The Better Ridesharing Platform
I select my destination and let Better’s autobidder do the rest based on my profile; moderate price, prioritize good service over a fancy car, no need for accessibility, adventurous matching. The airport is a bit far away and a lot of people are going that way so I bump my willingness to pool from my usual ‘medium’ to ‘high’.
Most drivers just let the autobidder match them with riders who seem to be good fits, but if someone has custom bidding (or their autopicker can’t decide) they’d see something like “Promethea, 4.1 stars; tagged: ‘quiet’, ‘polite’; Embarcadero to SFO; pooling: high” and then Better’s suggested price (according to their own specifications, as everything in the platform aims to individualize the service instead of turning drivers into a standardized homogenous product) which they can adjust up or down as they wish, or skip sending an offer altogether.
After a short while the bids start pouring in. I’m pleased to see that Better’s campaign for providing free ADA compliance certification for eligible drivers has been paying off; there are way more accessibility symbols among the offers than six months ago. Most of the offers are the standard stuff, but one catches my eye. Zoe, 4.1 stars service and 4.3 car, with blue hair, tagged as ‘quirky’ and driving a Tesla model 3. Her price is way above what I was planning to pay, but people with similar preferences to mine have liked her a lot, and the adventurous matching likes giving experimental offers. (She’s also got an electricity symbol showing that her car doesn’t guzzle gas, and Better lets people filter or prioritize on all kinds of things.)
However, I don’t choose her offer, I just click “interested” which lets the system know that I’d like to receive a bid from her again even though I didn’t take it this time (I’d like to try a bit shorter and cheaper route for that), because Vijay, one of my favorites just sent his offer. He’s an immigrant with a really thick accent, a 3.1 car, true, and 3.7 service, which shows that people have no taste because I’ve never rated him anything but a 5. Better knows it, and recommends matches it knows (or predicts, based on how people who rate similarly to me have rated) to be better than average. He’s talkative but not in an awkward way, and his prices are really affordable even after including a big tip. Of course, he can still make ends meet easily because the city finally got its head out of its arse in 2017 and started a massive upzoning effort to make affordable housing possible.
Oh, and he’d be arriving to pick me up in 9 minutes. The car is a solid 3; nothing fancy and nothing I’d recognize or remember, but it is clean, works well enough and has passed the safety checks. Better has partnered with financing companies and car manufacturers to help people buy their own vehicles without any devious traps in the terms and conditions, and it also allows companies to offer rides so people who don’t have a car can still work as employees (but I’m filtering those out because I prefer a marketplace of independent workers). The price levels mean that the same platform can serve practically anybody; the experience of someone willing to pay $$$$ for a fancy car and premium service is totally different from mine ($$), not to mention the budget riders who get even cheaper ones ($), but they are still fundamentally a part of a single system, and the flexibility of the algorithms prevents excessive segregation (Zoe seemed to be more like a $$$-level driver and if I upped my price range I’d see more people like her and less working-class immigrants; as it is Better only tries to match me with expensive people it thinks I’d really like and I’m fine with that), and obviously the initial price calibrations are just rough suggestions and the system adapts over time; my idea of what “$$” means might be completely different from someone else’s and Better has a lot of data processing going on to figure out what my actual sweet spot in pricing is.
Along the way we make a small detour to collect another rider or two (again prioritizing those who seem like potential personal matches), pushing the price down for all of us (but also bumping his total earnings up a bit), and we arrive at the airport without issues. Vijay mentions how Better’s (voluntary, as always) savings plan and insurance (basic insurance is mandatory, more extensive coverage with greater risk-pooling is elective) helped him take some sick leave when he needed it, and he’s expecting to even have a pension eventually (I didn’t bother trying to explain why I don’t believe in pensions, but if the world were to grind into a halt tomorrow and nothing significant were to ever change again he could totally stop working one day and not end up destitute; of course he can always withdraw the saved money for augmentations and other cool non-pensiony stuff).
The payment is taken automatically, but I’m given the option of adding a tip. Better doesn’t expect people to tip routinely, just to reward exceptional service and I’m always happy to follow that rule. The standard 20% fee is taken from the base price, plus the fraction of the tip that corresponds to my mean tipping percentage; I usually don’t add anything so the $10 tip pays him $9.80 after fees (if someone were to tip all the drivers every time, fees would catch the “evasion attempt”; of course they don’t say it out loud that way but I recognize what they’re doing). I see no reason to deviate from the standard rating of 5/3, but I’ve stopped spamming the “personal match” button because after a few times it doesn’t really matter anymore. Better knows we get along, and its ingenious manipulation (rumors say they have several psychology experts just working on all the small ways to nudge things unnoticedly) to turn rides into something much more personal than just a financial transaction with yet another identical might-as-well-be-faceless drone is working flawlessly.
Of course the slogans about a ‘social economy’ or whatever are kind of embarrassing to a cynical asshole like me, but they are creating value that way and the employee ownership plan is pretty smart. As a customer I don’t get shares in the company, but I do get bonuses that turn into discounts if I keep my ratings high enough (although even the drivers’ ability to choose freely on the market makes the unpleasant assholes pay an arm and a leg, wait forever, or switch services, and good riddance I say). Of course, it also ties people to Better to keep them loyal but if they keep up their act I don’t really mind. I just wonder why it took so long for the idea to actually realize properly.
2 months ago · tagged #win-win is my superpower #seriously this shouldn't be too hard to make #so why are we stuck with bullshit like uber #somebody steal this idea #ideas are cheap #implementation matters #somebody implement this idea #i can't fork myself to do everything YGM so others pick up the slack pls · 47 notes · .permalink