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Uber will start deactivating riders with low ratings

• CydeWeys 7y ago
  My Uber passenger rating is 4.57. I have no idea whether that's good or bad. I'm typically at pick-up points before the drivers are, I sometimes chat with drivers, I always wear my seatbelt, I sit in the back, and I don't make a mess or cause any problems. It's hard to know what I could be doing to get a better rating beyond just bribing drivers with cash tips at the end of the ride. I tend to rate every driver a 5 unless they clearly did something wrong, like insane driving (which happens rarely). I'd be curious to know what the passenger cut-off ratings are, and what thus what kind of behavior is actually kicking people off the app. Also, if there's some inherent racial or other protected class bias in the kinds of ratings that people get, then Uber could be in a world of trouble here.
  • unicornfinder 7y ago
    In my experience what's considered a good or bad rating seems to depend on where in the world you are. I've noticed that people seem to average lower ratings in Poland for example than the UK.
  • sct202 7y ago
    It seems kind of low. The worst of my friends have 4.7s and most are in the 4.8-4.9 range.
    • hliyan 7y ago
      This is strange. I'm always on time, on location and drivers usually appreciate the fact that I'm always exactly where I say I'll be when they arrive. The trips are completely uneventful. The only thing they could possibly not like about me is that I'm a boring passenger. My rating is 4.67. So I just assume that's a good rating!
    • manojlds 7y ago
      This went to Blackmirror level very fast.
      • thedarkginger 7y ago
        the good news is you will get invited to a wedding as a 4.6 to show that the 4.9 doesn't look down on you for extra credit
    • CydeWeys 7y ago
      I wonder if it's a city thing? I'm in NYC. I'd be curious to know the average rating here vs the average rating in California.
      • electricslpnsld 7y ago
        Definitely regional. When I was in NYC I always got lower ratings when going from Manhattan to Queens, even while tipping well with cash. Bay Area? Went up to an almost perfect score (even going from San Francisco to Oakland frequently), people acted surprised when I tipped cash, etc.
        • CydeWeys 7y ago
          I'm probably getting punished for dragging drivers out of Manhattan then -- which I do all the time when going to airports. Oh well. If it's proportional to the area then I'm probably still doing OK.
    • michaelchisari 7y ago
      I have a 4.7 and I'm always prompt, polite, always tip, and always give a 5 star rating (unless they literally put my life in danger). I take short trips, that's the only reason I can think of for a low rating.
  • manuelizo 7y ago
    It's hard to know why they rated you in that way for getting 4.57 Maybe phoned someone and talked too loud, or they missclicked.. Who knows, but try to get an answer for that "low rating", maybe you could know who gave you that rating and try to fix it.
  • lemcoe9 7y ago
    Third paragraph: > For drivers, they face a risk of deactivation if they fall below 4.6
    • bobthepanda 7y ago
      They’re using a different, undisclosed bar for passengers though.
  • matt-attack 7y ago
    One thing I know riders may do inadvertently which aggravates drivers is slamming the door when you get out. Many are unaware of it, but it's quite annoying to the driver. For me, I often rate drivers below 5 for the following common reasons: 1. Check engine light is on. 2. TPMS sensor light is on (major safety risk) 3. Poor routing choices (deviations outside the directed route) These are professional drivers so I hold them to professional standards with respect to: maintaining their equipment, maintaining a safety standard, and knowing navigation. Edit: Yes TPMS is super flaky. I own three cars equipped with TPMS and I've invested a great deal of time/money in maintaining them. But I keep them all in working condition. I can only assume that some of you poo-poo'ing TPMS are unaware of the Firestone Ford Debacle that caused close to 300 deaths [1]. Under inflated tires are no-joke. Suggesting that it's ok to defeat a critical safety system is laughable. Also I live in CA so it's not a snow-tire issue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_and_Ford_tire_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_and_Ford_tire_contro...
    • dhimes 7y ago
      If TPMS is tire pressure, then you are being unfair. There are cars like Toyota and Audi that have sensors that don't work well and even frequent service can't keep them off (to the point where some will not-quite-suggest disabling them). So if you are going to downgrade for that, at least have a look at the tires directly and see if one is obviously lower than the others.
      • sfasfsafd 7y ago
        If the driver has snow tires, they're a safer driver than one with all-weather and a blank dash.
        • mywittyname 7y ago
          You can get TPMS on a second set of wheels. I have them on my snow tires and they were like $80.
          • 7y ago
  • mont 7y ago
    Mine is 4.77, though I don't use uber that much. I'm also pretty sure they display a recent average, with old (>1 year?) rides not counting. I also feel compelled to give drivers 5 stars because people IMO tend to look down at anything less than the best. I realize it's not the most accurate comparison, but would you buy from an ebay/amazon reseller who had a 80% approval rating?
  • argd678 7y ago
    There’s no way to know what the reasons are for the reviews either way. Sometimes the app messes up the location it sends drivers to, is the driver faulting me and giving me a lower rating? Does the driver not like the conversation? I think for an effective feedback loop you need to provide a reason. As others have mentioned, I too only give drivers 5 stars.
  • ahmedalsudani 7y ago
    It’s very subjective. The driver could be thinking you’re rude or not social enough even though that’s not your intention. I’ve noticed that my friends who are not great at marketing themselves usually have a lower rating.
    • mprev 7y ago
      Here’s the thing: if someone doesn’t want to chat should that affect their access to a paid service? With Uber you’re paying for a professional driver (they’re being paid, so they’re a pro by definition) to take you from A to B. There shouldn’t be any obligation to engage in anything but pleasantries.
      • Scoundreller 7y ago
        I don’t think social/asocial will factor enough to get anyone booted from the platform.
    • CydeWeys 7y ago
      I think I'm social enough, but who knows. I always respond with conversation when they're interested. But this is their job, and I'm paying for the service with my money. It's not the passenger's responsibility or obligation to socialize with the driver. The passenger's responsibility is to be there on time, not mess up the car, and pay.
  • starshadowx2 7y ago
    I took an Uber a few weeks ago (I don't often) and right when I got in the driver asked me I was new to Uber and if this was my second/third trip. I said no, I had taken it a good amount of times, just not often. He seemed surprised and said I had a 5 star rating, which he thought was rare for riders. At that point I didn't know I could see my own rating in the app but I looked and I do have a 5 star rating. This was only what one driver said in one city but I guess it could be rarer?
    • cannonedhamster 7y ago
      I've got a 5 star rating as well. I pretty much only take it from to and from the airport, I'm always on time at the spot I'm supposed to be and always tip. I just thought this was normal.
  • marquis-chacha 7y ago
    I've heard that Uber drivers will sometimes give low ratings to people who take short trips. A ride-share form has someone who seems to have high-ish reputation backing that up [1]. [1]: https://ride.guru/lounge/p/do-uber-drivers-give-negative-ratings-for-short-trips-i-know-they-dont-like-them https://ride.guru/lounge/p/do-uber-drivers-give-negative-rat...
    • CydeWeys 7y ago
      I might be suffering from the opposite problem then. I live in NYC and walk/bike most places; I only rarely even take the subway. When I'm taking rideshare it's almost always to/from airports (here and elsewhere). I definitely don't use it for short trips. And given how often taxi drivers don't want to take you to airports, I can imagine Uber drivers might not like that either? It can certainly take them far out of their way.
      • jandrese 7y ago
        That's a NYC problem, because the airports are so inconveniently placed.
