> If the price of the Uber ride is higher than you value that ride... just don’t buy it. Otherwise enjoy the value you have extracted from Uber
The surplus from a trade is divided between the buyer and the seller, and each party's surplus ranges from epsilon to 1-epsilon. Your claim that a move towards universally giving one party ~0% surplus and the other ~100% doesn't matter is self-consistent, but it shouldn't be surprising that society would concern itself with how surplus is divided (eg antitrust laws or any other competition-regulating policy)
The surplus from a trade is divided between the buyer and the seller, and each party's surplus ranges from epsilon to 1-epsilon. Your claim that a move towards universally giving one party ~0% surplus and the other ~100% doesn't matter is self-consistent, but it shouldn't be surprising that society would concern itself with how surplus is divided (eg antitrust laws or any other competition-regulating policy)