Perhaps Uber and other ride sharing services such as Lyft, are a very good thing – but the real question is whether Uber is a very good thing mainly for those that are the owners of Uber, as compared to it being a very good thing for those that are its riders and drivers. The main problem with ride sharing services as currently configured is that Uber takes a significant portion of the monies collected, that they have earmarked as fees, from the earnings of the driver, which also means thus charging a higher price to the rider because of those fees, of which, these fees appears to be typically around 25%, but can be even higher depending upon various other levies so being charged, as determined by Uber. Further to the point, the transparency of the fees so being charged, and the reasons behind such, does leave a lot to be desired, but it is what it is.
The principle behind Uber just isn’t all that difficult, which is pretty much aligning riders that need a ride, with drivers who are willing to make that drive. In a world, then, of which, never have so many people been connected through their smart phones and the apps that come with such – we do so find that it probably would not be overly difficult to create an app, that charges a set fee of $1 or even less, or possibly just is dependent upon advertisers, that thus allows people that want a ride to connect with people that are willing to drive them on that ride, which pretty much cuts out the middleman, of Uber, and hence means that the riders would pay less for their rides, and the drivers would get more.
When it comes to the pricing of that model, there are multitude of ways to address such, of which, one of those ways is to use Uber as a proxy to set what the price is for a given ride and then simply use the “Uber kill app” in which the rider then proposes a particular price, which would be under the Uber price, and the first driver that expressed an interest in making that drive, would then accept the offer at the price so offered; and if nobody responds, then the rider could just use Uber.
As for the identity of the driver and of the rider, that could simply be resolved by providing a screenshot to one another with pertinent information, so that each party would have the necessary but not overwhelming knowledge of the other. The bottom line is that ridesharing doesn’t need to be so complicated or convoluted that a fee of 25% or more, needs to be charged and thus cheats the driver and the rider out of money, so that those that are the principles and stockholders of Uber can make money upon the backs of regular folks.
In short, there are plenty of people that want to make some money by driving people for a price, and there are also plenty of people that need a ride – of which, in this world of smart phones, GPS, and well executed apps, there isn’t any real good reason why those rides could not be accomplished more and more with a service app that cuts out the middleman and thus helps the driver and the rider, so of.