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I hesitated in writing this comment as I can see that the majority of commenters have a negative view of the 'gamification' presented by the article, but I don'

I hesitated in writing this comment as I can see that the majority of commenters have a negative view of the 'gamification' presented by the article, but I don't see this as inherently evil or immoral at all. The 'gamification' described by the author in their driving for Lyft is simply quantifying, tracking, and incentivizing performance at a given activity. It's in the best interest of both the driver and the company to achieve a high driver rating. Why wouldn't they track and display this statistic to the drivers? It's in the best interest of the company for drivers to log more rides, so they offer an optional incentive to complete x drives in y time. The driver receives additional compensation that they wouldn't otherwise if they achieve the goal. Both sides benefit. The scary side of performance tracking comes when more and more is expected of the worker, their performance being able to be measured accurately isn't the issue. It's management's decision to get as much blood out of their workers as possible.

maxxxxx 8y ago
I bet Lyft gives the drivers only the information that's profitable for Lyft and not the big picture. It's very one-sided.
jahaja 8y ago
Isn't there an incentive for the company to make sure that driver pay is unbearably low without chasing these "incentives"? If so, it seem to just be a scheme to ensure loyalty for the same price.
rchaud 8y ago
> It's management's decision to get as much blood out of their workers as possible. Isn't this why the majority of SaaS products these days are about delivering ultra-granular analytics? We already use them to maximize purchasing behaviour from consumers, so why wouldn't we use it to maximize worker productivity, aka squeeze as much output out of the workers per unit of input as possible?
ppeetteerr 8y ago
> Why wouldn't they track and display this statistic to the drivers? It's not done for the benefit of the employees, it's done for the benefit of the employer. I suspect that a rating is anxiety inducing more than anything. For instance: https://www.ridester.com/uberx-drivers-stop-obsessing-ratings/ https://www.ridester.com/uberx-drivers-stop-obsessing-rating...

maxxxxx 8y ago

I bet Lyft gives the drivers only the information that's profitable for Lyft and not the big picture. It's very one-sided.

jahaja 8y ago

Isn't there an incentive for the company to make sure that driver pay is unbearably low without chasing these "incentives"? If so, it seem to just be a scheme to ensure loyalty for the same price.

rchaud 8y ago

> It's management's decision to get as much blood out of their workers as possible. Isn't this why the majority of SaaS products these days are about delivering ultra-granular analytics? We already use them to maximize purchasing behaviour from consumers, so why wouldn't we use it to maximize worker productivity, aka squeeze as much output out of the workers per unit of input as possible?

ppeetteerr 8y ago

> Why wouldn't they track and display this statistic to the drivers? It's not done for the benefit of the employees, it's done for the benefit of the employer. I suspect that a rating is anxiety inducing more than anything. For instance: https://www.ridester.com/uberx-drivers-stop-obsessing-ratings/ https://www.ridester.com/uberx-drivers-stop-obsessing-rating...