They might be doing that, of course, but given human nature, I'm sure we'd see those stories in either case. Uber has a lot of drivers, and some of those drivers are bound to get unlucky and have this happen to them by pure chance. Some of them will get very unlucky, and have it happen repeatedly. Those drivers will understandably think that something shady is going on. And someone who gets struck by lightning five times might start to think that the sky has it in for them.

There's also a pretty obvious mechanism for selection bias here regarding which type of situation we're going to hear about. Few people are going to write up a post saying "I got close to my bonus, and then I got more rides, and I got my bonus, and it was fine", whereas people who feel like they're getting screwed tend to be very vocal. So the existence of these stories tells us next to nothing.

there's also a market reason why this could happen. Towards the end of the (synchronized) bonus cycle, more drivers are going to be out to complete their bonus requirements, so they'll increase the supply and collaboratively reduce their take.

Yeah that makes sense. Seems like something Uber would want to fix, and it should be pretty easy if they stagger the bonuses. I don't think having drivers pissed off about losing out on bonuses is really in their best interest, even if it saves them a bit of money in the very short term.

Geez, it's like "buy 50 gold coins to complete this level!" but the game is being able to afford food and rent.

It's like working as a stripper. Ask any stripper about "stage fees".

Or as a barber renting a chair at a salon.

There's an important difference in both cases compared to what Uber is doing and that is that Uber is in complete control of whether you will get work.

Moreover, they have much more opportunity to do it since a strip club and barber salon have a lot fewer rented spots (ones/tens vs hundreds/thousands) and there is more ways Uber can be sneaky about it. (Oops sorry it took us 10 minutes to find you a passenger)

OH there's also the fact that Uber has the ability to arbitrage. Since the drivers who payed in are more costly to Uber to send passengers to than the drivers who didn't. Unlike the other industries you mentioned where presumably everyone has to pay in.

Sounds like an episode of Black Mirror.

Black Mirror was meant to be a warning, not a guide.

Either way, people are getting fucked for someone else’s profit/amusement.

Poor Abi...

Everything that Uber is doing to employees, will be done to ALL employees in that not too-distant future.

So in pre-Uber days, they were hungry and homeless as presumably they'll shortly be in London ?

Or they did the same job but worked for a company (or independently) that is properly regulated.

I have absolutely no way of knowing what is true in this case, but I will note that these kinds of observations even in the perfect absence of foul play are perfectly consistent with a number of well-understood cognitive biases.

Surely there must be some kind of statistical method to prove that this is happening, the drivers should start logging and sharing data so someone can analyze it.

This phenomenon is likely due to Uber’s incentives timing out around the same time, meaning many drivers are competing for less trips as promo end nears. It’s highly unlikely they are doing something actually malicious.

One of the problems Uber has is that their past behavior means that they get NO benefit of doubt. Can't get rides around city hall? Is it not enough drivers in the area or is it Greyball? With so many examples of unethical behavior like that now the coincidence/malice scale will always tilt to malice.

Kalanick and the bros did a hell of a job trashing the company reputation.

Let’s not forget Hell:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/8/16273378/uber-fbi-investig...

I didn't pay all that much attention to that particular bit of Uber scandal, but were they using that to actually interfere with Lyft drivers beyond watching coverage areas? If all they were doing was the equivalent of opening the app and seeing where cars were available, I'm actually less concerned about it.

Based on prior behaviour I wouldn't call it highly unlikely.