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Comment by cameldrv | Hacker News Reader

You haven't been paying attention to what Uber's been doing. They started by charging flat fares on Pool, now they're charging flat fares for all rides. They're decoupling the price that the rider pays from what the driver gets. Pool makes this obfuscation easier, since the calculation is much more complex for rides that are partially shared. They do seem to be raising prices on riders without passing it on to drivers.

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That's certainly true - things like Pool make it easier to obfuscate the cut Uber takes. But still, price rises don't just have a potential to alienate passengers, but drivers as well. If anything, drivers may well be more fickle than passengers, since someone who takes Uber once or twice a week has less to lose than someone driving for them 8 hours a day.

True but a 6% increase overboard is practically invisible.

Will you notice if you pay $7.51 one day, and 7.96 the next day? What with all the surge pricing, route changes, time of day pricing, and other schemes Uber throws at you, you're lucky to get the same price day to day.

If they are so invisible not to matter, then why aren't they higher already? Why would Uber lose money if they didn't feel like they have to?

I think there is always the factor of other apps and e.g google maps making prices easily available for comparison etc.

If Uber increases from $7.51 to $7.96 you might not see the difference in your head, but then if for example lyft is offering $7.80 for the same ride, whats more likely for you to choose?

I think they'd be very careful with increasing prices and wait their competitors to increase prices first so they can follow up, or else they might run themselvs out of business.

To be fair if you take an uber regularly on a regular route you know how much it is going to cost. Sure they could bump up prices when a user takes a journey they don't usually take but it is noticeable when your regular ride cost increases.

they can 'simply' (probably not that simple, of course), introduce higher fares for new users. never used uber myself, and if i did, I'd have little to compare the cost to. That 6% they need could easily be 7, 8, 9 or 10%, and I wouldn't know.

In my case, at least, living in NYC, I compare prices with what I pay for standard Yellow Cabs. Sometimes the Uber prices are not that much lower for routes that I know. In NYC, the Uber and Yellow Cab rates are almost the same. Compare that with Chicago which has far more reasonable rates. All of the inputs (car cost and operations, gas, labor of driver) is the same in NYC and Chicago, yet NYC is far, far more expensive for users. Gett and Via (the later is a carpooler) has much better rates.

For the rates Uber charges in NYC (UberX)

Base Fare: $2.55. (NYC Yellow Cab - $2.50) Per Minute: $0.35. (Yellow - $.50) Per Mile: $1.75. (Yellow - $2.50) Cancellation Fee: $5 (Yellow -- no cancellation) Service Fees: $0 Minimum Fare: $8. (Yellow - no minimum)

Chicago: (Uber X)

Base Fare: $1.70 Per Minute: $0.20 Per Mile: $0.95 Cancellation Fee: $5 Service Fees: $1.40 Minimum Fare: $4.40

>They're decoupling the price that the rider pays from what the driver gets.

And this is somewhat transparent, right? Everyone loves getting middle manned, I'm sure neither drivers nor passengers will mind.

Getting a lift is a commodity. It needs to be cheaper form the buyer's perspective and it needs to pay better from the driver's perspective. Not sure how that works while also earning bing money for the middle man. Uber smells like a self-driving play, and that's falling apart.

(on the assumption that your first sentence was sarcastic) Everyone does love getting middle-manned, it's why uber is successful. We had taxi services before uber, but they were unreliable and sometimes meant calling around 3 or 4 to get a cab at busy times. No accountability of where the cab was if it was late / no showed. Uber changed that and people flocked to them in their droves. Same for airbnb and basically any other major marketplace app / site.

They may now be looking like an autonomous driving play, but that is not why the company started.

People use uber because it is cheap and easy. If taxis and other ride services roll out apps (which they are) then uber has lost its advantage in ease of use. If uber starts to feel expensive as well then they have lost everything that made them popular. Uber has to start squeezing someone for $700m a quarter. That squeeze isn't going to feel good.

That's happened though. I live in London, where black cabs are the de facto standard. They should be one of the examples of the most organised taxi 'companies' in the world - brilliant brand, effective organisation and a technically closed market and yet they have 3 major apps (gett, mytaxi(hailo), taxiapp) meaning they can't offer the same experience as uber. Black cabs also cost 4x what an uber costs for the same journey, which certainly doesn't help.

People want 1 app which does taxis - uber fits that bill pretty nicely, and to be honest, I don't think users would really notice if they bumped prices by 10%, certainly not in London.

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