Online delivery people are the new infrastructure of modern urban life. This is the official announcement from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China. We could see that food delivery people have become important parts of the infrastructure.
It is the pandemic that brought this new infrastructure suddenly and painfully to our awareness. According to Edwards, infrastructures are largely responsible for the sense of stability of life in many dimensions. What we could see during the pandemic was the food delivery guys acting as the vessel of the city to bring convenience to the ordinary, the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. With their sense of mission, they have played an indispensable role in bringing cities that have been hit with the pause button by Covid-19 back to life.
Infrustructures possesses the power to shape human time, shaping the preconditions under which we experience time’s structure and its passage. Edwards used telegraph as an example, by demonstrating its ability to create a sense of simultaneity across huge distance. Nowadays, the apps, like Meituan and Eleme, also create a sense of simultaneity between the users and the shops. For the two sides could hear from each other’s feedbacks.
Not only the infrastructures based on the scale of historical time, but they also exists on large social and economical scales. Food delivery apps are based on the big electronic business companies like Meituan and Elema. They may connect with millions and even billions of individuals and corporate users, who may employ them on a daily basis for a lifetime or more. From the meso scale, food delivery could be seen as a sociotechnical institution, which is a new system of digital convergence. This new system brings us an efficient real-time logistics distribution network, coupled with the operation and deployment of garlic infrastructure supported by advanced technologies such as big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Additionaly, from the micro scale, the user innovation shaped the social role of the food delivery people. Rather than assume that users are powerless pawns of domination corporations or technical systems, technology studies should adopt a “user heuristic.” In the past, the food delivery people were not under the strict control of the algorithm because the users did not have the requirements of time. By accepting the users’ feedbacks, the company would make the servi better for the users, like using the rating system for both of the shops and the delivery guys. Currently, there would also be an ethical discussion on the algorithm that used for the efficiency of food delivery. The companies would make adjustment to their system in order to make this infrastructure more friendly for those who act significant role in it.
In conclusion, as a new infrustructure, food delivery would accelerate the pace of modernity to make people’s life more convenient by updating its technology and inspired by its users’ feedbacks.
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