News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Uber's "Route-Based Pricing" Predicts How Much You're Willing to Pay.

Re:Uber's "Route-Based Pricing" Predicts How Much You're Wil... by sebleon on Friday May 19, 2017 @05:38PM (#14379540)
The flip side is that they can also predict what's the minimum pay an individual driver is willing to take.

The airline industry has been doing personalized pricing for years - if you don't believe me, redo a flight search in incognito mode. It's interesting how Uber's other transgressions have place a magnifying class over all their other activity.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Uber's "Route-Based Pricing" Predicts How Much You're Wil... by vkou on Friday May 19, 2017 @05:45PM (#14379575)
I've just done a few Google searches for flights (SEA to SFO, LAX to NYC) while logged into two different google accounts, as well as Incognito mode. All the quotes were the same.

I saw the same result on google.ca, and google.co.uk (When adjusted for exchange rates.)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Uber's "Route-Based Pricing" Predicts How Much You're Wil... by kirykl on Friday May 19, 2017 @05:58PM (#14379656)
The airline personalized pricing is (or used to be) based on 'purchase city' - they may be using a method to identify it that incognito mode doesn't break
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Uber's "Route-Based Pricing" Predicts How Much You're Wil... by hkmurakami on Friday May 19, 2017 @05:50PM (#14379609)
The sector I'm most curious about for this is the rental car industry.

Even more opaque than airlines.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Uber's "Route-Based Pricing" Predicts How Much You're Wil... by green_rover on Friday May 19, 2017 @07:10PM (#14380009)
Amazon and other retailers do this too.

Uber doesn't appear to be doing anything here that isn't already par for the course.

[ Parent | on HN ]