I'm glad people are looking into this, but this "study" is actually pretty poor. Mostly it's just recounting grumpy opinions of drivers. Fundamentally, the pot

I'm glad people are looking into this, but this "study" is actually pretty poor. Mostly it's just recounting grumpy opinions of drivers. Fundamentally, the potential issues relating to information asymmetries come from the fact that such asymmetries might result in a market failing to clear. Absolutely nowhere does it attempt to discuss this issue. It spends a fair bit of time discussing Uber's attempts to transmit information to drivers, thereby reducing said asymmetries (e.g., "demand is high in your area"). Absolutely nowhere does it attempt to quantify the harms caused by information asymmetries. Nowhere does it discuss the fact that Uber's primary role is that of a Walrasian auctioneer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walrasian_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walrasian_auction) in a market with sparse goods and where actually processing the relevant information is probably too complex for any agent to do. There is actually a fair bit of theoretical economic literature on this - the net result is generally that the best strategy for an auctioneer who taxes transaction value is to approach market clearing (i.e. what would happen with perfectly rational agents and perfect information). Overall, this article is just a thin academic veneer on top of what is basically just typical journalistic griping about Uber. What's the point?