Uber CEO balks after a reporter tells him the cost of his 2.9-mile Uber ride: ‘Oh my God. Wow.’::undefined

-8 points

If what he says is true, that it’s going up because of driver pay, that’s good at least. Uber at least has competition in Lyft, and both have a lot more markets to enter around the world by chipping away the established local taxi businesses, which can also compete by dropping their prices…

Overall I think Uber is a net positive. But $50 is a pretty ridiculous fee.

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32 points

Uber has engaged in rampant employee misclassification, even going as far as changing California’s constitution to get away with it. Shit like that should not be allowed

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11 points

Lol. I also have a bridge to sell you

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3 points

If

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38 points

“from downtown New York City to the West Side”

$50 is what you’d expect if you lived in nyc, or been there enough

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7 points

Not from the area, what’s the deal/context?

I’m assuming it’s a traffic cluster fuck?

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12 points

It’s 5 to 7 miles, possibly in traffic. 20 to 50 minutes, depending on the time of day. It’s like $30, but could double during rush hour or any popular time of day.

So yeah, $50 whenever you want to go. $30 in the middle of the night.

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2 points

TIL thank you!

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1 point
*
Deleted by creator
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29 points

It’s one of the densest, most populated 2.9 miles in the world. The route takes you through the core of manhattan/nyc.

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4 points

Thank you! That’s what I was missing!

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1 point
Deleted by creator
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16 points

These prices are set via algorithm, and time of day seems to be a huge part of it. My 2.5 mile trip in Washington DC on a Thursday morning at 7:30 was $55.

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41 points
*

There was speculation that the algo takes several features into account not just time. Things like battery life, distance from frequent locations, etc. So for instance: profile is a young lady, she is on 10% battery and is several miles from home at an entertainment hub like a nightclub/concert so jack the fare up cos she’ll take it regardless, type stuff.

I used to have a very unreliable Jeep that would break down for weeks at a time. I bit the bullet and ubered to work. I have screenshots showing the fare climbing over the course of a week to six times the original price for the same trip as the algo learned that I needed to work and did not have a car.

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5 points
*

Jesus Christ that’s horrible. We’ll need to now make something like virtualbox for Android to isolate these shitty ass apps from knowing system details and shit.

EDIT: We all need to go check our uber transactions to see if cost per ride corresponded to life events.

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1 point

Wouldn’t have a cab costed the same every day? I’m curious as to how that would compare.

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1 point

If they are not in a city in the US, probably not. The nearest cab company is 2 towns/cities away from me.

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68 points

Went to a concert at an arena about 3 miles from my house, to get there was about eight bucks to go home was 60.

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35 points
*

Yep. Went to Disneyland a year ago and the trip there was very affordable. The trip home was 3-4x higher since it was closing time.

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29 points

I mean that’s how the market works isn’t it? It’s the best way to attract more drivers to those sort of locations.

That said public transport should be in place for situations like this so we don’t have 50 cars leaving but 1 bus instead…

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5 points
Deleted by creator
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17 points

It’s almost like we should regulate the industry to ensure that no one party in the deal is abusing the other. Taxis are regulated and can’t charge surge rates for a reason, when you are stuck somewhere and there are only a couple options to choose it isn’t a balanced market and therefore needs the state to ensure fairness

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1 point

Seems like they didn’t have any problem getting drivers to take them there when the fares were lower either.

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3 points

Why didn’t you walk?

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5 points

2.9 miles isn’t even far. You could just walk.

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1 point

Yep, have walked such distances semi regularly

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17 points
*

Only if fully able-bodied and there’s safe footpath present, but yeah, more of us should just walk.

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-1 points
*

That’s an hour walk- one way- for the the “average” person.

Throw in climate hazards- winter where I live, that walk is happening in -10f temperatures, probably with wind blasting enough to be deadly.

In summer, we typically have temperatures reaching 98-101 f for about a week with muggy-as-hell 80’s for several months. Also enough to be deadly.

Further, let’s say hypothetically, that’s a grocery run. Frozen goods out for that long pose a food safety risk.unless your lugging an ice packed cooler or something… which kinda sounds like my personal version of hell… that’s also likely to, you know, be deleterious to one’s health.

(Okay so maybe you luck out and just get the squirts.)

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2 points
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Who is going from Manhattan to West side, or visa versa for groceries?

And the coldest NYC has ever gotten was -1F on Feb 14th 2016, with an average low of 26 degrees in their coldest month.

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-3 points

People who can’t walk usually can’t drive either. Stop with this irrelevant “able body” argument.

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-4 points

Go back to reddit

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36 points
*

I mean, it’s an hour’s walk for the average person.

And that’s assuming safe neighborhoods, actual sidewalks, good street lighting (if at night), pleasant weather etc.

Not to mention shoes that are actually comfortable for long walks. You’d be surprised how many people don’t have that kind of shoes, and an hour’s walk in their regular shoes would give them blisters.

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8 points
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Deleted by creator
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0 points

Not if where you live is a car-centric hellhole with uneven, badly kept or sometimes even nonexistent sidewalks, and where cars are eager to run you over at every intersection because they have a “Why are you walking? You must be a poor so fuck you.” Mentality

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1 point

I live in Houston. Probably the least pedestrian friendly city on earth. I would still walk over paying that.

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