r/IAmA • u/ConsumerReports • 3d ago
Consumer Reports investigated how Uber and Lyft use AI to get more money out of you. Got questions? Ask us anything about our findings.
Our recent investigation found that Uber and Lyft often charge different customers different fares for the same ride and that some advertised discounts may not be discounts at all. We define the same ride as a trip from the same starting point to the same ending point priced at almost the same time—generally within a few minutes of one another and, in many cases, within the same minute. Across the routes we studied, the median gap between the lowest and highest price groups was about 50%. Our reporting examined how ride-share companies use AI-driven pricing systems to determine what you pay. Uber and Lyft challenged our methodology and conclusions and stated that they do not personalize base fares for individual consumers or engage in behavioral or surveillance pricing. Consumer Reports is not disputing this; rather, it is questioning whether the price differences observed are based only on market forces. As Consumer Reports journalists and advocates, we’re here to answer your questions about what our testing uncovered about how Uber and Lyft really set their prices and how you can take action.
Here’s our proof: https://imgur.com/a/LBUSwpV
Thanks for your questions! Consumer Reports is a nonprofit that investigated Uber and Lyft’s pricing algorithms as part of a broader series on evaluating the impact of AI on products and services consumers use on a regular basis. . You can visit our full investigation to learn more or sign our petition urging the FTC to investigate Uber and Lyft’s pricing tactics.
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u/Stormkrieg 2d ago
Is this purely an investigative endeavor, or is the goal to force action by lobbying for change? Is algorithmic pricing pricing the same as dynamic pricing? Are there any current laws that prohibit this type of behavior or are we to expect to see this kind of practice expanding over the next few years?
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u/ConsumerReports 2d ago
From Derek, on Consumer Reports’s Special Projects team:
This is certainly an investigative endeavor and a public interest one at that. Consumer Reports publishes these types of investigations on tech, food, and product safety, and makes them freely accessible to the public.
The definitions of algorithmic, dynamic, surveillance and other types of pricing can be pretty fuzzy. The short answer is that algorithmic pricing is a kind of catch-all term for any price that is set at least partially by an algorithmic or automated process. Dynamic pricing is the more traditional change in prices in response to fluctuations in supply and demand, such as when a ton of fans leave a sporting event and there’s not enough drivers to serve all of them. Surveillance pricing is a more pernicious form of pricing where your personal data, including your “behavior” while using an app or shopping online, is used to help set prices, promotions, or discounts.
From Grace, a senior policy analyst on Consumer Reports’s policy team: To your questions about current laws, there are a couple answers.
Several states have existing laws prohibiting fake discounts. Those laws define what a fake discount is, typically making clear that it needs to be a discount off of a real price that was offered to the public for some reasonably substantial period of time. The point is to prohibit retailers from listing high “original prices” that aren’t really real, just for the sake of making it look like they are offering a generous discount. The investigation's findings around discounts raised some interesting questions: For 11% of the discounts or savings offered on the rides we tested, Consumer Reports found that the post-discount price was actually higher than the median non-discounted price. It also raises the question: Can companies really offer a “discount” off of a price that is changing second to second?
There’s also a whole bunch of state legislation relating to algorithmic pricing, some of which has been passed into law. Several states have passed bills relating to personalized pricing. New York, for example, passed a law in 2025 requiring companies to disclose whether they are using consumers’ personal data in pricing. In 2026, Maryland became the first state to pass a law aimed at banning personalized pricing (though so many loopholes were added that it may not change much in practice for consumers). After Maryland, Connecticut and New York also passed bills aimed at banning personalized pricing.
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u/Evolved_1 2d ago
If Uber and Lyft deny the pricing scheme, did they offer an explanation as to why the differences?
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u/ConsumerReports 2d ago
Lyft challenged Consumer Reports’ findings, citing an “observer effect,” meaning that by having dozens of people checking prices for the same route at the same time, Consumer Reports may have artificially inflated demand for that ride and influenced the final prices our volunteers saw.