    • Rebelgecko 7y ago
      This happened to me. I had a 5 star rating until I started using Uber for work travel to/from a busy airport that I live close to. A driver could easily spend 20+ minutes getting to me before they could spend the 15 minutes driving me to my destination for $10. This tanked my rating down to around 4 stars for a while. I was relatively new to Uber so it was easy to check my rating after a ride and do the math to see when I was getting a 1 star review averaged into my rating. I started tipping the drivers cash which helped, but then I realized it was easier to just use a taxi at the airport. It would only cost a few dollars more, and I wouldn't have to wait for the driver to get through 20 minutes of airport traffic to pick me up. I also didn't have to worry about my rating if I pissed off the driver (especially for short airport fares the drivers seem to like telling me that their credit card machine was broken. Argue with them a bit and the machine magically starts working).
  • Shorel 7y ago
    I try to see what rating I get before I leave the vehicle. Anytime I get a low rating, I reciprocate with the same, or lower.
    • cbm-vic-20 7y ago
      If I were creating the rules to analyze this data, I'd have to question the entries that were the difference between the driver and passenger is high.
    • CydeWeys 7y ago
      How can you see what rating you get before leaving a reciprocal rating? I don't see any sort of way to see individual ratings on a per-trip basis.
      • Scoundreller 7y ago
        With 3 digits of precision, not a massive amount of rides, each rating will make it go up or down. Won’t work too well if you frequently take a lot of rides.
      • not_a_moth 7y ago
        Sneaky but you can casually linger in the car for an extra second; most drivers rate you right as you're getting out, with a phone that's usually mounted within eyeshot of passenger seats. The ones who will give you 5 stars usually do it right away in front of you; if they seem weirdly secretive about it, you're probably not getting 5 stars.
  • mgoblu3 7y ago
    I had a roughly 5.0 rating over a hundred or so rides in the Midwest US, but mine dropped to around 4 after taking 30-40 Ubers in India. It was a different experience there, and I always wondered if rating scales are different culturally (and we did have some GPS/language barrier difficulty, as well as some drivers who refused to be paid with Uber and made us give them cash that I’m sure affected it), but the ratings still stay with you global.
    • CydeWeys 7y ago
      That could be part of it. I do a fair bit of international travel, and some of it could either be cultural ratings differences or just frustration over communication difficulties.
    • SimpleMinds 7y ago
      We have the same experience, our rating while in Asia was around solid 4.6 while after 3 months in Europe went up to 4.85. Our guess is that in EU, people tend to either give 5 stars or no rating, while in Asia if we had a bit worse ride, we and people around us had no hesistation of leaving 3 or 4 star review.
      • dragonwriter 7y ago
        Race/ethnic/cultural tendencies on 5-star an numeric eating scales have been studied quite a bit, and, yes, Europeans tend to give higher ratings for acceptable service (tending to give maximum ratings for “meets expectations”) while Asians tend to give lower ratings (tending toward middle-of-scale ratings for “meets expectations”).
        • cc439 7y ago
          I wonder how much that tendency is the result of Europeans having more exposure to "management by the numbers" kind of rating/review systems. Nearly everyone has held or known someone close to them with a job where a mostly meaningless customer review/rating/survey grade had an enormously disproportionate impact on their perceived job performance. The only times I'll ever rate something that isn't exceptionally good or exceptionally bad is when it is obviously tied to that person's performance metrics and they met expectations.
  • jakear 7y ago
    I can vouch for there being a protected class bias. In my experience (Boston), using Uber while on crutches will cause your rating to fall. Even if you take full-service Uber’s (not Pool), and generally have someone to help you in and out and managing your crutches, drivers simply tend to rate you lower. Possibly because they have to wait longer, or because I need to lean on the car getting in and out, or because they need to keep the crutches in their car somehow.
    • CydeWeys 7y ago
      I was on crutches with a broken ankle a few years ago and definitely took more Ubers during that period (including shorter rides). This could definitely be part of it.
    • miketuritzin 7y ago
      Can vouch for this, a few years ago I broke my ankle and was on crutches. During that time I got my only non-5-star Uber ratings.
  • hatchnyc 7y ago
    I don't think there's much you can do, or if there is it is none of these things. Mine was ~4.5 for forever. I was always on time, careful entering/exiting the vehicle, very polite, etc. and even regularly gave cash tips before the app offered the option. A few years ago I started dating a girl who had nearly a 5 star rating. She eventually moved in with me and since then nearly all my trips are together. We are often late arriving to the meeting point, she has no hesitation to ask the driver to change the air temperature, adjust the music station or volume, open or close windows, always takes water when available, and asks to be dropped off at a given point regardless of traffic lights or inconvenient turns for the driver. Since this started, my rating has steadily climbed and is now around 4.8.
    • Balgair 7y ago
      Based off your comment, I'll assume that you are a male. Based on this assumption, there is a possbility that gender is at play.
      • SkyBelow 7y ago
        There is also the possibility that asking people to do small things for you will increase their positive view of you. I remember reading about psychologist having uncovered such an effect but I forget the name of it. If I had to bet, I would say both factors (and others we aren't considered) are at play.
        • HackPotter 7y ago
          This is known as the Ben Franklin Effect [0] and is pretty interesting to read up on. It wouldn't at all surprise me if this plays into passenger ratings, even though it seems counter-intuitive. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect
        • jobigoud 7y ago
          OK, I think it's another effect than "increasing their positive view of you". It is something I have noted and struggled with because it is counter intuitive to me. I always try to be very autonomous and ask the minimum favors/services from people, trying not to bother them. This has caused me trouble several times, from people that were supposed to help me. When I was doing track and field two decades ago I had a sports sponsorship cancelled essentially because I didn't ask any extra gear. When you ask a favor and the person fulfills it, they get to be useful and it gives them purpose. I have found that this varies from people to people. The Uber driver will most likely feel good if you actually need his help as a human being rather than just be a mindless vehicle operator.
  • freewilly1040 7y ago
    Customers are expensive to acquire, and Uber is not going to throw them away for no good reason. Their incentive is to ban customers only when their behavior is so bad that they are at risk of losing drivers
    • hkai 7y ago
      They could start banning people they don't like for political reasons, same as payment processors. If people from the other side of the aisle are in power, they could ask Uber to ban illegal aliens. It's crazy that you won't be able to take public transportation like Uber because of your political beliefs or because of who you are.
      • fpgaminer 7y ago
        > They could start banning people they don't like for political reasons Start? Uber already blocked police from using their service in certain jurisdictions.
        • Jommi 7y ago
          Source?
          • mintplant 7y ago
            https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-... Not so much ideologically motivated, rather trying to evade the enforcement of local laws.
    • kerng 7y ago
      For Uber the drivers are also their customers. So, agree that protecting the drivers from hostile/bad riders is important also. Uber is just like a marketplace in many ways.
  • DuskStar 7y ago
    I'm sitting at 4.97 in LA - but I ride a lot. And my ratings scale for drivers is similar - 5 star for normal, compliments for things above that, <4 stars for "you did something obviously wrong, WTF" level service. As for racial / protected class bias in ratings - I'm not sure what Uber would hit that something like Tinder wouldn't, since all the ratings are from other "users".
    • DenisM 7y ago
      > since all the ratings are from other "users". Posting racially-discriminating for-rent ads gets both the landlord and the newspaper in trouble. "We're just a platform" doesn't work as an excuse. It's also not hard to detect statistically - with enough data you can see that a given driver is giving worse ratings to protected class members compared to similar drivers at the same time and place.
      • Scoundreller 7y ago
        That requires Uber to know the class of its riders. And the account holder won’t account for all riders (and could be different than the account holder entirely).
