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Thursday, January 04, 2018

The Problem with the Gig Economy, Illustrated

A week ago we ordered a waffle maker from Amazon.com, with free shipping. We tracked the package on the Amazon website, and Wednesday morning the site said the package it was in a suburb 12 miles southwest of us. Later in the day it said it was out for delivery and that it would arrive by 8 PM.

At 8 PM Wednesday still no waffle maker. This was weird, because in the past Amazon would ship us stuff and it would get here via UPS exactly when they said it would.

Thursday morning the Amazon tracking website said the waffle maker was in a suburb 22 miles southeast of us, and again said that it was out for delivery and would arrive Thursday by 8 PM. It was getting further and further away...

During the past two days we have seen UPS trucks go by again and again, but no delivery.

At 2:53 PM on Thursday we got the waffle maker. It was delivered by a guy wearing an orange and yellow safety vest driving an unmarked white van: Amazon had used their own delivery service this time. As "proof" that they delivered the package, they took a picture of the box at our door, which appeared on the Amazon website. So secure!

This service is called Amazon Flex, and it's patterned after Uber. But unlike Uber, you've probably never heard of it. I hadn't, until I looked into why it was taking so long to get the package.

According to this article on Gizmodo, Amazon Flex has all the problems that Uber has. It treats employees as contractors, uses an app to set up deliveries, and requires drivers to have their own vehicles. Drivers undergo a minimal background check and receive minimal training (watching videos on their phone). They don't wear a uniform and have nothing to identify their vehicles as Amazon Flex. But oh! They get a non-photo ID badge!

Like Uber, drivers compete with each other for deliveries, snatching up "blocks" of deliveries through the app. Like Uber, drivers are part-timers making deliveries for supplemental income. Some drivers cheat and use bots to secure more desirable delivery blocks in the app. Like Uber, a lot of drivers don't even make minimum wage due to expenses and wasted time (and there's a lot of wasted time, especially when delivering to apartment buildings).

There are many problems with this, especially when you consider that Amazon is rolling out Amazon Key, where they actually unlock the front door of your house, go inside and drop off packages. Do you really want someone who is basically a random person off the street going into your house?

In my experience, UPS and USPS drivers have always been professional and prompt. It's their full-time job, so they have a major incentive to do it well. With Amazon Flex, like Uber, you never know who you're getting.

My sister tried driving for Uber a couple of times, but didn't like it. So she just quit.

Do you really want your stuff delivered by people who are just "trying it out?" If your package goes missing was it really stolen from your doorstep, or did the delivery guy just decide he'd had enough of Amazon Flex and kept the package for himself after taking its picture on your doorstep, or just dumped it on the street in disgust?

Delivering packages isn't rocket science, but when there are regular routes UPS drivers and mail carriers get good at making efficient deliveries. They don't get lost, they know the ins and outs of the neighborhoods and the preferences of customers. They optimize routes for fuel efficiency, since UPS pays for the gas.

Amazon Flex drivers are essentially random, and will change every day. Since drivers pay for the gas, Amazon doesn't care how fuel-efficient the system is, as long as their Prime customers get the packages on time. No one else matters to Amazon.

Unions are quickly going out of fashion, but without the ability to bargain collectively, the American middle class would never had risen. UPS drivers and US mail carriers are some of the few remaining unionized workers in the country.

A big part of the rise of income inequality has been the disappearance of unionized blue-collar jobs. But even workers at non-union factories have some level of influence over their pay and working conditions because they're at the factory, working side-by-side with their supervisors, and therefore have some kind of relationship with management.

But with gigs like Uber and Amazon Flex, there is only the app. Workers have no relationship with their bosses. They have no influence over their wages and working conditions. Their fates and livelihoods are dictated by algorithms coded thousands of miles away. Their only option is to quit.

Amazon and Uber view their drivers as interchangeable cogs, unreliable meat puppets inconveniently required to ferry their passengers and packages around town. Both Uber and Amazon have made no bones about the fact that they fully intend to replace human employees with drones and self-driving cars and trucks as soon as possible.

And what, exactly, are people supposed to do to earn money?

The gig economy was supposed to be the wave of the future. So far it's a pretty bleak future. And it won't even be the the future for very long.

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