It’s a well-known yuppie hack. Four friends call an Uber for the bar; the one with the lowest fare hails the ride. That they are going from the same place to the same stop simultaneously doesn’t faze the pricing algorithm. I once had a friend go to such lengths as to search for rides to destinations to which he planned to drive, only to exit the app before getting in his car. He wanted to trick the algorithm into believing he was a highly price-sensitive customer. He had a streak of winning the hailing wars until the rideshare apps seemed to catch on to his game. The anecdote is funny; the implication that apps are tracking you to set a price is not.
Using algorithms to set prices, including personal prices, has innovated some industries, but may also destabilize traditional consumer protection and antitrust policy. In markets like rideshare where personal data usage is unavoidable, policymakers can use machine learning techniques to prevent algorithmic abuse, but idolizing customer privacy comes with anticompetitive risks of its own.
