Indeed Uber allows drivers to set fares in California. I'm not sure if that's true of Lyft though?

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-to-Lyft-Yo...

So how that works in practice? One of the major advantages of Uber for me was fixed price upfront. So now I don't know the price until I order the ride? What if the driver sets an excessive price - can I decline the ride?

See https://www.uber.com/blog/california/set-your-fares/

My understanding is that the rider is presented with a range of possible fares before searching (e.g. $9-10). If they are matched with a driver asking for a higher fare than that range they have the option to decline.

So basically they will keep declining until they get the best price. It sounds like the proposed strategy is hogwash.

Who will keep declining? Drivers set their prices up front (they don’t even get requests outside of their price) and riders auto accept if it’s in the range they were shown.

Isn't that just supply and demand finding the market price for something?

I will use Uber and Lyft less because of this. I don’t really want to go through the process of negotiating the rate. This is much more tedious.

Do you live in CA? Because this has already been rolled out for a while. If you don’t, you don’t have to worry about it.

> you don’t have to worry about it.

...yet!

A market economy is indeed a pain.

Sounds like a positive impact of AB5?