Uber fart penalty

I took a lot of Uber rides the past few weeks. I also, on several occasions, ate things that didn’t agree with me. Thankfully these events never coincided with each other. However, it led me to a thought experiment, which resulted in today’s unhinged UI.

What if Uber detected and credited riders for instances where their driver farted? What if the opposite were also true (you had to pay drivers)? It’s an interesting idea because people would be even more incentivized than they already are to reign in their toots. To be fair, I’ve thankfully never had a gassy Uber driver.

The immediate questions that arise for me are around technical feasibility. How do you detect when farting is happening? Are there sensors in the seats? Infrared scanners? What if the driver is just old and can’t control themselves very well? I can see enough technical issues that I don’t see a world where anything like this gets built, though if I had infinite time and resources, it’d be fun to try.

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