That, at heart, is Uber's model as well. How do Uber's cars appear in the neighborhood when you want them? The drivers are already waiting there. Uber relies, not on data analysis, but on the willingness of an unsustainably large and underpaid driver workforce to spend hours waiting for business, hoping to make the payments on the vehicle they bought through Uber's predatory lending partnerships.
It's not that the algorithm team do absolutely nothing. For one thing, they are always trying to find new ways to entice their underpaid workforce to spend more hours on the road, for instance through bonuses promised to drivers who stay online, waiting for calls, for as many as 400 hours a month (do the math on that!)
Beyond that, Uber's data analytics team really contributes little except for deciding when to turn on the ever-unpopular "surge pricing" to "lure" drivers to busy areas of town, and designing a computer simulated "Uberg" city to model which way drivers should drive after dropping off business. Laughably, none of this does anything more than recreate behaviors and knowledge which experienced taxi drivers already possess.
So -- assuming you haven't joined the #deleteuber movement yet -- next time you take a ride with them congratulate your driver on his game. He is, after all, the man hidden in the box: the chessmaster who operates Uber's illusionary mechanical Turk.
(Article changed on November 24, 2014 at 18:13)
(Article changed on November 24, 2014 at 19:18)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
