Hey Uber, I Like Your Ride… But Not Sure It's Worth The $143 You Charged Me | Hacker News Reader

Hey Uber, I Like Your Ride… But Not Sure It's Worth The $143 You Charged Me

nickhughesblog.wordpress.com

19 pointsjnickhughes7 comments

I'm a bit confused. Uber said:

and you will ALWAYS know if there is a price increase before you request an Uber.

But I infer from the post that the potential cost was not known to the author prior to accepting the ride? Obviously, getting hit with a large bill after the event is pretty uncool but if the rate is clear in advance, you can either take it or pick up a regular cab.

I suspect the author of the post is glossing over the fact that technically he was informed, he just clicked through the "Surge Pricing / are you sure you want to pay 5x" screen without reading it closely, figuring the email had already prepared him for a slightly higher fare.

I infer this from the fact that the post focuses on the email and Uber's pricing decision in the first place, rather than the notification or lack thereof, and then at the end slips in: "transparency is not just a vague email or a short notification".

How long did you wait for your ride? How long would you have had to wait for an alternative ride? What's your time and comfort worth?

I'll assume you knew what the base price was, and where willing to pay that. Where was your maximum price that would cause you to find an alternative ride?

I think that is beside the point. If I'm understanding the author clearly, the only thing he knew before the ride completed was that there /was/ a surcharge, not the amount he would have to pay. It's difficult to do a cost-benefit analysis without knowing the cost up front. I agree, if I saw that I'd have to pay 20 dollars more than normal because it is a holiday, I'd choose to pay it, but there's a certain threshold that I wouldn't cross and uber seems to be (again, if I understand the author correctly) intentionally hiding the surcharge from its users to avoid the possibility of users deciding that the surcharge would put the price above that threshold.

Uber approached this like a bunch of math/econ geeks when they should have approached this like designers. Economics assumes that people who are rational, operating under perfect information will make optimal choices.

The problem was that the interface did not give people the information necessary which meant that sub-optimal choices were made and this is clouding the debate around surge pricing. If Uber had presented an interface that said "this ride will cost $143, do you want to proceed?" it's likely a lot more people would have hit no, the demand would not have shot up as high and it would have been a much more reasonable 2x - 3x surge.

Dynamic pricing is dumb because it is disruptive to a consistent user experience. I know an Uber ride from points A to B usually costs $X. Once I've got that into my brain, why stick it to me when I'm not really expecting it? Trying to catch a cab in San Francisco in NYE is hard enough. Making it easy to find a limo but charging me a lot more when I'm already pissed off is a bad move.

FYI, I have used Uber 10+ times.

They have a blog post:

http://blog.uber.com/2012/01/01/take-a-walk-through-surge-pr...

Apparently the poster got a deal at 5x pricing, since their screenshot shows 6.25x pricing.

While the screenshot appears to meet minimum standards for informing customers, it's not really good enough. Let's see, 6.25 x 3.90 per mile x hmmm, let's see, how many miles, what if he takes the tunnel instead of the bridge, hmmm... This is, pardon my French, crap.

First there's a moral problem. Most people view jacking up rates on captive customers when the cost of service hasn't increased as immoral. (See for example Thinking, Fast and Slow by Kahneman.) The average person views this as price-gouging.

But even if you decide that yes, your business is going to operate that way and screw your image, making someone solve a math problem with a half-dozen variables in their head to have some idea of the cost of their ride is not acceptable. Uber's lawyers should look up cases where someone tried to bury a ("and then the cost increases by 900%") clause in a contract and those contracts get rejected by the courts. There's no actual meeting of the minds on the price of the service, and thus the contract is invalid.

Uber would do a lot better to add a surcharge: "Currently there is a $50 surcharge for New Year's Eve in addition to the regular fees. Continue [Y/N]?"

That's more clear, more legally sound, and probably slightly less likely to be perceived as price-gouging.

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