French Uber Drivers Find a Hack To Make More Money On Uber Deliveries

When the algorithm controls how much you get paid, it’s probably inevitable that people will find a way to hack it. Since the start of eBay, people have been secretly using second accounts or friends to bid on their own products to drive up the price. The modern version of this is allegedly happening in France where videos emerged of Uber delivery workers using multiple phones to decline low paying delivery orders until the platform raises the compensation. The behavior, obviously, is banned by the app and any workers caught doing it are banned from future work ... however many are sharing the story as an example of the little guy finally fighting back.

As dynamic pricing becomes common, this is one of the responses we are likely to see more of. When consumers start to understand how pricing works, they will adapt their behaviors to try and land a better deal. Similar to the common last second search for an online discount code before clicking the “buy” button, this is a learned response and one we touched upon in coining our future word “dealusion” (the ongoing suspicion, fueled by dynamic pricing, that there was always a better deal than the one you got). Forecasting toward what may come next, the skill to do this may itself become one in demand and worth paying for. Or perhaps it will fall to agents. AI deal hunting is already an emerging category. I’m curious if many of you are already doing this.