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Uber is mostly on the up and up. Lyft is the sketchier of the two. They use tricks on the drivers to direct them where they want them, such as luring a driver i

Uber is mostly on the up and up. Lyft is the sketchier of the two. They use tricks on the drivers to direct them where they want them, such as luring a driver into a high demand area with a fake ride (which gets cancelled) and then suggesting, since you are here, why don't you wait for a ride.

rocgf 5y ago
Do you have any source for this? This sounds so incredibly dodgy that I can't really believe it.
- okareaman 5y ago
  Just personal experience. I have other examples, like creating fake hot zones to lure drivers away from crowded areas and cancelling my ride when the rider didn't show up right before the time when I would have been paid for waiting. Uber did none of these things. I still like Lyft though because they have a lot of government contracts and I like helping poor and sick people to their doctor appointments. Edit: I don't blame the people at Lyft. I blame their AI, which is designed by people, but can operate in ways they haven't anticipated.
slownews45 5y ago
My problem with Uber is I had great records. The offer was get $XXX when you start driving with us. Period. I went through the process. No payment. So I followed up. Ohh they said, it's actually get $XXX when you do 5 rides or whatever. Fine, I did that. No payment. Then they said it's actually $XXX if ... at that point I was just like peace out. This was ages ago so they may have cleaned up their act, but I was not impressed.
vecter 5y ago
Lyft doesn't create fake rides. Source: work there.
- okareaman 5y ago
  Do you understand how your ride scheduling software works? I can be even more specific: I was travelling south on 280 near Daly City sometime in the fall of 2019. I got a pickup in what turned out to be a cemetary. I refused to go into the dark cemetery figuring it was a mistake. The ride was cancelled then a message came up suggesting I stay and wait there because there was high demand in that neighborhood. Look it up. You keep logs don't you? Edit: It was a pickup at the Golden Gate National Cemetery around 10 PM. I have an alt email in my profile. Contact me if you need more information.
  - vecter 5y ago
    We keep logs of course, but we have strict privacy guidelines that prevent me or any employees from looking at random rides of users. We have annual training that reminds us of such (and for good reason--imagine how creepy it would be if Lyft employees could look at the ride histories for any users). We match drivers with riders based on some algorithms and heuristics that try to optimize for some metrics which I won't go into for obvious reasons. In order to match a driver with a rider, there must be a real ride request from a real user account. It's that simple. What you claim simply does not exist, and would be so blatantly unethical that someone even suggesting such a thing would raise a ton of eyebrows immediately and might get them fired, and persisting to push such an idea would almost certainly get them fired. You reference an "AI" in your other comments. That's not how AIs work. It is not a Skynet-level artificial intelligence that decides what the policy is, but rather an optimization problem that is solved with certain constraints. There is no system on Earth with anywhere near the level of agency and intelligence that you're implying it would have to have in order to be able to modify the source code of a system to create the concept of fake users and riders.
    - okareaman 5y ago
      Well I was a driver not a rider and I didn't pick anyone up. You should be able to look at what drivers are doing it seems. It's a mystery to me how I got a pickup in a cemetery late at night. Someone ordered it. The ride was cancelled shortly after I got there. Seems fishy to me that I got a message suggesting I wait in that neighborhood because of high demand right after the ride was cancelled. I've written software for a lot of years, and there's times when it does something unexpected. Consider this a bug report then.
driverdan 5y ago
> such as luring a driver into a high demand area with a fake ride (which gets cancelled) That would be fraud. I strongly doubt they're creating and cancelling fake rides.
- okareaman 5y ago
  Why can't it be a bug in their AI? No human at Lyft is directing rides. It's the paper clip problem - tell it to optimize profit and it finds ways.

rocgf 5y ago

Do you have any source for this? This sounds so incredibly dodgy that I can't really believe it.

okareaman 5y ago
Just personal experience. I have other examples, like creating fake hot zones to lure drivers away from crowded areas and cancelling my ride when the rider didn't show up right before the time when I would have been paid for waiting. Uber did none of these things. I still like Lyft though because they have a lot of government contracts and I like helping poor and sick people to their doctor appointments. Edit: I don't blame the people at Lyft. I blame their AI, which is designed by people, but can operate in ways they haven't anticipated.

slownews45 5y ago

My problem with Uber is I had great records. The offer was get $XXX when you start driving with us. Period. I went through the process. No payment. So I followed up. Ohh they said, it's actually get $XXX when you do 5 rides or whatever. Fine, I did that. No payment. Then they said it's actually $XXX if ... at that point I was just like peace out. This was ages ago so they may have cleaned up their act, but I was not impressed.

vecter 5y ago

Lyft doesn't create fake rides. Source: work there.

okareaman 5y ago
Do you understand how your ride scheduling software works? I can be even more specific: I was travelling south on 280 near Daly City sometime in the fall of 2019. I got a pickup in what turned out to be a cemetary. I refused to go into the dark cemetery figuring it was a mistake. The ride was cancelled then a message came up suggesting I stay and wait there because there was high demand in that neighborhood. Look it up. You keep logs don't you? Edit: It was a pickup at the Golden Gate National Cemetery around 10 PM. I have an alt email in my profile. Contact me if you need more information.
- vecter 5y ago
  We keep logs of course, but we have strict privacy guidelines that prevent me or any employees from looking at random rides of users. We have annual training that reminds us of such (and for good reason--imagine how creepy it would be if Lyft employees could look at the ride histories for any users). We match drivers with riders based on some algorithms and heuristics that try to optimize for some metrics which I won't go into for obvious reasons. In order to match a driver with a rider, there must be a real ride request from a real user account. It's that simple. What you claim simply does not exist, and would be so blatantly unethical that someone even suggesting such a thing would raise a ton of eyebrows immediately and might get them fired, and persisting to push such an idea would almost certainly get them fired. You reference an "AI" in your other comments. That's not how AIs work. It is not a Skynet-level artificial intelligence that decides what the policy is, but rather an optimization problem that is solved with certain constraints. There is no system on Earth with anywhere near the level of agency and intelligence that you're implying it would have to have in order to be able to modify the source code of a system to create the concept of fake users and riders.
  - okareaman 5y ago
    Well I was a driver not a rider and I didn't pick anyone up. You should be able to look at what drivers are doing it seems. It's a mystery to me how I got a pickup in a cemetery late at night. Someone ordered it. The ride was cancelled shortly after I got there. Seems fishy to me that I got a message suggesting I wait in that neighborhood because of high demand right after the ride was cancelled. I've written software for a lot of years, and there's times when it does something unexpected. Consider this a bug report then.

driverdan 5y ago

> such as luring a driver into a high demand area with a fake ride (which gets cancelled) That would be fraud. I strongly doubt they're creating and cancelling fake rides.

okareaman 5y ago
Why can't it be a bug in their AI? No human at Lyft is directing rides. It's the paper clip problem - tell it to optimize profit and it finds ways.