12 ms·

Uber charges more if you have credits in your account

454 points by cwwc 2y ago

remram 2y ago
[flagged]
- dathery 2y ago
  I hate to run PR for Uber, but the battery story is just urban legend. If you dig into the headlines, they all trace back to one article written by a small Belgian newspaper [1] which is barely more than a blurb. The evidence in the article is one very casual experiment: > Dernière Heure conducted a test using two smartphones, one with 84% battery and the other with 12%, to request a ride from their office in Brussels to Tour & Taxis in the centre. > The result showed a significant price difference, with the phone at 12% battery being charged €17.56 and the phone at 84% battery being charged €16.6 for the same service. Uber also denies it in the article. Obviously you don't have to believe them but IMO it's more likely that the "significant price difference" (less than one euro) is explained by some other variable that the author wasn't able to identify. [1] https://www.brusselstimes.com/449143/uber-fares-allegedly-linked-to-phone-battery-levels https://www.brusselstimes.com/449143/uber-fares-allegedly-li...
  - remram 2y ago
    Wow that's crazy. Dozens of newspaper reported on this. Did all those smartphone-carrying journalist repeat the claim without trying it for themselves? Thanks for pointing that out. Anyway, I have not used them since Lyft came out, for a variety of other reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber
INTPenis 2y ago
I never even hear of uber credits. I always charge it to my card. In europe we often use Bolt too, which is a competing service. So I actually have used Bolt more than Uber.
- Carrok 2y ago
  My credit card gives me monthly Uber credits.
  - eqvinox 2y ago
    These combination/cross deals are AFAIK quite rare in the EU (or outside the US in general?) If your credit card is branded some way, it'll give you something with that brand (e.g. Lufthansa CC) but that's about it. (And I don't think there's an Uber branded credit card?)
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Carrok 2y ago
      Not an Uber card, just Amex.
- onesociety2022 2y ago
  It is not even just credit cards. There are other companies which also offer Uber credits. For instance, if you drop off your Tesla for service in the USA, they offer Uber credits instead of a loaner car since they don't have enough loaners for everyone. I can see Uber totally doing what this article claims because when I had those Uber credits from Tesla service, I was suddenly price insensitive. It was not like I was going to use Lyft when I had Uber credits that were going to expire at the end of the day. So I ordered myself Uber Black to/from the office with the credit.
tomohelix 2y ago
I always wonder what do the devs who coded these "features" think about themselves and/or what other people think about them. Yes I know they are literally paid to not have these questions. But deep down, is there any remorse or guilt at all or is it just "not my problem" attitude all the way to the bank? On a tangent, this is why I think there need to be more regulations with software development. Any real engineering discipline has tons of oversight and government agencies breathing down their neck to ensure compliance. Software came out when all these pushes for safety has been gutted and as a result we have a free for all race to the bottom.
- howard941 2y ago
  How would you word a regulation against this sort of thing to apply against the low man on the totem pole, the lowly SWE? Might it be better if it was regulated as unfair and deceptive by a strong FTC with a nice bounty for SWEs?
  - alexlll862 2y ago
    One of the main avantage of regulating a professional board (eg. Engineers, doctors, etc) is to make an individual fully responsible. What if that "lowly swe" wasn't so lowly anymore and the company executives could go to jail if they pushed code without his stamp on it? In civil engineering, if your boss asks you to stamp something illegal and you do it, you can lose your title. It garantees that there is always one person in charge who will take personal responsibility for the act and will fight for thing to be done properly and no one can bypass him.
    - sitkack 2y ago
      It is a failure of capitalism that we need to force certain people to behave ethically, taking the role as umpire for a broken system.
    - jjmarr 2y ago
      We have fully licensed computer and software engineers in Canada. There isn't much demand for the professional designation outside of safety critical fields; many people graduate from accredited programs and never get the physical stamp. You'd have to massively expand the bounds of what constitutes "engineering" when programming software. This would immediately kill open source. Anyone who isn't an engineer couldn't write code unsupervised. Anyone who is, would refuse to release code publicly licence because you'd have professional liability for anyone that uses your code in perpetuity forever. I like the idea because licensure helps deal with the power differential that some professionals have over the average person. But the lines would have to be drawn very carefully to avoid killing open source.
JCM9 2y ago
Not surprised. Uber doesn’t exactly have a reputation of being the most ethical company out there.
- bschmidt1 2y ago
  During their growth years when they arguably did the shadiest stuff they also had record-breaking quarterly losses in the billions while their counterpart DiDi in China was doing well enough to acquire Uber China (who according to Travis Kalanick was losing over $1b a year).
  - treme 2y ago
    truth is Uber had no chance in China to succeed in long term regardless and Travis was naive to think CCP would let a foreign company win logistics market so rich with data.
    - bschmidt1 2y ago
      Point stands they weren't doing well over here either during those years.
jlund-molfese 2y ago
Probably false, like the urban legend that Uber charges more when a device's battery is low [0]. Claims like this go viral because they're practically unfalsifiable (It isn't in Uber's best interest to make their pricing algorithms public) and generate clicks. But when you take a closer look, it's always some anecdote that can be explained by people selecting different pricing tiers, or by multiple phones looking at the same route implying increased demand (the latter search might display a higher price). A proper experiment would involve dozens of phones under different scenarios making searches in a random order, then trying to correlate the variables with the prices. But for whatever reason, nobody ever does those experiments. For what it's worth, I checked the price of an Uber with credits in my account against Lyft to the airport just now, and Uber was slightly cheaper. 0. https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/verify/verify-does-uber-charge-you-more-if-your-battery-is-low/507-3b1c0166-0d82-4f91-9d96-c4aa01921b12 https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/verify/verify-does-uber-ch...
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
