This article is missing many key details, such as how they determined which areas had which demographic, where did the data come from, how was the study carried out? At its basic level this article says Uber and Lyft cost more to go to certain areas of a city, then it makes the leap that it's because of racism.
The article also states that "People are also being charged more when getting picked up in areas with more expensive homes, according to the study."
It's likely an article focused on this correlation and headlined 'Rich people pay more for Uber rides' wouldn't get the same traction in the current US political context.
> “What this study shows aligns with what many people across social sciences find, which is — in a world characterized by structural racism — market mechanisms are often going to reflect and reinforce structural racism,” she said.
Exactly.
> “It’s important not to equate correlation for causation, ..." an Uber statement said.
It doesn't matter. No one is claiming that Uber or Lyft are intentionally factoring race into pricing. It's an artifact of structural racism. Still, it re-enforces the existing system. We know that it's expensive to be poor. And we know that Blacks are disproportionately poor due to centuries of racism.
So what could Uber and Lyft do about this? They'd could for example use a progressive pricing model where wealthy riders subsidize poor riders. I have no idea how you'd go about doing that. It's hard to piecemeal address systemic problems. Or they could just use taxi pricing.
If Uber or Lyft wanted to help solve generational poverty they'd probably be better off donating cash to organisations like GiveDirectly instead of distorting the taxi market (which will always be less effective per $). Not that they could afford to do either. Last I heard they were both still losing money...
