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Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#51

Post by EGreg »

I am currently talking with Warren Mosler about implementing Unconditional Basic Income in local communities (Hi @sama! :)

Cartels is the main danger with unconditional basic income. If you make sure everyone can eat, you create a moral hazard, where the insured are not sensitive to price anymore. Having said that, we already have means-tested welfare and food stamps, and cartels of fruit stores don't spontaneously appear everywhere. However, they may appear in food deserts and other places where there aren't a lot of participants. Competition is the only factor I can think of to combat this. But in some areas with few participants, this collusion can ultimately happen.

And then of course there is this result: https://www.arxiv.org/abs/1201.3798v2

Does anyone here have constructive thoughts on how to overcome this problem? Price controls and collective bargaining via single payer is all I can think of besides competition.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#53

Post by mabbo »

toast0 wrote: post #18
bbarn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm mostly not a fan, now that we're a few years in. Waves of people inexperienced, untrained in shuttling people around a major metro have resulted in downtown Chicago being an utter mess compared to only a few years ago. Chicago forced cab drivers to go through a training and certification course that at least forced them to understand the major routes and grid system we're on, and every time I've been in an…

I used to think cabs were terrible drivers, but most of them (especially in heavily regulated markets) are very experienced drivers and simply disregard rules of the road that are inconvenient for them. In contrast, 'ride sharing' drivers seem to have no sense of direction, and are genuinely oblivious to the rules of the road. In short, when in either type of car, I fear for my life.

> simply disregard rules of the road that are inconvenient for them.

There is a bit of a natural selection process to it.

If you're a cab driver, and you keep getting into accidents, you won't be a cab driver for long. If you take no risks and are constantly late, you won't be a cab driver for long. If you have a poor sense of direction, or spacial awareness when driving, you probably won't be a driver for very long.

After decades of this process, most professional cab drivers are just reckless enough to get away with it.

These Uber drivers haven't spent decades going through that process. Everyone's a newbie. The difference this time is that the risk isn't being undertaken by the company, it's being undertaken by the drivers themselves.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#54

Post by [deleted] »

kennydude wrote: post #24
toast0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think cabs were terrible drivers, but most of them (especially in heavily regulated markets) are very experienced drivers and simply disregard rules of the road that are inconvenient for them. In contrast, 'ride sharing' drivers seem to have no sense of direction, and are genuinely oblivious to the rules of the road. In short, when in either type of car, I fear for my life.

In my personal experiences, local drivers (ones who grew up in the city) know where they're going on Uber. Sadly I can't request for a driver who won't take 3 wrong turns before they even get to me...

[deleted]

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#55

Post by [deleted] »

kennydude wrote: post #24
toast0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think cabs were terrible drivers, but most of them (especially in heavily regulated markets) are very experienced drivers and simply disregard rules of the road that are inconvenient for them. In contrast, 'ride sharing' drivers seem to have no sense of direction, and are genuinely oblivious to the rules of the road. In short, when in either type of car, I fear for my life.

In my personal experiences, local drivers (ones who grew up in the city) know where they're going on Uber. Sadly I can't request for a driver who won't take 3 wrong turns before they even get to me...

[deleted]

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#57

Post by monksy »

mring33621 wrote: post #15
bbarn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm mostly not a fan, now that we're a few years in. Waves of people inexperienced, untrained in shuttling people around a major metro have resulted in downtown Chicago being an utter mess compared to only a few years ago. Chicago forced cab drivers to go through a training and certification course that at least forced them to understand the major routes and grid system we're on, and every time I've been in an…

Fellow Chicagoan here. I agree. Used to be that cabs were the most annoying, unpredictable cars on the road. Now it's the Ubers and Lyfts.

I'm incredibly glad they forced them to display the logo. Now you can tell it was the bad uber driver that just tried to hit you.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#58

Post by frikk »

aianus wrote: post #9

The first guy to log back in (or the guy who doesn't log off at all) wins the game to the detriment of the others, limiting the extent of this practice. You can't have a successful oligopoly when there's no barrier to entry.

That's not entirely true. In our market, there aren't many Uber drivers and it's easy to game the system.

A few weeks ago I took a ride with someone who was trying very hard not to "join the uber mafia". He said that most of the time he also has to turn off his phone, otherwise he gets screwed over.

The reason is that when there are no more drivers, he'll get matched with people on the other side of town. He doesn't get paid for the drive out, and sometimes people still cancel after waiting 20 minutes for an uber to show up after ordering. Even with surge pricing it didn't make financial sense, so he'll turn off his phone too or switch to Lyft during these periods.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#59

Post by btreesOfSpring »

I remember dealing with the emergency IT issues that popped up with our NYC offices after hurricane Sandy wrought havoc upon much of lower Manhattan's power grid. We were lights out for at least three days. Had to take lots of taxis to move hardware to places with electricity. Even if we wanted to be creative, the subway was certainly not a transportation option and foot was wight prohibitive. The pickup rules for taxi's were suspended during this emergency period. Taxis could pickup fares mid-ride, turn down any rider going to a undesirable destination, & charge whatever they thought they could get. Lucky for me, despite all other storm-born chaos, I was in a sweet spot for where taxis were more than happy to drive. Even so, seeing the number of people who were turned down for their destinations or who in turn declined a ride because of the driver chosen price hike was fascinating; a sort of real-time, impromptu emergent market in infancy rapidly growing into maturity.

So not to say that these ride share services have moved to remove all these kinds of consumer protections that clearly were quickly dropped and exploited once they were removed due to the state of emergency but to a large extent, I feel like I had the chance to experience the larger forces of gamification that would happen if these protections were removed and circumstances were ripe for profit. Overall I am very happy with the changes ride sharing services have brought to supplement transportation options but there are certainly a lot more of these bumps and kinks to be worked out if these businesses hope to avoid a wave of government regulation.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#60

Post by asdffdsa321 »

losteverything wrote: post #16
PinguTS wrote: post #11

People game the system. Always. Have learned that for years when it comes to safety systems. Even uneducated people become very intelligent when it comes to gaming the system to their advantage. It is always a cat and rat game between technical adjustments and when people find a way to game the system again.

This. People learned the phone company would refund any Denied All Knowledge of a long distance call. Call up, get a credit. Then phone company said you cant DAK calls 2 months in a row: so customers called in every other month. Then, they eliminated operator handled calls for small bills. Call in, get an IVR, get a credit. Phone company caught on and limited credits to $7 per month, every other month. Customers star…

Just 3? I usually mash that 0 button
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