Amazon drivers are hanging smartphones in trees to get more work

I used to work at Uber and we would see similar behavior from drivers at airports. There would be a geofence around the parking lots where drivers had to wait before they could be sent a ride. However, the app would still send a ride to the closest available driver, so they would all lean their phones against the gate to get as close to the edge of the geofence as possible.<p>Ultimately, Uber implemented a FIFO queue at these lots, meaning a driver was added to a waiting list as soon as they entered the lot, thus removing the need for this behavior anymore.

Does the amazon brain actually think that the person standing 10&#x2F;20&#x2F;50 feet closer is the better person for the job? My first impression was that these phones were being run by people blocks&#x2F;miles away, but they are actually only a few feet closer.<p>&gt;&gt; That means a phone in a tree outside Whole Foods’ door would get the delivery offer even before drivers sitting in their cars just a block away.<p>That seems ridiculous. Plus or minus what, a minute? There has to be a better way to select drivers.

It&#x27;s just amazingly interesting to see our own societal evolution in action, rapidly spurred on by technology.<p>A company or event or technology changes something, and an evolutionary&#x2F;behavioral niche newly forms to take advantage of it. People are smart and infinitely adaptable...

It is pretty easy to spoof GPS locations, at least in Android, in a way that is undectable to apps using location services. Might be a better option for these drivers?

I agree, it seems they saw a bunch of phones hanging in a tree, so I&#x27;d give them the benefit of the doubt it is an existent phenomenon, but would also question the extent. It&#x27;s interesting because the case here is that the gig worker wants to behave like an employee, basically polling the system and taking a job without evaluating it is akin to getting assigned it. It feels like the flip side of what you normally see.<p>Now the problem here is the why, that is necessity, desperation. And the who, which is that it seems some parties might be predating here, snapping up the gigs and basically scalping&#x2F;arbitraging them.<p>The part I grapple with is that it&#x27;s certainly unfair for companies to utilize gig workers and expect employees. Is it just as wrong for a company to stand by and watch their gig workers sort of organize themselves into employees?

Wouldn&#x27;t Amazon just adjust its algorithm to punish delays in delivery? Penalize drivers who take longer to get there than they should if they were truly nearby?

The Amazon drivers seem to be far less careful in their deliveries as well. In the past, deliveries were delivered to my porch. Then the started showing up on my drive. Yesterday my wife found a book delivery under a shrub next to the curb.

Simple Solution: Treat all phones within X distance of the store as being the same distance away. If the typical parking lot is 1&#x2F;4 mile away, that&#x27;s the minimum distance to use.

It is no different from traders laying down their own cables and private communications infrastructure to get a millisecond advantage on trades on the DOW.

I always wonder in these kinds of articles how many people are doing this. The problem is that it is so sensationalized, that it could be that there are 10 people doing this, and it&#x27;s not really a big deal. Or it could be that 50% of the people doing this work, do this. For example, the article says that it reviewed photos and videos of phones near Whole Foods and Amazon delivery stations. Okay, so how many phones did they find? How many people do they have personal knowledge doing this?<p>I&#x27;ve noticed that a lot of news articles tend to take a few examples of something outrageous, but never say anything about how widespread the practice is. I find it hard to be outraged or care unless there is some quantification of the problem. In any system, people will find a way to cheat.<p>Amazon is aware and maybe they are working on a way to fix this, but it&#x27;s not clear Amazon has had much time to figure out what to do. Even if you think Amazon is evil and doesn&#x27;t care, it takes time to figure out how to defeat this. Maybe they won&#x27;t care, but at least give them some time to respond.

I can&#x27;t help but think of the stories from before stock market colocation was a thing. Nowadays the stock exchanges have a fair setup where people can put their machines in the same data center as stock exchange. And everyone gets to connect with an equal length wire. But before this modern solution, it was a free for all with companies trying various tricks to rent space as close as possible.

Instead of paying their drivers a fair wage regardless of how much they deliver, they&#x27;re letting them fight amongst themselves while they laugh all the way to the bank.<p>And the drivers actually seem to want this, knowing full well the market is oversaturated. If Amazon were to pay drivers a fixed amount, they&#x27;d probably end up with much less drivers.

Unidentified person or entity?<p>Just talk to the guy with a baseball bat hanging out in the vicinity to thwart all the &quot;yay free phones!&quot; folks.

I have a hard time believing this story, not because the technological explination doesn&#x27;t make sense but because it is my understanding that there is no shortage of work for Amazon delivery drivers.<p>I have read several stories about Amazon contract drivers being worked half to death, no breaks, long days and constant pressure to deliver more. Several of these stories have been posted in HN. (Just Google &quot;Ycombinator Amazon drivers overworked&quot;).<p>It is possible that the Whole Foods delivery contracts are more lucrative but to imply that due to the recession drivers are desperate to get work doesn&#x27;t jive.

We really are living in a William Gibson novel, aren&#x27;t we?

<i>One reason Flex contractors do this is to get around the requirements for being a driver, such as having a valid license or being authorized to work in the U.S., according to a person familiar with the matter. In such cases, someone who meets the requirements downloads the Flex app and is offered a route earning $18 an hour. He or she accepts the route and then pays someone else $10 an hour to do it, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss a private matter.</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fourhourworkweek.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fourhourworkweek.com&#x2F;</a>

Walk up to the phones and check to see if you can see any software running?<p>Wouldn&#x27;t it be a prime target for cell phone theft?

reminds me of <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cobra_effect" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cobra_effect</a>

This is why humans &gt; AI.<p>The best laid plans of algorithms and men!

I thought I saw an app that would spoof a false location for a mobile device. That app would be more practical.

Sounds like the market is just self-optimising in a way? Obviously to the detriment of those left behind.

Come on. .. someone who can do this can prolly get a better job in IT

&quot;Amazon knows about it,” the driver said, “but does nothing.”<p>But why should they as long as from Amazon&#x27;s perspective, the system is working?

This feels more like practical magic&#x2F;cargo culting than reality.<p>I’ve heard that if you say “bezos bezos bezos” while spinning around counter clockwise in front of an amazon locker your delivery tips will go up 5%

It seems obviously fabricated that a pile of phones hang from a tree and not one person turns them off, smashes them, or takes them.

&gt; to get a split-second jump on competing drivers.<p>Or it uses GPS and sees they are closer rather than the impossible.<p>I get reporters believe this fantastical stuff because they are not in IT and are somewhat more the Arts realm.<p>But they need a way to fix this, like a wiki. Or not. I guess stupid people believe it and click.<p>The core of the story is true somewhat, you do miss out on the idea leaving phones in strange places fools the GPS and you can use this to an advantage. Or why not just GPS spoof. Or is it using the wireless, so why not use a repeater?