◇"As long as you don't spill your meal, it doesn't matter what you fall into."
◇Two small holes were cut out on the chest pocket of sanitation workers' overalls, "specially reserved for mobile phone camera monitoring"
◇Select the best quality fruits and vegetables when taking pictures, but the actual products are the most inferior
◇The elderly in the intelligent age often find it difficult to deal with themselves, and public services need to make up
As "Internet+" and "Data+" penetrate into every corner of social development and people's lives, smart devices, APPs, and big data applications have increased the sense of acquisition of the masses, and have become an important way for companies to improve management efficiency.
But behind the fact that cold technology has entered the hot interpersonal society, some people are followed by "overtime" fear, some are squeezed out by "online shopping", and some people seem to be isolated "outside the circle."
Workers controlled by the system
"Overtime is not allowed. Once it happens, it will be bad reviews, reduced income, or even eliminated." Li Youzheng, who has been the stationmaster of the Meituan distribution station for three years, said that riders cannot fight the time allocated by the system.
The reporter saw this sentence in the Baidu Tieba where the takeaway riders gathered. Delivering food is a race against death, a rivalry with traffic police, and a friend with a red light.
"The craziest one I have experienced was 1 km and 20 minutes. The distance is not far, but I have to wait for, pick up, and deliver food within 20 minutes. My car is so fast that my butt bounces off my seat several times." A takeaway rider told reporters, “Crashes are too common. As long as you don’t spill your meal, it’s not a big deal what people fall into.”
According to data from the Traffic Police Corps of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, in the first half of 2017, Shanghai had an average of 1 takeaway rider casualties every 2.5 days.
In the same year, 12 people were killed or injured in Shenzhen's takeaway riders within three months.
In 2018, the Chengdu traffic police investigated and dealt with nearly 10,000 illegal riders, 196 accidents and 155 casualties, and an average of 1 rider was injured or killed every day.
In September 2018, the Guangzhou Traffic Police investigated and dealt with nearly 2,000 takeaway riders traffic violations. Among them, Meituan riders accounted for half, and Ele.me ranked second.
The "Rider Employment Report for the First Half of 2020" published by Meituan shows that the total number of riders in Meituan has reached 2.952 million.
Ele.me Hummingbird’s official website shows 3 million riders.
Facing the "systematic survival" of nearly 6 million riders, Zheng Guanghuai, a sociologist at Central China Normal University, proposed the concept of "downloading labor".
"Riders work by downloading APP. On the surface, APP is a production tool to assist them, but in fact, there is a sophisticated labor control model." Zheng Guanghuai said that under this model, the subjectivity of workers is fully shaped And even replace.
"The riders seem to be working in a relatively free way, but they are under greater control."
It is not only the takeaways that are controlled by the system.
In early March 2019, an environmental sanitation worker working in the Hexi area of Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province reported to reporters that the unit had issued a batch of watches that could cheer them on at work.
This watch has a positioning function. As long as the sanitation worker stays in place for more than 20 minutes during working hours, it will automatically send out a "refueling" voice to remind the worker to continue working.
On Yuhua West Road, Nanjing, the reporter saw two small holes cut out of the breast pocket of a sanitation worker's overalls.
"This is specifically reserved for mobile phone camera monitoring." The sanitation worker told reporters, "If we take a break during work, the backstage manager will dial the mobile phone and notify us to continue working."
Small vendors folded by the system
Recently, community group buying took advantage of the Internet to go against the current, and it has quietly emerged in many areas of the country.
Group buying products range from fruits and vegetables to daily necessities, bringing benefits and convenience to the people’s lives.
What is the living space of community vegetable vendors, canteens, and market stall owners?
The reporter visited several stalls randomly at the Baoquanzhuang Farmers Market in Jinqiao Development Zone, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.
"Compared to previous years, the passenger flow has been reduced by nearly half." The stall owner named Li Ermao told reporters that there was also an Internet platform contact to let him join the community group purchase supply, but he refused because of low profits.
