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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

#171

Post by esoterica »

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…

Drivers usually accept new rides while in the middle of driving though. Do you really want an army of distracted drivers on their phones participating in a complicated bidding process?

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

#172

Post by luckycharms810 »

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)

I think it might help to flip the argument on its head. If you are a low income person struggling to make ends meet - should you have to forego a meal or two ? Is it fair if a richer person does not have to do the same ? All things considered I’d bet you the higher wealth person still has the less impactful fine.

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

#173

Post by Spooky23 »

WalterBright wrote: post #152
tmerr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing the max someone was willing to pay could help an actor set their prices optimally where there is no competition. Where there is competition, setting price to the max someone is willing to pay could drop overall profits since a competitor would happily undercut. So it does not change the rules of the game. Companies already price by predicting what people are willing to pay, by theory and experimentation. I wo…

> Companies already price by predicting what people are willing to pay So does anyone else who is doing work. For example, have a contractor come by your home to give an estimate on roof repair. It'll be highly dependent on him sizing up you and what you can apparently afford.

That’s where the invisible hand comes in and having functional markets matters. The difficulty in sustainably operating is also a demonstration of why heavily regulated taxis existed.

When I had my roof replaced, estimates ranged from $12,000 to $75,000. We got 11 bids and paid $14k. That’s market forces at work, but also an example of a market without high capital costs.

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

#174

Post by ikeboy »

john-radio wrote: post #163
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?

> 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 e…

Yes, if you value doing something more than the negative value to society, you should be permitted to do it. This is the entire point of pigovian taxes.

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

#175

Post by lotsofpulp »

victor9000 wrote: post #91
trimbo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, do you own a nice house or car? If you do, you've already experienced this sizing-up. A contractor comes to the house and sees you can afford 2x what they'd normally charge. A mechanic for your Lexus charges N times as much as the same mechanic would for your Toyota, even though they're the same parts and manufacturer.

Which is why you should get wage quotes over the phone.

People smart enough to price discriminate won’t give quotes that easily.

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

#176

Post by leetcrew »

Baltasaur wrote: post #115
umvi wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's fair. Please explain why you believe it is not fair. 1. I'm climbing a tree when I ought not to and fall and break my legs. I'm a poor construction worker which means I am now out of work. 2. I'm climbing a tree when I ought not to and fall and break my legs. I'm a wealthy programmer and just keep on going to work since my hands and brain still work fine. Fair? Or should the tree break my hands and give m…

This is such a colossally bad take. Tickets have the distinct purpose of disincentivizing dangerous driving. They don't do that if it's a flat fare and the person breaking the speed limit is sufficiently wealthy. Thus, if you want speeding tickets to affect everyone equally, you make them proportional.

income is distributed exponentially. it's a very small slice of society that can get a $500 ticket and not care. I'm sure it makes the constituents happy to jack up the fines for rich people, but there are too few of them for it to meaningfully impact road safety.

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

#177

Post by ikeboy »

john-radio wrote: post #163
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?

> 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 e…

>I don't understand how you reached this conclusion.

Set X= negative value to society of an action we want to discourage, and Y= probability of getting caught.

If a fine is set at X/Y, then the expected cost of doing this action is X (fine times probability), and so it will be done if the value of doing it is above X and won't be done if the value is below X, which is efficient. Any value other than X/Y is inefficient.

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

#178

Post by brightball »

cortesoft wrote: post #150
brightball wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would likely lead to people working harder to find better prices. I moved into a nice house that was about to be foreclosed a couple of years back and after moving in, we had to get some of the same things done that we’d had at our previous home. The quotes were usually 2-3x higher for the exact same job.

This doesn't make any sense... what these algorithms are doing is trying to determine how price insensitive the person is... they are trying to find a price point where, for this individual, they aren't going to make the effort to find an alternative because it is not worth the extra savings. If this leads people to work harder to find a better price, their software isn't working right... it should be charging that p…

The effect that I’m assuming is that this will work until people realize it’s happening. At that point, the price sensitivity will increase as a matter of opposition to price gouging.

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

#179

Post by crazygringo »

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…

Everything about modern pricing theory -- from menu design to coupons to sales to promo codes advertised only to specific markets -- is about getting people who can pay more, to pay more, while still making a little bit of money on those can only afford the bare minimum.

A millenium ago when you bought everything haggling in the market, the rich guy was paying 3x as much as everyone else because the vendors knew they could make him. Meanwhile, the impoverished grandmother gets the unsold leftovers for free. (The specifics obviously are made-up, but you get the gist. It's still the same in much of the world today. Foreigners visiting China pay much, much much more than locals.)

This is the same human principle, just data-driven. It's kind of like progressive taxation, too: those who can afford to pay more, do.

Now you may object: Uber doesn't need the money. But it does need to be able to sustain itself long-term. So much like first-class airplane fares allow economy flights to be as cheap as they are, similarly Uber passengers with the ability to pay more are exactly what make it cheap enough for other passengers to afford at all.

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