But the thing that actually makes me sick—and the main reason I’m quitting—is the “Desperation Score.” We have a hidden metric for drivers that tracks how desperate they are for cash based on their acceptance behavior.
If a driver usually logs on at 10 PM and accepts every garbage $3 order instantly without hesitation, the algo tags them as “High Desperation.” Once they are tagged, the system then deliberately stops showing them high-paying orders. The logic is: “Why pay this guy $15 for a run when we know he’s desperate enough to do it for $6?” We save the good tips for the “casual” drivers to hook them in and gamify their experience, while the full-timers get grinded into dust.
Just venting, but I straight-up don’t understand how so many developers working in gambling, FAANG, the MIC, commercial health insurance, etc. so readily pull the wool over their own eyes before eventually crashing out.
If you’re a working class person with no better way to pay the bills, that’s one thing — but from lived experience as a tech bro, these people are generally well-off white collar professionals with plenty of options. You can do something ethical that pays the bills, lets you live comfortably, travel the world and more, or you can do something obviously heinous for a ~20% marginal salary increase — and this set of nitwits pick the heinous gig every time.
Like have they never bothered to try using the services of the companies they work for? Are they too daft to recognize a dark pattern when they see it?
The only answer I see as a reliable answer is greed and money. OOP and people like them ruin my faith in humanity like nothing else.
