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Comment by zobzu | Hacker News Reader

I've only had a few rides and ive 4.9 (ie someone didnt rate me 5.0). Meh.

Then again, I don't feel bad rating drivers because they sell me a service, I'm rating that (it wouldnt even have to include their name - it probably shouldn't. then again I'm european, we seem to have slightly different ethics).

I feel bad that they rate us because we don't provide them with anything.

That rating is going to be saved, sold and shared eventually.

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I feel bad that they rate us because we don't provide them with anything.

In rough order of importance to drivers:

1) Not causing damage to their vehicles.

2) Giving good enough directions on pickup such that they waste a minimum of (unpaid) time getting to you, and exiting the car in an expeditious manner. An Uber driver's KPI is "number of minutes per day with the car in motion with a passenger in it." (This is the biggest reason why many of them keep multiple phones with multiple apps open -- minimizing time between trips maximizes the number of trips they take per day and, thus, revenue.)

3) Not contravening the usual covenants of civil society.

Just like any other marketplace transaction, we the buyers do provide the suppliers (drivers) with value. Equal value, of course.

Much of that value is automated in the form of our credit card details in our Uber app. But we do provide value in a few other forms: not being obnoxious, not trashing/puking in their car, not harassing them physically or verbally.

All these things happen to taxi and Uber drivers regularly, so there IS a need to keep the demand-side riders in check. It's analogous to eBay or AirBnB's two-sided rating systems.

Also, it's not fair to state as fact that our consumer buyer ratings will be "saved, sold and shared eventually." If Uber were a free consumer app with an unclear revenue source, that'd almost certainly be the case. But Uber isn't in the business of needing to sell that data. On the contrary, any marketplace data they hold is competitive advantage over other driver/rider services. They have at least some incentive to keep that proprietary.

>Equal value, of course.

Both people in a transaction value the thing they have less than the thing the other person is offering, otherwise there's no reason to bother making the transaction.

At least, in theory.

every company eventually goes to the dark side and does something like that, unless it dies before and then nobody knows if the data is gone or not. I'm not sure how its unfair. Pretty sure their 10000 lines clauses will indicate something saying they own all this data, including your location data, etc and reserve to use whatever they want with it.

also at the minimum they should make clear the passenger (you) is going to be rated IMO. Maybe that'd solve the issue of passengers not being courteous or whatever.

>I feel bad that they rate us because we don't provide them with anything.

You provide them with the "I didn't vomit in your car" service.

Not necessarily. Drivers rating the passenger is a defence against passengers rating the drivers low, and also a way for Uber to keep quality standards high by stopping 'bad' passengers from using the service.

>Drivers rating the passenger is a defence against passengers rating the drivers low

I don't see how this it the case, assuming that drivers don't know what passengers rated them before rating the passenger.

Reciprocal bad ratings from several drivers could indicate a bad passenger who is being fussy etc and trying to take it out on drivers.

But as I say in the GP, I am assuming that the drivers don't know that they are given a low rating prior to giving the passenger a rating.

It's not a low rating that triggers a reciprocal low rating. But an obnoxious and fussy person who gives out low ratings should be discounted if in turn multiple drivers have given him/her low ratings (for being obnoxious).

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