[LINK] "Uber can’t be defeated from the outside—but maybe from within"

[rfmcdonald]

Colin Horgan's MacLean's article suggests productive ways of challenging Uber, by pointing out inequities in Uber's functioning.

Get into any Uber car and the driver will likely tell you that working for Uber is a great way to buttress another income they earn elsewhere. In fact, usually conversations with Uber drivers, if they happen, are upbeat. In a way, they ought to be: the driver wants a good rating and so does the passenger. But elsewhere, some drivers have expressed annoyance with Uber and its almighty algorithm.

A recent workshop paper for the Center for European Policy Studies by a pair of researchers from New York University and the Data & Society Research Institute interviewed Uber drivers and monitored online driver forums. They concluded that the very ideas Uber uses to promote itself and its business model might not necessarily be what they seem. “Uber’s claims regarding its labour model—which center on freedom, flexibility, and entrepreneurship—are not borne out in the experience of Uber drivers, in large part due to the information asymmetries and controls that Uber exerts over driver behaviours through performance metrics, behavioural nudges, unreliable, dynamic rates, and scheduling prompts, and design.”

For example, according to the study, Uber has “full power to control and change the base rate its drivers charge,” and allows drivers to negotiate a lower fare but not a higher one. At their lowest, “these rates are discussed in forums as a net-loss for drivers after factoring in overhead costs.”

Drivers can also have the money they made reduced if a customer complains. As one former Uber customer service representative wrote: “We would track a rider’s travel route and check it against any ‘best routes’ alternatives, then adjust the final charge up or down based on computer-generated fare estimates.” That is, if the computer thinks you, as a driver, could have gone a better way—no matter what obstacles you might have come across in the real world—your fare is reduced.

The rating system passengers have, which “directly impact” a driver’s employment eligibility, is also a point of contention. “Uber monitors drivers’ ratings, customers rate drivers on their Uber experience, and the company deactivates drivers whose ratings drop too low, although the cut-off point is a shifting target,” the NYU report states. Last year at Quartz, one Uber driver who formally worked as a private luxury car driver explained that the system passengers have to rate their experience constantly means drivers “have to live in fear of losing their jobs.”