Following a report by TheNextWeb Insider, “Uber’s head of economic research Keith Chen says when you hit accept to download, you give Uber the permission to know everything about your phone including low-power mode, While that’s interesting, what’s even more revealing is how much people are willing to pay surge pricing depending on their phone’s battery level.
Chen says users will pay up to 9.9 times in surge if their battery is critical just so they’re not stranded wherever they are (of course, assuming that your driver doesn’t cancel on you after your phone’s dead.)”
This was all spoken about at “This Is Your Brain On Uber” by Keith Chen on May 17, 2016.
Keith also promises that thee company doesn’t use that information to set prices, but, it’s certainly an interesting little (and potentially very valuable) factoid your local taxi driver isn’t aware of.
But Keith also, cleared that Customers with a fully-charged phone can afford to wait for surge pricing to drop. Uber typically pings you in the next 30 minutes if surging goes down.
Meaning that this only affects you when your phone is on low power mode during a price surge.
—Original Article by TNB