alt Hacker NewsThis is true. it also hurts the public, as the drivers are dependent on the number of deliveries the succeed making, thus hurrying up and constantly stressed. This hurts not only their health and quality of delivery, but also increases the risk for traffic accidents.
It is in the best of interest of everyone that these people would get a normal salary.
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I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the gig economy model - it's a way of working that suits some workers and clients. But the balance of power needs to be shifted towards the workers (and clients) and away from the platforms.
I think this article is spot on. Platforms obfuscate their algorithms, and use that secrecy to play workers off against each other, and against their clients. Regulation would really help. There ought to be a right to...
1. An official explanation for each decision the algorithm makes. That could then be used as the basis for mandatory arbitration, if a party believes it's unfair.
2. Effective, and timely support from a human being, if that's required.
Together those would force the platforms to make their systems fairer (else be swamped by dealing with arbitration decisions), and easy to navigate (else be swamped by costly support calls).
As long as they get tips, they will continue to speed.
See: pizza delivery people for decades.
Have you seen the discourse about this on social media? People are furious that the price of delivered food has gone up recently. They're not going to vote for increased prices. That and heavy astroturf campaigns by the middlemen guarantee that this situation will remain.
And so long as there's more cheap workers available who can easily be replaced, it's hard for the workers to do anything about it.