  The fact that its unfalsifiable is the problem. They can (and why wouldn't they) run all sorts of shenanigans with their pricing algorithms. Pricing algorithms should be not be private. Free markets depend on transparent pricing.
  - steelframe 2y ago
    > Free markets depend on transparent pricing. I mean, there are no surprise post-ride fees or anything. They're quoting you what the actual price is, and they're free to quote whatever they want for whatever reasons they want. Nobody's forcing you to agree to it. There's nothing stopping you from getting a competitive quote from Lyft by simply switching apps on the phone. Or by calling a cab company. Also there's nothing that keeps you from choosing to wait for a bus. *Edit: Per Uber's help page there are exceptions to the up-front price quote actually being charged, but they are exceptions. My basic point that it's still a free market stands. "The upfront price you’re shown may change due to a number of circumstances, which may include adding stops, updating your destination, significant changes to the route or duration of the trip, or you pass through a toll that was not factored into your upfront price. In addition, you may incur wait time fees for the time you take to get to the car at the pickup or multi-stop fees for time spent at an on-trip stop."
OutOfHere 2y ago
If they do charge more, it will only hurt them with people checking and using a competitor for a lower price. It will not hurt the employed economist's paycheck though who will continue to peddle pricing patterns that don't actually work in the real world, still collecting a generous salary for deceiving the company and shareholders.
zeroonetwothree 2y ago
I have a bunch of credit from the Costco thing and haven’t noticed any changes in pricing on my usual routes.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
danpalmer 2y ago
An alternatively hypothesis is that users with credits in their account are committed spenders, and so are less likely to receive discounts. In the same way, frequent users are more committed. I rarely use Uber/Eats, so when I do I almost always have ~1/3rd off through some voucher or something. They also do vouchers that work over multiple purchases in order to build habits.
jmyeet 2y ago
It's time to start legislating against dynamic pricing. I don't know if this particular claim is true but dynamic pricing is getting out of control. Things should have an advertised price rather than some amorphous ML system deciding to charge you more because you're desperate or you can afford it (according to some criteria). These companies have to be careful too because they may open themselves up to discrimination claims. There are protected classes you can't discriminate against under federal law. Facebook already settled a case of race discrimination in housing ads [1]. This has nothing to do with dynamic pricing but I guarantee you dynamic pricing will open up more of these issues. [1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-groundbreaking-settlement-agreement-meta-platforms-formerly-known https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-gr...
- fsckboy 2y ago
  there's nothing wrong with dynamic pricing, but there is a lot wrong with price discrimination, bait and switch, hidden fees, and outright fraud. (and we know that uber has historically engaged in many highly dishonest practices) here's my favorite rideshare gouge, I'm sure others have had the same experience. "currenly 20 minute wait, upgrade to uber+$ for 3 minute availability?" YES! "OK booked, your ride at the higher rate is on the way, currently 20 minutes away!" now, it is possible that "offer" message was shown to a bunch of people at the same time and somebody snagged it in front of me leaving only the other car 20 mins away, i.e. the computer was "honest", but I shouldn't be paying the higher rate. clever programmer types can come up with other scenarios, the point is, we need guarantees that the market making is honest, or we need regulation.
- hinkley 2y ago
  I don't think it's necessarily the case that dynamic pricing shouldn't exist at all (eg, cooperative load shedding on the electrical grid). However I should, as someone who just left a concert, have a notion as to how much it's in my best interests to either rideshare with my friend and deal with two stops, or walk up the street to a restaurant and kill an hour or two while we wait for the chaos to dissipate. If the price difference is going to pay for a drink or an appetizer, then maybe I voluntarily timeshift. And we don't seem to be near that bar at the moment.
C60H92O6 2y ago
I'm not a big fan of Uber, but this seems like a case of "confirmation bias." The author formed an opinion, then searched for anything that confirmed it and accepted that as proof, even if it was completely unrelated or just due to chance. It's called "dynamic pricing" for a reason. Like stock market prices, it fluctuates rapidly based on hundreds of factors. You don't need credits to see different prices—just compare with a friend's phone. Sometimes, their fare will be higher than yours, and other times, it will be lower.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- francisofascii 2y ago
  Dynamic pricing is supposed to be based on the overall demand of the service at that instant. In this case, it is “price discrimination” based on the user, rather than the overall demand.
- ywvcbk 2y ago
  > Like stock market prices, it fluctuates rapidly based on hundreds of factors. I don’t think many brokers offer different prices to their clients based on attributes. How is this even a remotely valid comparison when you’re saying: > Sometimes, their fare will be higher than yours, and other times, it will be lower.
throwaway847462 2y ago
This is all nonsense. Uber does not do any sort of up charging based on anything remotely uniquely identifiable. All of the dynamic pricing is based on publicly stated known information Uber has stated, ie surge based pricing. This and other anecdotal stories, such as battery life are all click bait.
23B1 2y ago
Honesty and transparency can be a brand asset to create long-term loyalty, which reduces customer churn, reduce marketing spend, etc. All it takes is founders/executive leaders who can see past top- and bottom-line.
BearOso 2y ago
I'm not a heavy user, but I noticed that if I start with Google Maps anonymously and hit the ride-share button which gives you a comparison of Uber, Lyft, etc. prices, that when you click through the price is consistently lower than if you start with an app. I'm not sure if it's circumstance, but it's worth giving a shot if you have the time.
- zug_zug 2y ago
  If you can do this repeatedly, say 15 times, and record the numbers each time (say just put them in a spreadsheet), you can actually pretty easily run a "statistical test" to prove your theory at 95% confidence (which is what research journals often do). You obviously don't need to justify your observations to anybody else, but if you did find a conclusive result it would make a good blog post. [P.S. chat gpt could help with the statistical test part]
  - oehpr 2y ago
