[sardonicbryan]

I think the analogy here to price gouging during an hurricane is quite a stretch here. I don't think many would agree with "surge pricing" on essentials or transportation during Hurricane Katrina where the alternative might be death or extreme property damage. I don't see how that applies to the vast majority of Uber surge pricing scenarios.

I have a friend who lives in Pac Heights and gets hit with surge pricing all the time, likely because few Ubers are willing to pick up customers there. He's switched to Flywheel, which works well and doesn't have surge pricing. Seems like everyone wins here. Meanwhile, I live in SOMA, rarely get hit with surge pricing, and pretty much exclusively use UberX/Uber.

[robrenaud]

Uber tried to use surge pricing in the aftermath of Sandy in NYC, and was basically forced to pay the drivers the extra surge prices out of their own pockets due to the PR fiasco that ensued.

http://blog.uber.com/2012/11/01/hurricane-sandy-pricing-upda...

Of course, this was only the aftermath. I am very skeptical that for hire taxis are a good way of saving lives in an emergency.

I personally totally buy the economic argument for surge pricing. But they have a very PR problem of convincing people that it's useful and beneficial to everyone.