Thread by @paraschopra

1/ Here’s a little (true) story of how technology + capitalism worsens life quality by converting people into commodities.

2/ Was traveling an Uber yesterday and driver said he works 12-18 hours every single day, 7 days a week.

120 hrs workweek is insane.

3/ He’s required to do that because he works for a ‘seth’ (car owner) who has employed 26 drivers for his Uber fleet, and pays them Rs 500 if they do a business of Rs 3000 per day.

At an avg ride of Rs 100, this is 30 rides and at avg 2 rides per hour, it’s a 15 hr work day.

4/ Moreover ‘seth’ deducts Rs 4000/month for lodging and Rs 2000/mo for food. And he gives monthly salaries 20 days late, so no driver can quit without a heads up.

Plus, if you’re sick, you don’t get salary for the day.

5/ The driver told me that they sleep 4-5 hrs/day and living conditions and food quality isn’t great too. (Said we drink same water as it’s used for washing)

6/ Why am I telling you all these details?

Because when these drivers tell their seth that he can earn more money is drivers are well slept and are fed good food, he tells them to quit if they are not happy.

7/ Most of these drivers are from rural areas (this driver was from Jharkhand) and so has to send money back. They can’t just quit the job.

8/ If this isn’t a modern sweat shop powered by @Uber, then I don’t know what it is.

Uber has successfully commodtified drivers and with that, the stress of working insane hours and anxiety of daily targets (of Rs 3000 or so)

9/ Same story with @amazon where the horror stories include workers peeing in bottles because their bathroom breaks are timed businessinsider.in/Peeing-in-tras…

10/ The narrative of capitalism giving choices to people is increasingly untrue because modern capitalism is technology enabled and hence achieves rapid scale.

And whenever something achieves rapid scale, something else becomes a commodity.

11/ Facebook’s scale commoditified publishers.

iPhone, workers at phone assembly plants.

Google, website content owners.

Netflix, content creators and supporting staff.

YouTube, content creators.

12/ Pre-scale, with multiple players that dominate local areas, inefficiencies can and do exist.

Pre Uber, at local taxi stand, drivers didn’t have to work 18 hr work days because they charged a consumer premium (as they were only game in town)

13/ Technology removes all those inefficiencies, creates more consumer value but all that happens at the expense of someone getting commodified.

And if you are a commodity, unless laws prevent you, people treat you like shit.

14/ Moral of the story: technology gives us in one hand but takes away from another.

The same drivers who enjoy unlimited Jio on affordable android phones have to work 18 hrs a day.

It’s the exact same thing that does both.

15/ Focusing on the current issue, @Uber I hope you do something about inhuman conditions for drivers here in India.

Plus, @narendramodi @ArvindKejriwal I hope you take notice of how some workers don’t even have basic rights.

16/ Unless I'm missing something, I'm confidently assuming that @Uber_India's systems must be knowing that a propotion of drivers are logging 18 hours non-stop.

The fact that they let this happen is actually reproachable.