Isn’t this just price gouging which is illegal in much of the US at least, I don’t know about internationally.

dcow 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think there’s a subtle difference between charging everyone $100 per umbrella in a rain storm vs charging $100 for your last few umbrellas. Former is price gouging; latter is just economics.

▲

eru a day ago | parent [-]

Alas, I don't think the law sees it that way.

▲

dcow a day ago | parent [-]

Are you sure? Under a unified definition Uber’s surge pricing is an example of price gouging that hasn’t been legally addressed because it’s in response to supply-side shortage not demand-side need, allegedly anyway.

	▲	eru 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Morally, Uber should be allowed to charge whatever they want to. No one is forced to take an Uber. But in practice Uber does face at least public scrutiny. Eg when there was a hostage situation in the Sydney city centre a few years ago, everyone wanted to leave and Uber's surge pricing kicked in automatically (no human at Uber even knew about the hostage situation, at least there was no human in the loop). Of course, this was exactly working as intended, but it was a bad look, so Uber retroactively made all the fares out of the city centre free that day.

▲

eru a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I think it's fine, if it's always expensive, not just in an emergency.

(Yes, the US has silly laws there, too.)