A Politics For Technology

Ben Thompson on A Politics For Technology talks about surge pricing and market efficiencies.

The end result is a system that ensures that those who need a ride are guaranteed to get one; those who really could do without self-select out of the system, at least until more drivers are compelled to increase the supply. It is much better than the alternative, where someone who could just as easily walk a couple of blocks might by pure chance grab the taxi needed by, say, a woman in labor. That’s an extreme example, but I use it to make the point: pricing ensures those who truly need a good can get it, and, on a holiday defined by champagne, we should all be grateful.

In the context of the price mechanism, money serves the role of a medium of exchange. The problem, though, is that money serves other functions as well: specifically, money is a unit of account and a store of value. It is the latter that is the rub when it comes to Uber and the idea of allocating rides based on price. To return to the extreme example above, what if the woman in labor is poor, and the person who only needs to travel a few blocks is rich? It very well may be that the latter’s ability-to-pay will trump the former’s willingness-to-pay; this is, to my mind anyways, the most valid reason to oppose surge pricing.

Later on: "Take taxis, to stick with the Uber theme: the justification for most taxi regulations were important ones like safety, dependability, and consumer protection. Given the fact that taxis would be out on the street unsupervised it made sense to tightly control entrance to the market. However, were it possible to address all those same concerns far more effectively, through, say, precise tracking and full histories of both drivers and passengers, as well as knowledge about pick-up and intended drop-off points, would not the regulations look significantly different?"

He peters out in the end, with this, "It would be far better — and a far better match for the reality of today’s labor market — to disentangle once-and-for-all employment from the social safety net." but it was still a good read.