    I do find chatgpt is helpful in laying out the formulas you should you in the context that they should be used in. Something I personally know I have no business doing. ... At the same time, I also am aware of how hilariously dumb chat GPT can be in deep technical contexts. I've taken to saying that when it comes to a technical topic, chatGPT will confidently tell you the wrong thing to do 50% of the time, but that's fine because it will give you the terms and context you can use to audit its solution yourself. Even if you don't understand the answers you can easily have chat gpt explain the gaps, again, 50%, but giving real information contextualizes the conversation better. I would expect this to improve accuracy, and my personal experience bares this out. There was a brief window of time where the strongest chess players were chimeras, humans who assessed AI suggestions. Quickly even they found themselves outperformed by engines. I suspect this is happening here as well. And I also suspect its going to take a good deal longer.
- AStonesThrow 2y ago
  Interesting - you're not logged into Maps? The rideshare tab in Maps gives me time/distance/traffic estimates and no prices. Whether I'm logged in, or Incognito. No prices unless I tap "Open App ->" There is no rideshare tab in the desktop version, only tried it on my Android.
BoppreH 2y ago
Uber was consistently charging me 20%-50% more than my friends. Same time, same origin, same destination, no discounts, regardless of who asked first or rider rating. Can't share screenshots without doxxing myself, though. After being gaslit by Uber support for weeks, they finally admitted to charge riders different prices, and that there was nothing they could do to reset my price multiplier[1]. I suspect it was because I added a Work profile with corporate credit card for a trip years ago. So I deleted my account, waited 30 days for the data to be expunged[2], and created a new account under a new email address and without my middle name. The prices are now normal! This plus drivers constantly cancelling rides, makes me avoid Uber as much as I can. - [1] Quoting Uber support: "The prices of the trips and promotions are unique to users, that is correct. [...] There is sadly nothing you can do personally to change the fare rate of the trips before any discount is applied." [2] After requesting to delete your account, I received an email asking to explain the issue and if they could help me. Replying "no" automatically reactivated my account and reset the 30 day timer.
- napierzaza 2y ago
  It was pretty insane that there was such a huge push with #deleteuber and there were so many stories about how terrible they were as a company for customers and employees. And now after just a few short years people somehow completely forgot or believe somehow it's all good because they changed their CEO.
- jmward01 2y ago
  I noticed this exact behavior between my wife and I. I avoid Uber like the plague but unfortunately they have destroyed the alternatives. We need a right to anonymity for services. Knowing who I am isn't a requirement for the actual service but they want it so they can make additional money off of you. There should always be an option 'remain anonymous' that requires the vendor to immediately delete any information on you and use nothing identifiable about you in their service. If they are found to break that then there should be severe penalties that are paid directly to the person impacted and all lawyer fees go to the company with no option for 'arbitration'.
  - 2y ago
DonnyV 2y ago
When is this shitty company going to be finally shut down. Its been caught so many times cheating or breaking state laws. Just shut it down already. The business model doesn't work, its cooked.
- nfw2 2y ago
  Full self-driving will kill it
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
solarkraft 2y ago
Is there an (academic / journalistic) area/body of research about the pricing/recommendation/other influential algorithms of various products? I have conspiracy theories about Spotify autoplay (wouldn't it seem smart to prioritize songs with lower licensing cost?) and would like to see them checked. Surely I can't be the only person interested in the specific ways products used by hundreds of millions of people actually work? There's a lot of superstition and anecdotal evidence in this area and it would be great to see a reliable source of actual research.
- fragmede 2y ago
  That's not how Spotify payouts work.
whack 2y ago
People are assuming that some evil mustache-twirling PM/engineer decided to charge users more if they have credits in their account. The truth may be far more banal. They may be using a ML model to determine pricing. The ML model takes as input all known information about that user. One of those inputs, which simply came bundled together with everything else, is the user's credit balance. The ML model, after much historical analysis, figured out that it can charge users more if they have credits available. The relevant engineers treated the ML model as a black box, ran an A/B test, saw a 1.3% increase in revenue, and decided to roll it out. If this isn't already happening, I expect this will be the future of our industry.
- adamesque 2y ago
  Is it less evil if an unsupervised process does it?
- jmount 2y ago
  That isn't that different than choosing to charge more for accounts with credits. Make "having credits" available to an ML model and then let the ML model "ethics wash" the decision.
- maxerickson 2y ago
  At some point, the not giving a shit because it maximizes profit is all you need to be a bit judgy. If they were doing something relatively frictionless that obviously increased efficiency? People wouldn't care. Mindlessly doing what the model says, even though it's awful for the customer, to marginally increase profit some of the time by charging some customers more? People get pissed off...
- andoando 2y ago
  Thats almost the same thing isnt it? The motivation is to charge as much as possible to each user, how it's implemented isn't really relevant
- mdasen 2y ago
  You might be right, but I'm failing to see how this is less evil mustache-twirling. A PM/engineer decided "I bet we can create an ML model that will find suckers we can charge more," is basically the same as "I bet people with credits will pay more." In either case, they're making a decision to find people they can screw over. In the latter case, it's based on intuition. In the former, it's based on statistics. However, the motivation remains the same. If people are thinking this is evil, it's the motivation and the result that matter, not the means through which they achieve their goal. And if they used ML as a black box, it could act in problematic ways. Maybe the ML figured out that it could charge Black riders more. They didn't look into it and just rolled it out. Things like that can happen when you don't look into stuff. And I'd say that it's questionably legal. If a store charged you more money because you were using a gift card, I think we'd all agree that the store had unjustly taken value from you. Here, Uber is allegedly charging people with credits a higher amount - essentially stealing gift card value. I'm not sure "oh, it was just our ML deciding to steal your money," is a great defense. Ok, but what was the ML supposed to do. Well, it was supposed to figure out who we could take more money from for the same product.
