The conjecture that: when tech bros talk about “disrupting the market” it’s actually a dogwhistle for fraud and subverting regulations with illegal tactics quick enough to grow very big and influence governments to alter the policies in their favor; gets one more example to make it into a theorem.
I liberated the story for you (it’s Reddit):
I’m posting this from a library Wi-Fi on a burner laptop because I am technically under a massive NDA. I don’t care anymore. I put in my two weeks yesterday and honestly, I hope they sue me. I’ve been sitting on this for about eight months, just watching the code getting pushed to production, and I can’t sleep at night knowing I helped build this machine.
You guys always suspect the algorithms are rigged against you, but the reality is actually so much more depressing than the conspiracy theories. I’m a backend engineer. I sit in the weekly sprint planning meetings where Product Managers (PMs) discuss how to squeeze another 0.4% margin out of “human assets” (that’s literally what they call drivers in the database schemas). They talk about these people like they are resource nodes in a video game, not fathers and mothers trying to pay rent.
First off, the “Priority Delivery” is a total scam. It was pitched to us as a “psychological value add.” Like I said in the title, when you pay that extra $2.99, it changes a boolean flag in the order JSON, but the dispatch logic literally ignores it. It does nothing to speed you up.
We actually ran an A/B test last year where we didn’t speed up the priority orders, we just purposefully delayed non-priority orders by 5 to 10 minutes to make the Priority ones “feel” faster by comparison. Management loved the results. We generated millions in pure profit just by making the standard service worse, not by making the premium service better.
But the thing that actually makes me sick—and the main reason I’m quitting—is the “Desperation Score.” We have a hidden metric for drivers that tracks how desperate they are for cash based on their acceptance behavior.
If a driver usually logs on at 10 PM and accepts every garbage $3 order instantly without hesitation, the algo tags them as “High Desperation.” Once they are tagged, the system then deliberately stops showing them high-paying orders. The logic is: “Why pay this guy $15 for a run when we know he’s desperate enough to do it for $6?” We save the good tips for the “casual” drivers to hook them in and gamify their experience, while the full-timers get grinded into dust.
Then there is the “Benefit Fee.” You’ve probably seen that $1.50 “Regulatory Response Fee” or “Driver Benefits Fee” that appeared on your bill after the recent labor laws passed. The wording is designed to make you feel like you’re helping the worker.
In reality, that money goes straight to a corporate slush fund used to lobby against driver unions. We have a specific internal cost center for “Policy Defense,” and that fee feeds directly into it. You are literally paying for the high-end lawyers that are fighting to keep your delivery guy homeless.
And regarding tips, we’re essentially doing Tip Theft 2.0. We don’t “steal” them legally anymore because we got sued for that. Instead, we use predictive modeling to dynamically lower the base pay.
If the algo predicts you are a “high tipper” and you’ll likely drop $10, it offers the driver a measly $2 base pay. If you tip $0, it offers them $8 base pay just to get the food moved. The result is that your generosity isn’t rewarding the driver; it’s subsidizing us. You’re paying their wage so we don’t have to.
I’m drunk and I’m angry. Ask me anything before this gets taken down.
Please read the thread, it’s very likely that op is lying
No thanks. This sounds entirely plausible and he gig economy should be highly regulated. I want my stuff delivered, yes, but I want it delivered by somebody who isn’t doing it as a last measure to survive and it won’t get them out from the heel they are under.
We need whistleblowers like this. If you’re a software developer and see shady business practices, fucking say something. If not to your superior, then to an authority. Companies shouldn’t get away with this unethical behavior. If even one thing is true of what OP is saying, they should be fucking sued and forced to improve or die.
Yeah, the only reason “gig economy” workers exist is so companies can use clever lawyer buzz words to exploit workers. We already have delivery drivers, we already had cab drivers, we already had hotels and rental homes, etc etc.
But suddenly we have “disruptive” gig bull shit, because now its a “ride share” to avoid cab rules. The delivery person works for another company and is a weird psudo contracter because McDonalds isn’t going to pay delivery drivers to have downtime, etc etc.
Its ultimately just a way get around regular employment laws and exploit people to the max. Its stupid and its why at least for my part, I have not and will not every use these services.
Might be the case, but I expect some things to be true, like desperation score and profit squeezing. I met call centre managers that were trying to optimise how little should workers spend without the call in progress, that might sound reasonable but they tried to ‘improve’ from less than 10s between calls already
Just venting, but I straight-up don’t understand how so many developers working in gambling, FAANG, the MIC, commercial health insurance, etc. so readily pull the wool over their own eyes before eventually crashing out.
If you’re a working class person with no better way to pay the bills, that’s one thing — but from lived experience as a tech bro, these people are generally well-off white collar professionals with plenty of options. You can do something ethical that pays the bills, lets you live comfortably, travel the world and more, or you can do something obviously heinous for a ~20% marginal salary increase — and this set of nitwits pick the heinous gig every time.
Like have they never bothered to try using the services of the companies they work for? Are they too daft to recognize a dark pattern when they see it?
The only answer I see as a reliable answer is greed and money. OOP and people like them ruin my faith in humanity like nothing else.
I thought I wanted to work at FAANG in my younger years. After getting flown in for an on-site interview at Google, I decided it wasn’t really worth it to work somewhere with an unethical business model and constantly be in a moral quandary that ultimately my work is contributing to some huge corporation doing shitty things.
