The tragic attempt by this food delivery worker to take his own life has not only revealed his desperate plight, but also the broader exploitation of workers in China.

See https://chuangcn.org/2020/11/delivery-renwu-translation/ for another expose on the brutality of working conditions imposed on delivery workers in China, by a Marxist collective

  • hagensfohawk [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Let's be honest. The big reason Uber took off was because it was cheaper than taxis. Why was it cheaper? Because taxi cabs were a regulated market with fixed pricing to ensure:

    1. the vehicles were safe to drive and didn't need a swaybar replaced or anything

    2. the drivers had good records and didn't run into a median last week

    3. the drivers were payed enough to cover the costs of fuel, maintenance, insurance, and also had enough left over to take home decent pay

    Uber came in to this market and undercut the fixed price. Drivers make less and have less to pay for regular maintenance, etc.

    You're giving too much credit to the app itself. There were already ride hailing apps in cities, even if a bit clunky. The big driver of Ubers growth was the price of the service.

    • grisbajskulor [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I'd say you're both correct. The app-based ride hailing system is much much more convenient, which definitely played a role in its success. But the most important ingredient was definitely the exploitation of laborers. A "fair" ride sharing system (fair in the confines of capitalism) would be an 'app' with protected & salaried drivers at the expense of higher customer costs.

      There are important "innovations" that take place in global capitalism that do have certain apolitical value, like the internet for example. The problem isn't so much the tools, it's that these tools are currently under the direct control of capitalists, who by nature are exploiters, and the trend seems to be towards even more technocratic capitalist control over these tools.

      So in other words, it's a fair position to not be against 'apps' as a whole. But to your point, almost all app-based service companies are successful mainly because of the ease of exploitation they provide.