Here are my last few uber rides

  $18.94
  $13.87
  $ 7.68
  $13.99
  $11.22
  $40.05
  $12.71

Some were far, some not, obviously. They are spread over a few months, obviously, given the price of a typical uber, I am not prone to using it often. It does still beat a taxi, though.

Just balancing out what seems to be a biased sample.

I think I can beat you here.

14.60

15.52

17.23

0.00

49.52

36.62

The last two were from SFO to Palo Alto. In all honesty $50 for a 50 minute drive isn't that bad, but I didn't pay for it either.

You might want to check out Lyft. Been using their 'Line Ride' product as it's currently 50% off (at least in Bay Area).

If their growth team wants to throw VC money our way to keep me on board, why not? Recently commuting from Palo Alto to Mountain View pretty regularly and paying around $7/$8. PS Not affiliated, just a happy user.

Not to mention that competition between Uber and Lyft will benefit all passengers.

When you have just two companies competing in a space, that's not true competition; that's a cartel.

"cartel (n): an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition."

Having two competitors doesn't necessarily create a cartel. Are you trying to argue that Uber and Lyft are working together to maintain prices at a higher level?

I'm saying that only two participants in a space does not typically yield the benefits of true competition.

The stronger may use competitive pricing in the short term to weaken the other, driving it to withdraw from the market or be acquired, but this hardly provides long-term benefits to the consumer like true competition would.

For example, note the Office Depot / Officemax / Staples relationship. Though competitors, they never really did compete on price on everyday products (and in fact often charged the exact same price for common items -- a price much higher than, say, mail- and internet-order sources such as Amazon), hence the ability to advertise local price-matching without genuine risk to profit.

The result? Three became two, and two are becoming one, resulting in no competition between them at all. The Uber / Sidecar / Lyft relationship is tracking very similarly.

Can you name any retail space with only two players of significance that has not ended up having the same effect on consumers as a cartel? I honestly can't think of one.

The Cellular One (now AT&T) / GTE Mobilnet (now Verizon) relationship is another example of this behavior. Prices of entry and of usage stayed high until additional, independent competing networks (e.g. T-Mobile, Sprint/WiMax) entered the space.

Barriers to entry are high for a mobile network, but probably pretty low for a ridesharing app. If Uber and Lyft raised their fares massively, then they're leaving a wide open opportunity for someone else to come and undercut them, even if just for a short time. There might be some 3rd app waiting in the wings to pick up price-sensitive riders and drivers whenever the "cartel" puts prices too high.

Anti-competitive behavior is easier when you have fewer players to coordinate, or—put another way—few opportunities for a defector.

I wouldn't venture to guess that Lyft/Uber is a good long-term state of affairs for the ride-scheduling market (or whatever you want to call it), but it's better than just Uber.

Also, consider that Lyft and Uber are spending big money to change the rules in every market—something that is only going to lower barrier to entry for new competitors. Based on real-world experience, I'm convinced that Uber is very worried about the follow-on effect and looking for ways to lock in customers, drivers, etc.

Anyway, this whole ride-scheduling thing is only going to last until it's possible to hop on the never-ending train of self-driving cabs.

> I'm saying that only two participants in a space does not typically yield the benefits of true competition.

The word "cartel" has a specific meaning that is different from "the opposite of true competition"

I agree with you, on your follow-up.

The word you are looking for is oligopoly

I didn't want to be stuck with the tab at the end of my trip, so I just followed the company guidelines for reimbursement - they had an expense account for the other 2 rides I took from HQ to hotel.

I've had a couple of zeros or very cheap fares in last couple of days as well. What was this zero in your case?

Not the GP but Uber has its Android Pay promo going right now, that was my last freebie.

I gave a referral code to my parents and used up the bonus.

I can tell you that downtown rides are about this cheap on Uber here in Toronto.

Scale is a big factor as well, maybe you're in a place with fewer drivers, or posher folks?

Can you clarify? You mean cheap as sillysaurus3's prices or mine?

We are a "smaller city", large population but a little sparse.

You're part of an extremely limited test group aimed at calculating the price elasticity of Uber.

They are just trying to get you hooked and habituated because once you get accustomed to it- they know you will be a life (or at least a very long term) customer.

Plus the $5 base fee, right?

So that's not nearly cheaper than taking public transit.

For example if I get an uber ride between my apartment and the train station, it's close to $2-3, but that's on top of the $5 base fee. So I could either pay $7-8, or I could pay $2 for the bus.

No, there's no $5 base fee for UberPool (at least not in Chicago).

Just double-checked the banking records. There's no base fee.

Where do you live that theres a base fee?

I've never heard of that

In Stockholm there's a 40kr (~$5) base fee for UberX: https://www.uber.com/cities/stockholm

For UberBLACK that's 50kr (~$6), and UberLUX starts out at 100kr (~$12).

> The reason it's so cheap is because Uber keeps carpet bombing my phone with 50% and 75% off promo deals.

Does this affect how much the driver receives? E.g. do they receive a share of the full fee, or the discounted one?

Their payout is based on the full fare.

What city?

I saw prices like this in Mumbai.