        • DenisM 7y ago
          Riders can self-select into a protected class, maybe? This will of course lead to a situation where some hooligans opt into a protected class just to mess with the system. Even still, on large number of rides it will even out.
          • DuskStar 7y ago
            But everyone is a member of a protected class. Some people might not be members of historically disadvantaged protected classes, but the relevant laws don't discriminate in that way. ('Men' is a protected class. 'Women' is a protected class. And 'Other' is a protected class, too.)
    • 7y ago
  • monksy 7y ago
    Mine used to be a 4.78. Not sure what caused it to be like that. I tend to either chat with the driver, or I'll stay silent. I'll never take the water or candy. I feel like I'm owed something to them if I do. My rating did go up after going to India. (Probably because of the numerous amounts of rides I took there)
  • emiliobumachar 7y ago
    I always sit in the front, it never occurred to me that this might be annoying for the driver. Is it? When I've driven people around, even people I've barely met (say friends-of-friends), I've always preferred that they sit in the front. I was never a pro driver though.
    • ghaff 7y ago
      I don't know if it's annoying for the driver but the only time I would even consider thinking of sitting in the front seat would be if I was in a group and we needed to use that seat to fit everyone. Driving around even casual acquaintances (e.g. friends-of-friends) is a totally different dynamic where it would seem a bit odd for them to sit in the back seat as if you were their chauffeur even if you sort of are.
      • cesarb 7y ago
        I prefer to sit on the front seat because it always has a working 3-point seatbelt. On the back, seatbelts are often the older 2-point seatbelts, tucked between the backrest and the seat so you can't reach it, or both.
    • unreal37 7y ago
      How's your rating? That's how you answer that question I guess... :)
      • emiliobumachar 7y ago
        Good thinking. It's 4.92, so I guess it doesn't hurt. I'm in Brazil, no idea what my city average is.
  • hombre_fatal 7y ago
    I have a 4.20 and it's bizarre. I've never made an Uber wait for me, I'm always outside. I greet them. I'm clean. My routes are always penciled in exactly. I don't see how I'm not the model passenger. Maybe it's just because I'm a gringo in Mexico? Maybe I should use a little more small talk charm? Or offer them gum? Improve my accent? Bring them a bottle of S.Pellegrino, nicely chilled? It's a stupid system. Edit: A sibling comment inspired me to ask my girlfriend for her rating. It's a 4.89. Yet she always stays inside until the Uber driver arrives to pick her up, often honking outside for her while she finally starts turning off lights and shutting the house down.
    • russh 7y ago
      May we assume your girlfriend is a more attractive individual to the average driver then you are?
      • stallmanite 7y ago
        So the rating system is basically hot-or-not. Kind of pointless
    • ilaksh 7y ago
      Based on what you and some other people are saying, it does seem bizarre, like maybe some kind of random favoritism is going on. I also am white and live in Mexico (Playas de Tijuana). My rating is 4.81. I have been going on the assumption that I am kind of ugly looking, although its hard for me to be objective about it. I do always give tips though. They usually have three choices, like 10, 15, or 20 pesos, and I always pick the highest option. Sometimes for a longer trip I will put like 38 pesos tip. Maybe there is some way for drivers to track tips and somehow that can affect a rating? I always say thanks for the ride when I get in and out. My Spanish is very limited and I rarely attempt to say anything in Spanish except for buena noche or something like that. In this area around 33-40% of the drivers speak English.
  • baby 7y ago
    4.5 is not bad. Stop panicking. Some people have 2.0
  • phil21 7y ago
    > It's hard to know what I could be doing to get a better rating beyond just bribing drivers with cash tips at the end of the ride. This is almost all that matters now. Any drivers forum will be full of drivers basically talking about how they give lower ratings if you don't tip cash. A few are even full-on blatant about it in person if you bring it up. After time I think we'll see things coalesce around only riders who pay cash tips get 5 star ratings.
    • m11a 7y ago
      The rider can also leave a bad rating for the driver in this case, though, right? Does Uber deactivate drivers that fall below a certain rating? Even if they don't, I presume lower ratings would hurt a driver more than they would a passenger. So if a driver is trying to pull this it wouldn't end out great for either party, I would presume?
  • not_a_moth 7y ago
    Ratings by drivers are very often based on irrelevant criteria like how likeable you seem, or whether they interpret your preference for silence as an insult. This is me as a rider: a) Always at pickup on time (or I message "be right there" if I'm a minute away) b) I enter and say "Hi, how's it going?" and acknowledge. c) I then put in my headphones for audible. I say nothing else the rest of the trip. d) I get out where it's most convenient for them, and I say "Thank you", and gently shut the door. Yep, apparently they don't care - my rating hangs out in low 4.7s. However, Uber Black always boosts my ratings, because the drivers are more mature and rate based on what actually matters.
• whiddershins 7y ago
  This is a repeating pattern we need to address on a meta-level to avoid an outcome that I think none of us think is optimal. - private company innovates a service that people use all the time - private company is so successful it displaces other, existing, methods of doing the same - private company becomes defacto monopoly in many cases - private company withdraws service from problem users - those users are left with no options In the case of Uber, it is kind of obvious, as there are areas where they have displaced (put out if business) numerous private cab and car service companies. Each step is a reasonable progression through our system. I don’t think anyone should be blamed for each step. But the final result is beyond Orwellian.
  • skybrian 7y ago
    Well, except that there is still competition. They could try again with Lyft, and cabs are still around.
    • jessriedel 7y ago
      Yea, there are more transport options than ever before.
  • agumonkey 7y ago
    [edit] warning: you might find this comment irrelevant, annoying or even false You forgot the juiciest parts: - private company plays on legal gray areas on purpose - private company invest aggressively to expand faster than law can react in order to grab said monopoly This is basically capital cancer, they had a real value but dismissed everything a company is to a society: - stable for employees - stable for users - stable for society Any company can play rough when let loose with massive funds, but when reality occurs, just like anybody else, they'll have to round their corners and .. surprise.. they stop being interested and competitive.
    • quotemstr 7y ago
      This is a bad comment. The OP had a valuable point that applies to companies inside and outside of this "gray area[]". You're just making a tired and repetitive dig at Uber itself. It may be that Uber's gig economy model has important downsides of its own, but the salient problem is of private control of what's become public infrastructure, and that has nothing to do with Uber being cancer or something.
• choward 7y ago
  > For drivers, they face a risk of deactivation if they fall below 4.6 This is absurd. Even though I feel like some drivers deserve 3 or 4 stars I always give 5 because I had no idea what Uber does with these ratings. This confirms that I was doing the right thing. Just because I give 3 or 4 stars doesn't mean that I wouldn't want to ride with them again. They just aren't the best of the best.
  • Retric 7y ago
    If people more regularly gave 3 or 4 star reviews Uber would lower their threshold. Replacing drivers is a real cost, which they try and minimize.
    • dllthomas 7y ago
      But in the short term your drivers will bear the brunt of it.
    • choward 7y ago
      The problem is that there will always be people that always give 5 stars, so drivers would be punished for picking up people that leave other ratings. Sure it might bring the average down to 4.2 for example. Maybe they should adjust the rating based on the average rating left by the rider.
  • matt-attack 7y ago
    I feel it's not my business to understand Uber's intent with the ratings. They ask me for my honest rating, on a scale that goes from 1-5. Why should we assume that 1-4 are essentially saying "fire this person", and only one value means keep them. I find it particularly absurd. I routinely rate 2, 3, 4, etc. based on my own gauge. What Uber wants to do with that data is their prerogative.
