I'm so tired of this bullshit example being trotted out as evidence of how evil Uber is. Here's the facts of what happened in Australia:

A bunch of people suddenly wanted Uber rides out of the area during the hostage situation. Uber's computers responded accordingly, and automatically, in activating the surge pricing. Whether you like the surge pricing or not, it's designed to get more drivers onto the road by providing the incentive of higher pay to meet the spiking demand. One would assume that at least some drivers are more likely to go out and pick up passengers when their phones alert them that they can suddenly make 4x the normal fare.

When human beings running Uber in Sydney became clued in as to what was happening, they made all rides in the area free.

Here's what DIDN'T happen: Uber in Sydney finds out about hostage crisis, says "omg let's charge 4x the normal fare because bunches of people are going to want rides and we can gouge them!"

You can disagree with Uber's business practices, or how they run their business, and that's fine, but when you just start making shit up, you lose all credibility and take away from an intelligent conversation on what to do about Uber. You're the problem.

You think North Korea is more internet-savvy than Barbara Streisand?

What a dopey comparison - when Target, Home Depot, and Chase were hit, they didn't CLOSE THEIR FUCKING STORES based on groundless threats from hackers half a world away. Sony did exactly that - they took a $42 million movie and decided to take a complete loss on it, at least for now. That's why it's big news.

As for Sony being based in Japan, what's that got to do with anything when you're talking about a multi-national corporation? What country do you think Sony makes the lion's share of its profits in? I'll give you a hint, it's the one that the most tickets were going to be sold for this movie, by far.

What??? They're facing retaliation now and they're still claiming they didn't do it. What kind of logic were you just using?

FTFY

No, ask all the questions you want. Just realize, when you assure people that it "must" be a ruse to provide an excuse to attack North Korea, you sound as loony as the NK leadership.

I'm not saying NK definitely did plan a cyberattack against Sony; it's an open question at this point. But when you smugly assert that you know it's our own government, with your only proof being your own paranoid crazy logic, you're really not advancing the conversation any.

Depending on where you are, yes, broadband can get that high, because of "bundling." Cable companies in the US offer the "triple play" of internet, TV and phone in a bundle that costs you well over $100 for even the slowest internet connection they offer. Then when you ask "how much for just internet?" the price often turns out to be as high, or, inexplicably, even higher if you refuse the other two services. because, capitalism free markets MURICA.

I don't know the details anymore, because I'm lucky enough to live in an area serviced by Verizon FIOS, and haven't had cable internet in a while. For me, I get 6MB and I pay about $120/month for internet, cable and phone. Hoever, most people don't live in a area where they have a choice of more than one service, so I imagine that drives the price up for them.

According to who? Maybe there weren't any, or the amount of people was small enough to where it didn't matter. "Should've been" is pretty arbitrary.

The other problem is that you still need drivers who are willing to take less for making the same trip. If drivers are making more with Uber, and there's plenty of passengers available, you have a chicken-and-egg problem: Drivers won't move to Sidecar because it pays less, and passengers won't move to Sidecar because there aren't any drivers. If Sidecar had come first, and established a critical mass, they might have become a sustainable business. They were late.

This assumes that passengers are willing to put up with waiting a lot longer for a Sidecar driver (of which there were always fewer) instead of paying a little bit extra and getting an Uber driver very quickly. They're not; Uber wins this one every single time. There's more drivers (in the four cities I've used it, I've never waited more than 5 minutes for a ride), and contrary to the drivel in this blog entry - "UberX and Lyft are about the same price as a taxi" - bullshit. Uber, at least, is waaay cheaper than a taxi (i haven't used Lyft yet).

The added incentive of being able to save a few dimes on a Sidecar ride was not enough to move passengers from Uber to Sidecar. Uber's just plenty cheap already.