Mastodawn

CORRECTION!
Turns out the Reddit post I shared isn’t credible so I’m retracting screenshots.
These things only distract from the real issues, which are serious enough on their own.

I do believe the exploitation & manipulation concerns are legitimate though.
The Human Rights Watch’s report does lay out thoroughly, how platforms exploit workers, underpay them, & avoid responsibility -all while framing it as progress.

Worth a read even if the whistleblower post was fake

https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/05/12/the-gig-trap/algorithmic-wage-and-labor-exploitation-in-platform-work-in-the-us

The Gig Trap

The 155-page report, “The Gig Trap: Algorithmic, Wage and Labor Exploitation in Platform Work in the US” focuses on seven major companies operating in the US: Amazon Flex, DoorDash, Favor, Instacart, Lyft, Shipt, and Uber. These companies claim to offer gig workers “flexibility” but often end up paying them less than state or local minimum wages. Six of the seven companies use algorithms with opaque rules to assign jobs and determine wages, meaning that workers do not know how much they will be paid until after completing the job.

Human Rights Watch

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JaneraTiciano Jan 2

@amirbkhan always 👏 tip 👏 in 👏 CASH! 👏
I'm tired of repeating decades old knowledge every few weeks, but it has always been known that if you tip cashless the individual worker is at the mercy of the employer to receive anything. Cash tipping is how you actually tip.
Get the fucking cash and give it to the driver at the door. Damn it.

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DJGummikuh Jan 3

@JaneraTiciano @amirbkhan that is what the OP talekd about. If you as a customer are expected (by some heuristic) to pay a high tip, they lower the base pay to the driver to compensate for that and subsidize their own business. So if the determine you will pay e.g. 15$ in Tip, the driver gets a base pay of 2$ from fhem. If they determine you're broke, they give them 8$. That difference means, that the 15$ tip guy essentially pays 6$ indirectly to the company

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JaneraTiciano

@DJGummikuh @amirbkhan well. You know how they can't track cash? If I only ever tip in cash I'm the most stingy asshole to their algorithm. I never tip.
Because they can't track my tip. I give my tip to the drivers in cash. Always.
(also I'm actually in Europe in a country with strict minimal wage laws that can't be circumvented like that, but that's not what's important in this discussion.)