I mean personally I like that when I come out of a bar at closing time the higher dynamic price means I can still get an Uber because more drivers will show up to make that money. Gone are the...
I mean personally I like that when I come out of a bar at closing time the higher dynamic price means I can still get an Uber because more drivers will show up to make that money.
Gone are the nightmare days of 30 people trying to walk further upstream from each other to get the one available cab coming down the street.
But the result is functionally the same from a consumer perspective: fewer people can get cabs. The only difference is that the people who do get cabs pay more, and who can get a cab is determined...
But the result is functionally the same from a consumer perspective: fewer people can get cabs. The only difference is that the people who do get cabs pay more, and who can get a cab is determined by wealth, not equity.
This seems mistaken to me --- if surge pricing results in higher driver payouts for the same trip, more drivers will likely show up, and more people overall can get cabs, as ~ctindel also said...
This seems mistaken to me --- if surge pricing results in higher driver payouts for the same trip, more drivers will likely show up, and more people overall can get cabs, as ~ctindel also said above. Do you disagree?
I believe the thought is that you can only get the cab if you can afford it. Sure, there might be more drivers, but for a ride that's $40 +tip, not $20 +tip - and that extra $20 may be the...
I believe the thought is that you can only get the cab if you can afford it. Sure, there might be more drivers, but for a ride that's $40 +tip, not $20 +tip - and that extra $20 may be the difference in going out or not (or not being able to go out another day, if you discover the high price you didn't account for on your way back home). More people can get cabs, but more people can't afford the new price for the cabs and so it evens out, as nosewings said
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think the "$20 price but fewer drivers" case is better in your example. You point out people paying more on the way home, but in the $20 case, it means...
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think the "$20 price but fewer drivers" case is better in your example.
You point out people paying more on the way home, but in the $20 case, it means there might be an unpredictable chance of being unable to find a driver. You end up invisibly paying extra through the risk of walking home for hours, or getting a hotel room for the night, or even just sleeping on the street.
This is on top of the fact that fewer total rides happen at $20, versus at $40. That is, fewer people in total get to go out. Uncharitably, one could say that the people who randomly failed to get a driver were "robbed" of the chance at a night out, to subsidise the ones that did get a driver.
I definitely agree that $40 prices are worse than the ideal "everyone gets a ride at $20" scenario, but that's not the realistic alternative. The real choice is "everyone gets $40 rides" vs "a random subset gets $20 rides and everyone else is stranded".
More generally, I'm very leery of price controls, because they just shift monetary costs into non-monetary costs, which are not necessarily more equitable. Is a wealthy or poor person more likely to have a friend to crash for the night, or have favours to call in for a late-night pickup? This is on top of the deadweight loss that is inevitable whenever people mess with free market.
I think that if prices are naturally high, we should be looking at other remedies, instead of unproductively/counterproductively slapping on a price cap. Is there a monopoly which needs breaking up? Are regulatory barriers to entry too high? Those actually have a chance of solving the real issue.
That just makes me think you're shifting the people who can get a ride from "first come first serve" to "whoever earns x amount of money or more". I like the former better. Regardless of why,...
That just makes me think you're shifting the people who can get a ride from "first come first serve" to "whoever earns x amount of money or more". I like the former better.
Regardless of why, there are people being left behind.
The latter is better. It's part of why money exists at all. Let's say both me and someone else are at a bar late at night. That someone else realizes that traffic is worse than they thought, and...
The latter is better. It's part of why money exists at all. Let's say both me and someone else are at a bar late at night. That someone else realizes that traffic is worse than they thought, and they need to catch an expensive international flight in an hour. As for me, I can just take the train back, but it'll take twice as long, and I sprained my ankle, so I kinda don't want to.
If it's first come, first serve, then it's basically random. I have just as good a chance at getting an Uber, even though it really doesn't matter that much.
When the price increases, I'll decide not to, it's just not worth it for me to spend, say, $30 more than a normal Uber to not have to walk a bit. The guy about to miss his flight? Hell yeah he'll pay $30 more.
And that's the right prioritization of resources. The right thing happened - I walked and suffered a bit of annoyance, he got to his flight. People always tend to think of the super-rich for whatever reason, but the vast majority of people Ubering are of income ranges that are pretty close to each other. You are not competing with a sudden army of Elon Musk's who for some reason have to take an Uber from your street corner. You are competing with other people of similar income ranges, but different needs at the moment.
This only makes sense if the number of drivers are fixed, which isn't the case. Many drivers may have the app installed but only be bothered to go out at night if the price is good. Which is the...
