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Uber

TuffaloDeac10 said:
Those are basically all promotions to get people in during less busy times to defray fixed costs of rents and utilities (plus competitive pressures). Not the same as surge pricing at all. Something analogous would be a seating fee trying to convince people to stay away on Friday and Saturday (and lure more cooks into the kitchen?). And it probably should be restricted to mid and low scale establishments because Uber's way more of a mass market service than a fancier DC restaurant. Again, show me Franklin Barbecue with some auction system instead of a four hour wait.

You're like trying to not understand that I'm saying the design of the pricing affects how people feel about it. Even your examples that I think aren't right are generally framed as discounts and not base price + surcharge for busy period. Look at how people complain about Ryanair and Spirit for their add-ons (which happen to be economically sound like surge pricing). Uber's pricing would be popular as shit if it was on an 87% "discount" most the time and an 8x surge was just base price.
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Almost none of those examples are promotions. Even many happy hours are generally permanent and not short term promotions. All you're arguing is that other demand/supply situations that alter costs are "framed" differently. That's certainly true. But you can't argue it's not supply/demand based.

And it's extremely naive to say Uber's pricing would be more popular if prices were higher and then discounted. "Oh - that $20 billion company that just came out of nowhere to dominate a market - I know how to make them popular, charge a high price then discount it..."

I'm not "trying not to understand" you. I completely understand, I just think you're letting framing or buzz words like "surge" mess with what is a pretty simple and common practice. By the way, people may complain loudly, but they aren't complaining with their support of airlines like RyanAir or Southwest and companies like Uber. Success is not losing money hand over fist while nobody complains.
 
I mean, you obviously are trying to not understand. You can't even get that part right. Or address the point about Franklin Barbecue.

Carmike cinemas ran "Stimulus Tuesdays" for years. It was a promotion.

This is what I'm talking about. A considerable portion of people hate this kind of thing, especially on a mass market service like taxis/uber. The way to get around that is framing the pricing as a win for the customer in off-peak times rather than a "surge" during peak times. A surge tells the customer they're losing. You're right that the issue is mostly pr and not dollars and cents, but I've never said or thought otherwise. That's another thing you're working hard to not see.
 
Sorry, didn't mean for this to go so far. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, that many similar things aren't promotions, or that certain restaurants like Rose's Luxury, Franklin Barbercue, or a million other examples don't break the supply/demand idea.

I simply thought you meant it basically never happened, and I was trying to point out that it's actually pretty common it's just framed differently. The truth is paying $6 for the same exact food at 1pm and $7.95 at 8pm is a generally accepted result of low lunch demand versus high dinner demand. Paying $6/mile for an Uber ride at 1pm on a Saturday versus $7.95 at 8pm on a Saturday may be called "surge" pricing but the only difference is the real-time integration of technology into the mix and calling it "surge" pricing.

I do think you're wrong that Uber would be more popular with higher prices that get discounted. I find disruptive technology like this pretty fascinating - I have no interest in arguing the minutia though.
 
If nothing else, perhaps Uber surge-pricing will result in a generation of Americans who understand basic economics better than most of the preceding generations. Even if it chaps their ass.
 
Deacon923 said:
If nothing else, perhaps Uber surge-pricing will result in a generation of Americans who understand basic economics better than most of the preceding generations. Even if it chaps their ass.
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It's a tough but valuable lesson :D
 
Deacon923 said:
If nothing else, perhaps Uber surge-pricing will result in a generation of Americans who understand basic economics better than most of the preceding generations. Even if it chaps their ass.
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Social Security will eventually result in a generation of Americans who understand basic economics.
 
DCDeac said:
Sorry, didn't mean for this to go so far. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, that many similar things aren't promotions, or that certain restaurants like Rose's Luxury, Franklin Barbercue, or a million other examples don't break the supply/demand idea.

I simply thought you meant it basically never happened, and I was trying to point out that it's actually pretty common it's just framed differently. The truth is paying $6 for the same exact food at 1pm and $7.95 at 8pm is a generally accepted result of low lunch demand versus high dinner demand. Paying $6/mile for an Uber ride at 1pm on a Saturday versus $7.95 at 8pm on a Saturday may be called "surge" pricing but the only difference is the real-time integration of technology into the mix and calling it "surge" pricing.

I do think you're wrong that Uber would be more popular with higher prices that get discounted. I find disruptive technology like this pretty fascinating - I have no interest in arguing the minutia though.
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My experience with the lunch vs. dinner prices is that you also get a bigger portion with the dinner price. At least at Chinese places
 
BeachBumDeac said:
My experience with the lunch vs. dinner prices is that you also get a bigger portion with the dinner price. At least at Chinese places
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I think that's the case at most places. But DCDeac looks like a guy who doesn't dine at the same places for lunch and dinner.
 
PhDeac said:
I think that's the case at most places. But DCDeac looks like a guy who doesn't dine at the same places for lunch and dinner.
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Ha, well I picked Chinese food as the example because a lot of Chinese places list their food by the pint so the lunch and dinner portions are identical.
 
It makes one decent point that Uber and the private and public sector breaks it gets stifles innovation. Taxis stifled innovation until Uber and friends came along to establish a new model. Now Uber is becoming entrenched.

The reality of this is that government essentially subsidizes cheaper ride sharing. That's the best way to look at it and have the debate.

The rest is weak at best. And the author is clearly connected to Kursuplus somehow. That was pathetic whining. And nobody should feel sorry for the taxi drivers.
 
PhDeac said:
It makes one decent point that Uber and the private and public sector breaks it gets stifles innovation. Taxis stifled innovation until Uber and friends came along to establish a new model. Now Uber is becoming entrenched.

The reality of this is that government essentially subsidizes cheaper ride sharing. That's the best way to look at it and have the debate.

The rest is weak at best. And the author is clearly connected to Kursuplus somehow. That was pathetic whining. And nobody should feel sorry for the taxi drivers.
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I guess I don't see how that's unique to Uber. Thousands of companies are funded by money from successful large companies that offshore revenue for tax purposes. Are tech companies sitting on tons of cash? Sure. So are lots of other international companies. And if they were sitting on half as much after paying more taxes would they still invest in Uber? Absolutely. You can't paint Uber as some unknown non-profitable startup. They're already profitable in almost every major city they started in. They were early innovators, not bullies. They started as a more expensive option to cabs, not "the Walmart of ride sharing."

Then there's the "in some markets Uber pricing doesn't cover the cost of fuel and car depreciation" nonsense. That's just absurd. A 10 mile trip costs like $1 in fuel and 80 cents in depreciation. Let me know when Uber starts charging less than $2 for rides into DC...

In the meantime Lyft is expecting to be profitable in 2016 with $1 billion in revenue forecasted. They've raised tons of money and somehow Google and the other Uber investors haven't squashed them with their willingness to "lose billions" to unfairly kill competition.

Just an absurd argument. If you wanted to be a successful ride sharing company you probably should have had the idea yourself instead of waiting 3 years, bandwagoning the idea and crying about how hard it is to get funding. I'm sure their next idea, FantasyFootballforMoney.com will unfairly lose out to DraftKings and FanDuel because of "taxes" as well...
 
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