[Litmus2336]

It seems to me that the option to refuse drives is the bigger change.

But regarding pricing, Uber is no longer "mandating" the drivers accept a price, instead Uber drives agree to the rates Uber sets. Maybe that has some bearing? I'm no expert.

[sida]

Maybe eventually uber needs to allow drivers to set prices for themselves, with a large enough market it should proxy surge pricing?

[Litmus2336]

Yeah, that'd theoretically work. But I wonder how it would go in practice with the limited information of each driver. Perhaps if they provided drivers with statistics (average offering price, bottom 10% offering price, ride volume over time, peak areas etc) then it would work. Interesting proposition.

[AnthonyMouse]

They could do it dutch auction style. Suppose there are five drivers and three rides. The drivers bid per-mile rates of $.75, $1, $1.25, $1.50 and $1.75. The rides go to the three lowest bidding drivers and they all get $1.25, i.e. the highest rate of the drivers who get rides.

It gives everyone the incentive to bid their actual threshold past which they wouldn't want the ride, because if you bid too high you don't get any rides, but if you bid lower you may still get paid more than that unless bidding that low was actually necessary to get the ride. And at any given time all the riders pay the same rate as each other.

[nemothekid]

>They could do it dutch auction style. Suppose there are five drivers and three rides. The drivers bid per-mile rates of $.75, $1, $1.25, $1.50 and $1.75. The rides go to the three lowest bidding drivers and they all get $1.25, i.e. the highest rate of the drivers who get rides.

The problem with all these variables is that the more "preferences" you introduce into marketplace to matching, the longer your pickup time will be.

The 2nd most frustrating change is going to be the increase in pickup times because drivers will now optimize for rides that are exclusively in city limits.

[AnthonyMouse]

You can address things like that with predictive matching. You don't actually wait until there are three rides before matching anybody, you just look at the data for this timeslot and expect that statistically there will be three rides this hour, use that rate based on the drivers who are on, and assign the nearest of the three lowest bidding drivers as they come. If a fourth ride appears that hour then you immediately raise the rate to the fourth lowest bidding driver starting with that ride, and so on, and next time have more data and make a better prediction.

[sida]

This is actually really clever. Maybe Uber can set a base rate of $0.75 per mile and then the driver can elect to increase it at a 25c per mile interval so that the supply is grouped together

[rchaud]

The option to refuse drives was always there, although I believe Uber penalizes the driver if they refuse to accept a request too often.

[josuepeq]

I do rideshare in the Bay Area for extra cash and to maintain my customer service skillset - My driver score is 4.97 (in the last 500 rides.)

They’ve removed the “acceptance rate” metric for drivers. There’s no longer a penalty for declining rides for drivers in California.

https://www.uber.com/blog/california/keeping-you-in-the-driv...

The advantage is that since drivers know where a passenger is going before accepting, riders can be assured that the driver wants to take them to the destination they have set.

No more waiting for the driver to arrive to hear they are declining a super long distance trip; they won’t even know they’ve been declined even multiple times.

If it takes one longer to get a rides’ information with Uber, take a look at their rating. Indeed, It is becoming more important.

Try to keep an Uber rating sharp. I’m likely to accept a 4.86 score for $4-6 fare, decline a 4.63 for a $25-30 trip.

[JshWright]

What sorts of things can influence a riders rating? It doesn't seem like there are too many things a rider can screw up...

[jedberg]

Don't bring your kids. I had a perfect 5 until I brought my kids with me.

They were well behaved and quiet, but it took me a minute to install the car seat and uninstall it, and the driver was clearly annoyed.

Look man, the law says they have to be in the seat, and for their safety, they have to be in the seat. I'd pay more if I could, but I can't.

Now I usually tell the driver to start the ride as soon as I get there so they get paid for waiting for me to install and uninstall the seat.

I just wish Uber had a "I have a car seat" checkbox that would pay the driver a couple extra bucks (and charge me extra). Then everyone would win.

The driver would get extra for taking someone with kids and they would know in advance and not get annoyed.

Also I know I got dinged on my rating once because the driver couldn't find me. I can't help it if Seattle literally has streets on top of each other and there is no way to tell the driver I'm on the bottom road and not the top!

[magicalhippo]

> I just wish Uber had a "I have a car seat" checkbox

We experienced this when going to and from the airport. Not all drivers were prepared for four persons each with big suitcases.

So yeah, some extra info checkboxes seems like a win-win to me.

[Figs]

> Now I usually tell the driver to start the ride as soon as I get there

They already bill for wait time. I needed to get picked up from home once but my house is on a street that Uber's mapping system apparently doesn't understand how to navigate to properly. The driver went to the wrong place to try to pick me up, and they billed me for "wait time" even though I was exactly where I said I would be!

[kalleboo]

Uber sounds more and more like a Black Mirror dystopia. I think I'll go back to using taxis. (Where I live there is no Uber, but I've used a lot it while traveling)

[paul_f]

Try Lyft a few times before you do that

[nemothekid]

Part of the problem is ratings are arbitrary on both sides. I take Uber every day for work, and I'm an Uber Diamond user, but I have a 4.50 rating, which my friend tells me is incredibly low. So I'm not taking drunk trips, and my trips are usually within SF, to SFO, or Mountain View.

However, I'm a minority and an introvert so I can't help but feel like I'm being dinged for not being an ideal passenger even though all that matters is going from A to B . So it sucks to read that ontop of my other perks going away there are drivers who will decide to not pick me up despite the fact I spend almost a grand every month on Uber.

I'm happy AB5 seems to be a win for driver, but its looking like a loss for riders and just pushing Uber into a taxi service with an app.