I got to try the “free food” and tour the Mountain View campus, but ended up taking a remote job elsewhere. Many years later, I now make probably make 25% less than what I would be making if I were still at Google, assuming a promotion a level above what I was interviewing for, but at least my conscience doesn’t bother me every day. One thing that does bother me, actually, is that a company I worked for got acquired by Oracle, and that piece of shit Ellison now owns a product I put my heart and soul into building. I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel working for a place like that directly.
Also, IMO, working remotely beats commuting to a FAANG office with free food and fun things to do. I can make my own damn food, thank you very much, and I also don’t really want to piss around doing “fun things” at work: I just want to get my shit done ASAP and log off.
I think in some cases it is far more than a marginal increase. I make just $120k at one of my jobs but I could make $400k+ at a job for a company far less ethical. Hell, a guy I know hit $700k one year at Ye Olde Meta (that did include exercising options though).
The allure of being able to retire early is nice. But instead of seeking high paying jobs I just mix and match multiple low paying ones from smaller companies and achieve roughly the same thing with less stress.
Which is why I’m a backend developer/infrastructure engineer for a nonprofit organization in the area of social services.
The pay is not as good but I can look my children in the eye and tell them that I am proud of the work I do.
where’s your magical list of ethical companies 😂😂😂
It’s not hard. I’ve worked in education, grant management, county government, online retail (that one was marginally not evil), and a bunch of others. You just have to know when to say yes and when to say no.
As a rule of thumb, the more ethical companies are going to be smaller shops as opposed to household names, because they’re siphoning less of the economic value they produce into bloat and “hyperscaling”. Yet there are plenty such shops in every field doing quality work for clients at fair prices; they’re just not the ones making waves and catching press.
If you’re seriously looking for something though, tell me your niche or PM your CV, and I’ll see if I can’t find something reasonable.
They would literally make more money by job-hopping in pursuit of such a company, but you’re right. Even a single team that remembers what ethics are is a big ask.
💰💸💵💶💷💴
^ this is how
But the thing that actually makes me sick—and the main reason I’m quitting—is the “Desperation Score.” We have a hidden metric for drivers that tracks how desperate they are for cash based on their acceptance behavior.
If a driver usually logs on at 10 PM and accepts every garbage $3 order instantly without hesitation, the algo tags them as “High Desperation.” Once they are tagged, the system then deliberately stops showing them high-paying orders. The logic is: “Why pay this guy $15 for a run when we know he’s desperate enough to do it for $6?” We save the good tips for the “casual” drivers to hook them in and gamify their experience, while the full-timers get grinded into dust.
That’s fucked, but the tip stealing 2.0 is also fucked.
I figured this out in the first few months. Any other driver I tried explaining this to called me crazy and/or a cheater. I made twice what they did in a third of the drive-time, maybe half the time in my car when you count the time I sat Available while playing on my phone, using indoor bathrooms like a human-being, napping/meditating, or stuffing my face.
Sure buddy, I’m just that jealous of your work-ethic and two-door hatch-back that’s probably seen you reported dozens-of-times over. Super-hacker, liar, lazy fuck; Ya got me dead to rights.
Edit: I only drove passengers for the ride-share companies. Washing my hands enough for anything food related on an on-going basis destroys my skin, and my car is nicely climate-controlled, so …
the best part is, some of us drivers have largely already figured out they do this and have to pay for a second app, Maxymo, to automatically do math and see if a ride is worth a certain $/hr, and accept/decline based on this.
Every now and then, Lyft will try to goad me into accepting offers that would pay, over time, about half as much as what I normally get (Uber, unsurprisingly, always offers me less, so I don’t drive for them), and I can’t focus on driving and do mental math at the same time. This wouldn’t be necessary if they just paid fixed rates based on distance and demand, or gave drivers control over what they want to charge for a ride like an actual contractor, but that doesn’t make shareholders happy.
we just purposefully delayed non-priority orders by 5 to 10 minutes to make the Priority ones “feel” faster by comparison
Isn’t that how Amazon prime works?
The main benefit of Prime is savings on shipping. Without it, Amazon’s far too expensive. Maybe they slow shipping speed for regular customers, but seems like they’d shoot themselves in the foot. Who pays extra shipping and waits twice as long? In any case, if you’re going to use Amazon, you’re all but forced to buy Prime. Which is fine by me. I can’t afford the 20-mile roundtrip to town and the extra price on other sites.
Of course this is a thread about software where people pay $40 to get cold McDonald’s delivered, so maybe consumers are even dumber than I thought.
Must be different depending on which country you live?
I had prime for a while (because people in my family wanted to try amazon video) and the included discounts were basically ridiculous discounts (like, 2% and often only if you subscribed to a recurring order) and the difference on delivery speed was that I got the “your order has been shipped” email the same day I ordered rather that a couple days later (which seems to be the norm when I get the free delivery without prime).
Delivery services hate this one simple trick: Going out to eat/takeout.
I lolled at this comment.
No one’s convincing me Americans are so broke when they use apps like this. It’s like the mid-price grocery down the street being bumped off by the new place, most expensive in town and 1-mile further for most people.
Now our second Aldi has moved into the mid-price store’s building. Aldi’s mostly empty while the most expensive store is jammed SRO. For context, this is a small redneck suburb of a poor city, not exactly bougie.
I’m not even that broke and I don’t use them. Everyone I know who does is horrible with money.
Had a 19-yo that wanted to be friends at work trying to buy me delivered food.
“Dude, no offense, but you’re poor, don’t even have a car and get paid minimum wage. Food delivery is bullshit.”
He kept doing it anyway.
How can a programmer explain how a sausage is made? They’re not chefs!
/j
Just gotta close it off on both ends
<===>(parens for round ends didn’t look good)
(二二二二二)
/ Still not great I guess
