> It was immediately obvious to me that Uber would go "oh, you need to go to the hospital, you'll pay more", preying on the need. That's certainly possible, bu

> It was immediately obvious to me that Uber would go "oh, you need to go to the hospital, you'll pay more", preying on the need. That's certainly possible, but does not seem immediately obvious at all. Market prices move upward due to both increases in demand and decreases in supply. It's entirely possible, especially given the driver's comments, that many Uber drivers who would otherwise be active already had switched off -- in other words, supply had already shrunk in response to low demand -- so you may simply have been facing low availability of drivers at that moment.