Sunday, June 22, 2014

Surveillance Works

The New York Times reports that workers are increasingly the objects of digital surveillance. Tracking devices are so simple and cheap now that it makes sense to track the movements of waiters in restaurants, and to analyze the data to improve the efficiency of service. Yes, this is creepy. I sure would not like Harvard monitoring my movements around campus. But I also understand why it is seen as a competitive advantage to watch what your workforce is doing.

The interesting case in my mind is Uber. I have been watching a passionate argument about Uber, waged on an email list to which I subscribe, reflecting the passionate taxi-vs.-Uber debates going on in the city of Cambridge. Lots is being said about whether Uber is taking money from working class taxi drivers, whether public safety demands that Uber drivers be licensed and regulated the way taxi drivers are, and so on.

The thing nobody seems to be mentioning is that the reason Uber works is because everyone involved is being watched. That's the reason you don't need to identify where you are when you request an Uber; Uber knows your phone location. That is the reason you don't need to pay at the end of the trip; Uber has your credit card information. It's also the reason service is good. You have to rate your driver before requesting your next trip; Uber drivers are polite because they know that Uber will drop them in a heartbeat if they get a few bad reviews. They won't take you the long way around (generally they seem to just follow the directions in their phone app), because they know you'll rate them down if you do, and you'll have a map showing the exact route taken as part of your receipt, incontrovertible proof you've been screwed. And your driver can do a job on you too -- if you creep out too many Uber drivers, Uber will probably close out your account. (Not that there would be much incentive to threaten an Uber driver -- because all payments are electronic, there is no reason for them to carry any cash.) The mutual rating, with big brother Uber knowing all about both you and your driver, reduces many of the risks of taxis, for both parties.

It seems to me that the advantages of Uber are too great for any except the oddest of municipalities (that might be Cambridge) to make its business model unworkable. But let's not kid ourselves. The reason it works so nicely is because it completely eliminates the mutual anonymity of the taxi economy. If the taxi industry is smart, it will figure that out and go increasingly digital, to try to gain some of the convenience and safety that make Uber attractive -- which will leave fewer options for invisible life in the big city.

9 comments:

  1. Per Susie Cagle, Uber drivers are required to follow GPS directions unless the passenger instructs them otherwise: https://twitter.com/susie_c/status/480091913962262529

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    1. I wonder if that applies to Uber Taxi, which is available in my area. If I request a taxi via Uber, a cab (in my experience always a Boston cab, but I am close to the boundary) comes to Brookline to pick me up. The cabs I have gotten this way seem to be exceptionally nice, but my sample is not large. I don't recall their using GPS, but I may have directed them.

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  2. Sounds disruptive, but at least the cab companies have the knowledge that the theory has been denounced in The New Yorker.

    I thought Professor Gates might have avoided his run-in with the Cambridge Police if he'd used a cab rather than a car service. A cab parked next to his house would have told a story.

    I remember an incident back in the late 1980s when there was a problem on the Red Line and I and some friends decided to bail and catch a cab at the hotel in Kendall Square. There were no cabs waiting as a lot of other T riders had the same idea. So a Boston Cab dropping off some people from the airport picked us up.

    We weren't able to clear the hotel driveway before a Cambridge cabbie was on us. He cut the Boston cabbie off, and a screaming match over rights to pick up passengers in Cambridge ensued. We did leave in the Boston cab, and gave him a nice tip once we got where we were going in Boston.

    On that note, I'd better get back to work at my finish-down job.

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  3. Reminds me of my favorite phrase from Blown to Bits (by Abelson-Ledeen-Lewis).-- Beware of Small Brother. Private individuals and companies are tracking our every move. I am NOT quite complaining- is it good or bad that Uber knows more about your habbits than your friends do? Is it good or bad that amazon knows that I like Weird Al Yankovick and Ramsey Theory?

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  4. "It seems to me that the advantages of Uber are too great for any except the oddest of municipalities (that might be Cambridge) to make its business model unworkable."

    Harry,
    Why might it not work in Cambridge? Cambridge cabs are among the most dirty and smelly cabs around. Seems as if it would work in Cambridge.

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    1. Sorry. I didn't mean that it wouldn't practically work, I meant that the city might not allow it to work. Seems to me it should work most places, as long as the volume if high enough (but it probably adjusts better to low demand environments than taxi service does, actually).

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    2. Harry,

      That was me. Why might the city not allow it to work?

      Sam

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    3. The Globe story is linked. You can take your pick. It's either because Uber takes jobs away from working class folks who drive taxis. Or it's because the medallion owners, who tend not to be the drivers, don't want to see their investment devalued. John Sununu has a good column in the Globe today about the absurd economics of this.

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  5. The more we can ensure the quality and nature of taxi service, the better. However, there are many ways that point to a single factor really. I think it's all about tracking the right and trusted brand, which alone beats merely catching one on the street and hoping for the best.

    Grady Mann @ Downtown Yellow Taxi

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