deepthaw 2y ago
The entire purpose of modern technology has become to programmatically extract as much profit from every transaction every individual undertakes every day comfortable in the knowledge there’s not enough hours in the day for said consumers to scrutinize them all.
bubblethink 2y ago
n=1, but also common knowledge in deals forums, that if you have credits in your account, you don't get deals. Uber eats is only usable at the 25-40% off deals they do since the markup is often that much. If you have credits or Uber one, you don't get the deals.
- hbrn 2y ago
  Anecdotally, can confirm. And the trick of course is to first get the deal (which lasts for 1-2 weeks typically), and then add credits.
claw-el 2y ago
Based on my single user anecdotal data, I noticed that when I have additional Uber credit in my Uber account, I get less often or less amount of Uber Eats promotion.
o999 2y ago
I like how people in comments are keen to change the world, but I - more realisticly - only focus on gaming the system so I can actually save myself couple bucks right away. I set pick up and destination, exit the app, open another rides app, wait few minutes for uber to notify me that the price went down. I only give it initials (instead of full name) and phone number, not even my gender, I rarely rate drivers positively, if it is not a negative experience, I skip reviewing, so they don't know I "like" the service. When it takes more than a minute to find a ride, I cancel the ride and choose the "others" option, as this is the de-facto the option for "I will just take a cab", so I get inserted on the "churn risk" list. I use a virtual card that I some time leave empty so payment fail after the ride, and on the next ride I readjust my virtual card limit on the next ride and pay the last bill so I am added on the "poor and miserable riders" list. I am well protected
- nomilk 2y ago
  I do similar to you. I wonder if not rating is limiting your gains relative to giving (gasps) four or three star ratings.
  - o999 2y ago
    I work on freelancing platforms, I know how harmful is it for me to get a 4.9/5 star rating. I would prefer not to harm the driver, unless he was a dick or was driving a garbage can, I would then rate it 1-star with a clear conscience.
- magic_hamster 2y ago
  I don't know if this saves you money, but if it is, you are certainly working pretty hard for it.
  - xandrius 2y ago
    I do the same and it's really not more work. All the steps come rather smoothly when you have the goal in mind of not benefiting the app in any way.
avalys 2y ago
Uber is the most dishonest app (and company) I know, by an order of magnitude. The app lies about everything. What the wait time is likely to be, how many drivers there are, whether your driver is moving or not, how long it will take to find another driver when the first driver cancels, etc. Wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be true. Completely consistent with the rest of my experience with this company.
htrp 2y ago
The ML pricing algos for uber have tons of features solely aimed at maximizing revenues. It wouldn't be a surprise that the HAS_CREDITS field has a +20% impact to ride pricing.
xyst 2y ago
I’m not sure if the story here has any merits. But what I do know is: there needs to be more transparency. https://youtu.be/OEXJmNj6SPk https://youtu.be/OEXJmNj6SPk This report shows multiple drivers all located in the same area (literally, phones next to each other), getting marginally different quotes for the same ride. What is accounting for these differences? Taxi industry may have been shitty, but at least the price was transparent. You pay while the meter is running. With Uber/Lyft, it’s a fucking black box. For all we know, the algorithms learned which drivers tend to take whatever is given to them so they can opt to shave a couple of dollars.
- Squeeeez 2y ago
  Nitpicking on your one claim that "taxi prices were transparent" - in some countries, maybe. In others, taxi drivers still have very creative ways of scamming their customers, with or without meter. This was actually the main reason I recall that Uber and others used to promote their services, clear upfront prices.
whyenot 2y ago
Ride sharing needs to be much more heavily regulated to increase transparency and discourage games like this. Especially in Uber's case, considering their history.
underlipton 2y ago
For a brief period, I worked Uber(eats) and DoorDash at the same time. I'm absolutely convinced that the two services speak to each other on the backend (or perhaps monitor each other on your phone) and structure the orders they offer you in such a way as to thwart you efforts to double-app. Uber would be utter silent for 10-20 minutes, and then send an order right after accepting a DoorDash one, and generally in the opposite direction. In general, I do wonder if/when all of the slimy anti-competitive, anti-labor stuff these companies are doing will come out. I'm not holding my breath for jail-time, but boy, would it be nice. While I'm here, it sure would be nice if someone were to spin up a fediverse/decentralized alternative that municipalities could adopt and interconnect.
rbut 2y ago
Completely anecdotal. I feel if I open Uber ahead of a planned travel and type in a destination to get an idea on the price, the price is $X. I then open the app back later when I'm ready to travel (say 15 minutes later after packing and leaving the hotel) and the price has gone up (sometimes by quite a bit). Now maybe I'm just unlucky and the dynamic market prices have gone up every time, but I've never seen the same price or less. Which makes me wonder if Uber records your interest in using them to get to a destination and then increases the price when you come back after committing to using them for your trip. I now only open the app and search when I'm ready for the trip.
- smugma 2y ago
  Anecdotally, I find if I go to Lyft, then go to Uber, and back to Lyft 30s later, I often get an updated decreased price.
  - remram 2y ago
    It might just be a case of the price not staying high for long when it is high. If every time you notice it's higher than usual, you do this, and notice the price eventually decreasing... but you never switch apps when the price is already normal, and you never not try the other app if you wait... in other words, might just be confirmation bias.
Razengan 2y ago
Haven’t touched Uber in years and always try to use the city’s local service wherever available. Its usually more convenient anyway.
elif 2y ago
I can't wait for Uber to get checked by robotaxi.
Rayaan22 2y ago
[dead]
netsharc 2y ago
The Oriental Rug Salesman as a Service: "For you my friend, special price!"... With apologies for stereotyping.
xav0989 2y ago
I’ve experienced the situation where my partner gets lower rates than I do on nearly all ride sharing apps. We’ll open the app at the same time, from the same place, heading to the same destination, and mine will be at least 10% higher. We have very similar ratings.
beacon294 2y ago
I rolled my uber costs into buying a car, now I go on hikes. I stopped ordering takeout and walk or drive to the restaurant. The fees are approaching 40% of the ticket price now. I'm out.