This only makes sense if the number of drivers are fixed, which isn't the case.
Many drivers may have the app installed but only be bothered to go out at night if the price is good. Which is the whole point of surge pricing, that when the pool of lower paid drivers is exhausted, bump the price and pull more drivers in.
I'm not a bar-goer, but it's anywhere from $30-45 for me to take a Lyft to the closest airport to me, which is about a twenty minute drive away. :( I definitely agree about a bar forty five...
I'm not a bar-goer, but it's anywhere from $30-45 for me to take a Lyft to the closest airport to me, which is about a twenty minute drive away. :( I definitely agree about a bar forty five minutes away!
I don't understand why you say the result is the same. For yellow cabs there is a fixed supply at all times because there's a certain number of medallions and it isn't enough to meet the demand...
I don't understand why you say the result is the same. For yellow cabs there is a fixed supply at all times because there's a certain number of medallions and it isn't enough to meet the demand during peak hours (when its raining, when the subways are messed up, from 3-7pm, when bars let out on Th-Sa, etc).
With ubers there is a variable supply. There are lots of uber drivers that ONLY drive during peak times, because of surge pricing the rates are higher so supply goes up, and MORE people can get rides as a result. It's a much more functional system.
who can get a cab is determined by wealth, not equity.
We're talking about having a private driver for the duration of your trip, it's a luxury item anyway. If you want equity, talk about improving the public transit either with better service or by making it completely free.
Why do I care if the price for an Uber is low, if I can't get one anyway?
Surge pricing has created more supply, because people who would otherwise be sitting at home take notice of the surge price and get out to pick people up.
Surge pricing has created more supply, because people who would otherwise be sitting at home take notice of the surge price and get out to pick people up.
Exactly. This isn't always a bad thing. Some Uber drivers only drive during surge times to maximize how much they make. Higher pay means more drivers. It also means higher prices, but I'm willing...
Exactly. This isn't always a bad thing. Some Uber drivers only drive during surge times to maximize how much they make. Higher pay means more drivers. It also means higher prices, but I'm willing to pay a higher price for an Uber I can actually get as opposed to a lower price for an Uber that has no availability.
Agreed. Anecdotally, I was once in a rush, and all the apps quoted me reasonable-sounding prices, but refused to actually match me. I'd argue that the price is actually infinite in this case, as...
Agreed. Anecdotally, I was once in a rush, and all the apps quoted me reasonable-sounding prices, but refused to actually match me. I'd argue that the price is actually infinite in this case, as there was effectively no price at which I would be able to get a cab (short of calling a friend and paying them, or hiring a helicopter, or some other drastic measure).
I dont really care for how the article tries to frame this as a good thing for customers. We've always had surge pricing in bars and restaurants, its called happy hour. Where you paid a lower...
I dont really care for how the article tries to frame this as a good thing for customers. We've always had surge pricing in bars and restaurants, its called happy hour. Where you paid a lower margin on your poured pint because the business isnt working as hard. Now i should be grateful because the bar is charging extra over the already inflated price of a poured beer? In the states/canada/uk we tip the servers when they are clearly under stress and still doing the job. Now the business sees how high tipping margins have gotten and wants a cut? Fuck that.
Edit: the beer thats being poured doesnt suddenly have a higher value because the restaurant has filled to the capacity that it staffs for... the servers that are doing the work arent getting "surge pay"
That's a good quote from the article. In the end, surge pricing is about meeting the demand curve in a more dynamic way. For consumers, the main demerit is that it makes pricing less predictable,...
“Anywhere there is a mismatch between what a customer is willing to pay and the actual price is ripe for dynamic pricing.”
That's a good quote from the article. In the end, surge pricing is about meeting the demand curve in a more dynamic way. For consumers, the main demerit is that it makes pricing less predictable, which comes with more burden in terms of decision making. In that respect, expensive purchases and cheap purchases are two areas where that is lessened. An example of the former is airplane tickets, which are a significant enough purchase, and time investment, that thinking about peak vs non-peak seasons is generally worthwhile. Pubs is an example of the latter - there already is surge pricing for pubs, it's just named differently. But drinks are at a price range where you don't really need to keep track of the exact price increase, just that it's generally higher in peak times and lower in lulls.
There is fundamentally no difference between a pub that charges $8 for a beer in normal operating times and $12 in peak, vs a pub that charges $12 and $8 in a hypothetically very long happy hour. They just need to market their peak surcharge better.