    • seem_2211 7y ago
      Well congratulations for sticking it to the low paid drivers in the name of defending your ego. I agree that the rating system is stupid, but also that there's a position of power that comes with being a rider. Assuming you had a safe, pleasant journey, it should be a 5 star journey. If the driver was objectively rude, the car dirty, or you felt unsafe, then obviously that's a good case to rate someone lower.
• CharlesDodgson 7y ago
  I wonder when a secondary market will open for highly rated Uber accounts. I can see a future where you have to buy a 4.8 account so that you can get a taxi at peak times.
  • hychoi99 7y ago
    That will be easily detectable by Uber
    • CharlesDodgson 7y ago
      Never underestimate the power of a market to make something come about.
    • Verdex 7y ago
      Maybe or maybe not. If it is then it will just kick off an arms race. Although, if Uber really knows what they're doing, then they'll allow the buying and selling of accounts and then take a percentage of the sale.
  • mLuby 7y ago
    So I call in and ask to have a high-rated account summon an Uber to my location. Of course it would make sense to centralize this. Congratulations, we've reinvented taxi dispatch.
  • Verdex 7y ago
    This is fantastic. If the markups are high enough, I can imagine people who have the job of just taking uber rides all day to grind up ratings for good passenger uber accounts. Reminiscent of faction grinding in MMOs. Life imitates art.
    • antisthenes 7y ago
      Well, we already gamified exercise and productivity, why not gamify social status and access to services!
• hychoi99 7y ago
  If there is a warning system in place, maybe let you know why you might be getting low ratings, I don't see a problem with this. If you're abusing a service and not following their general guidelines, they have every right to remove you.
  • corbet 7y ago
    How confident are we that, for example, you don't get rated lower in a given city of you're a member of the wrong ethnic group? Has anybody ever looked at these ratings (for drivers too, I guess) with an eye toward determining which biases exist?
    • hychoi99 7y ago
      Regardless, Uber should be able to detect those biases and hopefully correct for them. It wouldn't look too good if a discriminated group start getting kicked off
• sct202 7y ago
  I hope that they don't start sharing user scores to other unrelated apps like a credit score or ChexSystem risk score but for apps.
• esotericn 7y ago
  I personally find the idea that a driver has a 'star rating' kind of absurd. It feels like the most pernickety thing. If my taxi goes to where I want to go, doesn't take a silly detour for money, and doesn't physically assault me, I'm good. Outside of that, who cares, really? Where and who are these princesses that really care if their cab driver is a 4.2 or 4.6? I tend to rate basically everyone in service interactions 5 stars because the fact they even turn up to their minimum wage job is a colossal privilege for me to enjoy. Like, would you rate your bus driver if you could? Your checkout operator? Why? What possible benefit do you derive from that to outweigh the embarassment (to _both_ parties)?
  • brk 7y ago
    You don't get to pick your driver, so the driver ratings really don't matter to any particular user for a given ride. IMO the driver ratings make sense, and give the driver incentive to not take purposefully long routes, to not ignore your requests to adjust the A/C, to not talk on their phone, etc. I have been in countless cab riders where it is clear the driver does not care at all what you think about the ride or the overall experience, and they know you can't really do anything about it (other than maybe not tip them).
  • seem_2211 7y ago
    I agree with your point "I tend to rate basically everyone in service interactions 5 stars because the fact they even turn up to their minimum wage job is a colossal privilege for me to enjoy." But one thing I like about rating things is that it gives you a way to flag things that go badly. That's what sucked so much about taxis - you'd be ripped off, forced to pay cash, order a car only to wait (and then it not arrive), or wait out for 30 minutes to flag one down. Drivers would be rude, they'd talk on their phones, they'd drive dangerously. And you'd have to grin and bear it (I've experienced all of the above).
    • esotericn 7y ago
      Sure. The correct way to deal with this is to have a 'report issue' button. A drive is either acceptable or it's not. The whole gradient thing of rating a driver that didn't smile much 4 out of 5 is just absurd.
• ProAm 7y ago
  I dont use Uber, when they say fall below a 4.6, is that on a scale of 1 - 10? If Uber were smart they'd just charge these problem customers more money. it'd help them financially and kill two birds with one stone. I wish Uber would get rid of their executives/employees that also dont meet this "Safety and Respect" policy they are imposing on users. The company has such a reputation of being a deplorable company this is a really two-faced policy. Do as I say, not as we do.
  • arthurcolle 7y ago
    It's a 1-5 scale
• benj111 7y ago
  Hmm, so say you get rid of the worst 10% of riders, because they're "significantly below average". But that then pushes up the average, so you get rid of another 10%. Repeat until everyone is top marks? And its based on city, so if you get banned in your own city, could you get a ride in your own city? What about the opposite? What happens when you go on holiday to X, but aren't aware of cultural norm Y. Are you then barred when you get home?
• jyap 7y ago
  The Black Mirror episode “Nosedive” comes to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror) “The episode is set in a world where people can rate each other from one to five stars for every interaction they have, which can impact their socioeconomic status” Anecdotally it looks like I have a 4.75 rider rating which I was hit by a low rating one time because the driver cancelled the ride probably because it wasn’t very far or some other reason. Extending this to real world penalties changes behavior. Ever do a customer interaction where the seller (say a car dealer or a mortgage broker) tells you a survey will be coming and to please rate then 5 stars?
• DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
  I generally give 5 stars because giving a low rating (a) could cost me, by leading the driver to retaliate with a low rating for me, and (b) has negligible benefit to me. Note that I only use Uber when traveling on business to large cities. So my policy described above always impacts me, but has never impacted any particular Uber driver more than once.
  • anchpop 7y ago
    > I generally give 5 stars because giving a low rating (a) could cost me, by leading the driver to retaliate with a low rating for me, and (b) has negligible benefit to me. Someone said elsewhere in this thread that the driver only sees your rating after they've rated you. Although I'm not sure if it's possible for them to go back and change their rating of you if they see you've rated them poorly.
    • ddenisen 7y ago
      I thought I've read somewhere that drivers don't actually see individual riders' ratings of them, only the average over all riders.
      • bena 7y ago
        The problem is that the rating is a bargaining chip and there is no way around that issue. The rating is currency and is being treated as such. In all honesty, there should be a "Flag bad ride" and nothing else. No positive ratings. If it was a good ride, you just do nothing. Your rating should be a rolling average of the number of flags you've gotten compared to the population with the more recent flags being weighted more. That way if you're not flagged as often as most people, it won't matter. Your rating will take a temporary dip. If you're flagged more often than average, it means something. And flagging a bad ride should be a fairly involved process to prevent people from just using it on a whim. In order to flag a ride, you should have to expend some effort for it.
• perfunctory 7y ago
  A privately run social credit system?
  • satokema_work 7y ago
    it can't be bad, because it's not the government doing it!
• harryf 7y ago
  The logical conclusion of this is eventually you end up with something like China's social credit system ( https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-p... ). If it has to happen, not sure which I like least - a system controlled by private companies or a system controlled by government.
• z0r 7y ago
  I was banned from Uber for getting a refund on a ride that never came to pick me up. 13 lifetime rides from 2015 until 2017. Their recruiters still reach out to me on a regular basis.
• mc32 7y ago
  This should be problematic. Uber should not be in the position of choosing who is served by its business. The whole “ratings” aspect is preposterous. There’s no independent way to appeal a rating and get redress. It’s just as bad as 360 reviews—at least 360 reviews are a blunt tool to unload underperformers. I think these app ratings systems are worse and should not be enough to ban a passenger.
  • brk 7y ago
    I disagree, the ratings are averages, so outliers should be naturally smoothed out. You should not need to appeal any 1 (or 2) bad ratings, if the rest of your ratings keep your average up. However, if you are consistently being rated such that your average is in the 3's, maybe you need to think about how you conduct yourself along the way.
