The Driver's Seat app is moving to the Workers' Algorithm Observatory

We have some big news to share.

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Driver’s Seat Cooperative is transitioning our tools for gig workers to the Workers' Algorithm Observatory at Princeton University at the end of February. Once the transition is complete, DSC will wind down our own operations. 

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We launched Driver’s Seat five years ago to help gig workers get paid more every day, combat gig companies' use of algorithmic management with tech that workers build themselves, bring honest data into workforce and transportation policymaking, and build a cooperatively-owned business that would sustain our mission.

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We’ve made huge strides toward all of those goals:

• Thousands of ridehail drivers and delivery workers boosted their pay while taking back control of their work by using the Driver’s Seat app’s pay transparency, time and miles tracking, crowdsourced market information, and AI recommendations tools.

• Gig worker organizations like Rideshare Drivers United, Los Deliveristas Unidos, the Colorado Independent Drivers Union, and SEIU used our aggregated datasets to champion pro-worker policies and fight back against gig company misinformation. 

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• Transportation planners at the City of San Francisco, UC Berkeley, and Fehr and Peers partnered with us to analyze the connection between gig worker pay and transportation and environmental outcomes. 

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• We built a model for technology that’s cooperatively owned and directed by its users and beneficiaries. 

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Now, we’re excited to take this opportunity to transition our tools to a new home where they can be used to continue the progress we’ve made. Beginning in March, gig workers, organizers, and policy makers will get the benefits of the Driver’s Seat app and insights via the Workers' Algorithm Observatory (WAO) at Princeton. 

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WAO is a group of researchers and technologists who do amazing work helping gig workers and organizers crowdsource and analyze their own data. Their values center workers, they’re technically creative, and they’re committed to both maintaining and expanding on Driver’s Seat tech. Check out, for example, their work to expose Uber’s unfair cut of driver pay via the FairFare project for a taste of what’s to come. 

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The problems that we set out to address have only gotten more urgent. And our conviction that workers can and should build new tools, new strategies, and new organizations that re-envision work, power, and wealth sharing has only gotten deeper. 

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Between now and the end of March, we’re focused  on creating a smooth transition to the Workers Algorithm Observatory for Driver’s Seat app users and our organizing and policy partners. If you’re a current Driver’s Seat user you’ll get more details about the transition in the app. 

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As soon as the app transition is complete, we’ll begin sharing learning from our experience about where the future of worker power, technology, and shared ownership can and should go. 

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We’ll also be sharing a whole lot of appreciation for the broad community of gig workers, technologists, organizers, transportation planners, advisors, funders and investors who have joined together to build Driver’s Seat and now to make this exciting transition possible. Thank you!

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Follow our blog and Twitter for updates!

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