Heh. If Uber is THAT good and their informational reach THAT pervasive … then hats off to them.
Is Lyft in your area? You might try switching away from Uber for a couple of weeks, and then give them a try again.
Lyft is in the area, but their prices were higher than even Uber’s inflated price when I checked Lyft yesterday.
I’ve used Uber for about 5 years, but very intermittently (normally 3-6 months between rides). Yesterday was the first time I ever experienced sticker shock at a fare. I’ve been familiar with surge pricing around events and certain destinations … so had I been able to chalk up yesterday’s sudden increase to a surge event/destination, I wouldn’t have questioned it.
This morning, Uber was back to being “regular price” again (actually, a little cheaper than usual). So for the short term, I’ll keep using Uber to shuttle my wife to work until we get our car back next week. If the Uber price goes wonky again, I’ll check out Lyft again and see what’s what.
The prices can change every few seconds, FYI. I often just check again in 5-10 min if the prices seem high, and in that time, I’ve seen them decrease or increase by more than 100% (e.g. 9 to 20 dollars or vice versa).
Surge pricing isn’t just on a fixed schedule, but a totally dynamic algorithm that takes into account local supply and demand, and sometimes drivers will gang up to game it.
If you close the app and restart it you will likely see new pricing. If you switch to Lyft and back every few minutes, you’ll see both sets of prices vary constantly.
I’ve seen this kind of thing on a smaller scale before. I’m not yet convinced that what I saw yesterday morning was just typical Uber price fluctuation. I still think something was afoot – not necessarily something sinister or even unfair, but definitely atypical.
Holidays are weird. Even holidays where most of the celebrating is in the evening and you’re trying to get a ride in the morning.
Both the drivers and the customers are doing very different things than normal. And many of both sides are not considering that this is an unusual situation when making their decisions.