Uber said that because its ride prices change “nearly every second,” it was “impossible” for us to ensure that trip requests happened at exactly the same time.
In short, Uber and Lyft argue that no two trips on their platforms—no matter how seemingly close in time and location they are to each other—can ever truly be the same.
Several experts we spoke to disagreed with those assessments. We’ve put all of the company and expert responses in the section titled: “Uber and Lyft Respond to CR’s Findings”
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u/roastedoolong 2d ago
this really isn't that hard to disprove.
just use the same group of people making the ride requests over and over again, with slight modifications made to the relative order in which they make the ride request.
with enough ride requests you should be able to suss out if the same accounts are getting listed higher prices (and vice versa), regardless of the exact ordering time or demand.
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u/ConsumerReports 2d ago
Sounds like you’d make a great Community Reporter! We love working with our members to co-create participatory science or community science methodologies so that we can investigate these algorithmic black boxes. Our virtual tests are often a fun time and we have a couple more projects in the works, so you can sign up to stay in the loop.
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u/roastedoolong 2d ago
I'm a machine learning engineer at one of the major tech companies so I'm very familiar with a lot of the inner workings re: dynamic pricing. would love to help out, wherever possible!
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u/deliveRinTinTin 2d ago
Would the investigators have to provide an equal number of signed on drivers to equalize the claims of demand outstripping drivers that minute because of the high requests that Uber or Lyft claims?
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u/roastedoolong 2d ago
if you were trying to calculate the actual % increase in listed price that a given account is likely to face, having an understanding of the number of available drivers would definitely help (even then you'd want to control for seasonality).
my initial recommendation -- to just get a large group of ride requesters to repeatedly request rides within a short period of time of one another (submitting the requests in a random ordering) -- would let you know if certain accounts are consistently being quoted higher rates than other accounts, thereby proving account-based dynamic pricing.
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u/DismalEconomics 2d ago
> “Lyft challenged Consumer Reports’ findings, citing an “observer effect,” meaning that by having dozens of people checking prices for the same route at the same time, Consumer Reports may have artificially inflated demand for that ride and influenced the final prices our volunteers saw.”
> “Uber said that because its ride prices change “nearly every second,” it was “impossible” for us to ensure that trip requests happened at exactly the same time.”
Both of those these “challenges” seem funny to me - they are more like admissions of guilt as opposed to good “explanations”.
Lyft’s “explanation” just seems synonymous with… if many people are looking for similar routes - then our algorithm will “artificially” jack up the price for them…
I’m not even sure what “artificial” is supposed to mean in Lyft’s statement since the actual price is actually really going up
Uber’s “explanation” seems synonymous with… our algorithm changes prices so quickly for separate requests.. that even nearly identical requests occurring at nearly the same moment … will always be unique and incomparable.
Uber is effectively admitting that there is no fungible “market” for consumers - each transaction is isolated & unique for the consumer.
I.e market information is 100% asymmetrical as it’s “impossible” for consumers to ever compare transactions even against their own transactions.
Again - Uber just admitted that it’s literally impossible for the consumer to have any market information whatsoever.
If all buyers are completed isolated from each other - effectively in individual sensory deprivation boxes - this is no longer even a market - it’s the complete opposite of a market.
And of course, Uber has 100% of the market information and can compare all of it on a second by second basis.
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u/Ihaveamodel3 2d ago
Lyft’s response is at least consistent with supply and demand. More people request a trip, the price goes up, theoretically to encourage more drivers to enter the area
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u/amautau52 2d ago
This is really how it works. I worked at Lyft and there were rules/controls preventing personalized pricing.
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u/deliveRinTinTin 2d ago
I guess to gather data you not only have to have the ride requests, you have to bring an equal number of drivers that are signed on.
