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spaceobloquy · 1 year ago

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All the Armored Core VI Endings Are Bad

There's been some debate online as to which ending to the game is good and which is bad, and why, and I'm here to tell you that they're all bad in different but more or less equally horrible ways and you're wasting your time defending one over the other. Before we start in on that, let's lay some groundwork. I'd like to credit this video by MadLuigi with helping hone my thoughts, although a lot of the below are my own observations.

Dune & Blade Runner

The first thing you need to know is that Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon (henceforth AC6) is extremely heavily based on the novel Dune and the movie Blade Runner.

The Dune connection is pretty obvious: Coral was originally named Mélange in the leaked information on the game, using the more technical name for the Spice which facilitates future-sight and thus enables FTL travel in the Dune books (among other things). That should tell you all you need to know, but it doesn't stop there. Of course, Rubicon 3 being the only known planet with Coral is just like how Arrakis in Dune is the only source of the Spice Mélange. The currency of all past Armored Core entries were the generically named credits, but in AC6, it's COAM. The big feudal megacorp of Dune, standing in as the space version of the Dutch East India Company, is CHOAM, Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles. While the AC6 currency might either be an acronym or a contraction and its full meaning is unknown, this is more than a coincidence. The Rubicon Liberation Front styling themselves as "Coral Warriors", their use of Coral as a quasi-religious substance and object of worship, and their zealous dogmatism is an obvious reference to Dune's Fremen, and particularly the Fedaykin, or death commandos. Dosers and civilians are kind of like how the people of Arrakis are inadvertently exposed to Spice simply through ambient sources with the Dosers taking Coral recreationally like how Spice is used in coffee, and mealworms raised on Coral being the source of most food on Rubicon 3. All this will be very important to know for the Liberator of Rubicon ending.

The references to Blade Runner are more subtle. While human augmentation (Human PLUS) has a long history in the Armored Core franchise (going back to the first game) and in the cyberpunk genre as a whole (to which AC6 absolutely belongs), one of the progenitors of that genre is Blade Runner (1982), released in the same year as the manga Akira, and predating the genre's "literary" birth with Neuromancer in 1984. Blade Runner has an immense influence on AC6's visual and auditory style, as well as its treatment of augmented humans in a way similar to the Replicants (that is to say, as basically slaves). If you want to see this for yourself, all you have to do is compare AC6's Reveal Trailer with the opening of Blade Runner. You should be able to easily hear how heavily Kota Hoshino and company were influenced by Vangelis's score, as well as see how the visual framing was influenced.

These are not the only references AC6 has or makes, but they form the bedrock of understanding its genre and heritage as a thoroughly dystopian cyberpunk work.

Coral

AC6 revolves around Coral, and you need to understand that Coral is also a number of allusions wrapped up into one. While at heart an alien substance of biological origin (but not necessarily a lifeform unto itself) which mimics Dune's Spice Melange, it also evokes many other things:

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Permet: Permet is a mineral which facilitates remote data connections and is used to enhance various technological products, as well as augmenting humans. In sufficient quantity, if activated correctly, it can also modify local spacetime conditions, and can even host conscious minds. Sound familiar? This is likely a case of simultaneous parallel evolution rather than direct reference, as G-Witch came out so near the end of the game's development, but the similarities with Coral are hard to ignore. I'm not the first to draw this connection.

The Andromeda Strain - Andromeda: The titular Andromeda is a biological organism from Earth's upper atmosphere which directly converts energy to matter and which is capable of rapid mutation; it goes from crystalizing blood upon initial landfall on the planet to eventually consuming rubber and plastic near the book's conclusion. Andromeda's ability to self-replicate using almost any source of energy and to mutate to fit its environment is obviously reflected in Coral being able to grow best in space and experiencing Mutation Waves.

Mythology - Red Mercury: A purely fictional substance, red mercury is supposedly involved in nuclear weapons manufacture or capable of being used as an extremely potent chemical explosive rivaling nuclear weapons in destructive ability depending on who one asks. Coral's combustibility and color is a fairly obvious allusion to this or something like it.

