The Big Take is the very best of Bloomberg’s in-depth, original reporting from around the globe every day.
Follow Bloomberg reporters as they uncover some of the biggest financial crimes of the modern era. This documentary-style series follows investigative journalists as they uncover the truth
Benedict XVI, Pope Whose Resignation Shook Catholics, Dies at 95
European Bond Markets Were Roiled This Year In Ways Few Imagined
ECB’s Lagarde Says Policy Rates Must Be Higher to Curb Inflation
China’s Economic Activity at Slowest Since 2020 as Covid Spreads
Euro Zone’s Worst Year of Inflation Probably Ended With Respite
Starbucks Illegally Terminated Union Leader, US Officials Say
Antitrust Czar to File Appeal in Effort to Stop Rogers Deal
Taiwan Poised to Roll Out a $12.4 Billion Boost to the Economy
Ukraine Latest: Zelenskiy Pledges to Bolster Air Defense in 2023
David Beckham Tripled Revenues to £34 Million Before Qatar Deal
Elon Musk Becomes First Person Ever to Lose $200 Billion
Mega Millions Jackpot Climbs to $785 Million After No Big Winner
Barbara Walters, Doyenne of TV Interviewers, Dies at 93
Southwest’s Biggest Mistake Was Forgetting Its Own Culture
Keep Your Personal Interests to Yourself
The US Can Solve Its Housing Crisis. It Just Needs to Start Building
Futuristic Vertical Farming Startups Are Struggling in the Tech Downturn
China’s $1.3 Trillion Housing Crackdown Leaves Few Winners
The Chatbots Are Coming for Google
Starbucks Illegally Terminated Union Leader, US Officials Say
Greta Thunberg Trolls Andrew Tate on Twitter After Arrest
2023 Will Be the Year of the Electric SUV
US Ignored Own Scientists’ Warning in Backing Atlantic Wind Farm
The Cities Keeping Their Car-Free Spaces
Why Child Care Centers in New York City Are Shutting Their Doors
How Jersey City Got to Zero Traffic Deaths on Its Streets
US Probes How $372 Million Vanished in Hack After FTX Bankruptcy
Ride-share drivers say that the pandemic has exacerbated the imbalance with their overlords.
Jackie Davalos and
Drake Bennett
Subscriber Benefit
Subscribe
Sign In
In 2008, University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein published Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. It’s a breezy tour through behavioral science, especially the ways in which decision-making can be shaped by what the authors call “choice architecture.” When a store puts sugary snacks at eye level so a customer is enticed to buy them, that’s choice architecture, and when credit card companies set low minimum payments to get people to pay interest, that’s choice architecture, too. The book’s argument is that we should enlist so-called nudges to socially beneficial ends, such as automatically enrolling workers in 401(k) plans. In the years since the book’s release, policymakers have occasionally adopted the ideas, with mixed results.
Where nudges have really caught on is in the part of the tech world that uses algorithms to mobilize and manage freelance workforces. Armed with troves of data and the quickly improving capabilities of machine learning, online platforms such as Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. use nudges to coordinate millions of independent workers and extract maximum productivity. This model let Uber scale quickly, with the force of a command-and-control structure, even while corporate framed its drivers as independent, self-directed, and entrepreneurial. The company’s rapid growth was seen as proof that the human-machine relationship could work, and it became a template for a generation of startups looking to take a cut of people’s labor without putting them on staff. The concept of directly connecting customers to contractors paved the way for marketplaces including home-cleaning (Handy), pet-sitting (Rover), and, of course, food-delivering (Grubhub, DoorDash, and Uber again with Uber Eats).
