[cbsmith]

My understanding from talking to drivers is that when they announced the price change for UberX, they cut their commission from 20% to just 5%. So that means Uber now gets $1.60 and the driver gets $11.40 from a $13 fee. If this is a margin growing scheme, everyone at Uber needs to take remedial arithmetic.

[aetherson]

They raised the commission back up to 20% at the same time they added the $1 "safety" fee. Here's a reference:

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/uber-adds-1-safe-rides-fee-pass...

My read is that they thought they could keep Lyft from taking their market-share by losing money on every ride and relying on their deep pockets, but then Lyft got a comparable amount of money to Uber, and Uber was like, "well, guess we won't be waiting them out."

[cbsmith]

Ouch, that shift back to 20% is gonna hurt them bad with drivers, and the $1 adds insult to injury.

[pmorici]

No, in Baltimore at least Uber has _always_ taken a 20% cut. What they don't mention in the article is Uber also started charging drivers a $10 per week "Data" fee for use of the Uber phone you have to have to get fares. So they are recouping more than just $1 per trip.