454 points by cwwc 2y ago

remram 2y ago

[flagged]

dathery 2y ago
I hate to run PR for Uber, but the battery story is just urban legend. If you dig into the headlines, they all trace back to one article written by a small Belgian newspaper [1] which is barely more than a blurb. The evidence in the article is one very casual experiment: > Dernière Heure conducted a test using two smartphones, one with 84% battery and the other with 12%, to request a ride from their office in Brussels to Tour & Taxis in the centre. > The result showed a significant price difference, with the phone at 12% battery being charged €17.56 and the phone at 84% battery being charged €16.6 for the same service. Uber also denies it in the article. Obviously you don't have to believe them but IMO it's more likely that the "significant price difference" (less than one euro) is explained by some other variable that the author wasn't able to identify. [1] https://www.brusselstimes.com/449143/uber-fares-allegedly-linked-to-phone-battery-levels https://www.brusselstimes.com/449143/uber-fares-allegedly-li...
- remram 2y ago
  Wow that's crazy. Dozens of newspaper reported on this. Did all those smartphone-carrying journalist repeat the claim without trying it for themselves? Thanks for pointing that out. Anyway, I have not used them since Lyft came out, for a variety of other reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber

INTPenis 2y ago

I never even hear of uber credits. I always charge it to my card. In europe we often use Bolt too, which is a competing service. So I actually have used Bolt more than Uber.

Carrok 2y ago
My credit card gives me monthly Uber credits.
- eqvinox 2y ago
  These combination/cross deals are AFAIK quite rare in the EU (or outside the US in general?) If your credit card is branded some way, it'll give you something with that brand (e.g. Lufthansa CC) but that's about it. (And I don't think there's an Uber branded credit card?)
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Carrok 2y ago
    Not an Uber card, just Amex.
onesociety2022 2y ago
It is not even just credit cards. There are other companies which also offer Uber credits. For instance, if you drop off your Tesla for service in the USA, they offer Uber credits instead of a loaner car since they don't have enough loaners for everyone. I can see Uber totally doing what this article claims because when I had those Uber credits from Tesla service, I was suddenly price insensitive. It was not like I was going to use Lyft when I had Uber credits that were going to expire at the end of the day. So I ordered myself Uber Black to/from the office with the credit.

tomohelix 2y ago

I always wonder what do the devs who coded these "features" think about themselves and/or what other people think about them. Yes I know they are literally paid to not have these questions. But deep down, is there any remorse or guilt at all or is it just "not my problem" attitude all the way to the bank? On a tangent, this is why I think there need to be more regulations with software development. Any real engineering discipline has tons of oversight and government agencies breathing down their neck to ensure compliance. Software came out when all these pushes for safety has been gutted and as a result we have a free for all race to the bottom.

howard941 2y ago
How would you word a regulation against this sort of thing to apply against the low man on the totem pole, the lowly SWE? Might it be better if it was regulated as unfair and deceptive by a strong FTC with a nice bounty for SWEs?
- alexlll862 2y ago
  One of the main avantage of regulating a professional board (eg. Engineers, doctors, etc) is to make an individual fully responsible. What if that "lowly swe" wasn't so lowly anymore and the company executives could go to jail if they pushed code without his stamp on it? In civil engineering, if your boss asks you to stamp something illegal and you do it, you can lose your title. It garantees that there is always one person in charge who will take personal responsibility for the act and will fight for thing to be done properly and no one can bypass him.
  - sitkack 2y ago
    It is a failure of capitalism that we need to force certain people to behave ethically, taking the role as umpire for a broken system.
  - jjmarr 2y ago
    We have fully licensed computer and software engineers in Canada. There isn't much demand for the professional designation outside of safety critical fields; many people graduate from accredited programs and never get the physical stamp. You'd have to massively expand the bounds of what constitutes "engineering" when programming software. This would immediately kill open source. Anyone who isn't an engineer couldn't write code unsupervised. Anyone who is, would refuse to release code publicly licence because you'd have professional liability for anyone that uses your code in perpetuity forever. I like the idea because licensure helps deal with the power differential that some professionals have over the average person. But the lines would have to be drawn very carefully to avoid killing open source.

JCM9 2y ago

Not surprised. Uber doesn’t exactly have a reputation of being the most ethical company out there.

bschmidt1 2y ago
During their growth years when they arguably did the shadiest stuff they also had record-breaking quarterly losses in the billions while their counterpart DiDi in China was doing well enough to acquire Uber China (who according to Travis Kalanick was losing over $1b a year).
- treme 2y ago
  truth is Uber had no chance in China to succeed in long term regardless and Travis was naive to think CCP would let a foreign company win logistics market so rich with data.
  - bschmidt1 2y ago
    Point stands they weren't doing well over here either during those years.

jlund-molfese 2y ago

Probably false, like the urban legend that Uber charges more when a device's battery is low [0]. Claims like this go viral because they're practically unfalsifiable (It isn't in Uber's best interest to make their pricing algorithms public) and generate clicks. But when you take a closer look, it's always some anecdote that can be explained by people selecting different pricing tiers, or by multiple phones looking at the same route implying increased demand (the latter search might display a higher price). A proper experiment would involve dozens of phones under different scenarios making searches in a random order, then trying to correlate the variables with the prices. But for whatever reason, nobody ever does those experiments. For what it's worth, I checked the price of an Uber with credits in my account against Lyft to the airport just now, and Uber was slightly cheaper. 0. https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/verify/verify-does-uber-charge-you-more-if-your-battery-is-low/507-3b1c0166-0d82-4f91-9d96-c4aa01921b12 https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/verify/verify-does-uber-ch...

Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
The fact that its unfalsifiable is the problem. They can (and why wouldn't they) run all sorts of shenanigans with their pricing algorithms. Pricing algorithms should be not be private. Free markets depend on transparent pricing.
- steelframe 2y ago
  > Free markets depend on transparent pricing. I mean, there are no surprise post-ride fees or anything. They're quoting you what the actual price is, and they're free to quote whatever they want for whatever reasons they want. Nobody's forcing you to agree to it. There's nothing stopping you from getting a competitive quote from Lyft by simply switching apps on the phone. Or by calling a cab company. Also there's nothing that keeps you from choosing to wait for a bus. *Edit: Per Uber's help page there are exceptions to the up-front price quote actually being charged, but they are exceptions. My basic point that it's still a free market stands. "The upfront price you’re shown may change due to a number of circumstances, which may include adding stops, updating your destination, significant changes to the route or duration of the trip, or you pass through a toll that was not factored into your upfront price. In addition, you may incur wait time fees for the time you take to get to the car at the pickup or multi-stop fees for time spent at an on-trip stop."

OutOfHere 2y ago

If they do charge more, it will only hurt them with people checking and using a competitor for a lower price. It will not hurt the employed economist's paycheck though who will continue to peddle pricing patterns that don't actually work in the real world, still collecting a generous salary for deceiving the company and shareholders.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago

I have a bunch of credit from the Costco thing and haven’t noticed any changes in pricing on my usual routes.

deleted 2y ago

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danpalmer 2y ago

An alternatively hypothesis is that users with credits in their account are committed spenders, and so are less likely to receive discounts. In the same way, frequent users are more committed. I rarely use Uber/Eats, so when I do I almost always have ~1/3rd off through some voucher or something. They also do vouchers that work over multiple purchases in order to build habits.

jmyeet 2y ago

It's time to start legislating against dynamic pricing. I don't know if this particular claim is true but dynamic pricing is getting out of control. Things should have an advertised price rather than some amorphous ML system deciding to charge you more because you're desperate or you can afford it (according to some criteria). These companies have to be careful too because they may open themselves up to discrimination claims. There are protected classes you can't discriminate against under federal law. Facebook already settled a case of race discrimination in housing ads [1]. This has nothing to do with dynamic pricing but I guarantee you dynamic pricing will open up more of these issues. [1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-groundbreaking-settlement-agreement-meta-platforms-formerly-known https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-gr...

fsckboy 2y ago
there's nothing wrong with dynamic pricing, but there is a lot wrong with price discrimination, bait and switch, hidden fees, and outright fraud. (and we know that uber has historically engaged in many highly dishonest practices) here's my favorite rideshare gouge, I'm sure others have had the same experience. "currenly 20 minute wait, upgrade to uber+$ for 3 minute availability?" YES! "OK booked, your ride at the higher rate is on the way, currently 20 minutes away!" now, it is possible that "offer" message was shown to a bunch of people at the same time and somebody snagged it in front of me leaving only the other car 20 mins away, i.e. the computer was "honest", but I shouldn't be paying the higher rate. clever programmer types can come up with other scenarios, the point is, we need guarantees that the market making is honest, or we need regulation.
hinkley 2y ago
I don't think it's necessarily the case that dynamic pricing shouldn't exist at all (eg, cooperative load shedding on the electrical grid). However I should, as someone who just left a concert, have a notion as to how much it's in my best interests to either rideshare with my friend and deal with two stops, or walk up the street to a restaurant and kill an hour or two while we wait for the chaos to dissipate. If the price difference is going to pay for a drink or an appetizer, then maybe I voluntarily timeshift. And we don't seem to be near that bar at the moment.

C60H92O6 2y ago

I'm not a big fan of Uber, but this seems like a case of "confirmation bias." The author formed an opinion, then searched for anything that confirmed it and accepted that as proof, even if it was completely unrelated or just due to chance. It's called "dynamic pricing" for a reason. Like stock market prices, it fluctuates rapidly based on hundreds of factors. You don't need credits to see different prices—just compare with a friend's phone. Sometimes, their fare will be higher than yours, and other times, it will be lower.

deleted 2y ago
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francisofascii 2y ago
Dynamic pricing is supposed to be based on the overall demand of the service at that instant. In this case, it is “price discrimination” based on the user, rather than the overall demand.
ywvcbk 2y ago
> Like stock market prices, it fluctuates rapidly based on hundreds of factors. I don’t think many brokers offer different prices to their clients based on attributes. How is this even a remotely valid comparison when you’re saying: > Sometimes, their fare will be higher than yours, and other times, it will be lower.

throwaway847462 2y ago

This is all nonsense. Uber does not do any sort of up charging based on anything remotely uniquely identifiable. All of the dynamic pricing is based on publicly stated known information Uber has stated, ie surge based pricing. This and other anecdotal stories, such as battery life are all click bait.

23B1 2y ago

Honesty and transparency can be a brand asset to create long-term loyalty, which reduces customer churn, reduce marketing spend, etc. All it takes is founders/executive leaders who can see past top- and bottom-line.

