> “There has been a subtle but very significant shift in power in favor of the tech companies,” Professor Mittelstadt said, with algorithms created to benefit the bosses at the expense of workers. Bike Angels face “a very fundamental problem with the gig economy we have now, which is the lack of fairness on behalf of the people who are doing the work,” he said.
> That a handful of sweaty hustlers have managed to take back some of that power qualifies as a win, Professor Mittelstadt added. “It makes me smile.”
I get that there’s legitimate criticism of rideshare companies, but this is such a frustrating position for a “professor of ethics” to take.
This is basically public infrastructure that has been contracted out to private companies for operation. Lyft has already been rumored to be trying to exit the business of bike shares.
If Lyft exits the business, and the city has no choice but to directly manage Citibike, will the professor change his tune? What’s fundamentally different about scamming the government directly vs scamming the company the government has hired to deliver a necessary city service?
This feels really scummy in the "this is why we can't have nice things" sense.
A system put in place to incentivise helping people, abused by a few to inconvenience customers for pocket change.
It's not really fair to say $6k a month is pocket change. I agree with one of the quotes that if they want some different behavior, they should incentivise something different.
I was thinking more that each individual act that inconveniences others was pocket change.
But I agree that the accumulation of $6k of it in a month is not mere pocket change. I'd wonder if it constitutes some kind of fraud or some other crime.
If it was just screwing the company, I wouldn't even be mad. It's the people who suddenly can't get a bike or can't return a bike at a given station because of these peoples' selfishness that I'm annoyed for.
The people who are paid to make sure things run smoothly are doing the exact opposite with zero regard to who it hurts. Shitty behaviour.
It's not like it's money from thin air, the legitimate users pay the company, and the company is being "scammed" (or whatever it is - Scam 2.0?) by these "Angels". But obviously the company realizes the whole scheme is still cheaper than employing actual bike movers.
Maybe they can change the algorithm, if an "Angel" moves a bike from a full station to an empty one, they only get rewarded if a "legitimate" user then uses their bike. Not if it's their own ass who's going to ride it back to the origin station in 15 minutes' time. But then the algo needs to ensure that the next user isn't just the Assangel's friend.
As we all know, if it's a company, it's not a scam and there's no such thing as victim blaming. Instead, it's "perverse incentives".
Yeah. My favorite part:
“How are we cheating?” said one Angel in a baggy gray T-shirt, black athletic shorts and sneakers, who declined to give his name. “If Lyft wants something else, they can change the algorithm.”
I don't think anyone would buy that he doesn't know it's cheating, but that won't stop him from attempting to rationalize his behavior because he likes the money.
That never stopped uber or Lyft from cheating on taxi medallions or cheating their drivers
Washington, DC has a similar program [1]. I believe Capital Bikeshare is also maintained by Lyft in some way. I wonder if this one is harder to abuse or if it's just that NYC has a larger pop than DC so there is a larger pool of bikes to collect?
It seems like you can only turn the rebalancing points back into gift cards at best, which would make it really hard to turn your $6k into rent money at any scale.
I also feel like just one empowered customer service person with a banhammer could seriously curb the behavior in the article. The problem is that they're 'solving' the imbalances that they're creating, so its pretty detectable.
Old stuff, bike renting companies were proposing that in Brussels years ago, before doing that will their own employees. I guess the scheme has been abused.
Is there anything portable you can get that you can just slap on a bike and have it move electrically? Maybe some small battery+motor that can clamp directly to one of the gears or something?
Gift article link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/19/nyregion/citi-bike-scam-n...
FYI, a third party archive link is still preferable for some, as gift articles on nytimes.com still require javascript to be enabled.
https://archive.ph/lFodc
> “There has been a subtle but very significant shift in power in favor of the tech companies,” Professor Mittelstadt said, with algorithms created to benefit the bosses at the expense of workers. Bike Angels face “a very fundamental problem with the gig economy we have now, which is the lack of fairness on behalf of the people who are doing the work,” he said.
> That a handful of sweaty hustlers have managed to take back some of that power qualifies as a win, Professor Mittelstadt added. “It makes me smile.”
I get that there’s legitimate criticism of rideshare companies, but this is such a frustrating position for a “professor of ethics” to take.
This is basically public infrastructure that has been contracted out to private companies for operation. Lyft has already been rumored to be trying to exit the business of bike shares.
If Lyft exits the business, and the city has no choice but to directly manage Citibike, will the professor change his tune? What’s fundamentally different about scamming the government directly vs scamming the company the government has hired to deliver a necessary city service?
This feels really scummy in the "this is why we can't have nice things" sense.
A system put in place to incentivise helping people, abused by a few to inconvenience customers for pocket change.
It's not really fair to say $6k a month is pocket change. I agree with one of the quotes that if they want some different behavior, they should incentivise something different.
I was thinking more that each individual act that inconveniences others was pocket change.
But I agree that the accumulation of $6k of it in a month is not mere pocket change. I'd wonder if it constitutes some kind of fraud or some other crime.
If it was just screwing the company, I wouldn't even be mad. It's the people who suddenly can't get a bike or can't return a bike at a given station because of these peoples' selfishness that I'm annoyed for.
The people who are paid to make sure things run smoothly are doing the exact opposite with zero regard to who it hurts. Shitty behaviour.
It's not like it's money from thin air, the legitimate users pay the company, and the company is being "scammed" (or whatever it is - Scam 2.0?) by these "Angels". But obviously the company realizes the whole scheme is still cheaper than employing actual bike movers.
Maybe they can change the algorithm, if an "Angel" moves a bike from a full station to an empty one, they only get rewarded if a "legitimate" user then uses their bike. Not if it's their own ass who's going to ride it back to the origin station in 15 minutes' time. But then the algo needs to ensure that the next user isn't just the Assangel's friend.
As we all know, if it's a company, it's not a scam and there's no such thing as victim blaming. Instead, it's "perverse incentives".
Yeah. My favorite part:
“How are we cheating?” said one Angel in a baggy gray T-shirt, black athletic shorts and sneakers, who declined to give his name. “If Lyft wants something else, they can change the algorithm.”
I don't think anyone would buy that he doesn't know it's cheating, but that won't stop him from attempting to rationalize his behavior because he likes the money.
That never stopped uber or Lyft from cheating on taxi medallions or cheating their drivers
Washington, DC has a similar program [1]. I believe Capital Bikeshare is also maintained by Lyft in some way. I wonder if this one is harder to abuse or if it's just that NYC has a larger pop than DC so there is a larger pool of bikes to collect?
[1] https://capitalbikeshare.com/bike-angels/rewards
It seems like you can only turn the rebalancing points back into gift cards at best, which would make it really hard to turn your $6k into rent money at any scale.
I also feel like just one empowered customer service person with a banhammer could seriously curb the behavior in the article. The problem is that they're 'solving' the imbalances that they're creating, so its pretty detectable.
Old stuff, bike renting companies were proposing that in Brussels years ago, before doing that will their own employees. I guess the scheme has been abused.
https://archive.md/5PKnb
Is there anything portable you can get that you can just slap on a bike and have it move electrically? Maybe some small battery+motor that can clamp directly to one of the gears or something?
https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/best-electric-bike-conv...
Simulate the NFC tag of the bike and fake the movements?
That wouldn’t last long before they caught on.