I think Uber went over the top

[ripcord]

I have a friend who drives for Uber in the San Gabriel Valley, Saturday night there were two large events, a Beyonce concert at the Rose Bowl and the huge Hard Summer rave in South El Monte, it also rained that night. Uber has a thing called surge pricing, basically the price of the fare multiplies when there are more customers and not enough drivers. My buddy said the pricing got up to 13.5 times the normal rate he gave someone a 15 minute, 10 mile ride from the rave and it cost $145, the same ride into the rave was $18. He also told me another driver took some people from South El Monte to Hollywood for $760, am I the only one to see this as over the top? I don't mind someone making a fair wage for their work but this just seems to be taking advantage of people.

[Initech]

1. Somehow I doubt the drivers are the ones that get all that money.

But if they do I'm signing up to drive for Uber.

[ripcord]

5. Uber takes 20% of the fare

the drivers keep the rest. From what my friend says that was a huge surge, even he thinks they should cap it at 5x.

[Retrograde]

2. It's the Free Market at Work (tm)

aka, price gouging. There's a reason utilities and similar companies, like taxis, are regulated: to prevent just this sort of thing. But Uber, of course, will argue that it's a new paradigm and it's what their customers want.

And of course Uber gets a percentage of the take.

[JVS]

3. Is a fee from what is essentially a huge jitney ring even legally enforceable?

Here in Pittsburgh there has been a lot of back and forth about the legal status of lyft and uber.

Also, why would someone agree to pay $760 for a ride on uber when a regular taxi fare would be much less?

[mythology]

4. I would think there are two possible reasons

The first is that they can call Uber and it get there first and be limited to them, and also younger people may be more familiar with Uber and call it out of habit as it's a smartphone app away.

As for the $760 total, that I can't help with. That seems absurd to me. But then again, so does going to a rave.