Nope. Everybody keeps saying 'Surge Pricing TM" brings more supply on line by charging higher fares. That might be the idea, but what *actually* happens, is that the higher fares REDUCE DEMAND, because those who can't afford or aren't willing to pay 2 - 8 x the fare simply no longer need a cab. WHAT A TRANSPORTATION INNOVATION!

Edits for rage typing: Meant to say 'bar-cades' not 'barcodes". TLDR is my neighborhood got gentrified. All the mexicans and browns couldn't afford it and moved on, and now I have to listen to wealthy 23 year olds who have lived here for 2 years pontificate to me about how everything hear is 'cleaned up' and 'better' now that their money is in charge and my rent goes up $50 every 6 months. Also didn't mean to quote 'switch rape', but what the hell, maybe it's appropriate?

switch rape

As a longtime resident of a 'crumbling downtown' that is getting made 'livable again', I can tell you what's wrong with it. We have had a self-sustaining and functional community in my neighborhood for over 30 years. Everyone from outside called it the 'bad part' of town, and we always just accepted that, because we don't want any attention anyways. A few hipster breweries and barcodes set-up in shop a few years ago, and now rents have gone up between 50-200 percent, the cops are here all the time when those nice cars attract petty theft, there are drunken douchebags screaming, fighting, vandalizing low-income apartments and houses all hours of the night every night, and buildings that sold for 170k 10 years ago are put on the market for 1.5 million.

But but but think of the business!! Amirite??? We were a mixed use neighborhood, but mostly residential and parks, with a few bodegas, a 40 year old family grocer, a few small restaurants and a few pubs. In the last 7 years we have had the displeasure of becoming the home to 9 huge alcohol related endeavors. Business can go fuck itself. It's ruined a decades old community.

By far the worst part about it though, is having to listen to dips hits like you, that move in, live her for a year or two, and then say shit like "BUT LOOK WE CLEANED IT UP FOR YOU DERP".

Yeah, it's totally unreasonable for stupid life choices to actually have severe and unreasonable consequences for the rest of your life.

Fixed that for you, moron.

That's because Norway (and many European countries) is run by competent people, who care about their country. America is run by greedy and amoral corporations who view their country as a feedlot and a labor camp. Fatten them up by selling them shitty food and sedentary entertainment so you can keep them barely working and dependent upon expensive drugs, and keep them working all the time so they only have time to buy and eat the shitty food and expensive drugs, never time to get a real fucking education that would mean true freedom. America is a shame, I would leave without a second thought if I had the means. This man probably has a felony because he rebelled against this system out of some misunderstood desperation, many Americans do. Whether it's drug abuse, petty theft, or shoplifting, many people desperate to wake up from this consumer shithole paradigm lash-out. After which, of course, the system now knows that they can't be trusted to be mindless fucktard shoppers and slaves any longer. So they get the permanent 'F stamp' which means for the REST OF THEIR LIFE, they will have to beg people to trust them enough to give them shitty jobs, substandard housing rentals, will never be able to possess firearms, will always be treated with suspicion right out of the gate with police and 'law enforcement' gang members. We have an invisible caste system in America, and having a felony for anything (even as minor as getting caught with less than a few grains (as in dust particles) of cocaine can relegate you to the bottom of the caste system for the rest of your life.

What is the thinking error where you ignore the message of the post and focus on semantics to change the subject?

Because the times NEVER change. False equivalency. American capitalism is the most corrupt it has ever been. But your sig tells me all I need to know about you.

Why the hell would anyone want to pay $30 to travel a mile or two in third-world conditions?

Hyperbolic much? No cab company charges $30 for a 1-2 mile trip. That's less than $10 (including a tip) in every cab in every city I've been in. I suspect you are an Uber driver or astroturfer since your whole post is fucking ridiculously dramatic.

And as they become ful time drivers, the service will become indestinguishable from a taxi service.

Uber already IS indistinguishable from a taxi service, with the single exception that they don't pick up flags (which makes no difference all but large metro markets). Nearly ALL Uber drivers work 8-12 hour shifts in vehicles they bought (or lease from uber at usury rates, between 1k-2k a month) specifically to drive for Uber.

Uber has succeeded in remaking the cab market and externalizing all equipment costs and liability to the drivers, all while actually even paying them (unbelievably) less than the chicken-scratch cab drivers already make, and all the while pretending they do something different than charge money for a ride somewhere. Many drivers are making 3-4 dollars an hour after vehicle maintenance, depreciation, taxes, water and snacks for passengers, and Uber's 20% and assorted fees.. The new standard on the 'Pay' on the Uber driver forums is drivers making less than the IRS per-mile exemption rate of 40 something cents a mile. And UberX is actually more expensive (at base rate, non-surge) than every single cab company in my town of 250k.

I've driven cab (three years now) and for Uber (recently for a month), and I will never drive for Uber again. Aside from the fact that a single poor rating from a drunk moron that I refuse to let bring a sloshing open tallboy in my car can deactivate me, driving for UberX is working for free (and I wasn't even on the hook for a car payment or lease). Most people aren't figuring this out until after they drive for a few months and quit, but by then Uber has lured in a new crop of suckers with spammed craigslist ads promising '45-90k in your spare time'. I hope Uber does replace taxis and become the only show in town, just so I can watch all the fucking Uber evangelists start bitching about how Uber actually became MUCH WORSE (already happening) than the taxi companies they replaced.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for writing this as a driver, but the simple fact of the matter is that Uber had a chance to make improvements over the current system for drivers and riders, and it colossally blew it by choosing to be absurdly greedy and shady. It temporarily improved service for riders in large medallion based markets, but has shown overall that they don't give a fuck about passengers or drivers, and I guarantee you, I ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE you, in 2-3 years, it will be far worse than what it replaces.

It's more like Uber proved that a few billion makes you above the law. Why should cab drivers give a fuck about following the laws if Uber doesn't bother.

Or just eat fucking plants? There's plenty of protein in the plant world. You fucking meat eaters are ruining the fucking planet, and torturing billions of creatures annually because you like the taste.

YES! Isn't it super satisfying making broad generalizations about the quality of human beings based on which consumer technology they own?

So all things being equal, you're asking me who I trust with my best interests more, Nature or Monsanto?

But this is America. Where any attempt to regulate or otherwise hold corporations accountable is met with a hyperbolic "ERMAGAWD, SOCIALISM!' Imagine what kind of reaction you'd get from "AW MA GAWD, GUBMINT INNERNET!" Americans have been well trained to completely disregard their own self-interests for fairy-tales shilled by corporate owned media.

You guys crack me up. One day Slashdot is in a furor over revelations that the overstepping government is voraciously cataloguing and sifting through your personal data, the next you happily buzz about *paying money* for technologies that make government big data collection of your purchases, travel info, communications, lifestyle, reading, etc... more and more convenient and irresistible. It's hard to feel sorry for people that so willingly hand their freedom over, for novelty, time after time, and learn nothing. America will be the first panopticon, and you will all deserve it.