Comment by MarkMc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MarkMc | Hacker News Reader

TL;DR: here's the list of psychological tricks mentioned in the article:

1. When driver's are about to log off, it tells them that they are very close to reaching an earnings target, such as "You are $6 away from making $40 net earnings". The target is set by Uber, and is always just out of reach.

2. Uber suggests to drivers that they should go to a certain area for better chance of finding riders. The article says this might be an example of where Uber benefits at the expense of drivers because Uber does not prefer surge pricing.

3. Uber prompts drivers to accept the next fare opportunity before the current ride is over.

4. Uber tells new drivers when they are 50% towards the goal of 25 first rides. At 25 rides Uber will pay a 'signing on' bonus.

5. Some Uber employee's would pretend to be women when communicating with the (overwhelmingly male) drivers.

6. Lyft did a split test of two different calls to action: (a) "You're losing $15 per hour by driving on Tuesday mornings instead of Friday evenings"; and (b) "You would make $15 per hour more by driving on Friday evenings instead of Tuesday mornings". They found that (a) was more effective, but eventually decided not to use this approach [for reasons not explained in the article]

7. Uber provides non-cash rewards to drivers in the form of 'badges' like "Above and Beyond", "Excellent Service" and "Entertaining Drive". It also gives drivers stats like how many trips they have taken in the current week, how much money they have made, how much time they have spent logged on and what their overall rating from passengers is.

I hate when companies use basically zero-value rewards like badges to incentivize very-real-valued work like giving people rides. All I can think of is the "fuck you, pay me" quote when I see this happening. My last company wanted us to comment our code thoroughly and write better repository readmes and documentation -- except they would never build in explicit time for these tasks. Being a manager, I was asked how can we get folks to do this in their own time. My response was "carrot or stick, take your pick, but it needs to have real value or cost or nobody will get behind it". They looked at me like I was crazy and proceeded to roll out a "kudos and accolades" program where people just verbally acknowledged each other for extra work like this in a public forum. You guessed it, behavior changed 0% and morale went down because all the engineers were like "do they think we are idiots?"

1) Probably the most manipulative by far. Interesting to learn.

2) Also how driver get the most rides helping to maximize their earnings. In fact isn't this the whole point of surge in the first place? To push drivers to high surge areas? I would hardly call this a "psychological trick" and is very reasonable.

3) How is this a "psychological trick"? This clearly is in the drivers' benefit as it helps maximize the number of rides they take. All their time becomes productive if they get dispatched to another trip ahead of their current trip ending. Also, it's clear this makes Uber more efficient as a platform as they can treat occupied cars as active supply.

4) Is this not simply providing transparency of the bonuses/incentives Uber is offering?

5) Weird but even weirder that it works. Not the first time I've heard of this. Apparently works on emails too. A number of companies use this. A quick google show's it's well known.

6) Not shocking. Seems like relatively standard A/B testing of copy.

7) Some of this is gamification and some is transparency. All standard.

This article to me largely seems like an attempt to play on the recent many bad deeds of Uber for a click-bait article that deliberately perturbs some facts to fit the narrative. This article could very easily have been written about any other company in the world. But writing it about Uber now, generates clicks and upvotes.

I agree very much with you. I would categorize point 6) as manipulation though, because it is about choosing wording to change behavior. IMO this creates stress though, and connecting your service with stress can backfire in the long term.

The wording is an example of loss aversion, and has been studied many times in behavioral psychology. The company's intent is to change behavior (getting the driver to drive on a different day). Anyone would choose the better outcome. Is that manipulation? Or optimization? And the driver could benefit from having this information vs not at all (though of course the company benefits most of all).

I try to view manipulation neutrally. In the end, I think what makes us despise certain manipulations is a concurrent lack of empathy, or the intent to only further one's own goals (vs seeking win-win solutions through manipulation).

Parents manipulate their kids a lot, but with the kids' very best interests in mind (mostly :)).

5) What did you search for? Top results for "uber employees pretending to be women" shows only sexual harassment suits

Not sure why that would be your search, but here you go: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...

Agree with you 100%. This is hardly manipulative, not in the way the author is making out it to be. @ any rate this is not first time that its happening . Ford motors used to turn back clocks on shop floor to steal extra hal an hour of unpaid time.

Interesting. One of the limits for independent contractos is that you can't really give them a specific schedule like you would an employee. If you do, the government could eventually come down on you and tell you that you really need to classify them as employees.

In Uber's case, they let drivers work whenever and wherever they want, but give them strong suggestions about where they should be.

Obviously employment law wasn't designed to account for the kinds of businesses we have today, and I think a strong case could be made that it needs to be rethought entirely, but regardless, Uber is certainly benefiting a great deal from their relationship With their drivers and how they are able to use data to motivate them as opposed to outright telling them what to do.

"Some Uber employee's would pretend to be women when communicating with the (overwhelmingly male) drivers."

That is sort of odd. Most people can tell male and female from voice alone ... plus it would be easier to hire women as they dont need to pretend to be women.

Communication was by text message. And hiring on the basis of gender would invite a class-action lawsuit. More likely it's not an official policy, just something that some male employees have discovered improves their commission.

If being a woman is relevant for the position you're hiring for, then I don't think it would involve a lawsuit. Just like modeling, or some stores in the mall can legally hire only good looking young people without it being discrimination, like Abercrombie and Fitch.

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