From what I've heard about pubs, they aren't wildly profitable enterprises and would probably not be sustainable if they gave happy hour pricing all day.
From what I've heard about pubs, they aren't wildly profitable enterprises and would probably not be sustainable if they gave happy hour pricing all day.
I experienced this on office chairs. I purchased one from a brand I had used in the past. I liked it, and my wife liked it too. So I figured I'd get her one as a Christmas present. One month after...
I experienced this on office chairs. I purchased one from a brand I had used in the past. I liked it, and my wife liked it too. So I figured I'd get her one as a Christmas present. One month after buying mine I went to look again and noticed the price had risen $50... Was a little taken back by that. So I inquired why it was up 10% in one month. They told me it was "based on demand and remaining inventory we adjust prices". I laughed at them, then it clicked to me why they never advertise a sale price, but sale discount. Anyways, they lost my years of trust immediately, and I will never purchase office equipment from them again. My previous chairs and desk had all been purchased from them.
C'mon, this is pretty inconsiderate. I usually don't mind seeing something paywalled if the OP at least posts a comment summarizing what the article is about. Maybe then somebody else will follow...
C'mon, this is pretty inconsiderate. I usually don't mind seeing something paywalled if the OP at least posts a comment summarizing what the article is about. Maybe then somebody else will follow up with some pasted contents and/or analysis and we can have some discussion. But there's nothing here at all.
It’s not inconsiderate, and OP already posted an archive link five minutes before you posted this. I personally think that it’s worse to feel that you’re entitled access to an article. I’m not...
It’s not inconsiderate, and OP already posted an archive link five minutes before you posted this. I personally think that it’s worse to feel that you’re entitled access to an article. I’m not arguing about this particular article or organization, but many news organizations are going bankrupt and this is the mentality that’s causing it.
I would respectfully disagree... the reason many news organizations are going bankrupt is not because readers feel entitled to their media, it's that media feels entitled to readers. They've...
I would respectfully disagree... the reason many news organizations are going bankrupt is not because readers feel entitled to their media, it's that media feels entitled to readers. They've gotten sloppy, openly biased, and banal, and in response to that readers fled, and in response to that they've increased advertising and added paywalls, then snark about "freeloaders." It's hardly a surprise that the exodus continues.
The other issue is, of course, the non-print journalism that wicks away consumers, but that has always been happening (albeit, much quicker with the bursting open of the internet floodgates, smartphones getting better and better at video every generation, and the attention span of the average news consumer leaving lengthy print articles behind.)
Or that's my opinion from prolonged observation, at any rate.
To further this (and kinda vaguely related to the article itself) I have had a difficult time finding news the way I want it, and if I find it I’m immediately willing to pay a significant...
To further this (and kinda vaguely related to the article itself) I have had a difficult time finding news the way I want it, and if I find it I’m immediately willing to pay a significant subscription.
I want a newsletter the way humans talk about news: if something is noteworthy, people talk about it, and if it’s not noteworthy, people don’t talk about it.
I don’t want headline news every day or every week, because some days and some weeks there’s nothing worth knowing about. On the other hand, a schedule like that also means that if there are three really big pieces of news on the same day, they might not all be given the gravitas they deserve because something has to be relegated to page two.
If anyone knows of a service like that, preferably that I can tailor to some amount of focus on Australian news too, let me know! I’ve basically given up on my search for now because I don’t believe there’s an economic model to create it (who would pay a subscription for silence?) but I really hope I’m wrong!
That first comment is spot on.
I mean personally I like that when I come out of a bar at closing time the higher dynamic price means I can still get an Uber because more drivers will show up to make that money.
Gone are the nightmare days of 30 people trying to walk further upstream from each other to get the one available cab coming down the street.
But the result is functionally the same from a consumer perspective: fewer people can get cabs. The only difference is that the people who do get cabs pay more, and who can get a cab is determined by wealth, not equity.
This seems mistaken to me --- if surge pricing results in higher driver payouts for the same trip, more drivers will likely show up, and more people overall can get cabs, as ~ctindel also said above. Do you disagree?
I believe the thought is that you can only get the cab if you can afford it. Sure, there might be more drivers, but for a ride that's $40 +tip, not $20 +tip - and that extra $20 may be the difference in going out or not (or not being able to go out another day, if you discover the high price you didn't account for on your way back home). More people can get cabs, but more people can't afford the new price for the cabs and so it evens out, as nosewings said
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think the "$20 price but fewer drivers" case is better in your example.
