I thought that Uber didn't get any of the extra surge price? In that case they're just trying to clear up congestion as quickly as possible so the price might be optimal from their prospective.
Lyft is (was?) the one that doesn't take a cut of surge pricing ("Prime Time" in their vocabulary). Lyft's cut is (was?) based on the standard fare, and the driver got the entirety of the surge bonus.
I've heard that Lyft has since moved to a model where they take a percentage of the surge price, but I can't seem to find any obvious sources corroborating this.
Uber AFAIK has always taken their cut of the surge price.
