The book comprehensively captures the impact of e-Commerce

Neelambari Joshi wrote a short post on ‘OTP Please’, the book which Vandana Vasudevan authored, on Facebook, and I bought it at once. Neelambari Joshi, who is a prolific author has written several books covering artificial intelligence, social media and the like. It is always a good idea to trust some people for recommending books, they usually turn out to be a good buy.

As the name suggests ‘OTP Please’ is about ‘Online buyers, sellers and gig workers in South Asia. Vandana Vasudevan who is a researcher, and an IIM-A alumna got interested in the subject as she watched the frequent visits of delivery boys at the gate of her condominium. She partnered with an NGO to conduct research on the lives and issues of Gig workers. The survey covered more than 5000 workers which gave her the ring side view.

The ‘OTP Please’ book is organized under the themes of emotions and experiences which makes it very interesting to read and also gives a good understanding of the feelings which consumers and gig workers experience. There are stories a plenty which convey them effectively.

The book is divided in three major slots – Privilege, Power and Precarity which have between them nine common experiences and emotions. Those are Pleasure, Guilt, Gratitude, Anger, Freedom, Oppression, Anxiety, Isolation and Courage. This makes ‘OTP Please’ very interesting as it covers dozens of stories as well as unique because the stories in the newspapers are repetitively focusing on the oppression and exploitation of Gig workers and have not taken the coverage further. There is a lot more to how technology has affected our society.

And that takes me to another book ‘HIRED’ by James Bloodworth who actually worked as a Gig worker and wrote about his experiences. He worked in Amazon and three other organizations. I have written about the book too.

Coming back to the book ‘OTP Please’, Mumbaikars will recall that Dabbawalas were delivering lunch boxes at the workplaces for decades before Swiggy and Zomato came on the scene, and also before Harvard discovered their six sigma operation and Prince Charles invited them for the coronation ceremony. About 125 years back, a Parsi banker wanted to have home cooked food in office and gave this responsibility to the first ever Dabbawala. Many people liked the idea and the demand for Dabba delivery soared.

Convenience is the most important aspect of food delivery. And you can order it any time. Work from home and long working hours have contributed to the popularity of food delivery (and also of many other goods) at home. Although people realize that in the long run it might be expensive and adding to their weight.

One of the positive aspect is that gig working provides jobs to 77 lakh persons – this is the official figure but nobody thinks this is correct because it is extremely difficult to estimate it, and the popular perception is that the number is several times more than the official estimate. Gig workers do not include just those delivery persons, but also other gig workers like women who do beautician jobs. How on earth can one estimate it with accuracy?

The fact remains that several thousand have benefited from this new avenue of earnings. There is a sense of gratitude. PickMe in Sri Lanka employs 1 lakh persons while Zomato has reportedly given jobs to 3.50 Lakh persons! And as the author points out in ‘OTP Please’, it is also a fallback option to small businesspeople who lose money.

And interestingly this is where the anger comes in. The latest agitation of OLA and UBER drivers arose out of it. Payment rates can vary. NDTV news says “Drivers allege that after accounting for aggregator commissions and fuel expenses, their actual income sometimes falls to just Rs 8 to Rs 12 per kilometer. Drivers said these earnings are unsustainable, especially with rising fuel and maintenance expenses.” Add to this the fact that customer locations are not always exactly pinned on the maps.

And this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exploitation and arbitrary actions. The story begins with signing a 50 page contract document.

Initially the political leaders saw an opportunity in organizing them only to desert them later. While there is genuine anger in the minds of gig workers, political leaders have been faking it while ‘championing’ the cause of gig workers.’

Some people have a sense of freedom because of this OTP revolution. It has changed language at home – ‘What do you want for dinner’ has substituted ‘What’s for dinner’ because people are ordering their dinner often. I was visiting Bangkok ten years ago when a resident told me that they do not have kitchen in their homes – they only have pantries. They were mostly eating street food then. The wave of ordering food has freed the homemaker and has made kitchens redundant in many places.

Working silently to satisfy the customers are the algorithms which 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 the smartphones and internet. The word ‘algorithm’ is a Latinized version of his name.’ So much has been written on the cruelty inflicted by algorithms that I see no need to elaborate on how oppressive it can be.

There is of course ray of hope. Sangam Tripathy organized gig workers and formed Indian Federation of App based Transport Workers (IFAT). Shaik Salauddin has done stupendous work in getting the law made in Rajasthan and Karnataka. Telangana law on the same subject is in the offing. I had covered the work of Salauddin in my blog post ‘Leading The Gig Workers’

‘OTP Please’ explains the tremendous impact of the technology and gig workers on the society, and several facets of it. A technological innovation can create so much impact! George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, ‘Anyone who thinks will create turbulence somewhere.’ Well technology masters have done just that!

Just as we cannot see all the 58 facets of a diamond at a time, we do not understand and appreciate the range and depth of the impact of technology which has given us e-commerce. And it has given us some positives along with some terrible negatives too. ‘OTP Please’ book comprehensively puts them before a reader.

All the values and traditions are in a hot melting pot and along with them, the oppressed gig workers too!

Vivek S Patwardhan

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” All matter copyrighted.