You point out people paying more on the way home, but in the $20 case, it means there might be an unpredictable chance of being unable to find a driver. You end up invisibly paying extra through the risk of walking home for hours, or getting a hotel room for the night, or even just sleeping on the street.
This is on top of the fact that fewer total rides happen at $20, versus at $40. That is, fewer people in total get to go out. Uncharitably, one could say that the people who randomly failed to get a driver were "robbed" of the chance at a night out, to subsidise the ones that did get a driver.
I definitely agree that $40 prices are worse than the ideal "everyone gets a ride at $20" scenario, but that's not the realistic alternative. The real choice is "everyone gets $40 rides" vs "a random subset gets $20 rides and everyone else is stranded".
More generally, I'm very leery of price controls, because they just shift monetary costs into non-monetary costs, which are not necessarily more equitable. Is a wealthy or poor person more likely to have a friend to crash for the night, or have favours to call in for a late-night pickup? This is on top of the deadweight loss that is inevitable whenever people mess with free market.
I think that if prices are naturally high, we should be looking at other remedies, instead of unproductively/counterproductively slapping on a price cap. Is there a monopoly which needs breaking up? Are regulatory barriers to entry too high? Those actually have a chance of solving the real issue.
That just makes me think you're shifting the people who can get a ride from "first come first serve" to "whoever earns x amount of money or more". I like the former better.
Regardless of why, there are people being left behind.
The latter is better. It's part of why money exists at all. Let's say both me and someone else are at a bar late at night. That someone else realizes that traffic is worse than they thought, and they need to catch an expensive international flight in an hour. As for me, I can just take the train back, but it'll take twice as long, and I sprained my ankle, so I kinda don't want to.
If it's first come, first serve, then it's basically random. I have just as good a chance at getting an Uber, even though it really doesn't matter that much.
When the price increases, I'll decide not to, it's just not worth it for me to spend, say, $30 more than a normal Uber to not have to walk a bit. The guy about to miss his flight? Hell yeah he'll pay $30 more.
And that's the right prioritization of resources. The right thing happened - I walked and suffered a bit of annoyance, he got to his flight. People always tend to think of the super-rich for whatever reason, but the vast majority of people Ubering are of income ranges that are pretty close to each other. You are not competing with a sudden army of Elon Musk's who for some reason have to take an Uber from your street corner. You are competing with other people of similar income ranges, but different needs at the moment.
This only makes sense if the number of drivers are fixed, which isn't the case.
Many drivers may have the app installed but only be bothered to go out at night if the price is good. Which is the whole point of surge pricing, that when the pool of lower paid drivers is exhausted, bump the price and pull more drivers in.
I envy your prices for Uber.
Last time I needed a cab in my country was a 26km ride (about 16 miles I guess) that took 25min or something. I paid 80€.
I'm not a bar-goer, but it's anywhere from $30-45 for me to take a Lyft to the closest airport to me, which is about a twenty minute drive away. :( I definitely agree about a bar forty five minutes away!
I don't understand why you say the result is the same. For yellow cabs there is a fixed supply at all times because there's a certain number of medallions and it isn't enough to meet the demand during peak hours (when its raining, when the subways are messed up, from 3-7pm, when bars let out on Th-Sa, etc).
With ubers there is a variable supply. There are lots of uber drivers that ONLY drive during peak times, because of surge pricing the rates are higher so supply goes up, and MORE people can get rides as a result. It's a much more functional system.
We're talking about having a private driver for the duration of your trip, it's a luxury item anyway. If you want equity, talk about improving the public transit either with better service or by making it completely free.
Why do I care if the price for an Uber is low, if I can't get one anyway?
Surge pricing has created more supply, because people who would otherwise be sitting at home take notice of the surge price and get out to pick people up.
Exactly. This isn't always a bad thing. Some Uber drivers only drive during surge times to maximize how much they make. Higher pay means more drivers. It also means higher prices, but I'm willing to pay a higher price for an Uber I can actually get as opposed to a lower price for an Uber that has no availability.
Agreed. Anecdotally, I was once in a rush, and all the apps quoted me reasonable-sounding prices, but refused to actually match me. I'd argue that the price is actually infinite in this case, as there was effectively no price at which I would be able to get a cab (short of calling a friend and paying them, or hiring a helicopter, or some other drastic measure).
