when the digitally aware get ahead over the analog slow and not willing to learn.

Inspired by:
Amazon wasted no time in squashing delivery drivers’ hack to get more work

We are at an interesting junction point in technology.

Since the lockdown especially like many other people right now, it seems the world is waking up to the idea that actually, the jobs that we have always known, the ones that were a ‘job for life’ are actually going away — aside from the ‘robots taking the jobs’ it’s obvious now in a pandemic that certainly jobs and skills just don’t work in a virus ridden planet that’s struggle to balance out what’s good from bad in real time.

The algorithm used by the company to send out requests for Amazon Flex workers apparently factored-in proximity, so some drivers discovered they could hide a smartphone right outside a store to nab delivery requests before even people waiting right beside them in the parking lot [src: inputmag]

Jobs are changing, changing fast, everyone is trying to get the digital leg up over the next person, I’ve seen fiverr and upwork change rapidly in the last six months faster than I expect and it seems that a fair percentage of people have now either started to set up their own digital company hanging off the shopify backend or are working as a remote freelancer from the web — you can literally feel the internet straining and creeping at every internet backhaul interconnect.

Photo by Julian Wan on Unsplash

Supply chain systems are recalibrating, open source versions are popping up and people are starting to co-op together on basic things like connectivity using projects and programs like Athena to connect their town or village as part of a shared ownership on their increased speed connection to the web — even paying with crypto in some cases for their connection or getting paid to provide connectivity to the next town over.

Circle economies are popping up rapidly and if you’re in the loop, you can provide and grow instead of just being in the middle of a battle of competing in the usual arena of capitalistic business practice — be the best or die.

This amazon flex story really hit the funny bone but also the reality stone went off in my mind about where this is all heading and how getting ahead digitally is making the notion of business ethics and relationships go out of the window — after all, who’s gonna come after amazon about their flex service, they own the servers this stuff runs on!

I’m sure they have a super nice algo on you as well, how many hours you like to work, how much you’ve earned, how much you spend on stuff from the company you work for, it’s a circle economy right there for the person that loves to buy stuff regularly from amazon — deliver stuff, get paid, buy more stuff, delivery driver you might know drops it off.

But it also exposes many other things about the future of this kind of micro economy gig work, the ones where people are starting to put together the tricks, tips and no doubt secret encrypted chat rooms where people group together to get the work — imagine a tree with lots of mobile devices hanging in a tree because you are nearby to the work, it’s both genius and worrying — there is a massive disconnect between the digitally savvy and those people wanting to adapt to this new way of working.

Do ethics and morals go out of the window at this stage? Are they lost forever, is the argument well I’m just trying to feed my family and then does that highlight a bigger deeper issue with society that everyone is just trying to survive the next blows of a world just rolling out digital solutions that don’t factor in the human element.

What do you think, are we to blame, is education broken, is this just the price of progress, are you worried about robots doing everything? What would you spend your time doing if you did not have to work anymore? Are you interested in UBI or do you think we have to just fall blindly into the chaos of anarchism?

Either way, Peace out! :)

Cheers for Reading,
Humble x