Bartering meets tech platforms

In October 2023, India-based media outlet YourStory reported on the launch of Uber’s new Go Flex system. Available in medium-sized cities in India like Indore, Chandigarh, and Surat, the system allows users to effectively barter over the cost of their journey with nearby drivers at nine pre-set price points. 

The system effectively transfers greater responsibility over a ride’s pricing to the customer. Rather than rising and falling exclusively in line with what Uber’s algorithms deem most appropriate to match rides’ supply and demand, the fare riders choose more directly affects the variables shaping their ride experience. Price is the main variable, obviously, but also the amount of time passengers wait: a relatively higher price may incentivize a driver in peak times to accept one ride and reject another, while a low price may leave customers stranded tout court. 

Now, TechCrunch reporters Jagmeet Singh and Ivan Mehta have uncovered that Uber is expanding the Flex program, testing its feasibility in “Lebanon, Kenya and Latin America.” The ride-hailing platform is also gearing up to launch the service in major cities in India, such as Delhi and Mumbai. 

But drivers’ experiences with similar platforms, such as inDrive, a barter-y and India-focused competitor to Uber, suggest a pivot to this pricing system amplifies a power imbalance between drivers, customers, and platforms. Many inDrive customers have offered almost exploitatively low prices for rides, TechCrunch suggests; inDrive’s solution has been to enable counter-bids from drivers, rather than implement an appropriate price floor for rides. 

Creating nine price levels through the Go Flex system is part Uber’s solution, but it’s a solution that still leaves fundamental imbalances unchecked. In a bid to beat out competition in the mid-2010s, ride-hailing platforms expanded aggressively, offering tantalizing incentives to potential drivers, who took out car loans with the promise of guaranteed minimum revenue and other forms of commission. Those incentives disappeared as platforms looked to cut costs, leaving drivers to spend most of their income on their loans, and survive on little more than three dollars a day. 

“I can’t live on the remaining [INR] 200 and run a family,” a driver said in 2018. With strikes and attrition threatening its bottom line, Uber has unveiled wellness programs aiming to retain drivers, though the fundamental economics remain static.

Through Go Flex, Uber hopes to use bartering and a semblance of consumer freedom as a strategy for growth. But this payments scheme obfuscates a deeper crisis in supply. How high will these nine price points have to go if drivers leave their profession in droves?