Uber has been a business quickly on the rise. It is present in more than 400 cities and has been estimated to be worth anywhere between $40 to $50 billion dollars. This is a huge number considering this business started in March of 2009.
However, it isn’t the only of its kind with a similar company Lyft that started in 2012. Thus, like any business it has fluctuation in prices, and most recently in San Diego, it was announced that Uber would be raising its prices by 21 percent on the uberX and uberXL as of April 25, 2016.
This may not seem like a huge number but it can add up. I know a lot of us college students are active users of Uber. Personally, I don’t have a car to be able to drive myself around and if I want to do anything here in San Diego I need to have a car.
So that leaves us with a few options, try your hardest to find friends who have a car here, and convince them to drive you places, which let's be honest who really willingly wants to caravan people around on the southern California freeways? That’s right, no one. Or you take the trolley or bus, but there are some interesting people on both of those and you can be testing your luck, plus it takes forever to get places. Or the easiest way for those of us who have no car here, just pay for Uber because it's not that expensive and you need to get to the airport or the beach, or you just really need to get food that isn’t served on campus because one person can only eat the Habit and Oggies so many times a week.
So with the price increase of 21 percent, my first thought was well I better start being nicer to people so they can drive me where I need to go because I definitely don’t want to be paying that much more for an Uber. Because let's be honest here, 21 percent might not seem like the biggest number out there, but it is definitely higher than I want to pay, and I don't think I'm alone in that
And since the minimum fee on the uberX is four dollars and seventy-five cents, once prices go up it will be a dollar more minimum.
So, for example, my last ride from SDSU to the airport cost a total of $20.70, but with this price increase, that same ride will cost $25. Which you might be thinking, that it's only five dollars more, that isn’t that much, but it starts to add up. Plus I’m a broke college student, I barely have enough money to buy myself Trujillo’s on the weekends let alone spend more than $20 on an Uber.
Overall, I am not happy about this price increase and will be doing my best to find alternate means of transportation because I don’t know about everyone else but I am not going to spend $50 every time I have to go the airport and back.
