Just yesterday, an Uber driver half way through the route started taking me away from the destination. I protested and he said his GPS froze. I don't buy that because navigation was never a problem for any taxi/Uber driver in my city before, with or without GPS. I gave him one star and Uber returned the extra fees. I think the honest display of bad reviews is all that stands in the way of abuse and enables Uber's popularity to rise.

You could also give him the benefit of the doubt. Most uber drivers I've met have been very polite, and very concerned about bad ratings.

I had a driver who got lost once, and he just stopped the trip and took me to my destination -- because he would rather go a few miles out of pocket than risk a bad rating.

I thought Uber has diverged from per-minute per-mile billing and settled on a fixed quote based on optimal distance at the time of dispatch. The past few rides the amount I got quoted in the app was the exact amount they billed.

Is it different in various markets, perhaps?

They charge the quoted fixed rate unless your ride diverges from the app's recommended path by more than a certain distance. I've annoyingly gotten hit by this a few times when my driver made a wrong turn.

I thought that was the whole idea behind Uber, no more taxi scams. Might as well just call a Yellow cab, if drivers are going to pull this kind of thing.

Two Stars: Driver tried to steal my money, but he seemed like a decent guy.

Why are you even giving them one star?

Because they didn't run any red lights :)

ie. reserve one star for when it's really bad.

Because when the rated party also rates the rater, ratings are essentially useless. The question you ask yourself is: is this person so absolutely awful as a passenger/driver that I'm willing to risk being kicked off the platform to get them kicked off?

You can’t see how the other person rated you before you rate them in Uber. Also this would explain why you’d always rate high, not choose two stars over one which is still a bad rating.

Airbnb has this problem though. A loud apartment on the highway will have no mention of it being on the loud highway. Just ratings like “5 stars, great for early risers!”

Airbnb has no motive to fix it because their service looks great with rating inflation.

If there’s a problem with Uber’s rating system, it’s that it’s a five-star system.

I thought I was the perfect Uber passenger (always on time, sat quietly) until I saw my rating. It was 3.5/5. Too arbitrary to be actionable. Is it because I’m a gringo living in Mexico? Should I start small talk more often? Tip them in cash? Is it because I only use it to go to the airport which is a long and traffic-ridden drive which must not be fun for the driver? Or is 3.5 actually a good rating because it’s above 3.0, etc.

> Airbnb has no motive to fix it because their service looks great with rating inflation.

They have no motive to fix it if they have an incredibly short term view of things. It's fairly obvious that this damages the entire platform over time.

Framing a stupid decision as rational because it's rational if you squint enough doesn't ring true. It's rational to think ahead a bit and take into account secondary and tertiary effects.

> If there’s a problem with Uber’s rating system, it’s that it’s a five-star system.

"Single axis" ratings systems are unintuitive, unreliable, prone to "gaming", and thus often self-defeating.

I think person-to-person services should have at least 2 rating axes:

• Was the service rendered [as advertised]? Yes / No

This would be for whether the driver dropped you off at the destination, or the seller delivered the advertised item, or the room and facilities matched the description.

A simple confirmation that the contract was completed; emotions should not enter into this rating.

• How do you feel? Disappointed / Neutral / Pleased

This must be presented in such a way that users DO NOT ASSUME that "Neutral" == "Bad." It should be OK to rate Neutral, because that's how we feel about most of the things in life.

I believe this was the original intent of the 5 star systems to begin with: 3 would be neutral/average/okay, 4 would be above average, and 5 would be exceptional/rare.

Or, since they are STARS, even 1 would be good.

But in practice, our collective psychology thinks anything <5 is bad.

Maybe introduce tomatoes or poo in addition to stars. Stars would be how good it was, and poo would be how many things annoyed you.

It's just a number. Your life is worth more than that so just ignore it. See Black Mirror for how this social rating descends into madness.

That was the scariest episode so far in the series, especially in the beginning before it started to normalize...or descend into madness...YMMV

Why? In a situation where repeat encounters are rare, and each party cannot see the other party's rating until they've submitted theirs (or not at all), what's the risk of giving an accurately-bad rating? Also, how is rating 2 stars less likely to trigger retaliation than rating 1 star?

If they're stealing, yes.