this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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I mean that's how the market works isn't it? It's the best way to attract more drivers to those sort of locations.
That said public transport should be in place for situations like this so we don't have 50 cars leaving but 1 bus instead...
It’s almost like we should regulate the industry to ensure that no one party in the deal is abusing the other. Taxis are regulated and can’t charge surge rates for a reason, when you are stuck somewhere and there are only a couple options to choose it isn’t a balanced market and therefore needs the state to ensure fairness
that regulation won't happen though
if a politician says that from next month on flights, gas and meat will be taxed according to the environmental impact then I'm pretty sure that politician won't be in office anymore that next month.
For sure we need those kinds of regulations since most people won't lift a finger if it's inconvenient for them - but if noone is showing the politicians that they have support with ideas like this it's far too risky for them to do and they will just pass the "bomb" to the next government and hope that it goes off when they are in power.
In Germany Merkel for 16 years completely slept on housing (specifically the heating) being a main factor for environmental impact of the whole country and now the current government has to kind of hit the brakes hard and named a deadline after which it's impossible to install new gas-heating anymore and the backlash was HARD. Would this have been tackled earlier the impact would have been far less but it's just too risky for politicians to even try something like this if they want to stay in power.
That's why I think that something like a Citizens' assembly it probably the only way possible to implement something before it's too late. As long as there are politicians hoping to be reelected noone will even try - and if there aren't assemblies then starting a movement of individual change is the only chance we got
There's nothing stopping you from calling a taxi instead of an Uber.
I'm sure there are some regulations that could help, but there's also value to the free market. Uber is a luxury service so paying more when it is in high demand makes normal sense.
No one is being forced to use it and there are always other alternatives. Plus, in average, an Uber ride is cheaper than a taxi. Just because surge prices are high to meet demand doesn't mean there's a problem.
In many places calling a taxi is a gamble. They often just don’t show up. Maybe ride-share has changed this significantly, but it’s easy to forget no-shows were one of the reasons ride-share became popular. Not just aggressively low pricing.
And yes. I know you can have no shows with ride share. But it’s nothing like calling a phone number and being promised a car and waiting blindly for an hour.
We need the apps and reasonable regulation. And better public transport.
Seems like they didn't have any problem getting drivers to take them there when the fares were lower either.