You're speaking as if Uber exists in a vacuum with no competitors. And consumers do have the ability to change the price, though not directly. They could go with a taxi, use Lyft, ride a bike, take a bus, buy a car, etc--all factors that influence the demand and thus price for such services.
Lets select "this spot" as the primary arguing point, okay?
Uber has one job. Connect riders with drivers.
The "libertarian" solution is to provide a marketplace where drivers can sell their services to riders. Drivers can compete against each other by raising or lowering prices, while riders can compete against each other by similarly increasing or decreasing the bid.
Uber pretends to do this, but with a distinct difference. Uber sets all the prices. Therefore, Uber is anything BUT a free market.
Maybe you don't get it because you haven't been paying attention to Uber marketing. But I'm not claiming that Uber has no competitors. What I'm saying is within Uber's "marketplace" of "independent contractors", the drivers and riders are in fact helpless to Uber's pricing whims.
Uber is NOT a free market. But they are trying to market themselves as one. This is a distinct reason why Uber drivers have been declared to be employees.
> The "libertarian" solution is to provide a marketplace where drivers can sell their services to riders.
States create solutions. The libertarian "solution" is to do nothing and let the interactions happen organically. This could mean a marketplace, it could mean other things. It really depends on what people want, the locality, technology available, etc. And sometimes people actually want a monopoly and are happy with that. Facebook is practically a monopoly and I don't think people want 2 main social networks.
> Uber pretends to do this, but with a distinct difference. Uber sets all the prices. Therefore, Uber is anything BUT a free market.
I agree that Uber by itself is definitely not a free market place. I'll take your word that their marketing paints a different picture--seems likely.
Dragontamer is speaking as if Uber's competition is external to Uber, which of course it is. Uber sets its price and then offers services in a free market at that price, just like any other company. That makes Uber different from platforms (such as ebay) that facilitate sales but do not set prices.
