Uber made nearly $500M from a 'safe rides fee' – money went to company
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20140420053019/http://support.ub...
>What is the Safe Rides Fee?
>From the beginning, we’ve always been committed to connecting you with the safest rides on the road. Our new Safe Rides Fee is a $1 fee added to uberX fares in United States cities with uberX ridesharing. This Safe Rides Fee supports our continued efforts to ensure the safest possible platform for Uber riders and drivers, including an industry-leading background check process, regular motor vehicle checks, driver safety education, development of safety features in the app, and insurance. For complete pricing transparency, you’ll see this as a separate line item on every uberX receipt.
It seems clear enough that it is an added fee (or price increase) by any other name.
Next time - say - a Big Mac will go from 3.99 to 4.99, "for complete pricing transparency" McDonalds may add a "Hygiene and Environmental fee" to support their continued efforts to clean the premises and dispose of the plastics, etc.
A restaurant, which does this winds up instantly on my shit list.
Such passive aggressive behavior is a sure sign that they treat their staff like crap and I prefer not to give my business to such places.
Adding new regulations should be like adding a new software feature. There is a cost, so it should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
Free wifi, they are super clean, cheap but delicious coffee, they offer good food above and beyond the cheeseburgers you're thinking about, and they have good ice cream cones for cheap as well.
People often go to McDonald's and use it as a coffee shop and do work.
McDonald's is much better than any other fast food place because they put so much effort into making them nice places to go.
Maybe you shouldn't be so judgemental about people who eat there
Exactly, and that is actually my point.
Since all these features have (obviously) some costs (as well as ingredients, staff, rent, energy, etc.), the moment McDonalds need hypothetically some more money to cover them they might simply increase the prices (correct) or introduce an extra "vague" fee through some weasel words (the Uber way in this case), the end effect is the same for both sides, the customer will pay a little more and McDonalds will have a larger income.
70 percent of mcdonalds business is drive through Big mac and fries are the #1 #2 most popular menu item.
BUT I suppose I could still be wrong with the above being true ...
Not at all, the BigMac/MacDonalds was only an example of something everyone knows about, given exclusively to make a layman's comparison, not to start a debate on free market rules, banana republics, regulations or affordable dietary preferences.
If you prefer, we can use as reference example - say - any other "service" chain, let's say Starbucks (probably a little less ubiquitous than McDonalds).
They make an effort to clean and keep tidy the premises, dispose of litter properly, and put the cost of that in the prices of what they serve, without any need to make a separate fee for that.
The weasel attitude is when Uber saying "for complete pricing transparency" calls a plain raise of price a fee as if it was an added service, a fee, by definition :
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fee
is "an amount of money paid for a particular piece of work or for a particular right or service" so logically the income derived from a fee should go directly to cover costs of this particular service (which instead is implied).
They may be lying about how they're earmarking the funds, and that may be actionable, but that's a separate issue.
I would count this as as part of safety, so if they realised that's where there costs were and added a fee to offset it, this doesn't seem inherently unethical.
In Cape Town, South Africa I've taken a lot of Ubers + Bolts (previously Taxify), and although Bolt is usually cheaper, the difference in how they do background and quality checks on both drivers and cars is very apparent.
Coiffures: elaborate hairatyles
Coffers: financial accounts
</misinformation>
Hairatyles: an example of Muphry's law in action
Hairstyles: a particular way in which a person's hair is cut or arranged
Muphry's law: "anything that can be mispelled, will be mispelled"
Mispelled: an example of Muphry's law in action
“Misspelled: a word spelled incorrectly.”: better.
Language change denier: As above, sans "Nazi" reference.
Q: Did you hear about the dyslexic, agnostic insomniac?
A: He stayed up all night wondering if there was a dog.
And maybe, just maybe, they had plans and did eventually use it for all the things they said, but didn’t have a particular program in place yet? I really just feel like this is trying too hard to look for something clearly nefarious when it’s just not there.
Lawsuits in the US about deceptive fees like [1] come to mind.
[1] https://blog.ticketmaster.com/schlesinger-v-ticketmaster/
Whereas I feel like you're trying too hard to look for a reason why Uber is not in the wrong.
Of that $217 is actually the ticket, the rest are taxes and fees, including:
US SECURITY FEE (UNITED STATES) $5.60 USD
"The Passenger Fee, also known as the September 11 Security Fee, is collected by air carriers from passengers at the time air transportation is purchased. Air carriers then remit the fees to TSA. The fee is currently $5.60 per one-way trip in air transportation that originates at an airport in the U.S., except that the fee imposed per round trip shall not exceed $11.20."
See for example: https://blueswandaily.com/airline-fuel-surcharges-what-airli...
It's all a game to keep the initial ticket price down and then they slap on a whole bucket of fees by the time you are done entering in your CC info. Google Flights is usually pretty good at telling you what the cost will be before you even click through to the airline's website.
Unless a fee is specifically required to be levied by the government or it represents something that the consumer can opt-out of, then it is part of the price and should be listed as such.
Hotels, airlines, and cable companies are the worst offenders, but it's only going to get worse unless we put a regulatory stop to it.