First, you're basing your argument on a mistaken premise that progressive taxation is okay. Second, it's relatively clear that you're going to be paying a certa

First, you're basing your argument on a mistaken premise that progressive taxation is okay. Second, it's relatively clear that you're going to be paying a certain rate in taxes, whereas your Uber prices can now have a huge, unforeseen jump in pricing because <insert personal reason here>. It's the difference between knowing you have to pay a higher rate because you're not a "Shopper's club member" vs. having an arbitrary fee added to your grocery at checkout because you're carrying a Louis Vuitton bag. And I'm not arguing this from a purely economics perspective. Yes, I know discriminatory pricing has its place in our society today and yes, I know it's profit maximizing, "fair," etc. But what's different here is that unlike airlines that have an algorithm deciding the same price for anyone buying that seat at that particular time, Uber can discriminate against you for very personal reasons, or general reasons that can discriminate against the racial makeup of a neighborhood, the disabled, etc. Hats off to your sense of duty to capitalism that'd make Milton Friedman proud, but the world doesn't work like an Econ 101 textbook. If Uber's profit maximizing algorithm is discriminatory against protected classes, it's illegal. If it's profit maximizing by overcharging people lulled into usage due to habit, dying phones, etc. it's still predatory. P.S. regarding your "think of the children" critique, I'm simply offering a direct counterexample to your "whatever price you pay and agree to == not getting ripped off." According to you, it does seem like you can be ripped off after all, even at a price you were willing to pay.