(Mods: I looked for an existing thread, my apologies if this needs to be merged.)

I’m relatively minimally experienced with Lyft and Uber, had an interesting experience yesterday which I’m wondering is now the norm.

MIA to downtown Miami hotel. Uber showing ~$34-$40 and Lyft showing ~$23-~32 depending on waiting time. Selected Lyft for ~$23, 6 minutes. When the Lyft was 3 minutes away I received a notification (which I reflexively deleted and cannot retrieve) stating (something to the effect of) “Uber price for your ride to Miami hotel has changed to ~$19, would you like to change?” Upon arrival the car had both Lyft and Uber decals on the lower right windshield.

During the ride I thought it was kinda sleazy of Uber to offer me one price and then, AFTER I engaged the competition and within a few minutes of service, offer me a significantly lower price. I certainly do not expect these companies to be models of integrity but this was particularly shifty.

Is this (offering lower price on the competition a few minutes prior to ride share arrival) now standard? Had I accepted, would it have been the same car and driver? Had I accepted, would a Lyft cancellation fee have been charged?

Thank you.

How do Uber and Lyft know each other's pricing and/or that you accepted a ride with one or the other at a certain price? Even if one is scraping the competitor's app/site/data to see what prices are currently "posted" for the ride, how do they know you accepted the ride with the competitor?