BearOso 2y ago

I'm not a heavy user, but I noticed that if I start with Google Maps anonymously and hit the ride-share button which gives you a comparison of Uber, Lyft, etc. prices, that when you click through the price is consistently lower than if you start with an app. I'm not sure if it's circumstance, but it's worth giving a shot if you have the time.

zug_zug 2y ago
If you can do this repeatedly, say 15 times, and record the numbers each time (say just put them in a spreadsheet), you can actually pretty easily run a "statistical test" to prove your theory at 95% confidence (which is what research journals often do). You obviously don't need to justify your observations to anybody else, but if you did find a conclusive result it would make a good blog post. [P.S. chat gpt could help with the statistical test part]
- oehpr 2y ago
  I do find chatgpt is helpful in laying out the formulas you should you in the context that they should be used in. Something I personally know I have no business doing. ... At the same time, I also am aware of how hilariously dumb chat GPT can be in deep technical contexts. I've taken to saying that when it comes to a technical topic, chatGPT will confidently tell you the wrong thing to do 50% of the time, but that's fine because it will give you the terms and context you can use to audit its solution yourself. Even if you don't understand the answers you can easily have chat gpt explain the gaps, again, 50%, but giving real information contextualizes the conversation better. I would expect this to improve accuracy, and my personal experience bares this out. There was a brief window of time where the strongest chess players were chimeras, humans who assessed AI suggestions. Quickly even they found themselves outperformed by engines. I suspect this is happening here as well. And I also suspect its going to take a good deal longer.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
Interesting - you're not logged into Maps? The rideshare tab in Maps gives me time/distance/traffic estimates and no prices. Whether I'm logged in, or Incognito. No prices unless I tap "Open App ->" There is no rideshare tab in the desktop version, only tried it on my Android.

BoppreH 2y ago

Uber was consistently charging me 20%-50% more than my friends. Same time, same origin, same destination, no discounts, regardless of who asked first or rider rating. Can't share screenshots without doxxing myself, though. After being gaslit by Uber support for weeks, they finally admitted to charge riders different prices, and that there was nothing they could do to reset my price multiplier[1]. I suspect it was because I added a Work profile with corporate credit card for a trip years ago. So I deleted my account, waited 30 days for the data to be expunged[2], and created a new account under a new email address and without my middle name. The prices are now normal! This plus drivers constantly cancelling rides, makes me avoid Uber as much as I can. - [1] Quoting Uber support: "The prices of the trips and promotions are unique to users, that is correct. [...] There is sadly nothing you can do personally to change the fare rate of the trips before any discount is applied." [2] After requesting to delete your account, I received an email asking to explain the issue and if they could help me. Replying "no" automatically reactivated my account and reset the 30 day timer.

napierzaza 2y ago
It was pretty insane that there was such a huge push with #deleteuber and there were so many stories about how terrible they were as a company for customers and employees. And now after just a few short years people somehow completely forgot or believe somehow it's all good because they changed their CEO.
jmward01 2y ago
I noticed this exact behavior between my wife and I. I avoid Uber like the plague but unfortunately they have destroyed the alternatives. We need a right to anonymity for services. Knowing who I am isn't a requirement for the actual service but they want it so they can make additional money off of you. There should always be an option 'remain anonymous' that requires the vendor to immediately delete any information on you and use nothing identifiable about you in their service. If they are found to break that then there should be severe penalties that are paid directly to the person impacted and all lawyer fees go to the company with no option for 'arbitration'.
- 2y ago

DonnyV 2y ago

When is this shitty company going to be finally shut down. Its been caught so many times cheating or breaking state laws. Just shut it down already. The business model doesn't work, its cooked.

nfw2 2y ago
Full self-driving will kill it
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

solarkraft 2y ago

Is there an (academic / journalistic) area/body of research about the pricing/recommendation/other influential algorithms of various products? I have conspiracy theories about Spotify autoplay (wouldn't it seem smart to prioritize songs with lower licensing cost?) and would like to see them checked. Surely I can't be the only person interested in the specific ways products used by hundreds of millions of people actually work? There's a lot of superstition and anecdotal evidence in this area and it would be great to see a reliable source of actual research.

fragmede 2y ago
That's not how Spotify payouts work.

whack 2y ago

People are assuming that some evil mustache-twirling PM/engineer decided to charge users more if they have credits in their account. The truth may be far more banal. They may be using a ML model to determine pricing. The ML model takes as input all known information about that user. One of those inputs, which simply came bundled together with everything else, is the user's credit balance. The ML model, after much historical analysis, figured out that it can charge users more if they have credits available. The relevant engineers treated the ML model as a black box, ran an A/B test, saw a 1.3% increase in revenue, and decided to roll it out. If this isn't already happening, I expect this will be the future of our industry.

adamesque 2y ago
Is it less evil if an unsupervised process does it?
jmount 2y ago
That isn't that different than choosing to charge more for accounts with credits. Make "having credits" available to an ML model and then let the ML model "ethics wash" the decision.
maxerickson 2y ago
At some point, the not giving a shit because it maximizes profit is all you need to be a bit judgy. If they were doing something relatively frictionless that obviously increased efficiency? People wouldn't care. Mindlessly doing what the model says, even though it's awful for the customer, to marginally increase profit some of the time by charging some customers more? People get pissed off...
andoando 2y ago
Thats almost the same thing isnt it? The motivation is to charge as much as possible to each user, how it's implemented isn't really relevant
mdasen 2y ago
You might be right, but I'm failing to see how this is less evil mustache-twirling. A PM/engineer decided "I bet we can create an ML model that will find suckers we can charge more," is basically the same as "I bet people with credits will pay more." In either case, they're making a decision to find people they can screw over. In the latter case, it's based on intuition. In the former, it's based on statistics. However, the motivation remains the same. If people are thinking this is evil, it's the motivation and the result that matter, not the means through which they achieve their goal. And if they used ML as a black box, it could act in problematic ways. Maybe the ML figured out that it could charge Black riders more. They didn't look into it and just rolled it out. Things like that can happen when you don't look into stuff. And I'd say that it's questionably legal. If a store charged you more money because you were using a gift card, I think we'd all agree that the store had unjustly taken value from you. Here, Uber is allegedly charging people with credits a higher amount - essentially stealing gift card value. I'm not sure "oh, it was just our ML deciding to steal your money," is a great defense. Ok, but what was the ML supposed to do. Well, it was supposed to figure out who we could take more money from for the same product.

deepthaw 2y ago

The entire purpose of modern technology has become to programmatically extract as much profit from every transaction every individual undertakes every day comfortable in the knowledge there’s not enough hours in the day for said consumers to scrutinize them all.

