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Interesting to see downstream pricing effects from this. In general, riders with specific filters applied get higher quotes than riders without them. Uber eith
by NiloCK 1y ago
Interesting to see downstream pricing effects from this. In general, riders with specific filters applied get higher quotes than riders without them.
Uber either:
- lets the market equilibrium naturally settle (meaning women requesting woman drivers "pay a safety premium" - hard PR sell)
- manually suppresses the difference, creating distortions that I can't immediately imagine or articulate.
Same on the driver's side.
- SoftTalker 1y agoThere will be exactly two options: Pay more, or wait longer. There's no avoiding simple economics.
- NiloCK 1y agoSubsidies can avoid simple economics! The third option is to dramatically juice the wages of woman drivers.
- byteknight 1y agoWhile it is totally nonsensical, as as suggestion as a business practice, I will indulge in the idea as if you are being genuine. You cannot give a gender more money to do the same job with the criteria being a specific gender. That is blatantly illegal.
- thayne 1y agoIt seems to me like this would also be illegal. You are giving one gender an option you aren't giving the other gender. And you are making it so one gender has more potential customers than the other, which is effectively giving them more money. But whether the law is enforced is a whole other question.
- 1659447091 1y ago> You are giving one gender an option you aren't giving the other gender. A simple solution then is to make the feature a `custom request for the same sex driver/passenger`. Then males can request males and females can request females. Or they (driver/passenger) can simply use it as
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- simonsarris 1y agoIt's not blatant - "a driver not threatening to women" is not a job both genders can do. It's very easy to delineate. We have hundreds of jobs like that already that are quite mundane and legal, like worker at Victoria's Secret.
- zahlman 1y ago> "a driver not threatening to women" is not a job both genders can do. Imagine if I were to make an analogous claim with races rather than genders. You wouldn't even care whether there were any kind of statistical basis for the claim (I am explicitly not claiming any statistical basis for any claim of that form). You would immediately and correctly deem the claim to be racist. Feeling threatened by the mere existence of another person, on the basis of that person's sex, race or anything else is not generally considered a rational or socially acceptable response. It's the sort of thing that results either from past life trauma or from explicit bigotry.
- msgodel 1y agoThe more of this kind of natural discrimination we make illegal the less meaningful public markets will be and the more people will choose to: 1) Just not socialize 2) Do things under the table. Let people pay the premium for what they want. Sometimes there are good reasons for it. Stop pretending to have an apodictic understanding of both the world and morality.
- Onavo 1y agoAnd who exactly will pay the difference? The state? Maybe the governments of NY/Cali/Washington can put in taxpayer money to make up for the difference. I wonder how well that will go with the voters.
- thayne 1y agoThat's kind of already built in. Women drivers who are willing to drive men will have a larger customer pool than men can get. I would expect this to result in fewer male drivers.
- nick_ 1y agoYou'll hear about subsidies in day two of learning about economics.
- SoftTalker 1y agoI put that in the "pay more" category, as it has the same impact on supply.
- raxxorraxor 1y agoThe idea to subsidize Uber is its own quality though, if I understand correctly.
- colechristensen 1y agoI imagine there also will be sex discrimination lawsuits. It just isn't legal to make decisions while employed based on whether or not you're a woman or likely as a customer as well.
- Der_Einzige 1y agoWhy? This kind of sex discrimination is good. If that’s illegal, than I hope more people act illegally!
- alistairSH 1y agoFor starters, the option doesn't appear to be available for men. Male drivers in particular may want to skip female passengers for fear of baseless allegations/lawsuits. Second, if my personal experience with Uber is typical, there aren't anywhere near enough female drivers available to serve female customers. In order to make this system work, female passengers will either need to wait much longer (for an available female driver) OR Uber will have to increase wages for female drivers (to entice more drivers). That second option is likely illegal - generally speaking, we can't determine wages strictly on gender. I don't necessarily have a problem with the notion of females selecting female drivers/customers, but I do have concerns about rolling out an actual real-life feature in a legal and fair/equitable manner.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- soco 1y agoSo they will wait longer. I expect the market being market-y, women drivers will hear about it and enroll more to drive Uber. Still long wait for female waiting for female drivers, probably. Yet all this magic working without subsidies.
- alistairSH 1y agoRandom woman waiting longer is going to entice more female drivers at the existing wage? That doesn't seem likely to me. If Uber wants/needs more female drivers, they're going to need some sort of proactive enticement. But, as I said, wage discrimination isn't legal (probably). And general "DEI" programs are political targets right now (though, IMO, probably the best answer to find more female drivers).