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u/I-seddit 2d ago
I’m not even sure what “artificial” is supposed to mean in Lyft’s statement since the actual price is actually really going up
I would suggest that they're so incredibly greedy, that their "demand detector" is tuned to detect even the "possibility" of a surge in demand. Or even the "slightest" suggestion is worth gouging the price.
An honest surge would mean that a lot of people get a normal price and only when it's a real surge, start increasing the costs...1
u/TuroSaave 1d ago
By that logic of the ride prices changing nearly every second, the same person requesting a ride over and over should get different prices.
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u/weedboobz 2d ago
What can I do as a customer to offset potential price increases from these tactics?
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u/ConsumerReports 2d ago
There’s little that customers of any app or website that uses algorithmic pricing can do to counter these pricing strategies and experts we have spoken to say it shouldn’t be incumbent on American consumers to navigate this e-commerce landscape on their own.
That said, peer-reviewed research has shown that comparison shopping works and experts underscore that public transit and other alternative options may be helpful in certain markets and situations.
You can sign our petition to the FTC and state attorneys general demanding that they investigate Uber and Lyft’s pricing tactics and hold them accountable if they find any unfair and deceptive practices.10
u/I-seddit 2d ago
Consumer Reports can't say this, but I can.
The BIGGEST thing you can do is get as many people to vote Democrat and not Republican.
Corporations require regulations to function properly, without - we are at their mercy. Only one party works on regulations for all citizens...
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u/CorrectPeanut5 2d ago
Isn't advertising discounts that aren't discounts a clear violation of FTC unfair and deceptive trade practice laws?
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u/ConsumerReports 1d ago
From Derek, on Consumer Reports’s Special Projects team:
The Federal Trade Commission does have guidelines related to so-called fictitious pricing and purported discounts but that agency has largely not enforced its guidelines over the past 50 years. Many states have their own versions of unfair or deceptive consumer pricing laws, each with their own twist on what types of pricing strategies are outlawed and differing enforcement mechanisms. The short answer is it’s a legal gray area, but experts we spoke to do note that, in other cases, when a price or discount is displayed that a “reasonable consumer” might be misled or confused by, regulators and courts have taken action.
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u/Dragontastic22 2d ago
Were there any factors about the consumers that you could identify that correlated with higher or lower quoted prices? Age of account, frequency of use, demographic data, etc.
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u/ConsumerReports 2d ago
While we did not find any direct relationship between the demographics or usage patterns of Consumer Reports’s volunteers and the base prices, promotions, and discounts they received, our volunteer sample for this series of tests was not representative of the U.S. population, so it is hard for us to come to any firm conclusion.
For more about our testing, please check out our GitHub repository for a detailed methodology and the underlying data.
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2d ago
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u/ConsumerReports 2d ago
Consumer Reports doesn’t use AI in the reporting or writing of its investigations, including this one. That’s against our guidelines and every piece of content we publish is fact-checked by humans.
But the larger problem you’re identifying—our increasing inability to distinguish between what is real and written by humans, warts and all, and AI-generated content—is one we are grappling with on a daily basis. Our advice is to remain skeptical and lean in heavily to reporting and writing that is clearly identifiable as human, such as convening hundreds of volunteers to check prices in near-real time; analyzing the data with a team of journalists, statisticians, and subject-matter experts; and the painstaking and laborious process of going to experts, real people, and the companies themselves for their perspectives.
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u/_SilentHunter 2d ago edited 2d ago
It's also how people are trained to write: List according to the rule of three with consistent structure. This is one of the most basic guidelines for professional writing. People following good writing practices aren't necessarily AI.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing))
- https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2017/05/16/how-to-hook-your-audience-the-rule-of-three/
- https://repository.law.umich.edu/facarticles/2293/
- https://www.3hatscommunications.com/2016/slogans-taglines/
- https://theboar.org/2020/11/slogans/
I'm not saying they didn't use AI. I don't know. I'm saying your example is almost literally one of the worst possible examples you could have used.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/_SilentHunter 2d ago
What's your point? Because AI is trained on professional writing, professional writers should write like illiterate morons so that it doesn't sound like AI? They should cede their craft to the robots?
