This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Uber's Guide To Tonight's Peak "Surge" Pricing
With more than two million rides tonight, we expect New Year's Eve to be our busiest night ever! Busy nights require surge pricing to get enough cars on the road and ensure you always have a reliable ride.
* * *
Always good to manage expectations. So The Bottom Line appears to be - get home by midnight to avoid being surge-priced...
* * *
Apart from in Spain...
- *UBER TEMPORARILY SUSPENDS UBERPOP IN SPAIN
»
- 10838 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Who is too drunk to drive before 3:00 a.m.?
Ill be too drunk to drive at 3 PM
I'm already too drunk to drive, it's 9 pm here
celebrated last night
it was great
no crowds
Hey, supply and demand.. real price discovery at work..
NOT state (city) dictated, exploitative crony and graft powered “regulation”
And.. being out on the street in the city after 1 a.m. is by default, a risk situation in today’s modern liberal/progressive society.
Very risky yes. I also charge a $5 puke insurance fee upfront
I couldn't agree more!!
What was the point of this story? May as well have noted the price of Doritos is double that of store brand corn chips... Damn gougers!
Should the price of gas be the same year round? Should every gas station in my town charge the same? If I have 2 gadgets left and 10 customers wanting one, should I adjust the price to reflect the demand or maybe keep the same price for importunity and just have them draw straws?
If Uber shouldn't adjust pricing by demand, why should any commodity be priced by demand? Maybe, to be fair, the Government should set the rates?
Are we for or against free markets?
Fair disclosure, I pay for my Golf habit by driving part time for Uber, and would not be tempted to drive tonight without a price increase!
Back to Bread and Circuses sheeple......
Here is a practical man. I'll drink to you tonight, waiting 30 minutes for my drink behind mobs of hipsters and thug wannabes. Not that I like big crowds or paying up the ass for pissbeer at a nightclub, but that's what the millennial friends like. Happy New 2015 y'all. It's gonna be a propagandastic roller pooster to top 2014.
Thank God we are too old to have any desire to be surrounded by dozens, hundreds, or thousands of inebriated strangers. Good luck to all who are planning to venture out into the madness.
And to add to the revelrie, protests are expected in many cities. This should get interesting.
Sharing a ride with a drunk stranger who's about to toss his/her cookies, lovely idea.
How about public transportation?
Never mind...
Fall in front of a train and you don't have to worry about being arrested for DUI. That's a great idea. I never thought of that.
New Year's Eve AKA "Amateur Night".
+100
all the sheeps go out on New Year's eve, the prices triple too
Humans treat New Year's Eve like it's some life-changing event. If your life sucked in 2014 it will most probably suck even more tomorrow.
Yes but the suck gets to start all fresh again!
+100
good laugh
Every morning is a chance for the suck to start all fresh again.
so then if we all do as they suggest and request rides "righ after the ball drops....or later" then won't surge pricing move to the new demand?
We need government involvement in this. It's obviously unfair that Uber is allowed to set prices based on demand! For instance, this means poorer people are more likely to drive drunk instead of taking Uber and get in wrecks, killing dozens babies across this great land. We need regulation to put an end to this nasty corporate price gouging.
I know you're kidding but somewhere there's a politician who is reading this and thinking "that's a great idea".
WTF are you doing here @ ZH with this statement: "We need government involvement "
you need to stick to CNN or wake the fuck up
Tips on how to recognize sarcasm without a "sarc" tag:
1. It's all about context. Who actually trolls ZH with demands for "more government involvement"? Answer: no-one.
2. Outrageous language that doesn't make sense: "Obviously unfair... to set prices based on demand" ... do I really need to parse this for you? It is the first rule of economics that rising demand raises prices. To say that such a law is "obviously unfair" is ludicrus, and therefore, humorous, because sane people don't make such statements. But insane people have no sense of humor, and therefore take everything seriously.
3. Illogical logic: Moving from a premise to an outrageous conclusion by means of huge leaps of logical fallacy is always funny, even when it is done in seriousness. Dead babies as a result of Uber's surge pricing is just such a humorous illogical leap. The real humor here is that you cannot see the humor in this.
4. I am tempted to write something serious and logical, and then put a "sarc" tag on it, just to fuck with everyone's head. Sarc tags are for pussies.
+1000
yup i did forget /sarc lol
removing / refusing '/sarc' is a standard IQ test on ZH.
"killing dozens of babies across the great land" isn't sarcastic enough for you?
Our visitor, Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss/Dr/Rev DOLLAR is stuck, so I am here to help::
On the little table in front of you, you will find a box of colour crayons and a piece of paper.
Take any crayon out of the box. Any colour will do. You may use either end of the crayon.
Stick your tongue between your teeth, clench down and concentrate real hard.
