A ride-hailing app nudges users to pay an "add-on" before booking, citing faster pick-ups, while its own data shows the opposite. Analyse the ethical issues involved.

The app tells users that an add-on gets them a cab faster. Its own data says otherwise: requests with an add-on were accepted only 38% of the time, against 62% without one [1]. Once a firm knows this and keeps promoting the add-on, the problem is no longer just pricing. It is deliberate deception. The CCPA penalised exactly such a practice by Ola as a dark pattern and an unfair trade practice [1].

Ethical issues involved

• Truthfulness vs deception: The firm made the "faster pick-up" claim knowing its own data contradicted it. Hiding that add-ons lower acceptance means concealing material information, which is a misleading advertisement under Section 2(28)(iv), CPA 2019 [1].
• Autonomy and informed consent: The prompt used pre-set amounts (anchoring), the label "Generous Add On!", guilt-based confirm shaming, and gave no way to close it. Together these turn an "optional" payment into a pressured one [1]. The OECD describes such design as choice architecture that undermines consumer autonomy [2].
• Exploiting vulnerability: The implied message "pay or you may get no ride" plays on urgency and fear. It hits hardest at patients, the elderly, travellers with luggage, and people travelling alone at night [1]. This breaches the duty of non-maleficence (the duty not to cause harm).
• Fairness and justice: The upfront fare already covers peak pricing and the driver's distance to pick-up, so the add-on charges twice for the same shortage [1].
• Information asymmetry and breach of trust: Only the platform can see driver availability, so users cannot check whether paying extra is really needed [1]. Using that gap against users betrays the trust they place in the platform.
• Integrity: means vs ends: The design treats users merely as a source of revenue, not as people to be dealt with honestly. Calling a "tip" an "add-on" puts form over substance, and the CCPA rejected that relabelling [1].

The competing claim: driver welfare

• Low pay for gig drivers is a real problem. The ethical fix is fair pay, with gratitude shown after the service. Clause 14.15, Motor Vehicles Aggregators Guidelines 2025 allows tips only after the trip is completed [1].

All these issues point to one failure: the firm earned revenue by manipulating consent instead of earning it with honest service. The way forward is ethics-by-design audits, a rule that every performance claim must be backed by the firm's own data, and sector-wide checks of booking screens. Regulators should also keep judging practices by what they do, not what they are called, as the CCPA did with its ₹10 lakh penalty [1]. Honest design protects consumer sovereignty and sustains the trust that platform markets depend on.