It's worth noting that with Uber's current price structure, if you get there super fast the fee is small, and if it takes ages it's huge. So it sounds more like worst of both worlds.
That's the way most taxi services work - if it takes longer you pay more because the driver is spending more time getting you there, however it's not as bad as if the price was just time and not distance.
Yeah - just saying that if the goal is to have a function that's medium for both high and low speeds, m+s is not it.
It definitely makes sense to pay more for longer distances, but I for one do not want to pay extra for slower travel. Something like m-s or m+s^-1 would be better.
Of course you don't want to pay more for a slower trip, but taxi drivers don't want to have their hourly profit reduced by being stuck in traffic.
At the end of the day, they could reduce the time cost so that going slower doesn't cost more, but they'd have to also raise the distance cost, so that drivers (and taxi companies) still make the same amount of money on average.
But combining them, the way it works now, makes the most sense, as when you use a taxi service you are paying for the technical costs of getting somewhere (fuel, etc.) and the cost of your driver's time, so why shouldn't it be calculated that way.
I'm not paying for the driver's time - the taxi company is responsible for that. I want a transport that takes me from point A to point B in the shortest time possible, and paying for the driver's time (at a higher rate, no less) is actively against my interests, since it disincentivizes speed.
You could make the argument that chauffeurs are paid for on a time-only basis, but then we're talking about a driver who I can tell to wait for me outside the store or party, a driver who can tell me about the sights on the scenic route we're taking, or a driver who will take me all over the county on business. Then you could add a basic wear or fuel surcharge per m, but again it should be decreasing (and small).
I haven't used chauffeur services myself, but a quote I found charges less per hour than Uber and nothing per km and no starting charge. They do have higher minimums, though. So I guess Uber could be presenting themselves as a chauffeur company for shopping trips, with 50%-150% markups when moving. As the article points out, they've failed to make that case.
Of course you are - whether you do so directly or through a company is irrelevant, either way the driver needs to get paid.
They could change it so that you don't pay more for slow trips, but in return fast trips would become more expensive to even it out, otherwise all you're doing is taking money away from the company/drivers. Then people who travel at peak traffic times are being subsidized by those who travel when the roads are empty.
(Personally I actually prefer non-metered trips, where I know that A to B always costs £x regardless of traffic, but there's certainly a lot of logic in charging by both distance and time.)
