Again, wealth does not equal need. You're assuming all of the desperately stranded people have $200 at the ready for a taxi trip that's normally only $20. And some people will pay whatever price for convenience, because they have plenty of money.
You can't just assume that everyone CAN pay whatever price is set, and just decides not to because they don't need it enough. In this scenario, the poor people die and the rich stay comfortably unaffected while using the resources others are far more desperate for.
It seems like it's too hard to solve "who needs it" without employing some flawed metric like money. But I'm not sure there's any better solution.
$200 would dissuade me, in situations where $20 wouldn't (unless I was in a heavy bind). This isn't true for everyone, but it seems to work well in the middle.
I think Uber did nothing wrong, but maybe they need to work on how to not be perceived as assholes, they could have had customers queue up for lower prices, and specify their need, and worked through the queue judging each persons priority (but maybe you'd have even more angry folks).
In this situation, first-come first-served is clearly imperfect, but it at least avoids the bias that you get with surge pricing: service only to the financially well-off.
Comments
Again, wealth does not equal need. You're assuming all of the desperately stranded people have $200 at the ready for a taxi trip that's normally only $20. And some people will pay whatever price for convenience, because they have plenty of money.
You can't just assume that everyone CAN pay whatever price is set, and just decides not to because they don't need it enough. In this scenario, the poor people die and the rich stay comfortably unaffected while using the resources others are far more desperate for.
It seems like it's too hard to solve "who needs it" without employing some flawed metric like money. But I'm not sure there's any better solution.
$200 would dissuade me, in situations where $20 wouldn't (unless I was in a heavy bind). This isn't true for everyone, but it seems to work well in the middle.
I think Uber did nothing wrong, but maybe they need to work on how to not be perceived as assholes, they could have had customers queue up for lower prices, and specify their need, and worked through the queue judging each persons priority (but maybe you'd have even more angry folks).
In this situation, first-come first-served is clearly imperfect, but it at least avoids the bias that you get with surge pricing: service only to the financially well-off.