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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 20 2017, @03:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the always-read-the-fine-print dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1937

Uber is fighting a proposed class-action lawsuit that says it secretly over charges riders and under pays drivers. In its defense, the ride-hailing service claims that nobody is being defrauded in its "upfront" rider fare pricing model.

The fares charged to riders don't have to match up with the fares paid to drivers, Uber said, because that's what a driver's "agreement" allows.

"Plaintiff's allegations are premised on the notion that, once Uber implemented Upfront Pricing for riders, it was required under the terms of the Agreement to change how the Fare was calculated for Drivers," Uber said (PDF) in a recent court filing seeking to have the class-action tossed. "This conclusion rests on a misinterpretation of the Agreement."

The suit claims that, when a rider uses Uber's app to hail a ride, the fare the app immediately shows the passenger is based on a slower and longer route compared to the one displayed to the driver. The rider pays the higher fee, and the driver's commission is paid from the cheaper, faster route, according to the lawsuit.

Uber claims the disparity between rider and driver fares "was hardly a secret."

"Drivers," Uber told a federal judge, "could have simply asked a User how much he or she paid for the trip to learn of any discrepancy."

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/uber-driver-pay-plan-puts-a-significant-risk-on-ride-hailing-service/


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday September 20 2017, @04:58PM (15 children)

    by FakeBeldin (3360) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @04:58PM (#570709) Journal

    Free market relies on perfect information

    No, free market relies solely on absence of regulation.
    An honest free market relies first and foremost on parity of power between buyers and sellers. Perfect information could be a step towards achieving that. But that doesn't prevent price gouging - parity of power does.
    E.g., if the number of taxi's and number of taxi takers in an area are in balance, then there's a balance of power. Taxi takers could switch to another taxi if the first one is too expensive, and taxi drivers don't have to pick up someone if the offered compensation is too low. If one or the other side becomes a minority, then they can more easily gouge the other side. Both have an upper limit: a taxi standing still costs $x an hour, a night in a hotel costs $y, so no taxi taker is forced to pay more than $y, and no taxi driver would need to take a client if executing the ride would lose him more than $x.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:21PM (11 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:21PM (#570723) Journal

    No, free market relies solely on absence of regulation.

    You must pay for the goods you take is a regulation. Free Market's don't work so great without that one.

    • (Score: 2, Troll) by Scrutinizer on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:41PM (9 children)

      by Scrutinizer (6534) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:41PM (#570735)

      "You must pay for the goods you take" is a regulation. Free Market's don't work so great without that one.

      No, that is not a "regulation". Acts of force and fraud are outside the scope of the "free market" concept (though help to protect against such acts can indeed be purchased using a free market). Free markets work solely on voluntary trades: the sale happens only if the buyer and seller BOTH agree on the price. If there is no agreement (e.g., the "buyer" doesn't want to pay a price the seller will accept), then trying to take the goods anyway is a violation of the seller's natural right to life (and the right to life requires the right of property ownership, as the seller is the sole and exclusive owner of his body, and he uses his body and/or mind to obtain the goods he offers for sale), at which point the seller can defend himself - and his property - as he best sees fit.

      If you object, you need to show how a free person cannot be the exclusive owner of his body without simultaneously showing your support for literal slavery.

      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:46PM (8 children)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:46PM (#570739) Journal

        Regulation [dictionary.com]

        noun
        1.
        a law, rule, or other order prescribed by authority, especially to regulate conduct.

        • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:54PM (1 child)

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:54PM (#570744) Journal

          The legal term is Larceny, generally regulated a the State level:

          Here's a bunch of regulations that apparently don't exist. [findlaw.com]

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @07:19PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @07:19PM (#570807)

            Law, your "legal terms", follow the commons. Theft existed before governments. "The commons" is just a term for how people conducted themselves before governments butted in, usually in the form of conquering warlords.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:57PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:57PM (#570745)

          Conclusion: we can have free markets only with true Scottish regulations.

          • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 20 2017, @07:16PM

            by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @07:16PM (#570801) Journal

            Yeah, apparently their definition of "regulation" is "any regulation I don't like."

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Scrutinizer on Wednesday September 20 2017, @07:16PM (3 children)

          by Scrutinizer (6534) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @07:16PM (#570802)

          Regulation: a law, rule, or other order prescribed by authority, especially to regulate conduct.

          There's your error. Even current-day US courts acknowledge that certain rights, laws, etc. exist outside of, apart from, and even predate governments. Don't take my word for it

          If the "mere" right to keep and bear arms is acknowledged as pre-existing government by today's USSC (a jaw-dropping miracle at that), how much more is the right to life - and thus the right to own property including one's own body?

          Side note: what authority existed before governments? That of a single individual, no greater and no lesser than the next individual's.

          • (Score: 1, Troll) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 20 2017, @09:21PM (2 children)

            by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @09:21PM (#570851) Journal

            If you don't know what the word "or" means you should probably avoid semantic arguments.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @09:56PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @09:56PM (#570866)

              Try diagramming that sentence to realize that the word "or" being in your definition supports my post and has no bearing on your latest criticism of it.

              Otherwise you are claiming that laws and rule do not come from governments aka "authority", which I doubt, as that's my post's primary point.

            • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday September 21 2017, @05:08AM

              by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday September 21 2017, @05:08AM (#570992) Journal

              The only "or" in that quote is the one in the list "a law, rule, or other order". That list as a whole is then attributed as "prescribed by authority".

              And even if you parse it differently so that "prescribed by authority" only refers to "order", then "other order prescribed by authority" implies that the first two options are also specific types of orders prescribed by authority.

              --
              The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday September 21 2017, @09:56AM

      by FakeBeldin (3360) on Thursday September 21 2017, @09:56AM (#571078) Journal

      This doesn't require regulation, just the seller that's not going to let you take stuff from him twice without paying.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Thursday September 21 2017, @05:00AM (1 child)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday September 21 2017, @05:00AM (#570987) Journal

    No, free market relies solely on absence of regulation.

    A market without any regulation is known as black market.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday September 21 2017, @10:02AM

      by FakeBeldin (3360) on Thursday September 21 2017, @10:02AM (#571081) Journal

      From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].

      A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or transaction that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by some form of noncompliant behavior with an institutional set of rules.

      While a black market is a deliberate circumvention of existing regulation (and thus has less regulation, perhaps none), this does not imply that any market without regulation must necessarily be black. The old "all cows have four legs, but not everything with four legs is a cow" thing. (was explaining that superfluous?)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @01:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @01:21PM (#571131)

    No, free market relies solely on absence of regulation.

    No, not this kool-aid again!

    Free Market exists precisely because of regulation. Things like anti-monopoly laws exists solely to protect the idea of Free Market. The entire point of much of government regulations is to facilitate continuation of Free Market. Another large chunk of regulations is to protect common good and otherwise try to avoid Tragedy of the Commons.

    Saying that "free market requires no regulation" is as naive as you can get.