The Fall of the House of Uber
How the Silicon Valley giant’s insatiable growth left its drivers and the public buried in lies
Today we’re looking at The Guardian’s “Uber Files” investigation and the impact of their aggressive strategy on the digital economy since their arrival on the transportation scene in 2010. As always, scroll to the bottom for the book we’re reading and upcoming events.
The Guardian's ongoing global investigation into Uber details the damaging tactics of the ride-hailing company on its rise to industry dominance. They ignored existing taxi regulations, avoided legal repercussions for its shady data activity, and lobbied governments and other authorities around the world to change laws and stop new regulations.
They actively slid under the radar into unsuspecting cities, took advantage of its drivers with fluctuating pay scales, hid from authorities with ‘phantom cars’, and spent big bucks on academic research to shape positive media narratives.
Uber bulldozed its way into the digital transportation industry using the Silicon Valley mentality of “move fast and break things.” In total, more than 124,000 internal company files were leaked by Mark McGann to the UK news outlet, which was then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists for deeper analysis.
McGann, a career lobbyist, was part of Uber’s elite effort to persuade governments across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to change laws to benefit their bottom line, under the guise of creating opportunities for people, soon to be known as gig workers.
The Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast has a three-part series that combs through sections of their investigation.
The gig economy has exploded in the decade+ since Uber entered the ride-hail business.
New upstarts radically shift how industries operate, leading to prosperity for the company, sometimes at the expense of vulnerable communities, and as a result of ill-prepared or easily coaxed governments. Uber established the launchpad for other industry innovators, such as GrubHub with restaurant delivery, Upwork for freelancers, and more, both inside and outside of the U.S.
Across the globe there lacks a clear definition of who exactly is a ‘gig worker’. It’s estimated that up to 36 million EU workers and 5.9 million Americans (or 3.8 percent of all employed U.S. workers as of May 2017) have participated in the gig economy.
While the European Commission is reassessing how gig workers are classified, (a proposal is currently being considered to reclassify platform workers as employees), the Federal Trade Commission held a two-day virtual workshop alongside the Department of Justice in December 2021 to “address competition issues affecting labor markets and the welfare of workers.”
It's unclear if any policy discussion followed the workshop. Regardless, as previously mentioned, clarity is first needed around who is considered a gig worker.
Uber drivers are considered either “contingent workers” — people who do not expect their jobs to last or do not have an implicit or explicit contract for ongoing employment, or have “alternative employment arrangements,” which include independent contractors, on-call workers, temporary help agency workers, and workers provided by contract firms.
Not having a clear distinction between these labor characterizations — and the lack of more recent datasets — challenges society’s ability to address the harms being created and the rights being ignored.
The Uber files should encourage regulators, researchers, journalists, and more to scrutinize other digitizing industries and the consequences of the “innovation over ethical consideration” approach to technological advancement.
Recent Studies on the Evolving Digital Economy
How Does the Volatile Nature of Gig Work Affect Workaholic State and Work-Related Behaviors?
Jeonghun Kim, Junhyok Yim, and Heeeun Jang | Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings | July 6, 2022
- This paper examines how specific types of pay-pay volatility and daily income goal achievement ratio — shape individual workaholic impulses on a daily basis, and how this workaholic state leads to important work-related behaviors.
- Drawing on the motivational approach to addiction (Köpetz et al., 2013), we examine how daily income achievement ratio and pay volatility jointly shape individual workaholic states — uncontrollable inner compulsion or pressure to work beyond what is expected despite its negative consequences.
Toward Emancipation Through a Regenerative Digital Economy
George Zarkadakis | IEEE Technology and Society Magazine | June 14, 2022
- Let us consider the possibility that we the people, the workers, the communities, and the citizens exercise our inalienable right to control our destiny. And that, instead of letting a small minority enjoy the bountiful rewards of an automated future, we claim that future for ourselves too.
- If we accept the proposition that most problems societies are challenged with are essentially engineering problems, then given enough time and ingenuity all these problems are solvable.
