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Re:The Effects of Uber's Surge Pricing: A Case Study [pdf] by GregBuchholz on Thursday September 17, 2015 @07:25PM (#10236685)
So who else believes the term "Surge Pricing" is horrible? What if instead of charging more for busy times, they charged less for slack times, and call it "off-peak" pricing, with bigger discounts for times when there are fewer riders. The rate table stays exactly the same, it is just a matter of the optics of how things are presented. Now the 99% get deeply discounted luxury black car service when the 1% aren't using it. I suppose some of the "rich" won't like the association of using a discounted service, but I'm sure no one is going to get extremely angry, like some people get with the current nomenclature. Seems like someone dropped the ball in the marketing department because their libertarian mindset didn't take human psychology into account. Thoughts?
Re:The Effects of Uber's Surge Pricing: A Case Study [pdf] by hiou on Friday September 18, 2015 @12:31AM (#10237475)
Because transportation is a vital element of our economy. The same problem with price gouging. Very short sighted market lock ups turn into much bigger problems. I guess we just need to learn this lesson once again.

Edit: I should add that that the biggest problem with gouging in a market is that the sellers actually over price.

Re:The Effects of Uber's Surge Pricing: A Case Study [pdf] by dnautics on Thursday September 17, 2015 @09:33PM (#10237082)
Lyft tried this and called it "happy hour". The optics of this on the driver side were atrocious, driver morale went through, the floor, and quality of service as well.
Re:The Effects of Uber's Surge Pricing: A Case Study [pdf] by shabda on Thursday September 17, 2015 @11:53PM (#10237392)
This is also going to make a base pricing look uncompetitive with the regular taxis, and they will use that in advertising.