    • mc32 7y ago
      First, out of principle I have an issue with a middling rating of “3” being “bad”. One should be “bad”, two needs improvement, etc. That said, imagine if Walmart or Wholefoods banned customers because they had middling ratings. If they shoplift, vandalize, (is in Uber’s case vomitus, vandalizing, assault, etc.) They should follow with criminal complaints, etc. My problem is with unilateral banning —not the banning in principle as there are some good cases for it, but they are rare.
      • l4yao 7y ago
        The threshold for banning needs to be scrutinized for essential services. There's potential to really hurt people's quality of life, particularly people that are already disadvantaged. An arbitrary star rating scale with no clear definitions is definitely not appropriate. Public transit doesn't ban you if you're loud or smelly. Private rideshare may. As rideshare takes over ridership from transit, mobility is removed from loud and smelly people.
        • mywittyname 7y ago
• garyclarke27 7y ago
  I instinctively find this utterly repulsive, evil, no different to China’s social credit scoring. How can an average of 4.6 be meaningful for determining fitness to ride - that’s a rediculous number. A mechanism for preventing truly abusive or violent riders should be based on specific reporting and video evidence, not a dumb aggregate score. I am generally against regulation if possible, but this insane policy requires urgent remedy by regulators, Uber is becoming an important part of our travel infrastructure, so requires regulation just like rail, air etc.
• DanBC 7y ago
  And in three years we'll get leaked data showing there's a racial disparity in ratings, and there'll be some lawsuit about the racist algorithm.
  • Verdex 7y ago
    The thing is though that the ratings are given by humans. No algorithms here. Which means there are almost definitely going to be racial disparity. Even if we assume the ultimate ideal of nobody who uses uber is a racist, cognitive biases are a real thing and you're not going to be able to stamp them out in the large.
    • TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Algorithms do not create racism out of thin air, all the racial preferences are in the data. This didn't stop a bunch of projects from becoming crucified in the media recently.
      • noelsusman 7y ago
        Algorithms don't run themselves. Humans chose to make them and chose to ignore bias in their data.
  • anchpop 7y ago
    I read an MIT study which said Uber pays women less than men, and they pay according to an algorithm that does not use sex as a factor. Would you have anticipated a lawsuit there?
• Paul-ish 7y ago
  Will this cause riders kicked off to shift to Uber's competitors, say Lyft, thus poisoning those services for drivers?
• Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Wouldn't it make more sense to have some sort of "Flag rider for community guidelines violation" button, as opposed to using star ratings for this? Stars are subjective. Many people seem to think that "five stars" means a normal ride with nothing to complain about. Personally, I think a normal ride should be three stars—five stars should mean you went above and beyond in some way. And I'm not even sure what that would be in the context of a customer.
• enitihas 7y ago
  The problem with Uber ratings is that most people use them as binary. A small number of 1 starts will quickly bring your rating below average. I used to take short rides to and from work daily for some time and it seems my rating took a large hit. I frequently saw a lot of drivers giving me 1 stars. I know a lot of people (riders), who frequently give 1 stars. I think it would be better if Uber replaces the 5 start system with 3 or 2 stars.
• ogn3rd 7y ago
  Jokes on them, they were deactivated off my phone years ago.
• bravura 7y ago
  I'm a polite person, but I sometimes wear drag or makeup or gender non-conforming outfits. I also use Uber frequently in areas that are less tolerant than the Bay Area. The last time me and my friends played a game of "share your Uber rating" on Facebook, my Uber rating was lower than nearly all my friends. Coincidence?
• jakear 7y ago
  I foresee a class action suit in the near future. Handicapped people take longer to get in and out of the car. Uber’s rate them lower for it (this has been my personal experience, Boston). With this, handicapped people are denied services because of their handicap. Cut and dry violation of ADA (or whatever it is that determines protected classes).
  • jdminhbg 7y ago
    I just don't think the cliff Uber will use for cutting off riders is going to be "got 3* a few times for taking too long to get in and out of a car." Drivers aren't quitting Uber because of those riders. They're going to be cutting off people routinely rated 1* for being dangerously intoxicated, ranting about minorities, making passes at drivers, etc.
    • jopsen 7y ago
      Or riders asking for a U-turn on the highway. If you also your Uber driver they all have amazing stories of unreasonable riders.
    • jakear 7y ago
      The problem is that usually when a place decides to refuse service to a person, there is a single person making that decision who can be held accountable for it in the event an issue comes up with protected classes. What people “think the cliff will be” is irrelevant, the problem is lack of accountability. There is no way to show that they aren’t violating protected statuses, and there is no accountability if they are.
    • seieste 7y ago
      The cutoff is 4.6, which could be achieved by just 1 bad rating out of 10. (E.g. one 1 star and 9 5 star reviews)
  • the_watcher 7y ago
    It all depends on how low they set the rating lower bound.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• freewilly1040 7y ago
  The overheated reactions in this thread are so bizarre. The only surprising thing is the implication that only now is it possible to get yourself banned from Uber for bad behavior as a passenger.
  • Bartweiss 7y ago
    This headline confused me, because I thought this was already how Uber worked! I knew drivers had a firing threshold and passengers had ratings; given that drivers can't freely reject pickups, I don't understand what the point of rating passengers was prior to this. Of course, it was definitely possible to get yourself banned for bad behavior before this, I've known people who were banned. It looks like the change here is allowing algorithmic bans based only on score. I can see why people object to that, although again I had always assumed it was the point of the scores.
• harshalizee 7y ago
  If any Product Manager at Uber is remotely decent at their job, they'd pull out the rating system for both drivers and riders ASAP. The system makes no sense when everyone on both sides are forced to give a 5 star rating whether you were treated like royalty or just been dropped off at your stop like a countless other identical rides because the floor is at 4.6. Have an issue with a driver/rider? Create a system where both can file a complaint with proper reasoning to be provided, or else we can go about our day like literally every other commercial transaction you have.
  • esoterica 7y ago
    Why does that make no sense? Why is the idea of giving 5 stars for an average ride so offensive to you?
    • bena 7y ago
      Because it's at the extreme end of the rating system. That turns the system into "average or better" and various states of bad. That's a stupid system. It means 4 ratings are completely useless to everyone. They don't really mean anything. The entire system needs to be junked. It only turns the rating into currency. Where drivers and riders use it to punish each other rather than be honest. There needs to be only one rating "Bad ride". And it needs to be complicated enough to reach that it can't be done as a reaction. From there, you can devise a rating based on the number of bad ride flags you've gotten compared to the rest of the population. You do it compared to the population so it can't be done punitively. If everyone is spamming "bad ride", it doesn't matter. The system picks up on it.
• lolsal 7y ago
  Why deactivate at all? Why not let drivers and riders set a threshold for each side of the transaction?
  • gwbas1c 7y ago
    That would be more in line with drivers being independent contractors instead of employees. But, based on the article, it sounds like getting banned from Uber will be a very rare occurrence.
    • seieste 7y ago
      They said it would affect people with scores <4.6, which is high enough to catch a lot of people.
      • gwbas1c 7y ago
        That's for drivers, not for riders
• gumby 7y ago
  > riders ... are now at risk of deactivation if their rating falls significantly below a city’s average. Of course that raises the average which therefore exposes a new cohort at the bottom to being below the average. I understand the idea of removing people who won't get picked up anyway, but this seems like a bug. Also: what factors go into a rating? I have relatives (thankfully not uber drivers) who would downrate a customer solely on racial grounds.