The Coming of Age of Open Data
John M. Yun | Economic Analysis of Law in European Legal Scholarship book series | April 28, 2022
- Can governments and organizations employ data in a manner that results in even greater value and insights to solve complex problems? Led by the United States and Europe, there is a growing open data movement and the associated goal of more transparent and open governments. Yet, what incentivizes governments, businesses, and individuals to open data?
Interoperability as a Remedy for Digital Labor Market Concentration
Bruno Renzetti | Yale University, Law School; University of Sao Paulo | April 19, 2022
- This paper seeks to address how concentration in labor markets such as ride-sharing and online meal delivery affect gig workers; it provides evidence of the increasing role of gig workers in the economy and how economic crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic raised the importance of digital labor markets; it explains how concentration and monopsony power in digital labor markets harm workers. It also provides recommendations to platforms to avoid over or inadequate regulation from the government.
Towards Public Digital Infrastructure: A proposed governance model
Kate Bego | Brussels: NGI, European Commission | April 14, 2022
- As the European Commission seeks to give shape and meaning to its objective of achieving open strategic autonomy and articulate a compelling alternative vision in an increasingly (geo) politicized global technology arena, it needs to ensure it promotes an internet model that is based on openness and diversity, and champions the public good, and encourages like-minded peers around the world to join these efforts.
- This paper aims to set out a new framework to do just this; a new model that would seek to redistribute power over the internet by building a more vibrant, diverse, and resilient ecosystem of trustworthy open solutions on top of a shared set of rules and open protocols and standards: a Public Digital Infrastructure (PDI).
What We’re Reading
Did That Just Happen?! | Beyond “Diversity” — Creating Sustainable And Inclusive Organizations
- This June 2021 book by Stephanie Pinder-Amaker and Lauren Wadsworth serves as an accessible guide showing all people how to create and sustain diversity and inclusivity in the workplace — no matter your identity, industry, or level of experience.
- While I’m just a chapter into this book, it's resonating with my experience as a Black woman in media, academia, and nonprofit spaces — Diara J.
Upcoming Tech and Media Events
Thursday, July 14, 2:00 pm — 3:30 pm [Virtual] | Nonprofit Quarterly| False narratives and propaganda, including misinformation and disinformation campaigns, plague social movements organizing to wrest power from global elites. We expect lies about voter fraud to permeate the airways, reaffirm “The Big Lie,” and continue to diminish confidence in the 2022 midterm elections and democracy overall.
This panel will explore the question: How can social movements succeed against the rise of fictional narratives, propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation in the media and our daily lives?| Panelists: Sabrina Joy Stevens, Joseph Phelan, Kris Hayashi, and Jacquelyn Mason | Hosted by Shanelle Matthews| Register here
Friday, July 15 —Sunday, July 17 [Virtual]| Level Up: Building a Media Literate World |National Association for Media Literacy Education’s 2022 Conference |NAMLE hosts the largest professional development conference dedicated to media literacy education in the U.S. Join hundreds of educators, practitioners, scholars, and concerned citizens virtually at NAMLE’s 2022 Conference! | Register here
Thursday, August 4 — Friday, August 5, 11:00 am — 4:00 pm [Virtual] | Civics of Technology |The Visioning Just Futures conference includes interactive lessons, workshops, round tables, and un-conference spaces. Dr. Ruha Benjamin will keynote on Thursday, August 4th, and Dr. Sepher Vakil will be keynoting on Friday.| Register here
Thursday, Aug 11, 1:00 pm — 2:00 pm [Virtual] | Building Community Partnerships Through Digital Literacy Workshops Webcast | Association of College Research and Libraries | Do you provide digital and information literacy instruction that could be disseminated to a broader community? Are you interested in building a robust and cohesive digital literacy curriculum? If so, this interactive webinar is for you! | Hosted by Digital Matters Interim Director Rebekah Cummings | Register here
