{"id":183205,"date":"2015-01-26T21:16:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T02:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/01\/26\/if-its-a-blizzard-uber-will-be-price-gouging\/"},"modified":"2015-01-26T21:16:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T02:16:00","slug":"if-its-a-blizzard-uber-will-be-price-gouging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/01\/26\/if-its-a-blizzard-uber-will-be-price-gouging\/","title":{"rendered":"If It&#8217;s a Blizzard, Uber will be Price Gouging"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Even after <a href=\"http:\/\/pando.com\/2015\/01\/26\/after-de-blasio-calls-snowstorm-gouging-illegal-uber-still-uses-surge-prices-just-not-as-horribly-as-usual\/\">Mayor Bill de Blasio specifically calling out jacking up rates in an emergency as illegal<\/a>:<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Here in New York City and other parts of the Northeast, the snow has begun to fall and it likely won\u2019t stop for the next 24 hours or longer. Some estimate the city will be buried in up to 30 inches of snow by late tomorrow. <\/p>\n<p>For customers of Uber and Lyft, that should bring up nightmares of blizzards past when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/uber-surge-pricing-7-to-8-times-higher-than-usual-2013-12\">Uber\u2019s surge prices hit seven to eight times<\/a> the normal rates \u2014 or upwards of $30 a mile. <\/p>\n<p>With that in mind, NYC mayor Bill de Blasio <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2015-01-26\/uber-to-cap-car-service-price-surges-during-east-coast-snowstorm.html\">said<\/a> in a press conference, \u201cPrice gouging in the context of an emergency is illegal.\u201d In response, Uber and Lyft have capped their surge prices at 280% and 200% respectively. <\/p>\n<p>The cap is a welcome gesture, but doesn\u2019t that still constitute \u201cprice gouging in the context of an emergency\u201d? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ag.ny.gov\/price-gouging\">Under New York State law<\/a>, price gouging is defined as an \u201cunconscionably excessive price\u201d during an \u201cabnormal disruption of the market.\u201d Like many laws, there\u2019s a bit of vagueness written into that language, and I\u2019ve reached out to the Attorney General\u2019s office to ask whether Uber\u2019s and Lyft\u2019s capped surge rates qualify as \u201cunconscionably excessive\u201d and will update the post if I hear back.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Seriously.&nbsp; This is a company whose business model is, &#8220;We&#8217;re contemptible greed-head ratf%$#s.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Why do people use this, and why do their <a href=\"http:\/\/pando.com\/2015\/01\/26\/dear-travis-a-miami-uber-driver-takes-exception-to-the-companys-rate-cuts\/\">massively underpaid drivers<\/a> stay with them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even after Mayor Bill de Blasio specifically calling out jacking up rates in an emergency as illegal: Here in New York City and other parts of the Northeast, the snow has begun to fall and it likely won\u2019t stop for the next 24 hours or longer. Some estimate the city will be buried in up &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1005,970,969,997,1025,1035],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-corruption","category-evil","category-internet","category-technology","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}