• arprocter 7y ago
  A star rating is a bad way to measure - as a driver you wouldn't make the 4.6 grade mentioned if you got equal amounts of 4 and 5 ratings Better to to ask 'would you ride/drive with this person again?' with a simple yes/no answer, and if no then ask for a reason - if people aren't given a reason why they got a lower rating then how are they expected to change their behavior? The only time I wanted to give a bad review I couldn't - the driver left me waiting in the cold for 30 mins and then 'cancelled' without ever picking me up
  • choward 7y ago
    Ratings are way too arbitrary. I only give perfect scores in very rare situations. 5 stars to me means I can literally not think of anything that could be improved. I can always come up with a way something isn't perfect.
    • pen2l 7y ago
      Do you want to revise your judging criteria, now that you have this new information that your giving drivers a non-5 score contributes to them losing one of their means of earning an income? (not a rhetorical hit at you, just curious to know your thoughts)
      • choward 7y ago
        I pretty much only give 5 stars even though I don't feel like that's what I should be giving. I was just stating if I was honest with my rating it would only hurt drivers. That's what I've always assumed and it turns out I was right.
    • jbarberu 7y ago
      I totally agree. 4.6 as a cutoff is insane. I regularly rate things 3 if it's good, 4 if great (on Google Maps). What Uber should have is: Rate your ride: 5 - great 4 - bad 3 - really bad 2 - awful 1 - shouldn't be allowed to drive ever again
      • 7y ago
• xfitm3 7y ago
  I've sent a few friends home in Uber/Lyft and I'm always worried their behavior will represent me. I'm not friends with jerks, but sometimes my friends have had a little too much and need help getting home. I hope that we, as a society, care about others above ratings. There are always two sides to everything.
• rootusrootus 7y ago
  First, using an arbitrary number of stars is part of the problem. Too much opportunity for legitimate differences of rating to come into play. Just make the question "would you do business with this driver/rider again?" and leave it at that. At the very least the rating should be market-specific, since there is so much cultural influence over such ratings. Second, Uber should not be making the choice based on some arbitrarily chosen numerical value. Present the rating to the drivers, maybe with some comments, let them choose who they want to take. After all, if Uber isn't employing the drivers and is just the middleman, wouldn't they want to avoid being seen as a crucial decision maker?
  • mirceal 7y ago
    this is already happening. the driver does see the rating and does decide if they want to pick you up or not. effectively, if you have a low rating you will have troubles getting a ride today without uber banning you.
    • Hydraulix989 7y ago
      I think in Uber Pool, the driver is automatically assigned the rides with no confirmation step?
    • Jommi 7y ago
      Not always true. Not picking up is highly disincentivized.
    • woliveirajr 7y ago
      I heard from a Uber driver that she was told to avoid passengers that are below 4.7. Only time she didn't follow the rule, the passenger changed a lot of details during the trip (I don't have money, can we stop a while at some bank while you wait in the car?, Could you take me some blocks ahead?, and some other weird things). And even with she complying with those requests, she got one star in the end. So, yes, passengers are also rated and some drivers take actions based on that.
      • 7y ago
• crazygringo 7y ago
  "Due process" is a legal standard that is present in US Constitutional amendments for a reason. Now obviously Uber is a private company and is currently legally allowed to discriminate against customers with low ratings provided they are not discriminating along protected categories like race or gender. BUT, ride-sharing apps tend to turn into natural monopolies or duopolies simply because of natural network effects, and effectively become part of a city's transportation system. I would argue that, with this, they should carry additional responsibilities to customers that a normal private company doesn't. And one of them is that banning customers should involve "due process", e.g. standards for investigation, burden of proof, opportunity to contest, and resulting actions, e.g. a temporary suspension. A permanent ban should be reserved for only the most serious cases, e.g. where a customer has been convicted in a court of law for threatening violence and gone to prison. (And a temporary ban can be put in place while a court case in pending.) A crowdsourced star rating is not due process. And with Uber and Lyft essentially part of public transport, this is a scary and deeply undemocratic path to go down. In NYC it's illegal for a taxi not to pick someone up, because this can be the source of tremendous racial discrimination (and continues to be, despite its illegality). We don't want to let Uber do the same type of thing to another class of people.
  • pageandrew 7y ago
    I agree with you on this. I find it difficult to imagine a scenario where this could reasonably be enforced, but I agree with the sentiment. I would also extend it to social media. Like Uber and Lyft have more or less become forms of public transport, Twitter, Facebook, etc have become the new "public square". Private companies being able to ban someone from the public square without due process seems to be a scary precedent as well.
  • jtbayly 7y ago
    >A crowdsourced star rating is not due process. And with Uber and Lyft essentially part of public transport, this is a scary and deeply undemocratic path to go down. Actually, crowdsourcing is quite democratic. That's the problem. Due process protects against the ultimate form of democracy—a lynching.
  • the_watcher 7y ago
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• bondolo 7y ago
  I hope they start deactivating drivers who refuse service dogs or otherwise repeatedly fail to abide by the agreed terms of service. Uber continues to regularly ignore driver violations and fail to comply with the results of rider class action agreements.
• Animats 7y ago
  "Your social credit score is too low to use Uber. The nearest bus stop is 450m northwest. Have a nice day."
  • jmtame 7y ago
    - deletes Uber - installs Lyft Wait, I did that a long time ago.
• jedberg 7y ago
  Uber needs to add an "I'm traveling with children" option. I had a 5 star rider rating until I started traveling with the kids. The kids are quiet and don't make a mess, but it takes longer to get in and out of the car, because the law (and safety) dictate using car seats. There's not much I can do there. I'd be perfectly willing to pay an extra fee when traveling with my kids that goes straight to the driver to make up for the extra time and to incentivize them to select me as a rider, because they would know they're getting the "kids bonus". And then maybe I wouldn't get dinged on my rider rating just for having kids with me.
  • aeternus 7y ago
    Yes, an "I'm travelling with dogs" option would also be quite useful. Some drivers love them and some hate them and are paranoid their car is going to be ruined the entire ride. It'd be better for both rider & driver if this matching were done automatically. Most riders would probably be fine with a small additional fee.
• mring33621 7y ago
  Uh-Oh. My rider rating is 4.21. I use Uber maybe 15x a year, mostly on vacation with my family. I would guess that my rating has taken a hit due to my kids crying, kicking seats, Etc.
  • mring33621 7y ago
    I would like to note that I always tip well and give a 5 star rating to every driver I use. I have had a couple drivers cancel on me. One came within 50 yards of us at the Disneyworld parking lot, then turned around and left, while we were waving them down.
• vonseel 7y ago
  This reminds me of a Black Mirror episode....
• aaroninsf 7y ago
  The charter school debate just came to the privatization of "public" transportation.
• kstenerud 7y ago
  Oh lovely. I have a passenger rating of 3.9. I thought that was not too bad until I saw what everyone else here has. I'm autistic, and am not very good at small talk, so I just get in the car, keep quiet, and get out at the end (same as I've always done with taxis). Does this mean that I'm going to be banned soon for not being popular enough?
  • 83457 7y ago
    No
  • baby 7y ago
    Come on. Not being talkative does not give you a bad rating. I've never heard of such a low rating tbh.
    • zippergz 7y ago
      Some drivers ABSOLUTELY do downrate passengers for "not being friendly" (aka not wanting to blab the whole ride).
      • bena 7y ago
        Which is kind of bullshit. The driver is the one providing the service. And in a service industry, you serve the customer what they want. Not the other way around. If the customer doesn't want to talk, that's their prerogative.
