[dllthomas]

> the perception that they broke the recent anti-Trump taxi strike

Something, it's worth noting, no less true of Lyft. And I think it's a little weird to be demanding owners of infrastructure lock out workers "in support of a strike". That whole reaction was absurd.

This article gives me substantially more pause.

[bryne]

I believe they're referring to the fact that Uber took specific action to promote itself by canceling surge pricing at JFK during the strike, not that it did anything passively through inaction.

Lyft did not negate surge pricing that day, AFAIK.

[dllthomas]

There's an argument that that's economically incoherent - a strike is about restricting supply, and surge is about increasing supply. Turning off surge does not work against the strike.

But that's actually immaterial: surge was turned off a half hour after the strike ended.

[RodericDay]

Lyft kept operating, Uber reacted to the strike by fixing low prices ensuring good will with desperate customers.

[asabjorn]

That's not the effect of turning off incentives that get more driver to go tot he area. Instead Ubers actions made it so that an increase in demand was not followed up with an increased amount of available drivers at the airport. It doesn't help you if prices are low if there are no cars available.

This was in my opinion a very appropriate way to respect the strike without forcing drivers to not make money unless they chose to do so themselves.

[RodericDay]

I've had this argument several times already, I'll sum it up one last time:

Lyft operating as normal: "Fuck this strike, making me pay tons of money bc of surge pricing"

Uber operating without surge: "OMG Uber my savior!!!!! / (can't actually find a cab bc of lack of availability) Whatever, not their fault, it's the stupid strike after all"

It was a calculated cynical ploy like literally everything else Uber does. I have no patience with them, particularly in a thread discussing sexual harassment within. Feel free to spin it as "a very appropriate way to respect the strike" or whatever.

[dllthomas]

Except Uber did not disable surge until a half-hour after the strike ended.

[dllthomas]

Yeah, it seems to me that optimal treatment of a strike would be something like: 1) cap surge (maybe to the typical value for the given time/area), 2) notify drivers when a request is from an affected area, 3) exclude cancellations of those rides from the drivers' metrics.

The biggest concern is that this puts Uber in the position of determining what is and isn't "legitimately a strike".

[dllthomas]

Except if you look at the timeline, surge was turned off some time after the strike ended.