bubblethink 2y ago

n=1, but also common knowledge in deals forums, that if you have credits in your account, you don't get deals. Uber eats is only usable at the 25-40% off deals they do since the markup is often that much. If you have credits or Uber one, you don't get the deals.

hbrn 2y ago
Anecdotally, can confirm. And the trick of course is to first get the deal (which lasts for 1-2 weeks typically), and then add credits.

claw-el 2y ago

Based on my single user anecdotal data, I noticed that when I have additional Uber credit in my Uber account, I get less often or less amount of Uber Eats promotion.

o999 2y ago

I like how people in comments are keen to change the world, but I - more realisticly - only focus on gaming the system so I can actually save myself couple bucks right away. I set pick up and destination, exit the app, open another rides app, wait few minutes for uber to notify me that the price went down. I only give it initials (instead of full name) and phone number, not even my gender, I rarely rate drivers positively, if it is not a negative experience, I skip reviewing, so they don't know I "like" the service. When it takes more than a minute to find a ride, I cancel the ride and choose the "others" option, as this is the de-facto the option for "I will just take a cab", so I get inserted on the "churn risk" list. I use a virtual card that I some time leave empty so payment fail after the ride, and on the next ride I readjust my virtual card limit on the next ride and pay the last bill so I am added on the "poor and miserable riders" list. I am well protected

nomilk 2y ago
I do similar to you. I wonder if not rating is limiting your gains relative to giving (gasps) four or three star ratings.
- o999 2y ago
  I work on freelancing platforms, I know how harmful is it for me to get a 4.9/5 star rating. I would prefer not to harm the driver, unless he was a dick or was driving a garbage can, I would then rate it 1-star with a clear conscience.
magic_hamster 2y ago
I don't know if this saves you money, but if it is, you are certainly working pretty hard for it.
- xandrius 2y ago
  I do the same and it's really not more work. All the steps come rather smoothly when you have the goal in mind of not benefiting the app in any way.

avalys 2y ago

Uber is the most dishonest app (and company) I know, by an order of magnitude. The app lies about everything. What the wait time is likely to be, how many drivers there are, whether your driver is moving or not, how long it will take to find another driver when the first driver cancels, etc. Wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be true. Completely consistent with the rest of my experience with this company.

htrp 2y ago

The ML pricing algos for uber have tons of features solely aimed at maximizing revenues. It wouldn't be a surprise that the HAS_CREDITS field has a +20% impact to ride pricing.

xyst 2y ago

I’m not sure if the story here has any merits. But what I do know is: there needs to be more transparency. https://youtu.be/OEXJmNj6SPk https://youtu.be/OEXJmNj6SPk This report shows multiple drivers all located in the same area (literally, phones next to each other), getting marginally different quotes for the same ride. What is accounting for these differences? Taxi industry may have been shitty, but at least the price was transparent. You pay while the meter is running. With Uber/Lyft, it’s a fucking black box. For all we know, the algorithms learned which drivers tend to take whatever is given to them so they can opt to shave a couple of dollars.

Squeeeez 2y ago
Nitpicking on your one claim that "taxi prices were transparent" - in some countries, maybe. In others, taxi drivers still have very creative ways of scamming their customers, with or without meter. This was actually the main reason I recall that Uber and others used to promote their services, clear upfront prices.

whyenot 2y ago

Ride sharing needs to be much more heavily regulated to increase transparency and discourage games like this. Especially in Uber's case, considering their history.

underlipton 2y ago

For a brief period, I worked Uber(eats) and DoorDash at the same time. I'm absolutely convinced that the two services speak to each other on the backend (or perhaps monitor each other on your phone) and structure the orders they offer you in such a way as to thwart you efforts to double-app. Uber would be utter silent for 10-20 minutes, and then send an order right after accepting a DoorDash one, and generally in the opposite direction. In general, I do wonder if/when all of the slimy anti-competitive, anti-labor stuff these companies are doing will come out. I'm not holding my breath for jail-time, but boy, would it be nice. While I'm here, it sure would be nice if someone were to spin up a fediverse/decentralized alternative that municipalities could adopt and interconnect.

rbut 2y ago

Completely anecdotal. I feel if I open Uber ahead of a planned travel and type in a destination to get an idea on the price, the price is $X. I then open the app back later when I'm ready to travel (say 15 minutes later after packing and leaving the hotel) and the price has gone up (sometimes by quite a bit). Now maybe I'm just unlucky and the dynamic market prices have gone up every time, but I've never seen the same price or less. Which makes me wonder if Uber records your interest in using them to get to a destination and then increases the price when you come back after committing to using them for your trip. I now only open the app and search when I'm ready for the trip.

smugma 2y ago
Anecdotally, I find if I go to Lyft, then go to Uber, and back to Lyft 30s later, I often get an updated decreased price.
- remram 2y ago
  It might just be a case of the price not staying high for long when it is high. If every time you notice it's higher than usual, you do this, and notice the price eventually decreasing... but you never switch apps when the price is already normal, and you never not try the other app if you wait... in other words, might just be confirmation bias.

Razengan 2y ago

Haven’t touched Uber in years and always try to use the city’s local service wherever available. Its usually more convenient anyway.

elif 2y ago

I can't wait for Uber to get checked by robotaxi.

Rayaan22 2y ago

[dead]

netsharc 2y ago

The Oriental Rug Salesman as a Service: "For you my friend, special price!"... With apologies for stereotyping.

xav0989 2y ago

I’ve experienced the situation where my partner gets lower rates than I do on nearly all ride sharing apps. We’ll open the app at the same time, from the same place, heading to the same destination, and mine will be at least 10% higher. We have very similar ratings.

beacon294 2y ago

I rolled my uber costs into buying a car, now I go on hikes. I stopped ordering takeout and walk or drive to the restaurant. The fees are approaching 40% of the ticket price now. I'm out.