Now pick up the crayon and connect the only two dots on the paper. Try not to drool on the paper. (Don't forget to concentrate real hard, but not so hard you poop your diaper.)
There.....you did it.
Welcome to Sarcasm-stan.
You missed the "unfettered" word. That's the omg code word. Then the OMGs come out and start demanding things.
Just start using it, it's hilarious how outraged people get.
"unfettered banker access to consumer wallets, savings, and safety deposit boxes"
Actually that one's not so funny.
Just imagine how many babies will be dropped from incubators because of Uber...
Supply demand, except for Spain. They are going to walk everywhere.
There is nothing like ripping your customers off -- then wondering why you are going out of business. Excessive late fees put many video rental stores out of business and hastened the transtition to on-line content delivery. High ticket prices are killing baseball, as families (and hence the future fan base) can no longer afford to go. $100 fees for a 5 mile ride will mean the last ride for that particular customer.
Maybe Mickey D's can double the price of Big Macs between 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM?
You sure about that video store analysis? Because redbox still charges late fees and those things do just fine.
Maybe it's because no one needed to waste the money on expensive leases, pay the twerp minimum wage to run the store and pay the franchising fees to run one. Oh and continuously have to purchase new videos to have enough stock to rent out. That seemed like it hastened their demise.
Just like it doesn't make sense to pay the cool $900k for a taxi medallion, licensing, fees, insurance and maintance of a desperate vehicle only used as a cab.
You want to bring a drunk girl home from NYE? Ask if she wants to take the bus. Or better yet, walk in her heels she's been wearing for 6 hours. It's a holiday for single people to get laid. Hedge accordingly.
Please clarify what constitutes a "rip-off". Seems like a fairly straight forward exchange of service for a fee. If $100 is too much, walk. No one is entitled to a drunk night out.
The War on Women™ continues...
Let's see I'll be pulling into NYC just before midnight. Not my decision. The wisdom of an older brother.
I am dodging my brother in law this year.
A couple of New Year's ago he talked me into walking six miles with him to get home.
He brought it up at Christmas, like he wants to make it a tradition.
It was cheap though.
Tell him to hit 24 hour fitness.
Just stay home. I stopped going out in 1993 (US). It's not worth it. Don't even watch the ball drop on network cable TV, just another day for me. My last celebration was 1997 in Luxemburg. Great people, fireworks, and the rental car broke down [POS Peugeot started again after several hours later]. That was the last time going out on New Year’s Eve.
The rape curve is steep.
...but only because the price of hookers and blowjobs surges just before midnight on New Year's.
It's sad that Uber has to put out these notifications since many of their customers and the news outlets who seek to destroy them report basic supply and demand fluctuations as price gouging and expect magical fucking fairies to provide cars and free rides in even the most demanding of situations. On a side note, I wish they wouldn't donate one fucking cent to the neoprohibitionists over at MADD, they are just a bunch of rotten cunts who take advantage of families in their most vulnerable times. Happy New Years.
Why does ZH continue to bash Uber's application of pricing through supply and demand? This is called a "market." You can't bitch about the central bankers destroying the price mechanism in markets, and then continually shit on a company that's actually trying to use the price mechanism to get resources where they're in the highest demand.
How does Uber set these price surges ahead of time? Maybe it is an algorythm? Is Uber just warning people or do they actually design in the surge?
If they are actually pre-setting the surge, then Uber is no different than the The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission.
I would imagine they can model prices based on demand experienced in previous years.
Do you mean that algo, robot software could actually cheat people? Shocking!
Four Horsemen - Feature Documentary - Official Version
We don't bash, rather help you.
Uber is an internet taxi dispatch service with a stupid pricing algorithm. Big fucking deal. It's a piece of shit internet scam, that's why it's fun to make fun of them. They are the Pets.com of the 2010 decade.
How is it stupid? If demand goes down the cost goes down. Immediately. Plus there's notifications. Plus multiple prompts to ensure no accidental acceptance of the price quoted.
That sounds really smart to me.
I wonder what the surge will be in cocaine and ecstasy prices in the hour to two hours before Midnight? All savvy drug dealers who are also ZH readers take note of this opportunity!
all "savvy" drug dealers don't need ZH or any other news outlet to know when their surges are.....they know exactly how to control inventory
Uber-Duber is in beta; smoked too much? Uber-Duber - for high rollers.
Happy New Year ZH & Hedgers
Uber is drawing some evil looks from entrenched taxi services and their political allies in city governments. Taxi services provide lots of liscense fees and taxes to local politicians to spend. And Taxi services grease the politicians with campaign money and bribes.
This is why I expect a full court attack on Uber coming. Not just the small attacks that have already happened, but maybe bringing in the big guns in Federal Government to wage war on freedom, small business and capitalism.
