My car is in the shop and if I could I was going to run somewhere across town, then my wife could pick me up after work. The place is about 10 minutes away.
I pop open Uber, and type in where I need to go. 10 minute ride, but it’s priced at $25 and up from there. I was like holy shit ok I don’t need to go that bad I can wait.
A few minutes later I get a push notification that said “Prices have dropped!” I click it and it opens up the exact same route but now the fare is 9 fucking dollars.
Even looking now, it’s $11-12. I’ve worked in a mobile app company before… That shit isn’t random. They appear to be testing some “fuck you pricing” and then if you don’t bite they cut it to the normal rate. Someone at the company is currently running numbers to see if they can get wealthy people to bite on the inflated pricing.
Fuck you Uber. Not like your company has a great history in the first place, so I guess I’m partially to blame.
This exact thing used to happen to me with Lyft. I would be out late until around 2am at my friends house some nights drinking. When I would open the Lyft app and look for a ride back home they would be at around $90!!! I would wait for about 20 minutes and the price would drop to about 35-40$. It was outrageous and made no sense. Eventually I stuck with just grabbing a cab each time instead for around 45$
2am, when the bars close and all the drunk people need a ride home and half the drivers are home asleep? No, I have no idea why there might be surge pricing at 2am …