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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

• 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."
  • echelon 2y ago
    What you're responding to is market demand for an alternative. Who knows if it'll spring into existence, but the words have been uttered into the universe.
  • endgame 2y ago
    My latest Uber receipt reads: > Due to unanticipated tolls or surcharges on this trip, we’ve adjusted your upfront fare to reflect the actually incurred charges. Please see the receipt breakdown for details.
    • admax88qqq 2y ago
      Were there tolls on your trip?
      • ramblingrain 2y ago
        Driver pay gets adjusted this way too. Lyft and Uber. No tolls, traffic jams (at least) can cause this.
    • Waterluvian 2y ago
      Given enough time Uber will just look like an another taxi service I guess.
      • ramblingrain 2y ago
        Yes, except the driver will never have his child in a car seat in the front apologetically. And the passenger will pay in excess, but to the stock market and not the driver.
• bdangubic 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
    What? How?
    • saghm 2y ago
      I _think_ they're trying to say that since we don't have transparent prices, and we have a free market, free markets must not depend on transparent prices. It's not obvious though because it seems that there's disagreement about whether or not we have free pricing (as seen by other subthreads here), so it wasn't clear to me at first if the parent comment here was arguing that we have transparent prices and therefore are communistic or that we don't and therefore aren't.
      • Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
        Right, thank you that. I didn't get what was being said there. Of course in a large economy where most price discovery is transparent in the sense that they are not individualized and can't change in real-time based on arbitrary and hidden rulesets, then a few exceptions won't topple the whole thing. Some amount of fraud can also be tolerated. But too much and things start to break down.
        • saghm 2y ago
          Yep, I agree with that. I think there's probably a spectrum of "transparency" rather than just a binary thing, and we all have different ideas of where to draw the line of what's acceptable. They key question to me is whether it's transparent enough for there to be accountability. Right now, it's impossible to tell the difference between the pricing algorithm that Uber currently uses and one where they pull tricks like the one described in the article, and I think that's the problem; they might do it, they might not, and from the outside, it looks identical because there's no way to hold them accountable if they do.
• bongodongobob 2y ago
  Pricing algorithms have ALWAYS been private, for any business. They tell you the price straight up. You either like the price or you don't. They don't and should not need to explain where the number came from. Do you whine about the pricing algorithms behind McDonalds or the grocery store? I would hope not.
  • Daishiman 2y ago
    Mass consumer products generally don't discriminate per user like that.
    • TeMPOraL 2y ago
      This. B2C expectation is a fixed price, as if it was a property of the product or service, and any sudden changes need some plausible justification (like idk. import costs just went up because of a calamity, or sth.). When I go to the grocery store, I don't want to pay whatever I can individually negotiate with the seller - the hassle and resulting unpredictability has a large dollar cost on individuals' life too.
  • TheJoeMan 2y ago
    The issue is the computer age has allowed gray-area-illegal pricing discrimination to be partook at unprecedented scale. McDonald’s sets a price per market not user. It’s funny you mention them though, because just look at the shenanigans with the $10 whopper sticker prices to drive people to “download the McDonald’s app”. It’s just setting up a reverse auction in disguise.
  • maweaver 2y ago
    Funnily enough, that is especially not the case with the market Uber competes with, a.k.a taxis. The fare is pre-advertised and is based on distance/time. Transparent pricing that does not vary by customer was a very important aspect of traditional taxi services, to the point where you could see your fare change in real time as the ride progressed.
    • AStonesThrow 2y ago
• nfw2 2y ago
  You’re confusing unprovable and unfalsifiable. It could proven either through a whistleblower or finding an example where two accounts request the same ride at the same time and show a different price. If these sort of anecdotes aren't acceptable to you, you might say it's unprovable. Unfalsifiable means it's impossible to submit evidence to contrary. In this case the proposition is that Uber sometimes charges you more based on having credits in your account. There is no way to prove this never happens through an experiment. If an experiment showed that two rides cost the same to users with and without credits, it doesn't show that it never happens.
  • addicted 2y ago
    Considering Uber’s stated, implicit and possibly legal goal is to maximize their profits, why do you believe they are choosing to not maximize profits in these situations?
    • tbrownaw 2y ago
      > choosing to not maximize profits There is a phrase "penny wise and pound foolish". That phrase is a good description of what's being alleged here. Trying to grab a few percent in ways that are likely to bring the hammer down when discovered is not exactly a great idea.
