[freech]

> And in New York, a small union called the New York Taxi Workers Alliance declared that there would be no taxi pickups from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday night at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

> For Uber, that would create extra demand at the airport, which meant it could charge more—but this would probably cause a backlash. That had happened before when the company let its “surge pricing” algorithms do their thing. So the New York managers decided to be good citizens and suspend surge pricing for the night.

> If the company wasn’t price gouging this time, maybe it was trying to break up the JFK strike.

That's actually the opposite of what disabling surge pricing does. It makes sure that drivers aren't paid enough to bother picking up passengers there, so it protects the strike.

People are idiots. Uber should start a campaign featuring polar bears cruising around or something (or maybe make fun of trump on their twitter account if they have to save money) instead of trying to fulfill the publics demands.

[londons_explore]

People prefer unavailability of something to it being available at a high price.

If you walk into a gas station and they say "sorry, we're out of gas" - no worries, try the next place.

Whereas if they said "we're low on gas, so you have to pay $100 per gallon", there would be public outcry. People would fill up then refuse to pay. People would be forming a mob outside the station.

Rational? No. But it's the way people think, and companies need to adapt to it.