3 ms·

Yea. Lyft wanting to make their take more opaque is certainly a plausible motivation. But since Lyft and Uber are now offering complicated reward/discount progr

Yea. Lyft wanting to make their take more opaque is certainly a plausible motivation. But since Lyft and Uber are now offering complicated reward/discount programs, it's plausible that the rider's payment on any given trip is misleading and mostly a source of confusion. Driver's won't complain when Lyft's take is unusually small, but will when it's unusually large, even if it balances on average. In general it's frustrating that pricing is becoming more opaque for everyone. Despite multiple emails exchanged with Uber, I still cannot get them to tell me how exactly the Ride Passes work in the SF area. There doesn't seem to be an unambiguous description on the website, the receipts don't explain, and different customer support agents give contradictory statements.

charwalker 7y ago
I have only recently used Lyft with discounts or promo deals. I don't need it enough to use it otherwise and it really is more for convenience like needing to get to the airport at 5am or back from a bar downtown without finding a bus. My data would probably throw off the driver if they see that I paid $20 for a ride that should have been $30. The rider pay may vary on if I tip based on the actual vs discount price of the ride or other elements too. I think the metrics they are providing are potentially more useful if the driver is able to ingest and use the data but it's likely Lyft isn't 100% honest with their presentation or made this change to benefit their business over the drivers.
- hapidjus 7y ago
  They could show the non discounted price.
DuskStar 7y ago
> I still cannot get them to tell me how exactly the Ride Passes work in the SF area. There doesn't seem to be an unambiguous description on the website, the receipts don't explain, and different customer support agents give contradictory statements. As a user of Ride Pass in LA, I'm also confused about what it does and does not cover. When I first bought it, it locked in a rate on a route I used frequently - but now I'll see Ride Pass discounts for trips to/from LAX and other unrelated places. Still supposedly saves me more per month than I spend on it, though.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  Yep. Sympathetic guess is that they are just rapidly trying a bunch of promotions to see what people like, and they are too internally dysfunctional to keep their agents/app/website up-to-date. Cynical guess is that opaqueness is the goal, and they want you to just get in the habit of trusting their "here's how much you saved!" number without anyone looking closely at the counterfactual.

charwalker 7y ago

I have only recently used Lyft with discounts or promo deals. I don't need it enough to use it otherwise and it really is more for convenience like needing to get to the airport at 5am or back from a bar downtown without finding a bus. My data would probably throw off the driver if they see that I paid $20 for a ride that should have been $30. The rider pay may vary on if I tip based on the actual vs discount price of the ride or other elements too. I think the metrics they are providing are potentially more useful if the driver is able to ingest and use the data but it's likely Lyft isn't 100% honest with their presentation or made this change to benefit their business over the drivers.

hapidjus 7y ago
They could show the non discounted price.

DuskStar 7y ago

> I still cannot get them to tell me how exactly the Ride Passes work in the SF area. There doesn't seem to be an unambiguous description on the website, the receipts don't explain, and different customer support agents give contradictory statements. As a user of Ride Pass in LA, I'm also confused about what it does and does not cover. When I first bought it, it locked in a rate on a route I used frequently - but now I'll see Ride Pass discounts for trips to/from LAX and other unrelated places. Still supposedly saves me more per month than I spend on it, though.

jessriedel 7y ago
Yep. Sympathetic guess is that they are just rapidly trying a bunch of promotions to see what people like, and they are too internally dysfunctional to keep their agents/app/website up-to-date. Cynical guess is that opaqueness is the goal, and they want you to just get in the habit of trusting their "here's how much you saved!" number without anyone looking closely at the counterfactual.