        • Nextgrid 7y ago
          I agree with the idea that there should be a set of rules/guidelines as to what’s expected of a passenger, however I disagree with the “customer is always right” thing as it allows customers to be dicks (and trust me, a lot of people abuse it) without the service provider being able to do anything about it. At least with the rating system the playing field is levelled and both sides have the opportunity to fight.
        • baby 7y ago
• ghshephard 7y ago
  I am totally paranoid about my Uber Passenger rating - I've been stuck at 4.88 for the last year - so I don't know if they are updating it. I'll go out of my way to wait outside in the rain so my Uber Driver doesn't have to wait, always try and at least meet up with their level of chattiness, if not necessarily encourage it. Obv be super polite, cheerful, and never, ever make the mistake of asking an UberExpress driver to drop you off anywhere than the designated point. Still - stuck at 4.88, wondering what I can do better...
  • nkrisc 7y ago
    I can't tell if this is satire or just very sad.
    • Para2016 7y ago
      It sounds like satire, reminds me of the Black Mirror episode.
      • nkrisc 7y ago
        I thought so, but then I read all the other comments. I'm not so sure. I don't think it's all satire.
        • dTal 7y ago
          If it's so hard to tell, doesn't that make it bona-fide dystopian? In a certain sense it doesn't matter if the original post is satire - enough people unironically agree for it to be real.
    • djakjxnanjak 7y ago
      This is a forum for hackers, who are likely to obsess over systems like this. I don’t think it’s indicative of a society-wide focus on Uber passenger ratings.
    • spaceflunky 7y ago
      What I've always found interesting about Uber is that if you have one bad night in San Francisco, it could adversely affect your ability to get a ride in Bahrain several years later. Sure big companies create efficiencies, but they also create Orwellian situations like one above.
• Accacin 7y ago
  Yikes, reading this comment section is pretty eerie. People discussing a number that people who were paid for a service have given them. I'm glad I've never really needed Uber, traditional taxis have their problems but there's no scoring involved. Edit - Missed a few words.
  • nkrisc 7y ago
    I really can't tell if it's satire or not, it's so bizarre. Everyone talking about the lengths to which they go to get a good passenger rating. How friendly, and social, and polite they are to the drivers they're hiring? I'm not saying be an ass, but when I hire a driver I want them to drive, I'm not really interested in chatting with them. Nothing against them, I'm just not interested in that.
    • Accacin 7y ago
      Yeah, I'm the same. If I get into a taxi I'll make sure I'm ready when they turn up, say 'hey' and then sit there. Maybe they think I'm rude, but I've paid them and thanked them, and I've not caused them any trouble. I'm not from America, so maybe it's slightly more acceptable to do that but I could just be using stereotypes of Americans to explain the taxi scoring behavior.
    • baby 7y ago
      You can do that to and it'll be fine. Some people are truly assholes and they get bad ratings.
    • CriticalCathed 7y ago
      Turns out that people like to generally interact with one another, and those that don't like doing that are judged as being less good. I rate you as a 3/5.
      • Accacin 7y ago
        Are we going to start giving shoppers a 'shopper' rating? People who don't talk enough to the cashier won't be served? It's crazy this system is perfectly acceptable.. But the Chinese system aiming to do the exact same thing? Completely unacceptable...
• ProAm 7y ago
  If Uber is providing a platform for independent contractors how can they ban people from using the platform at all? Shouldnt a user be able to accept a driver based on their score?
• izzydata 7y ago
  Why is there a rider rating at all? If I'm paying someone to drive me somewhere I don't care if they don't like me.
  • abakker 7y ago
    for when you get drunk and barf in their car.
  • uwuhn 7y ago
    It's important for co-riders, in the case that you ever use pool. Co-riders won't be matched directly based on their ratings, but they'll be indirectly matched based on the algorithms that match riders to drivers based on rating.
• toephu2 7y ago
  What is the path for redemption? If you have a low rating, you become banned for life? Obviously if you have a low rating you will work to improve it, but if you are banned, how can you improve it?
• actuator 7y ago
  Ugh! What happens when you are travelling to a different City? I have seen different rating patterns in different cities where my rating goes up if I am in a certain city for an extended period. So, I would assume that city has on average a higher rider rating. Will they calculate my average from that city's rides? Also, if they are taking into account that city's ratings if I travel to a new country what's the threshold number of rides to calculate my new rating? Will I be randomly locked out of Uber in the middle of night in a foreign city.
• bjornlouser 7y ago
  In Russia, driver rates you!
• ggm 7y ago
  So do we have an API to get our five-star rating in HN and can we start doing "core wars" attacks on each other with up down voting?
• hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  So many comments in this thread I can't tell if they're satirical or not - I feel like that episode of Black Mirror has less obviously outrageous statements than this thread. I think this goes to show the unintended negative consequences that can apply when you take a generally good idea and start applying a "false precision" rating system to it - Goodhart's law and all that.
• whenchamenia 7y ago
  How long until someone correleates this with protected_class and finds this whole social rating system inherently problematic?
• tenpies 7y ago
  What if we find that certain protected classes tend to have a lower rating than others? Would Uber banning them constitute racism/religious discrimination/*phobia? Would there be grounds for a class action if not an outright discrimination suit?
• limaoscarjuliet 7y ago
  If they start deactivating users with rating below average they will soon have very few users left.
• pspeter3 7y ago
  Is there a way to view your passenger rating over time?
• silveira 7y ago
  I have a bad rating. I live close to the airport and from work. Short trips, cheap rides. The drivers give me bad rating so they know to not pick me up, cancel me, or call me asking my destination. I complained to Uber several times, they always throw me a $5 or $10 credit, but no solution. They also don't change my rating.
• manigandham 7y ago
  5 star rating systems are utterly useless. There's no shared meaning in what the stars actually mean and, as anyone who has ever been on Ebay has known for decades, everyone ends up somewhere around 4.5 stars anyway. Ratings should be computed based on a yes/no questions: Was the ride successful or not, with optional follow-ups for issues like safety, damage, cleanup, etc.
• willart4food 7y ago
  I LOVE IT! And this is just the beginning. Long time ago I predicted the yelp for consumer, where company could refuse doing business with low-rated people, or implement differential pricing, or different T&C (no returns, etc..) There are many customers from hell, and the good customers are paying the price. 80/20 rule rocks, any business could get rid of the 20% of customers that create 80% of problems and make greater profts with less revenue.
• nilkn 7y ago
  Uber has went from something magical to a pretty stressful experience filled with paranoia about how two people are silently judging each other for perceived transgressions that don't fit with unstated and unwritten expectations. For instance, maybe a year ago or so, one day driving back from work my car was acting up. I decided to avoid driving it for a day or two until I could get it into a shop to be inspected. So the next morning I used Uber to get to work. Now, I don't live that far from work -- it's maybe a 3-4 minute drive. Evidently, some Uber drivers get pretty upset about short rides like that. I got what I assume must have been a 1 star rating from the driver based on the large impact it had on my rider score. This and similar "incidents" have dropped my rating to 4.69. It was actually lower not too long ago, at maybe 4.66 I believe, but I've been trying to get it back up by giving oversized cash tips (I've always tipped in the past, just usually digitally and in an amount that was more proportional, say 10-20%). Given that 4.6 is the apparent cutoff, I suspect I'll be avoiding Uber as much as I can going forward. I've always been nothing but kind and respectful -- though also quiet and reticent -- and I don't feel like worrying about this anymore.
• m463 7y ago
  > Common Carrier ... > A common carrier is legally bound to carry all passengers or freight as long as there is enough space, the fee is paid, and no reasonable grounds to refuse to do so exist. A common carrier that unjustifiably refuses to carry a particular person or cargo may be sued for damages. food for thought.
