I'm not sure that upping the base price and then discounting it is a winner for Uber. They advertise on their base price -- they want it as low as possible.
The existence of taxis as a very ready basis for comparison makes it different than airlines. Uber can (and, you know, does), say "We're 30% cheaper than taxis!" Then, sure, surprise, sometimes you see that actually they're 3x more expensive than that. But at that point you've got the app open and are seconds from doing the hailing -- that's gotta have a certain level of stickyness.
If Uber said instead, "We're twice as expensive as taxis!" significantly fewer people would even open the app to find out that actually, right now, they're way less expensive.
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I'm not sure that upping the base price and then discounting it is a winner for Uber. They advertise on their base price -- they want it as low as possible.
The existence of taxis as a very ready basis for comparison makes it different than airlines. Uber can (and, you know, does), say "We're 30% cheaper than taxis!" Then, sure, surprise, sometimes you see that actually they're 3x more expensive than that. But at that point you've got the app open and are seconds from doing the hailing -- that's gotta have a certain level of stickyness.
If Uber said instead, "We're twice as expensive as taxis!" significantly fewer people would even open the app to find out that actually, right now, they're way less expensive.