      • stemlord 2y ago
        >likely to bring the hammer down when discovered People would forget a week later and continue to use the app. I think that saying is a bit naive to the post antitrust capitalist world
      • Nextgrid 2y ago
        > Trying to grab a few percent in ways that are likely to bring the hammer down when discovered is not exactly a great idea. DoorDash stole tips and got away with it. The precedent has been set. The "hammer" you're talking about hasn't existed for over a decade.
• fragmede 2y ago
  > Free markets depend on transparent pricing. Specifically, transparent in that I can compare prices, which I can just check with my work phone or Lyft or Waymo, so they are. But when I buy a can of coke from the store, I have zero clue as to why it's priced. The algorithm used there is as opaque as Uber's is. I'd love for Uber to be transparent as to why a ride costs what it does, and how much goes to the driver, but there's no reason for them to do that.
  • josephcsible 2y ago
    But two people in the same store at the same time will always see the same price for the can of coke.
    • astrange 2y ago
      Not if one of them has a coupon or is in the rewards program. (Or has food stamps.)
      • Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
        The price adjustments due to coupons, rewards programs, and food stamps are all publicly available (transparent). No hidden algorthms. If the coupon says 10% off, then that's what you get. It's not maybe 10% off or maybe something else depending on a secret recipe like if the temperature is between x and y and you have a name that rhymes with Pobert or whatever else some AI has figured out.
        • astrange 2y ago
          The opacity is that people who don't have coupons generally don't know they exist. Coupons are a kind of price discrimination assuming that people with less time to coupon-hunt are willing to pay more.
          • deleted 2y ago
            [deleted]
• bozhark 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • mvdtnz 2y ago
    If you have something to say, say it.
• tshaddox 2y ago
  Free markets depend on a large number of competitors and low barriers to entry. Transparent pricing is unlikely to make much of a difference with Uber.
• brookst 2y ago
  Pricing needs to be transparent, but the reason for the pricing does not. As long as it’s labeled clearly and accurately you can decide to buy or not. You don’t get to tell Walmart they have to give a breakdown of everything that went into a pricing decision.
  • acdha 2y ago
    Those situations aren’t the same: Walmart charges everyone the same price and they advertise those prices so they’re stable over some time. Uber has multiple sources of dynamic behavior and so I think it’s reasonable to demand visibility, similar to how an airplane fare breaks down the portions which are demand based from the things which are static.
    • brookst 2y ago
      > Walmart charges everyone the same price This... isn't true. The same item at a Walmart near San Francisco will have a different price than in nowhere, Kansas. But the person I was responding to was saying that the reasons for a price need to be transparent, which I think is orthogonal to whether a company has universal same-price-for-everyone guarantees. And most companies do not charge the same thing to everyone, even within a market. Think about AAA and senior discounts, loyalty programs, etc.
      • acdha 2y ago
        It’s true in a market for Walmart but not Uber, and the same is true for everything else you mentioned – senior discounts don’t vary per-person. I think that’s a fundamental difference since private per-customer pricing opens up the possibility for the kind of abuses which Uber has been accused of repeatedly.
  • arp242 2y ago
    > You don’t get to tell Walmart they have to give a breakdown of everything that went into a pricing decision. If Walmart would have a custom price for everyone that walks in based on how much Walmart thinks they can afford, then yes: absolutely there should be more transparency.
• AStonesThrow 2y ago
  Pricing algorithms have always been private!! Yet "free markets" seemed to work out anyway. Go to an auction house, or a swap meet. Haggle for prices, against other buyers, negotiate with sellers. Approach any salesman in a business with unpublished prices (B2B especially.) Try to purchase a home or a vehicle, middleman or not. Think about it, and you'll discover that pricing algorithms have been subject to human whim since before the invention of money. The amazing innovation of markets was indeed, up-front price tags, fairness to all buyers, yet any underlying algorithm was still private and proprietary, so the consumer at a Safeway doesn't really have any idea what his carton of milk costs or why he's paying $7 for it.
  • ramblingrain 2y ago
    The problem is price fixing, right? Milk, really?
• tyingq 2y ago
  I suppose it's also possible that they are taking hundreds of data points including battery life and credits, and training some ML. Then they don't even really know what the algorithm is, other than whatever the weights they are feeding it.
• rockinghigh 2y ago
  I worked in the pricing team at the time. There was essentially no personalization. The biggest factors were your current location, where you're going, the time of the day, current demand level around you, and current supply of drivers around you. Promotions were slightly more personalized but battery level was not used.