[gsch]

> “Society is more willing to accept wealthy people paying higher fares,” said Chris Knittel, a business professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “But if the repercussion of lower fares in lower-income places is longer wait times, that’s probably what they want to keep an eye on."

I can't help but recall all the times Uber or its defenders claimed that its supposedly uniform fare scale meant that it could serve all neighborhoods equally, unlike the taxi companies. It will be interesting to see if this policy reproduces the same behavior while laundering it through machine learning.

[sebleon]

Interesting, I hadn't heard that defense before. It seems like Uber's app-based hailing is the reason why poor neighborhoods are able to get serviced.

Previously, no taxi driver would drive around in those areas - because of opportunity cost of higher fares in richer areas, and fears of getting robbed when there was tons of cash in the car.

[objclxt]

> Previously, no taxi driver would drive around in those areas - because of opportunity cost of higher fares in richer areas

Well, if Uber is using dynamic pricing to ensure fares from richer areas are more expensive than those from poorer ones won't that have the exact same effect?

[erikpukinskis]

No, because Uber publishes all of the ride requests, regardless of fare. As long as there is one driver willing to go there, the ride gets fulfilled.

If you are leaving drivers to their own devices to try to find hot spots, they have no way to know someone ten blocks over needs a cab right now from a poorer area.

[wavefunction]

Gypsy cabs exist for those reasons.

[oculusthrift]

the flip side is that they are redistributing the wealth such that it seems the wealthy passengers subsidize the cost for poorer people.