Ignore the "AI" clickbait. What matters is that U&L are charging different customers very different prices for the same ride, and playing games with fake discounts. Which are both sleazy and, in places, illegal.
(Though if you aren't one of Today's 10K - ignoring laws and ethics have been SOP at U&L for how many years now?)
One of the ways I've found to game this system is to delete the app from my phone when I'm not using it. The real time systems have more trouble charging surge pricing if they don't all the data coming in from the background process. I compared this with someone else a few times.
It doesn't always work but I don't trust Uber or Lyft with my data at all.
If you think there's no way for Uber and Lyft to infer anything about your purchasing power/habits when you install an app running on your primary computing device with generous privileges, logged in with your unique phone number/email... You might be unpleasantly surprised
I heard that "surge pricing" , or "surveillance pricing", is wrong, but don't understand why. Shouldn't the service provider be free to charge whatever they want for the service they provide? And the consumer should be free to choose between multiple service providers to find the optimal value (price/convenience/features/whatever)?
In other words, the root issue is not "surveillance pricing" but lack of competition.
Increasing prices at busy times (i.e. surge pricing) is... to some degree defensible. Spying on people and charging different prices to different people for the same thing (i.e. surveillance pricing) is not. Can you imagine the mayhem if companies just straight up knew salary information for all of their customers?
>Spying on people and charging different prices to different people for the same thing (i.e. surveillance pricing) is not.
They are not "spying", they are _legally_ using various data _legally_ collected on their current and prospective customers to set the pricing. Do you ever read T&C of any online services you're using? So how is this illegal?
>Can you imagine the mayhem if companies just straight up knew salary information for all of their customers?
I filled in FAFSA and CSS Profile for multiple colleges my child applied for last year. So yes, that's exactly how some industries work. Sucks for me, the customer. Not illegal.
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[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 23.8 ms ] thread(Though if you aren't one of Today's 10K - ignoring laws and ethics have been SOP at U&L for how many years now?)
It doesn't always work but I don't trust Uber or Lyft with my data at all.
In other words, the root issue is not "surveillance pricing" but lack of competition.
They are not "spying", they are _legally_ using various data _legally_ collected on their current and prospective customers to set the pricing. Do you ever read T&C of any online services you're using? So how is this illegal?
>Can you imagine the mayhem if companies just straight up knew salary information for all of their customers?
I filled in FAFSA and CSS Profile for multiple colleges my child applied for last year. So yes, that's exactly how some industries work. Sucks for me, the customer. Not illegal.