Google is known for a lot of things, like cancelling products, but "dark patterns" is definitely not one of its things.

Of course they'll squeeze out maximum profit, like every other company does. Fortunately, you can just check out the Wikipedia article on "profit maximization" to understand why maximum profit doesn't come from maximum prices, but generally comes from a middle price that attracts more customers.

In any case, it's always going to be cheaper than a ride with a human driver, so I don't know what you're being so negative about.