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Comment by slackson | Hacker News Reader

So what if the PETA case offers a deal that is accepted under the circumstances those families are actually in? All offers and trades are contingent on the circumstances someone's in - you wouldn't take a job with a $20/hour salary if you have the education and skills for something higher-paying than that, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal to offer wages of $20/hour.

The "more fair" solutions to the problem of surge pricing involve either Uber themselves paying out of pocket, drivers not receiving fair compensation, or neglecting to tackle the problem at all.

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> So what if the PETA case offers a deal that is accepted under the circumstances those families are actually in?

Where does it stop? How is that morally different from a $denomination religious charity offering aid conditioned on your family joining the faith? I find that disgusting and manipulative.

And that's not the worst. To take another example, it's like an insurance company offering to lower your costs in exchange for having your driving and dietary habits tracked. It's all voluntary, sure. Except that ten years later, the rest of the market has taken note and it has become mandatory.

> The "more fair" solutions to the problem of surge pricing involve either Uber themselves paying out of pocket, drivers not receiving fair compensation, or neglecting to tackle the problem at all.

Random assignment would be a fair outcome, where everybody gets paid, and people get a chance of getting a ride.

We keep trying to make a world that is completely fair but as long as we have freedom it won't be. I think it's more important to have freedom because it drives progress.

People don't want a chance at a ride, they want a ride. And that desire is the fuel that drives us.

> We keep trying to make a world that is completely fair but as long as we have freedom it won't be. I think it's more important to have freedom because it drives progress.

Why do you make the issue into a bizarre dilemma between freedom and fairness?

> People don't want a chance at a ride, they want a ride. And that desire is the fuel that drives us.

What does this have to with anything? Not everybody can have a ride in this situation. The question is only about the system you use to attribute rides.

I'm totally fine with pretty much any voluntary agreement between individuals. As for Uber, raising prices is the utility-maximizing choice (across riders, drivers, and Uber), so the burden is very much on the other side to show why it's a mistake.

> I'm totally fine with pretty much any voluntary agreement between individuals.

This sounds like a very naive position ignoring dynamics of power. Indentured labour was also the result of a "voluntary agreement between individuals". See also the working conditions of migrant workers in the Gulf states - again the result of "voluntary agreement between individuals".

> raising prices is the utility-maximizing choice (across riders, drivers, and Uber)

Only across riders who can afford the surge price. It's the utility-minimizing choice for the rest.

> Only across riders who can afford the surge price. It's the utility-minimizing choice for the rest.

It's really not. Without surge pricing, the people who can't afford surge pricing experience significantly worse outcomes as well. Specifically, they end up with very high wait times and cancellation rates, which ends up being a lot worse than the counterfactual world in which they saw the surge pricing and decided to take the subway instead. We have solid evidence for this: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/chris.nosko/research/effects...

"There is an ongoing surge. Rides are randomly attributed during the duration of the surge. Unfortunately, your number was not selected this time. Please find an alternative mean of transportation."

There is nothing unavoidable about that.

> Indentured labour was also the result of a "voluntary agreement between individuals". See also the working conditions of migrant workers in the Gulf states - again the result of "voluntary agreement between individuals".

The only problem I have with such things is when someone agrees to one thing, but winds up with something else. That probably happened at least some of the time with indentured labor.

> It's the utility-minimizing choice for the rest.

You usually can't maximize utility for every single person. Maximizing total utility is the standard, and you haven't explained why we shouldn't do that here. "Won't somebody think of the ~~children~~ poor riders?"

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