The internet brings with it a great wave of freedom in information, cutting out the Main Stream media, and a huge wave of small business freedom that threatens corporate entrenched business. Both are used to power, power that buying politicians gives them. Yet the internet economy can step in between customer and small business with direct links, cutting out the Middle Man. SInce the dawn of history, the Middle Man has gotten most of the wealth. Producers and customers both get fucked by the armies of middle men who get inbetween the producer and customers and extract what amounts to a heavy tax on all transaction. The same holds true for news and inforamtion. The Media takes real news, and twists it to conform to government's desires, then spews it out on corporate media to the people, who have their minds polluted by distortion and lies.
I agree in principle with what you are saying, but unfortunately Uber isn't going to be the one to take the licensed taxicab companies down. Because Uber is kind of a piece of shit.
Haha...peak hours are after the parties end and the bars close!
No profitable goods production. No investment opportunities. Fake EVERYTHING.
No wonder alcohol drives the US economy.
taking advantage of shortages of goods used to be called price gouging and is the reason real taxis have meters. demand pricing is gouging.
do they raise prices when the supply of drivers is short during normal business which also creates a demand imbalance?
sounds like most of you guys advocate selling bags of ice for 100 dollars/lb after some natural disaster, supply and demand afterall, right?
Exactly, seems like you might be getting it. As the price necessarily rises for items such as generators after a disaster, more people find ways to provide generators to the people who need them, sometimes driving from other states to sell their rarely used one. Price controls cause surpluses and shortages. During Sandy people were selling gasoline on craigslist and hand delivering it to people who needed it more then they did, circumventing the laws created by the economic morons in charge that created 10 mile long lines to gas stations and rationing in the typical Tsar way.
i have now experienced two devastating natural disasters. in both cases, good samaritans thwarted the gougers by providing neccessities at cost or as donations. there were hundreds of other people willing to take advantage of the supply/ demand imbalance. while some made a few bucks, several more were looted when people found out they were price gouging because of the situation.
what will be the backlash for uber when people find out they price according to acute demand. disney tried it with soft drinks during the hottest part of the day. when people found out the price for the same thing was not the same as it was just a coupla hours ago they stopped buying soft drinks altogether because they felt ripped off. will the same thing happen to uber?
uber forgot the customer determines the price not the vendor. uber may have just done the cab industry a huge favor.
I agree with your comments. I was interested to see what people said about Uber's pricing because the Tampa paper this morning reported that a couple was charged $97.10 (10 times the normal rate) to go about 3.4 miles. Yes, I know they agreed to it but there are regrets the next day. They said they would stick to Lyft, who caps the top rate at 4 times the regular rate. I will probably not take either one of them and if I could short Uber's stock, I would.
That would be a poor choice several times over for you.
The alternative with a capped price is a capped supply of drivers. If you're not willing to pay you get no ride. Uber is called when other cabs are too pricy (most of the time) or unavailable (frequently).
"good samaritans thwarted the gougers by providing neccessities at cost or as donations"
Your reliance on charity of others in hard times is foolish. And by the way nothing about dynamic price-rises denies the ability for the uber driver him/her self from using their own phone, in charity, to add a fare-split and cut some of the cost. Or just take cash out of his/her pocket and hand it to the passengers after accepting the ride & paying via the app.
You seem to not think at all about this yet act as if you've given it deep, credible thought. You haven't.
The customer is determining the price as Uber 100% is aware and supporting which is why when less customers are asking for Uber drivers the price automatically drops.
"Price-gouging" is a governmet-created fictitious "crime". (I too do it in a heartbeat whenever I can because I'm in business, not charity...)
how much business do you think you will get with a reputation for price gouging? is it worth it?
It is worth it. Without the adjusted rise the business drops to 0. Zero. No drivers. That means zero revenue.
Uber explained it very well on their conference press calls: if the price doesn't go up and there's no more drivers on the road you get NO cab at any price. If the price goes up maybe you get a cab. Remember, given the available pricing & non-Uber cabs you have a limited supply & no incentive for any additional drivers.
No matter how bad you want a cab at a fair price you always get no cab at any price if there are no drivers on the road available. Increasing price is one way to encourage people to get out there. Allowing fare-splitting is a way to drop the cost-per-person for sharing a ride.
I have no idea how you are on Zerohedge and don't understand this. If you're not willing to pay there are no drivers for you. Same as if the price is fixed, supply is fixed (cab taxi commission rules in a city) and they are all busy. You CAN'T pay more so you get NO ride. Same as if they show up and you refuse to pay the full amount: if the driver knows in advance you can't afford the ride you get no ride.
I just let my wife fly me home on her broom.
ZH Comment of the Day.