I dont really care for how the article tries to frame this as a good thing for customers. We've always had surge pricing in bars and restaurants, its called happy hour. Where you paid a lower margin on your poured pint because the business isnt working as hard. Now i should be grateful because the bar is charging extra over the already inflated price of a poured beer? In the states/canada/uk we tip the servers when they are clearly under stress and still doing the job. Now the business sees how high tipping margins have gotten and wants a cut? Fuck that.
Edit: the beer thats being poured doesnt suddenly have a higher value because the restaurant has filled to the capacity that it staffs for... the servers that are doing the work arent getting "surge pay"
Arguably, servers do get surge pay if they receive tips. More tables means more pay during high-traffic times.
My impression was that it was pretty even-handed. A large part of the article is devoted to explaining how many people don't like it.
That's a good quote from the article. In the end, surge pricing is about meeting the demand curve in a more dynamic way. For consumers, the main demerit is that it makes pricing less predictable, which comes with more burden in terms of decision making. In that respect, expensive purchases and cheap purchases are two areas where that is lessened. An example of the former is airplane tickets, which are a significant enough purchase, and time investment, that thinking about peak vs non-peak seasons is generally worthwhile. Pubs is an example of the latter - there already is surge pricing for pubs, it's just named differently. But drinks are at a price range where you don't really need to keep track of the exact price increase, just that it's generally higher in peak times and lower in lulls.
There is fundamentally no difference between a pub that charges $8 for a beer in normal operating times and $12 in peak, vs a pub that charges $12 and $8 in a hypothetically very long happy hour. They just need to market their peak surcharge better.
Yup, but the way it plays out in practice is:
Wealthy people get to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Poor people get relegated to odd hours.
Or alternatively, wealthy people are subsidising everyone else by paying extra on peak hours which helps cut the price in non peak hours.
As if increasing the margins ever actually results in decreasing the margins the other 95% of the time.
From what I've heard about pubs, they aren't wildly profitable enterprises and would probably not be sustainable if they gave happy hour pricing all day.
I experienced this on office chairs. I purchased one from a brand I had used in the past. I liked it, and my wife liked it too. So I figured I'd get her one as a Christmas present. One month after buying mine I went to look again and noticed the price had risen $50... Was a little taken back by that. So I inquired why it was up 10% in one month. They told me it was "based on demand and remaining inventory we adjust prices". I laughed at them, then it clicked to me why they never advertise a sale price, but sale discount. Anyways, they lost my years of trust immediately, and I will never purchase office equipment from them again. My previous chairs and desk had all been purchased from them.
article is paywalled
https://archive.md/qRrDJ
Doesn't work for me. Just leads to an infinite "prove you are human" loop.
I just assumed it was surge pricing due to high demand thanks to OP.
C'mon, this is pretty inconsiderate. I usually don't mind seeing something paywalled if the OP at least posts a comment summarizing what the article is about. Maybe then somebody else will follow up with some pasted contents and/or analysis and we can have some discussion. But there's nothing here at all.
It’s not inconsiderate, and OP already posted an archive link five minutes before you posted this. I personally think that it’s worse to feel that you’re entitled access to an article. I’m not arguing about this particular article or organization, but many news organizations are going bankrupt and this is the mentality that’s causing it.
I would respectfully disagree... the reason many news organizations are going bankrupt is not because readers feel entitled to their media, it's that media feels entitled to readers. They've gotten sloppy, openly biased, and banal, and in response to that readers fled, and in response to that they've increased advertising and added paywalls, then snark about "freeloaders." It's hardly a surprise that the exodus continues.
The other issue is, of course, the non-print journalism that wicks away consumers, but that has always been happening (albeit, much quicker with the bursting open of the internet floodgates, smartphones getting better and better at video every generation, and the attention span of the average news consumer leaving lengthy print articles behind.)
Or that's my opinion from prolonged observation, at any rate.
To further this (and kinda vaguely related to the article itself) I have had a difficult time finding news the way I want it, and if I find it I’m immediately willing to pay a significant subscription.
I want a newsletter the way humans talk about news: if something is noteworthy, people talk about it, and if it’s not noteworthy, people don’t talk about it.
I don’t want headline news every day or every week, because some days and some weeks there’s nothing worth knowing about. On the other hand, a schedule like that also means that if there are three really big pieces of news on the same day, they might not all be given the gravitas they deserve because something has to be relegated to page two.
If anyone knows of a service like that, preferably that I can tailor to some amount of focus on Australian news too, let me know! I’ve basically given up on my search for now because I don’t believe there’s an economic model to create it (who would pay a subscription for silence?) but I really hope I’m wrong!
Content is paywalled. My knee jerk reaction to the headline is "no thank you".