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by mercurial 3907 days ago
> I'm totally fine with pretty much any voluntary agreement between individuals.

This sounds like a very naive position ignoring dynamics of power. Indentured labour was also the result of a "voluntary agreement between individuals". See also the working conditions of migrant workers in the Gulf states - again the result of "voluntary agreement between individuals".

> raising prices is the utility-maximizing choice (across riders, drivers, and Uber)

Only across riders who can afford the surge price. It's the utility-minimizing choice for the rest.
2 comments
nbouscal 3907 days ago
> Only across riders who can afford the surge price. It's the utility-minimizing choice for the rest.

It's really not. Without surge pricing, the people who can't afford surge pricing experience significantly worse outcomes as well. Specifically, they end up with very high wait times and cancellation rates, which ends up being a lot worse than the counterfactual world in which they saw the surge pricing and decided to take the subway instead. We have solid evidence for this: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/chris.nosko/research/effects...

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mercurial 3906 days ago
"There is an ongoing surge. Rides are randomly attributed during the duration of the surge. Unfortunately, your number was not selected this time. Please find an alternative mean of transportation."

There is nothing unavoidable about that.

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monochromatic 3906 days ago
> Indentured labour was also the result of a "voluntary agreement between individuals". See also the working conditions of migrant workers in the Gulf states - again the result of "voluntary agreement between individuals".

The only problem I have with such things is when someone agrees to one thing, but winds up with something else. That probably happened at least some of the time with indentured labor.

> It's the utility-minimizing choice for the rest.

You usually can't maximize utility for every single person. Maximizing total utility is the standard, and you haven't explained why we shouldn't do that here. "Won't somebody think of the ~~children~~ poor riders?"

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