Chasing the Pink

Sarah Mason, a Lyft driver and UC Santa Cruz grad student, recounts how ride-hailing platforms gamify driver behavior — star ratings, weekly ride 'challenges,' surge heat maps drivers call 'the pink,' badges and 'Accelerate' levels — so that drivers compete with the algorithm rather than their employer. Drawing on Michael Burawoy's 'making out' study at Allied Steel and Natasha Dow Schüll's research on slot-machine design, she shows how gamification redirects worker conflict away from capital, preys on the desire to be liked and useful, and keeps drivers hooked on a game whose rules they cannot see and cannot win — while wages sit below local minimum and 96 percent of drivers quit within a year.