UberEATS is known to be a toxic company by the riders that have worked with it from the first days of its operation. We riders like to do delivery work, but ubereats is in our way.
From the start, ubereats uses malicious tactics ranging from hidden algorithms to purposefully designed mechanisms to pay less than minimum wage to its workers (like the guaranteed minimum wage rate in 2019-2020 in the Netherlands).
However, with the introduction of ai to the platform, things feel different and not in a good way.
The uber company started a partnership with openai in the summer of 2025. The first changes we workers experienced was closing off our personal metrics that used to be open and transparent for us. Metrics like bonuses were hidden from us. Customer feedback was hidden to. Then restaurant feedback metrics started to be hidden too. We got new adherence requirements and group assignments based on adherence. The adherence metrics were invisible and only accessible after a shift.
The platform was started to be closed off for riders to prepare for ai agents from openai.
A few months after introduction ghe nightmare started. We delivery workers don’t even know if we get orders that are designed to make us miss the promised bonuses barely, but with the most amount of hard work from our side.
AI is proving to be a perfect system for worker exploitation dialed up to the max.
Information assymetry
The ai knows everything about the delivery worker and all other workers: speed of delivery, customer feedback points, restaurant feedback points, vehicle use, order pickup preference, order history, home return adress.
There are no laws and rules that specifically limit the use of ai for workers. The ai at companies like uber will use all information it can to exploit you and sabotage delivery workers. this sounds insane but its happening right now to many riders. An ever increasing stream of worker reports are flowing in.
If the AI can give preference to someone with faster order completion (and other ai-judged higher metrics) it will give available shifts to that person first. and then to other workers with lesser metrics. The workers will never know whats happening.
The ai will make a perfect comparison between differences between workers and prefer the workers with higher productivity rates – but without paying anyone more-.
Work incentive bonuses are used to dial in a personalized work regime that sucks the most out of a worker while paying the least: customized for that specific worker individual!
Solution: Ban UberEATS
In the specific case of meal delivery; city governments like Amsterdam and Rotterdam should ban companies like uber from operating in their cities.
There are too many ways to abuse ai to exploit workers. Good rule are impossible to implement. If any: complete prompt transparency (the history of prompts uber is using in each specific time period) would help, but there are other ways to design a system that is toxic for workers.
It comes down to good will and companies like uber have proven over and over again they clearly dgaf.
Banning ubereats will provide space for better delivery companies to enter the market. New companies will improve meal delivery in busy cities for customers, restaurants and workers.
Cities should welcome app-based companies that do not have a clear track record of malicious practices (e.g. deliveroo).
Despite uber giving meal delivery work a bad name, good companies actually do exist (deliveroo for example). Deliveroo are the real tech pioneers that deserve to operate inside cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
However, when a company like uber proves over and over again that it will do everything it can to exploit and maltreat its workers, it should be banned.
Companies should not exploit their workers to prove that ai is worth the trillions that are invested in it. It will backfire. And this should backfire. Ban UberEATS in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
