Book Excerpt From 'OTP Please': The Almighty Algorithm 

Franz Kafka wrote in Prague in the 1920s. His work was based on the existential philosophy, and thinkers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche greatly influenced him. In Kafka’s worldview, the individual constantly struggles against an indifferent and often hostile world. This struggle can never be fully won but must be fought continuously nonetheless, even in the face of bleakness. His tragicomic stories act as a mythology for the modern industrial age, as they show the relationships between systems of arbitrary power and the individuals caught up in them. 

A hundred years after he wrote his stories, the relationship of gig workers with the algorithm that powers the app on their phones is symbolic of Kafka’s philosophy. Every action is judged by people they can’t see, according to rules they don’t know. In an ironic twist, Kafka is also the name of the software that processes real-time streaming data and helps platforms do big data analysis.

Algorithms are step-by-step procedures for solving a mathematical problem, pioneered by Persian polymath Muhammad ibn Musal al-Khwarizmi, who lived a thousand years before smartphones and the internet. The word ‘algorithm’ is, in fact, a Latinized version of the latter part of his name. 

In the context of platforms, algorithms are the rules, signals and data that govern the platform’s operations and take an optimal decision at every juncture. Other than the platform’s technocrats, no one knows about the logic encoded into it.

The algorithm’s primary function is to allocate the worker who can best service a request, such as match the driver/rider optimally with the customer, find the closest delivery person to pick up and drop off a grocery or restaurant order and so on. But it is much more than that. The algorithm is invisible but an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent force—an 'antaryami' (all-knowing). 

Naveen Konella* has spent five years in food and grocery delivery company operations. As he had just quit one of them and joined a different industry, he was willing to speak candidly about how the tech works behind the scenes. 

‘There is a first mile and a last mile in logistics. The first mile is when the delivery boy gets an order to pick up a package from a restaurant. He does not get paid to reach the restaurant. His payment calculation starts once he picks up the order and proceeds to the customer’s location. Algorithms are designed in such a way that they will try to ensure the first mile is shorter than the last mile. So, it will choose from among the pool of delivery agents who, at that time, are close to the restaurant. But in peak hours, if there is no delivery person close by, they extend the radius and look for someone a little further away who is free.’ 

When a girl in Mumbai’s Andheri West orders a lasagna from an Italian place in Lokhandwala, the algorithm starts looking at the delivery boys around the area. So, if Ram Dayal has driven into Lokhandwala, he, along with Kanhaiya Lal, Prem Kumar and Arbaaz Ali, who were already there, come into the consideration pool. Who gets the order depends on a host of parameters such as exact location, proximity to the restaurant, typical speed of delivery, how promptly he delivers and how customers rate him, to name a few obvious criteria. Within seconds, an optimal decision is made using a calculation embedded in the algorithm’s logic, and one of the men hears his phone ping. 

‘Every few weeks, managers study the data, tweak the algorithm and introduce a new rule. Rules are always designed to enhance customer experience. Customer is the God, whether it’s quick commerce, food delivery or ride-hailing. Sometimes, the new rules impact the payment structures of the delivery fleet, and they get angry and go on strike. The changes are not intended to lower their earnings. However, the company cannot bear losses, and the customer is a priority. So somebody’s got to pay,’ says Konella. 

That ‘somebody’ is the worker. Workers are mystified about the functioning of this digital antaryami.

Rajesh Singh,* who has worked for Swiggy and Zomato, was baffled by the inscrutable logic of the app and finally decoded it as biased against older workers. 

"In the initial stages, the company drives you crazy. Pagal kar deti hai. You get lots and lots of orders. Even if fifty other riders are sitting around, the newbie’s phone will buzz. You’re on a high. You work twelve hours, thirteen hours, fourteen hours, keep taking orders, driving around from restaurant to customer, back and forth. Of course, it affected my health. Madam, you’d be surprised if you saw my old photographs before I started this job. I had a gym body, my waist size was 32, and now it is 28. I have lost so much weight just overworking, running here and there, and the cash kept rolling in", Rajesh says.

But then, after a few weeks, Rajesh found he was working just as long, maybe more, but his weekly earnings had dropped from Rs 16,000 to 12,000. He thought maybe, for some reason, business was slow, and there weren’t as many orders as before. Then, slowly, the earnings dropped to Rs 10,000 per week. 

(Excerpted with permission from Penguin Random House India from ‘OTP Please!’ by Vandana Vasudevan)