First time commenting...I found this article highly reaffirming. I'm a frequent uber rider with almost 800 trips on my personal account alone. I take uber M-Th to and from work. The same exact end points. And I've noticed changes with pricing but ALSO with route times:
Pricing - yes it's going up - both from a "this seems higher" perspective but more concretely in the 30 day "pass" I buy that locks in a flat fare for 30 days between 2 specific endpoints. My flat pass fare when up 50 cents a ride between last month and this month. I believe it's gone up in the past as well but don't have my receipts readily available.
Route Time - I believe the uberpool route is no longer (if it ever was) calculated purely on efficiency. Instead, I suspect the individual riders are assigned a priority and then the route is calculated. And I'm guessing the flat fare pass riders are assigned a low priority. My ride times have increased dramatically over the last two months, with 8 rides marked as "late arrival" meaning they took longer than the longest time estimated by the uber app. These rides are approaching 1 hour to go 7 miles (that's right, that's an efficiency of 7mph if you will). The most egregious was a route that literally passed by my block (my home was 3 houses away from the intersection) and took me 10 minutes further out to drop off a co-rider and then 10 minutes to return to the intersection. (I realized too late to jump out.)
So I am guessing they are testing people's tolerances both for 1) pricing and 2) duration. I have some wiggle room with pricing and am willing to stomach some increases. However, I can't stomach the ridiculous routing and excessive ride times. I may be unique in that Uber is the only rideshare app I've used to date but I'm now planning to try out Lyft, read about Waze Carpool, and investigate any other rideshare solutions out there... :)
Pricing - yes it's going up - both from a "this seems higher" perspective but more concretely in the 30 day "pass" I buy that locks in a flat fare for 30 days between 2 specific endpoints. My flat pass fare when up 50 cents a ride between last month and this month. I believe it's gone up in the past as well but don't have my receipts readily available.
Route Time - I believe the uberpool route is no longer (if it ever was) calculated purely on efficiency. Instead, I suspect the individual riders are assigned a priority and then the route is calculated. And I'm guessing the flat fare pass riders are assigned a low priority. My ride times have increased dramatically over the last two months, with 8 rides marked as "late arrival" meaning they took longer than the longest time estimated by the uber app. These rides are approaching 1 hour to go 7 miles (that's right, that's an efficiency of 7mph if you will). The most egregious was a route that literally passed by my block (my home was 3 houses away from the intersection) and took me 10 minutes further out to drop off a co-rider and then 10 minutes to return to the intersection. (I realized too late to jump out.)
So I am guessing they are testing people's tolerances both for 1) pricing and 2) duration. I have some wiggle room with pricing and am willing to stomach some increases. However, I can't stomach the ridiculous routing and excessive ride times. I may be unique in that Uber is the only rideshare app I've used to date but I'm now planning to try out Lyft, read about Waze Carpool, and investigate any other rideshare solutions out there... :)