HAPPY “SURGE PRICING” NEW YEAR! (1867)
A blinding snowstorm welcomed in the New Year in the City of Brooklyn in 1867.
In spite of the snowfall, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that “there never were so many open houses and never so many callers.”
SURGE PRICING IN 1867
“Callers, as a general thing, didn’t mind the snow much, while to the keepers of livery stables, the appearance of the morning air, filled with its myriad snow flakes, became a vision, exceeding in its richness the fabled mines of Golconda.”
In a word, these taxi drivers were seeing dollar signs within the Brooklyn snowfall. And the harder the snow fell, the more money their sleighs would be bringing in.
Like a modern-day taxi service – upon which rested no fixed rates – these 19th century taxi hacks would begin to set new prices on their services, determining – based upon the wiles of the consumer and the availability of the taxi driver – how much their service was worth on the new snowclad market.
“Only think of it, fifty dollars for two or three hours use of a vehicle of that description…they might as well have charged a hundred…and been sorry that they hadn’t charge two hundred, from the readiness with which the money would have been paid.”
Alas, Uber “surge pricing” is no new thing. No new thing at all…
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