• Causality1 7y ago
  >For drivers, they face a risk of deactivation if they fall below 4.6 That's nuts. Why would I as a passenger have any reason to think giving a driver 4 stars means I'm putting him at risk of being fired? Not only is this losing good drivers their jobs but it's propagating a false narrative that all Uber drivers provide flawless experiences.
• acl777 7y ago
  puh-lez. I was "deactivated as a rider" LONG before this system was in place. My (probable) offense: asking support why I couldn't use a discount code from slickdeals.
• lancewiggs 7y ago
  It’s not the average that matters - it’s the number of 1-stars or rides where the passenger felt the driver was highly unacceptable. A driver might be perfectly safe and polite to a majority of customers, but a danger to vulnerable people or different groups of people. It would be good, for example, the app to overweight low ratings from young women - with almost no tolerance for 1-star ratings from that group. It would also be good if the ride share companies share details of the most scary drivers who have been ousted, so that they don’t get two or three shots.
  • linuxftw 7y ago
    > young women - with almost no tolerance for 1-star ratings from that group Why should that be?
  • gdy 7y ago
    "It would be good, for example, the app to overweight low ratings from young women - with almost no tolerance for 1-star ratings from that group." This is sexist and ageist.
• seeken 7y ago
  I assumed they were already doing that. I've seen several TV shows or movies (recently Booksmart) where "I can't use uber because of my low passenger rating" was used as a plot device.
• mettamage 7y ago
  This is what happens when you don't have psychologists or similar quantitative people who handle human data on your team. I've studied psychology and CS and the difference in how they treat ratings is stark, CS GoT nothing on us! (yes, I did that, I'll get myself of stage now) A psychologist is paranoid when it comes to quantifying human data. How paranoid you ask? I'll try to capture the sentiment, but I'm sure it's way worse than the following paragraph. Psychologist: Should I go for a simple yes/no? Well that could useful, but it could also be that I leave too much data on the table. Let me look at tons of research on this topic (hello Google Scholar! Long time no see). Well, if I do 3 stars, then the middle option also becomes a neutral option, which means I'm skewing the data, so I might have to go to 4 possible choices then. Then again, people are more used to the 5 star rating, so that has a plus for usability, but then you'd have the same issue as a 3 choice rating. Maybe I should just use a 7-likert scale type of thing? And obviously, it's also the case that this is an ordinal scale. The property of 1 < 2 < 3 and so on still holds, but the property of 1 + 1 = 2 doesn't. Do people really mean with "2" twice as big compared to a "1"? Are they able to quantify such relationships on any scale? Perhaps quantitatively minded people on a 3 choice scale, but we'd need to do studies about that, but the average user probably not -- still need to do studies about that (and hello Google Scholar, here we meet again in the same paragraph). CS or UX person with no research background: ah yea, let's do a 5 star rating, that seems cool :) It's on you Uber. It's really on you. Hire psychologists / socially minded statisticians.
  • crooked-v 7y ago
    I'm a fan of HappyOrNot for dead-simple intuitive feedback: https://www.happy-or-not.com/en/smiley-terminal/ https://www.happy-or-not.com/en/smiley-terminal/
    • hnzix 7y ago
      Until schoolkids repeatedly mash the frowny face button for lulz.
      • walterbell 7y ago
        We need version numbers for game-theoretic universes, e.g. the effects of companies which launch into a market whose assumptions and practices will soon be overturned by said company. The second-order feedback loops are adversarial (kids, competitors, city-states, policy) and subject to data analysis, but the public is more likely to receive marketing narratives than peer-reviewed scholarship.
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• nneonneo 7y ago
  On Uber, drivers don’t have much choice not to take a toxic passenger regardless of their rating, or they get dinged for excessive cancellation. Passengers don’t have much choice not to take a badly rated driver or they get dinged for cancelling. So, realistically, star ratings are only useful for the platform to know which drivers or passengers are unwanted. Otherwise, star ratings really aren’t much use. This is very unlike other platforms, like eBay or Amazon, where users can choose who to buy goods/services from based on star ratings. Of course, this isn’t in support of this deactivation of riders at all - taxi companies are regulated in most places so they can’t refuse a fare without cause, and Uber really should be subject to similar regulation. Otherwise, losing access to Uber could seriously disenfranchise certain populations. I’d be happier if they would just ditch star ratings for passengers entirely, and just rely on driver complaints - but this is probably wishful thinking.
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• idiotmonkey 7y ago
  I obsess about my Uber rating a lot. I feel really stressed whenever my rating drop. So I avoid using Uber whenever possible. I am from India, and was working in US back then. Due to visa issues, I couldn't renew my licence and had to rely on Uber for 3 months. I had 4.92 rating before, and within a week or two it dropped to 4.74. I was following everything that I read in internet-wait for the driver in a easy to locate spot and wave at them, close the door nicely, always bath and wear clean non smelling clothes, wear deo but no strong perfume, engage in pleasant conversation (mostly about the driver) even though I was going through a rough period in my life, always tip (in app) and so on. When I saw my rating drop despite all this, I came to the wrong conclusion that it might be race related. One time, I even complained to Uber customer care that I suspect I got a lower rating for this ride because the driver didn't like me being Indian and so I would like my tip back (which Uber refunded). For sometime, I used only Lyft. Then came back to Uber because Lyft doesn't operate in India. After the first month, I started tipping in cash. By the end of 3rd month, I was at 4.9. So I got a happy ending. But I wouldn't use Uber if at all possible precisely because of the rating system.
• whycombinater 7y ago
  I skimmed but is every comment in here trying to optimize how to implement a social credit system, rather than expressing terror at a social credit system? Quit posting and get back to coding surveillance AIs, the sooner Uber will self-drive-arrest us to the Ministry of Love, while running over statistically fewer people (in terms of count * credit...). Once Uber Eats takes over, and the whole world's food supply is now based on Social Credit Drones, if you say something like "I don't like women", you will die of starvation. This is the utopia you're all building. Please stop with tech.
  • frittig 7y ago
    The alternative is that Uber eats will have a competitor like Lyft food and Lyft food will accept the customers that Uber eats won't. Uber eats will then notice that a large portion of their potential customers are using a competitor and will stop discrimination in order to increase profit
• village-idiot 7y ago
  In principle I agree; if I were to hypothetically verbally abuse my drivers, ought I not eventually be banned? If I walk into a local bar and am an asshole to the staff, eventually my photo will be put up next to the bouncer’s table on the “do not admit” list. Unfortunately pretty much any system Uber is going to create here will be prone to some abuse, and subject to a lot of criticism.
• Kephael 7y ago
  I get mediocre ratings from drivers when I take a shared ride and don't tip. Rating passengers poorly for not tipping is broken functionality, we really need self-driving cars and no drivers. Historically I've always given drivers 5 stars, but now whenever I see my rating dip I one star all my recent rides since Uber won't tell me which driver did it. The less meaningful the broken rating system is the better.
• ProxCoques 7y ago
  This reminds me of Evan Miller's post on one of (but by no means the only) problem with star ratings: the numbers of ratings you have can skew the meaning hugely if Score = (Positive ratings) − (Negative ratings): http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating.html http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating....
• billabong 7y ago
  Uber is in for a surprise. You don't rate and block people who pay you. This idea is some AH PM having a brain fart inside Uber. If I have the money I can pay anyone I like. Just a city wide car sharing startup with money to burn, I will hop on to it. One lawsuit away to bare all, the algorithm about ratings.