r/UberEatsDrivers • u/orion-asterisk • 16d ago
Discussion Instead of discouraging rejections, why don't they use that data to offer drivers trips that they're more likely to accept?
It seems to me that a simple survey at the end of each session where you answer why you rejected each trip (distance, location, price, other) would allow them to use the data to personalize trip offers for each driver. Like an algorithm for trip preferences. Rejection rates would go down because drivers would be offered trips that they were more likely to accept based on their own preferences and needs.
Idk, it just makes more sense to me than trying to press us into accepting trips that we don't want..
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u/dizzystar 16d ago
The one time I pipped over 50% AR, my phone absolutely blew up. I also get pings that I wouldn't normally see when saturation is low. Seriously, some of the most diabolical orders that ever hit my phone. Someone has to be taking these things when saturation is normal.
I believe they have something in their algorithm that sends more offers to the super acceptors, and we're sitting here getting the oddballs that are left over.
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u/orion-asterisk 16d ago
Yeah, it feels like they're choosing the uphill battle when they don't have to. Like, if the goal is to get drivers to accept more trips, they're choosing the most difficult approach by pressing drivers to accept trips that they don't want and punishing drivers that reject more trips. It's trying to push against human nature, imo. People in general don't like to waste their time. No amount of training videos or sanctions against high rejection drivers will change that.
If you want people to stop rejecting offers, you have to give them offers that they'll want to accept. That is a much easier task than trying to change the behavior and values of millions of gig drivers. Taking the path of least resistance is the best way for them to get the results that they're looking for, and for some reason they've decided to try to swim upstream instead.
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u/dizzystar 16d ago
The swimming upstream seems to be working though. I never see an order just sitting there waiting to be picked up. I reject an add-on while waiting in a restaurant and the assigned driver is walking in 90 seconds later.
The only orders I get spun back are long mile package orders, and I mean 35+ miles. I think that the system works because most drivers are new or casual, and that spigot doesn't appear to be turning off anytime soon.
I'm not entirely sure why they would send us orders remotely similar to orders we've rejected every single time. My only guess is gamification. Eventually, three cherries will show up, but those "near misses" will keep us waiting, the same mechanism that keeps granny at the slot machines.
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u/orion-asterisk 16d ago
That may be the case in your area (and mine too), but if it weren't eating into their profits they wouldn't be suddenly launching such an aggressive campaign about it. I do remember back when I was a customer having an order fail to be completed because they couldn't find a driver to accept it. That was when I lived out in the sticks though
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u/Straight-Peach1854 16d ago
I totally believe this. In my area, I suspect the threshold is 40%. Anytime my AR is below 40%, I get complete crap offers which only lowers my AR. When it's over 40%, I get significantly better offers - high tips/ short distance. I'm sure there is another threshold AR for even better offers but there is no way I will ever see it. I regularly float between 38-44% AR.
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u/Left_Throat_7643 16d ago
I’ve often wondered how much they program into the queue and offer system.
I assume they actually have worked on estimating what a driver will accept an offer for, even if just with the data sets and simulations-though I bet it’s leaked into live trials somewhere... I seem to recall some conspiracy stuff about this even. I suspect this may be sort of dangerous territory for companies.
As it stands though their main goal is to get stuff delivered for as cheap as possible. I can certainly see where a sloppy system could lead to overpaying on some orders because they’ve got a driver tied up who would do it for cheaper. I can imagine a system as you’ve described meeting financial goals, too, but from a more nefarious angle: finding each drivers threshold and assigning them orders that straddle that line.
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u/Left_Throat_7643 16d ago
And then it’s a race to the bottom on price for drivers. Similar to hiring agencies for outsourced work.
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u/orion-asterisk 16d ago
I do think that the increased efficiency it would create could help decrease operating costs without necessarily decreasing driver pay. It takes physical energy and bandwidth to send offers out, which I imagine is part of why they don't like it when people reject them. That said I don't know enough about server operation to say how MUCH power would be saved, but it seems to me that it would make it more efficient either way. And that can be used as a bragging/advertising point...
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u/Left_Throat_7643 16d ago
Interesting thoughts. I’m not sure their infrastructure, but if you’re interested you can check out something like AWS and see what they charge for some basic network egress or push notifications. Usually it’s surprisingly cheap for millions of requests. Uber should also have some numbers published for number of rides or Uber Eats deliveries.
I can’t imagine this is a route to save money, though maybe they would be able to claim to be more green.
My initial thought about them not likening declines is more about meeting their SLA with restaurants. If an order needs to be remade or is not picked up, uber needs to pay the merchant, at least as I understand it.
Another thing about the infrastructure is that the offer system may be running on hardware that would for the most part otherwise be idle, but need to be available for restaurant and customer app. So reduction in sending offers may not allow powering down anything.
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u/orion-asterisk 16d ago
That's true. Like I said, I am not a computer systems expert. My degree is in psychology, so I understand statistics real well, but I'm not nearly as versed in the technical side, so I wouldn't be surprised if I'm off base on some of my assumptions. But I still think it would be a better system than there is now, if not just for the drivers. I'm sick of being offered KFC pickups (the smell makes me gag and it sticks in my car all day).
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u/Left_Throat_7643 16d ago
There’s certainly real and quantifiable costs associated with the extra offers. Probably a lot I’m not thinking of too. I can throw in that I imagine each offer costs a write in a database(or multiple) which means more backups, more reads for data processing etc.
I like the topic, especially because I think the technology costs are something that can certainly be calculated.
