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In principle that sounds great. In reality, that introduces more steps as each price offer and counter offer produces a time delay and makes me think.

Right now the app follows KISS (keep it simple stupid) and "don't make me think" principles.

A free market price negotiation would introduce a lot more complexity.

One way I could see this working is if driver's set their own rate (per minute or per mile) and riders can accept or reject that rate.

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This could be smoothed with some thoughtful UI design though.

Drivers could set their preferred areas and rates beforehand, creating an inventory of drivers.

For riders asking for a ride to a destination, they'd get a slider that has a preset 'Uber suggested fare,' based on their driver inventory. One could slide it up or down and see the wait time for a pick up and car quality change.

They can just hide it behind a non obvious ui and create it for compliance purposes. Effectively it will be the same since very few passengers or drivers will use it.

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