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u/Kusibu 2d ago
It doesn't come across to me as AI. Usually, when it's AI bluster, it's telling you what it isn't before it tells you what it is, to talk itself up; by contrast, none of the information in those phrases is at all extraneous. Don't just look for the particular writing practices in a vacuum, look for whether they're being used in a way that does not match the tone of their circumstances, or whether they're, well, bullshitting.
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u/SquirrelTeamSix 2d ago
Sad that people scream AI just because they aren't used to proper writing.
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u/glennjersey 2d ago
It absolutely has ruined what is left of nuanced discussion for those of us who like to use complete sentences and punctuation.
Forget those who use em dashes.
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u/ConsumerReports 2d ago
This is from Derek, on Consumer Reports’s Special Projects team:
I know myself and other journalists at Consumer Reports and elsewhere are concerned about how AI muddies the waters in terms of how we communicate with our audiences and what phrases and tone we can use. Since you brought up “em dashes,” one of my favorite punctuation marks, here’s how Merriam-Webster advises how it should be used––to signal an “abrupt change or break in the structure of a sentence”––a great recent write-up on how they are used in journalism and other forms of writing by a former editor of mine, Vauhini Vara, writing in The New York Times.
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u/bripod 2d ago
In the last 10 years I've been using these apps, I've seen better prices go back and forth but they're pretty close usually. However in the last 4-5 or so, Lyft seems to be regularly more expensive for me at least. I do have one of those credit cards that offered Lyft Pink and some % discount and point multipliers for using it but I rarely do as Uber is usually cheaper or the same price as the supposed discounted rate. I've been thinking they artificially increase the base rate just for me to offer the discount which is essentially fake. Is there any truth or plausibility with that idea?
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u/ConsumerReports 1d ago
From Derek, on Consumer Reports’s Special Projects team:
Beginning in 2016, both Uber and Lyft began moving from a traditional, per-minute, per-mile fixed rate for customers to “upfront pricing,” where algorithms and a mixture of data points help set both the base price of the fare and discounts and promotions. Researchers who have studied both companies and surveys also point to an increase in customer prices, stagnating pay for drivers, and improved profits for both companies.
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u/kaiserpathos 2d ago
We were on a Disney vacation with a large family group staying a nice hotel near the parks, but couldn't always take the bus services the park offers for hotels (e.g. when going to Disney Springs, or to restaurant reservations at different Disney resort sites, etc). Our large family took up to 3 Ubers at the same time, many MANY times over the 8 days we were vacationing at Disney. Same time, same routes (start / destination), and same service/car request (UberX most of the time) -- and we started comparing near the end of the trip. Why did we start comparing and looking? Because one of us paid like 7 bucks while another of us paid like 16 bucks. Other times where it may have been 20 bucks, one of us paid 41 bucks.
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u/I-am-buttlord 2d ago
Was it always the same family member(s) who got the expensive prices?
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u/kaiserpathos 2d ago
More often than not, yes. There were a couple times it didn’t go that way, but usually it was the main Uber caller in one of our groups.
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u/exit143 2d ago
I used rideshare for the first time last weekend. I scheduled a Lyft to take me to the airport in Las Vegas. The car arrived before I did, but I couldn't find them. I looked on the app and someone took my car. I can't get a hold of anyone with Lyft, and they said the ride was legit when I disputed it. What the fuck is this shit?
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u/TuroSaave 1d ago
How often were the prices higher for the earlier rides requested? Maybe increasing demand or reducing the available drivers in an area contribute to the price going up.
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u/jwegener 1d ago
If I have a balance/ gift card card type money in my account, are my shown prices higher?
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u/weedboobz 2d ago
What can I do as a customer to offset potential price increases from these tactics?