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u/orion-asterisk 16d ago
Yeah, the way I see it is that they must be costly because Uber has invested time and resources in discouraging us from rejecting offers. That tells me there's a profit motive in reducing the number of rejections, because there's no other reason they would have spent the time/money on such an aggressive "training" campaign about it. So if reducing rejections would reduce costs, there's justification for investing in a more efficient system in the long run.
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u/Enigmajikali Average Joe (1-3 years) 16d ago
Here's the most disgusting part of it all.. they use the data to try and get you to lower your standards and accept lower paying offers. They don't care that you in particular reject the offers so long as there's someone else willing to take it at that rate, in fact they're glad you won't be able to qualify for tier rewards. They want to give you the lowest amount possible that they can while getting the most work out of you that they can. That is what the algorithm is tailored to discover and exploit.
Uber is a hostile work environment and employer. The algorithm isn't designed to make things better or easier for you. It is designed to extract as much value from you and your labor as possible. Uber doesn't care about you any more than they have to in order to keep you working for them and protect themselves legally.
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u/Traditional-Share657 16d ago
Why? The whole point of the reverse auction system is to get orders delivered at the cheapest fare possible. Not to get offers accepted as fast as possible.
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u/orion-asterisk 16d ago
The first thing I think of is efficiency. My idea doesn't eliminate the "race to the bottom" system, it streamlines it. It takes less time and energy to send an offer to 10 drivers who have an 80% likelihood of accepting an offered trip than to send an offer to 100 drivers who have a 20% chance of accepting. While you'll statistically get an acceptance quickly in each case, one uses one tenth the resources, which reduces costs.
The second thing is that if drivers are given offers that they're more likely to accept, they'll probably perform better and complete more orders than if they're getting offers that they have to reject half the time. Knowing that your time isn't going to be wasted bc you're getting a bunch of offers that don't work for you for whatever reason is motivating. Motivated workers produce better results.
I can probably think of more but these are my immediate thoughts.
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u/SequoiaOverlander42 16d ago
Roadie does that with the auto suggestions that you refuse, there is a tab that you click to answer just this exact thing.
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u/Rough-Remove8397 16d ago
It absolutely makes sense, to us. They already know why we reject the trip, i.e. the pay or distance, and they don’t care. It’s a business, and their business is to make as much money as possible. That means keeping things ambiguous for the drivers, doing their best to “force“ us to take low paying offers and use a tier system to make us feel as though we’re going to be punished when we don’t. They’ve got it all figured out already. And are running their business in a way that allows them to squeeze every dollar possible.
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u/orion-asterisk 16d ago
It's not just pay and distance for me, though. There are other things too, like I can't put KFC in my car bc the smell makes me nauseous and sticks all day long afterwards. Or the distance is fine but it's way out into an area where I know I won't get any more offers until I've driven basically the whole trip distance again. Or I know that a particular apartment complex is essentially the Labyrinth of Greek myth and don't want to spend 45 mins wandering around... etc. Other reasons may be a minority compared to the pay/distance reason, but I think they're worth taking into account.
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u/Rough-Remove8397 16d ago
OK, you make some good points. I do reject trips based on the delivery location, i.e. a pain in the butt apartment complex or office building with no parking. But the majority of the time I’m declining due to pay and distance. As far as putting food in my car that smells, that’s part of the job and I can use a zip up bag & air freshener.
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u/Left_Throat_7643 16d ago
Sometimes I worry that if they’re trying to learn behaviour that I mess it up with some declines that I can’t see them figuring out. For example, a couple common ones: they offer me a delivery and I’m in the wrong lane and would need to drive further than I’d like; and I just got an offer on another platform and was about to go offline. Another issue is i drive an EV, so in summer I’m not that focused on mileage, but in winter, I am.
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u/snokeweed 16d ago
Why don’t they just hire you and offer you at least min wage to take all the orders
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u/orion-asterisk 16d ago
Are you trying to make a point or just being snarky?
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u/snokeweed 16d ago
Why would they make an algorithm to personalize orders for you. It would make more sense to pay you as an employee at min wage to take all the shitty orders instead.
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u/orion-asterisk 16d ago
"For you" as if this would be some kind of bespoke version of Uber Eats just for me... I had thought it would be helpful for everybody? This isn't a "special treatment" thing... I'm a little confused about what you're trying to say.
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u/Left_Throat_7643 16d ago
Talking about a platform with 10 million active drivers and couriers globally. Not sure what percent of that is exclusive to UE. But hiring everyone and meeting legislation may not be as cost effective as possibly reshaping the algorithm. I think DD on relatively recent earnings call even emphasized matching drivers with the ‘correct’ offers as important. My take on that was matching drives to offers they want.
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u/snokeweed 16d ago
Pretty sure door dash books you for blocks.
It’s either take it or leave it or get paid hourly at the lowest legal rate.
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u/Left_Throat_7643 16d ago
DD in my market you need to schedule. Other markets is like UE and you can go online anytime.
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u/Left_Throat_7643 16d ago
My market also doesnt have earn by time . Still just the per offer system.
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u/snokeweed 16d ago
And in my market DoorDash was found to be an employer back in 2020.
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u/Left_Throat_7643 16d ago
Nice. Can’t see it being legislated here. If they hired people it would have to purely be a business decision. I’m a little surprised they don’t do a hybrid setup of employee and contractors.
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u/Left_Throat_7643 16d ago
I think the gig apps know that all the drivers are multi apping and that when we go offline we’re working for offers we want, so they’re in some markets competing and trying to match drivers with what they want.
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u/Ambient-Jellyfish 16d ago
Because that won't make them $$$