[eropple]

By leveraging the supply controls, which are explicitly theirs to use to communicate willingness to take on work, in a two-sided market where you're not allowed to directly set prices? Please substantiate how that is fraudulent.

If Lyft and Uber allowed direct pricing, this wouldn't happen. Drivers would set the price they're willing to work for. Instead, drivers--who, once more for emphasis, are supposed to use price fluctuations as incentive or disincentive for working, that's what "surge pricing" was in the first place--only have one message that they can send: "nope, not at that price".

Or they can be obligated to work cheap because rich people demand their labor.

Hrm. I think I now understand where the claim of "fraud" comes from.

[chrismeller]

So go drive a cab instead. I hear that’s a great life.

They agreed to drive for a service for x. They can’t then complain that they are making x or manipulate the system to earn more than x.

[eropple]

No, they did not agree to "drive for a service for X". They entertain offers to drive at a given rate. They can choose to take those offers or not. That's the whole point of the on-demand, contractor-but-not-really relationship (see also the way that Lyft and Uber punish drivers to don't take absolutely every ride that pops up on the app) that underpins Lyft and Uber's business model.

They're refusing to entertain offers below a certain rate. That drops supply, which requires price increases to satisfy demand on the other side. The market, literally, is working as intended.

[chrismeller]

Ok, so they agreed to entertain offers. They can always say no. They have accepted those rides, so there is no possible argument to be made.

Grouping together to drop off and artificially increase prices when a flight lands sounds great because these are “the little guys”. If Google were doing it you would lose your shit.

[eropple]

Uber and Lyft retaliate--in ways that are at minimum unjust and in a functioning legal environment I'd bet a lot of money would be found illegal--for rejected rides.

Google doing it would be different, certainly. Companies are less important than people and poor people trying to survive get significantly more leash than multi-billion-dollar companies. If ride-on-demand companies operated with a transparent bid-ask system (see something like Taskrabbit for an example) instead of the opaque and intermediated market that they do, I don't think we'd be having this discussion. But they want to set prices and they want labor to shut up and take it, and that's not acceptable. To that end, yes, this is a fundamentally different thing than a multi-billion-dollar company controlling a market.

[NotPaidToPost]

The article clearly mentions that this is an artificial and concerted effort to increase prices.

To me this does not seem different from taking a longer route to increase the fare.

What you describe would probably be fine if that wasn't concerted. But here they all collude to artificially trigger surge pricing.

[thrill]

Not accepting a ride until an agreed (the rider can always cancel the ride) price is met is entirely different than taking a longer route after a job has started.

[fl0wenol]

Also that's a bit more nuanced a topic because between the driver and the passenger they might agree to take a longer route which could cost more if it's faster, avoiding traffic or whatever.

[NotPaidToPost]

You're avoiding the point, which is the collusion and artificial price increase. That's fraudulent.

Edit: Whether this is a "regulated market" is a red herring and irrelevant.

[eropple]

"Fraudulent" is a word that means things. Can you please substantiate your claim beyond just the assertion?

[NotPaidToPost]

That's what I keep doing...

[eropple]

To this point, I haven't seen it. Yes, there's collective action. You could even call it "artificial". Where's the fraud? How is it thus not fraudulent when Uber and Lyft run me and my girlfriend through their pricing models and quote me two bucks more for the same ride?

Why is this driver behavior fraud--and not the collective behavior of these ride-on-demand companies in general?

Hell, let's go back to first principles: why is choosing to refuse to take rides below a certain price ever "fraudulent"? It might be "bad", it might even violate the terms of a contract with Lyft/Uber and thus be grounds for termination of the relationship between the driver and the ride-on-demand company, but how is it "fraudulent"?

Words mean things.

[free652]

Drivers don't set prices, Uber and Lyft do. Uber can keep prices lower and hire employees if they want.

[pyrale]

It would if Uber was a regulated market. However, it is not, and Uber will never support making it so.