided market where you're not allowed to directly set prices? Please substantiate how that is fraudulent. If Lyft and Uber allowed direct pricing, this wouldn't happen. Drivers would set the price they're willing to work for. Instead, drivers--who, once more for emphasis, are supposed to use pri…

The article clearly mentions that this is an artificial and concerted effort to increase prices.

To me this does not seem different from taking a longer route to increase the fare.

What you describe would probably be fine if that wasn't concerted. But here they all collude to artificially trigger surge pricing.

Re: Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

#166

Post by jakelazaroff »

chrismeller wrote: post #150
wlesieutre wrote: post #12

News flash: if you go out of your way to classify your entire workforce as contractors, you don't get to decide when they work or not. It turns out this has consequences on both sides. If Lyft wants to decide when their drivers are working, there's a process for this: 1) Hire employees 2) Give them a schedule 3) Pay them hourly plus mileage

I find it hard to agree. Hear me out... They are contractors because they do not have any set obligation for time. Rate of pay or overall pay has nothing at all to do with that. According to the IRS they do not have a set schedule and they are contractors (that is 1099, not W2). So they are contractors. What does that have to do with pay? Absolutely nothing. You want x and are willing to pay y. Maybe there’s an oppor…

> In this case Uber offered you $x. You agreed to $x.

When did they agree on $X? There's no contract between the drivers and Uber stating they they will work for a given amount.

The app sets rates based on supply and demand. Uber offers them $X. The drivers decide they don't want to work for less than $Y. If demand is sufficient, Uber eventually offers them $Y.

Surge pricing is basically a negotiation between company and driver. Just because the drivers have found a case in which they have extra leverage doesn't make it wrong or fraudulent.

Re: Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

#167

Post by eropple »

mikeash wrote: post #160
bena wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that's why taxis maybe have the regulations they do? You get in a taxi and you know the base rate and the metered rate. And taxis can't adjust the rate either. They don't get to argue and neither do you. The problem I have with this isn't that negotiation is happening, is that it's happening between the wrong parties.

Taxi prices are regulated because negotiation was too difficult in the pre-smartphone era and taxi drivers would take advantage of information asymmetry to screw people. None of that applies here. The negotiation is happening between the drivers and passengers, which is how it should be. Uber and Lyft are acting as intermediaries, and are trying and failing to stop this negotiation.

Can you explain where you see a "negotiation" in this? (Don't get me wrong, I like the cut of your jib, it just seems to map better to a dysfunctional spread-based market.)

Re: Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

#168

Post by icebraining »

bena wrote: post #151
mikeash wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not in any way committed. Imagine waking up to a taxi and offering $10 to go somewhere, and they tell you no thanks but they’ll do it for $15. These drivers are just negotiating the price. The platform tries to block negotiation but it does not quite succeed.

You think that's why taxis maybe have the regulations they do? You get in a taxi and you know the base rate and the metered rate. And taxis can't adjust the rate either. They don't get to argue and neither do you. The problem I have with this isn't that negotiation is happening, is that it's happening between the wrong parties.

Yeah, but as Uber and Lyft will tell you, they are not taxis.

Re: Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

#169

Post by dnautics »

thebradbain wrote: post #147
codedokode wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they are allowed to set prices. Furthermore, they are probably somehow punished if they don't accept the orders that app offers.

Uber and Lyft don’t let their drivers set rates, but the argument (and law) is that they should — since Uber won a judgement saying their drivers were contractors, not employees, their drivers, then, are legally entitled the right to charging their own rate. For a lot of intents and purposes Uber/Lyft wanted drivers to be classified as contractors so they wouldn’t be subject to laws re: minimum wage for employees, bu…

Have you ever done contract coding? You don't always get to set the rates, because the rate for the contract is posted, and the other side is not going to negotiate.

Re: Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at DCA causing artificial price surges

#170

Post by ryandrake »

radcon wrote: post #59

This seems like it could also torpedo their Contractor vs. Employee argument. Contractors get to set rates, employees don't. So you can't say they're contractors AND accuse them of committing fraud when they try to set their own rates. Now if only someone would develop an app that does this for entire cities. The app could be their version of a union.

This is basically the contractor setting his rate... through an interface that the app designers did not specifically design for.

If a driver wants to work for $20, and the offered rate is currently $10, what’s the difference between them a) typing $20 into a text field and hitting a “request” button vs. b) turning a switch off and waiting for the app to increment the rate little by little up to $20?

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