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Uber Once Called UberPool Riders 'Masters' and 'Minions'
Uber Once Called UberPool Riders 'Masters' and 'Minions'-August 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:10:39

There’s “Heaven View” (weird), “Greyball” (strange), “Hell” (great idea), and probably an entire laundry list of strange Uber codenames we still haven’t learned about. Here’s a new one, courtesy of from BuzzFeed’s Priya Anand: The company used to refer to the first passenger in an UberPool ride is called “a master,” while extra riders picked were known as “minions.” Even better!

We’ve known for a long time that on its service, in an effort to gain more control of a particular market. But Anand’s to date at exactly how far Uber’s willing to go to drive out competition: Based on a slew of internal documents leaked to BuzzFeed, the story reports that Uber spent as much as $1 million per week in San Francisco to artificially lower the cost of a ride in the city, in an attempt to destroy Lyft’s competing service.

Given Uber’s penchant for weird codenames, though, this bit jumped right out:

If it’s working as designed, Pool is efficient — a way for drivers to spend far less time searching for fares, and for Uber to maximize drivers’ time. Pool also requires a critical mass of passengers and drivers to be able to match masters and minions headed on similar routes. For each trip in which a master isn’t matched with at least one minion, Uber loses money.

Uber told the news outlet that masters and minions are referred today in more straightforward terms: “primary” and “secondary.” I’d love to see the meeting notes that led to the change.

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