The reporter opened the Orange Heart Optimal App and saw a variety of fresh foods that are glamorous and cheap, and new users have amazing discounts, such as buying 4 eggs or 90 grams of passion fruit for a penny.
The same is true of the food shopping platform, 13.49 yuan for 30 eggs, 3.99 yuan for 460 grams of beans.
In Meituan Optimal, 400 grams of pork and green onion dumplings are only 2.59 yuan for a limited time, and 1.29 yuan for a catty of carrots...
"What customers see on the platform is the subsidized price. For example, tomatoes are only sold for 1.99 yuan per catty. We have to sell for 4.5 yuan for this catty, but the gross profit is only 1 yuan." Li Ermao said.
At the Tian Chunxia vegetable wholesale store in the Meitong Food Wholesale Market, owner Gui He told reporters that the community group buying has been fighting a price war, squeezing the profits of secondary wholesalers.
"Small vendors in the surrounding areas come to our store at 1 am to queue up for purchases. In addition to the transportation time and the loss of fruits and vegetables, the cost is not low, and there is no advantage compared to group buying."
However, is community group buying really a shopping paradise for ordinary people?
"You get what you pay for." A stall owner told reporters that some community group buying platforms came to the store to talk about cooperation. When taking photos, they selected the best fruits and vegetables and uploaded them to the Internet for display, but they actually got the most inferior products.
Nie Huihua, a professor at the School of Economics of Renmin University of China and a researcher at the National Institute of Development and Strategy, believes that through community group buying, consumers do buy cheaper products, but once user stickiness arises, they may also encounter "big data".
Not only the community group buying platform, but also many platforms such as shopping, food delivery, travel, etc., have been found to have the behavior of setting higher prices for old users.
The reporter browsed the user messages of a certain intelligent distribution software and found that many people complained that the price of the same product was higher after the membership was opened, and the price of the same meal was increased after two or three purchases.
Internet platforms have greatly squeezed the living space of small vendors and may also cause some social problems.
"Some people will lose their jobs because of the increased efficiency of the circulation link, and some individual vendors may face bankruptcy under the subsidy war." Nie Huihua said that we should think about designing reasonable market rules so that large companies and small vendors can coexist.
Old people abandoned by the system
Liu Jianying, an old man from Tianjin, is 77 years old. She didn't sleep well for a week after the community where she was located was replaced with a new smart water meter.
"It's because of the problem of the water bill." The old man's daughter said that before Liu Jianying could pay the water bill as long as he went to the supermarket at the entrance of the community, but after installing the smart water meter, he needed to use the mobile phone to pay online, otherwise he had to go to the business hall 3 kilometers away Payment.
"I can't learn mobile payment, and I don't worry about it." Liu Jianying said.
Reporters visited many places in Hebei, Anhui, Guizhou, Zhejiang, Tianjin, and Hunan and found that many elderly people are facing embarrassing situations such as unable to pay, unable to get in the car, unable to register the number, and unable to scan the "health code".
In the face of smart devices, many elderly people either "no one teaches and can't learn", or "dare to use or don't want to use".
The "digital divide" has repeatedly squeezed the living space of the elderly.
There are also some technical methods that make it difficult for the elderly to operate.
For example, SMS verification codes have a short validity period for safety reasons, but they are not friendly to the elderly with slow hands and eyes.
"More and more businesses are developing apps independently to reduce the number of traditional workers. To eat and order in restaurants, you need to scan the QR code to place an order, and you need to download the app before installing smart homes." said Li Bin, a professor of sociology at Central South University, but targeting the personality of the elderly There is a lack of intelligent services.
Wang Changming, a member of the Wenzhou CPPCC in Zhejiang Province, believes that in the intelligent age, it is often difficult for the elderly to adapt, and public services cannot be absent.
For example, the community can hold training courses to help the elderly use smartphones better; while developing online services for some services, offline channels should also be reserved to meet the needs of the elderly, people in need, and other people who do not have smartphones.
(Reporter Ren Liying Halina)