Bloomberg reported in September 1 local time that recently, a strange phenomenon appeared near the Amazon delivery station in the suburbs of Chicago, USA: a large number of smartphones were hung on trees.
According to informed sources, these mobile phones were put there by contract delivery drivers. These mobile phones are synchronized with those in the driver's hands. Drivers only need to wait nearby to take orders, and some drivers even put several devices on the trees.
According to experts and people familiar with Amazon's operation, the reason why the mobile phone is placed in such a strange position is because taking advantage of the proximity of the mobile phone to the warehouse and constantly monitoring Amazon's dispatching network through software can help drivers get orders from competitors in the first time.
Report screenshot
"The mobile phone in the tree may be the key to getting the 15 distribution fee."
According to reports, in terms of distribution services, Amazon will give priority to sending orders to truck drivers closest to the warehouse according to the positioning of mobile phones. Hanging mobile phones on a tree outside the warehouse will make Amazon mistakenly think that there are people waiting outside to pick up the goods, so that drivers who use these mobile phones can get a higher chance of picking up the goods when they deliver the goods. For example, an Uber-like application called Amazon Flex allows drivers to stay in the car and grab orders for delivery.
Drivers continue to post photos and videos on social media, intending to find better technology to get orders. As early as February this year, the American Consumer News and Business Channel reported that some American drivers continuously monitored Amazon Flex website by installing programs on their smartphones, and automatically obtained any available routes. Those who can't use these methods complain that "unscrupulous drivers" have found a way to operate Amazon's delivery scheduling system.
Bloomberg said that in an internal email it saw, Amazon said it would investigate the matter, but could not disclose the results to the delivery driver. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.
For drivers to take such an extreme approach, Bloomberg analysis believes that this reflects the double-digit unemployment rate in the American economy hit by the epidemic, and people's competition for jobs is extremely fierce. "Just as milliseconds mean millions of dollars to hedge funds using Robotraders, a smart phone in a tree may be the key to getting a delivery fee of $65,438+05 in the first place."
According to the report, in the past, many people who had formal jobs just used platform software to earn some extra money. However, with the rising unemployment rate and shrinking unemployment benefits, more and more people regard it as the main source of income, while fewer and fewer people need taxi service. As a last resort, drivers began to make money by distributing online shopping orders.
On August 27th, local time, the revised data released by the US Department of Commerce showed that the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States decreased by 3 1.7% at an annual rate in the second quarter of this year, the largest quarterly decline since records began. On the other hand, the unemployment rate remains at a high level of double digits.
Just to be quick, the company spent140 thousand dollars.
In fact, in the United States, not only ordinary people will strive for job opportunities by technical means, but also the rich will spend a huge price to compete for trading opportunities.
As we all know, for large commercial and futures exchanges, the unit of time is measured in milliseconds, and the success or failure of a transaction can be decided in an instant. To this end, some high-frequency trading institutions do not hesitate to spend a lot of money to compete for "time."
As early as 20 17, Bloomberg reported that Jump Trading, a high-frequency trading company, spent140,000 US dollars to buy an open space of120,000 square meters next to the data center of Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world's largest futures exchange, just across the road.
Later, Jump Trading built a microwave communication tower in this open space. From then on, when the two organizations communicate again, they can use microwave communication tower to replace the optical fiber communication of Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
For ordinary people, the speed of optical fiber communication is very fast. The commonly used optical fiber is 2/3 times the speed of light, but the speed of microwave can almost reach the speed of light.
Jump Trading did not disclose to the outside world how much faster the communication speed was after the completion of the microwave communication tower. However, when the microwave tower wireless connection is adopted between Nasdaq and CME, the speed is increased by 0.07ms, and the delay is reduced from 4.25ms to 4.18ms.
In his view, the practice adopted by high-frequency trading companies in order to save time is essentially to save their own time, speed up trading, and finally make money more efficiently.
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