Real Life - Nuclear Weapons: It should probably come as no surprise to you that due to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and more recently the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, that Japan has long had a fascination with and revulsion toward nuclear weapons. Coral is an explicit reference to nuclear weapons technology, taking the place of a sci-fi equivalent to them: a nuke greater than nukes. You can tell because the visual language of the Fires of Ibis directly references nuclear test footage:

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The destruction of the Grid system is visually a direct allusion to test examples of nuclear destruction.

Rubiconians

When I refer here to Rubiconians, I refer explicitly to Coral-based intelligence like Ayre, not the human population of Rubicon 3. This is an important distinction. It's also important to understand that intelligences like Ayre are a relatively recent phenomenon. We know this because the game tells us so:

The Mutation Wave detected at Watchpoint Delta, which 621 liberates by destroying the regulator, is Ayre, who subsequently makes Contact with 621. We know this because ALLMIND will also refer to Ayre as a "C-pulse wave mutation—Ayre" in the Alea Iacta Est ending mission. In other words, Ayre is relatively new. Coral has not traditionally manifested sapient personalities on Rubicon 3, certainly not prior to the arrival of humanity. Ayre is a direct reaction to humanity's actions. Given Ayre is a Wave Mutation, although she (and ALLMIND) refer to other Coral as her siblings, it is not at all clear that they are self-aware in the same sense as she is. She seems to be unique among Coral, which is why she and 621 are the triggers for Coral Release in ALLMIND's ending—only they have properly made Contact.

This should immediately make you suspicious for two reasons.

Firstly, humans are the way they are because of a long evolutionary process which begat physical, corporeal bodies, eventually resulting in anatomically modern humans that think and express in the ways we are familiar with. Coral does not have any of these constraints, and therefore should not naturally produce anything resembling a human mind, and yet Ayre seems remarkably human without having any of the physical neurological structure or evolutionary history to support that human mentality. This is extremely unlikely to happen purely by random chance.

Secondly, we learn over the course of the game that Ayre is capable of hacking, cracking, searching, and understanding human communication and data systems to an impossibly advanced degree. This is proven in small ways over the course of the campaign where she helps 621 out with locked systems—often to Walter's surprise—but is most grandly demonstrated in the Fires of Raven ending, when she takes over the PCA's abandoned Closure System to try and shoot down the Xylem, a feat which Carla asserts would be impossible for the corporations to do—and Carla is the best and brightest survivor of the Rubicon Research Institute. In other words, Ayre is capable of breaking into any piece of human technology, and can also easily determine what ALLMIND is doing despite encryption and it covering its tracks.

Ayre also has access to another piece of technology which is outfitted with a Coral transceiver: 621. Ayre is most likely readily able to approximate a human in mindset and expression because she's hooked up to a human full of human memories.

This is not to say that Ayre is or isn't deceiving 621 as to what she is. It's not clear how sincere or not Ayre is. It's not clear how truthfully she is presenting herself and her agenda. She could be perfectly earnest and forthright, or she could absolutely be presenting 621 with what she thinks 621 needs to hear to do what is best for Coral and using 621 as a tool and means to an end, or anything in between. She could be benevolent and a true believer in symbiosis, or she could be using 621 to liberate Coral so that it may parasitize humanity. It's worth noting here that the easiest means of hacking systems is social engineering, and that 621 was specifically targeted for Contact.

What you're really presented with in AC6 is an Outside Context Problem: you are interfacing with an alien entity that certainly seems to be sapient, agreeable, helpful, and wanting only the best for you and humanity as a whole. But does it really? The game is essentially about who you decide to trust as you make a decision on an evolutionary question about the future of humanity.

Are human morality and ethics, and a willingness to be open and inclusive and welcoming, an evolutionarily adaptive trait? Or are they, in this case, maladaptive? Or... neither? Is trusting Ayre a good idea?Or Rusty? Or Walter and Carla? Or even ALLMIND? Or is the road to Hell paved with good intentions?

The truth is... all your choices are bad.

Ending: Fires of Raven

Walter and Carla's point—and that of Overseer and Professor Nagai of the Rubicon Research Institute—is fairly easy to understand. If nuclear bombs could self-replicate and were also sapient, would you allow them to do so just because they asked nicely? Or would you consider that to be a threat to not just humanity, but all life on Earth? They see the question of Coral as this hypothetical writ large, because Coral can replicate endlessly throughout space.

If one planet's worth of Coral can burn and contaminate an entire star system (or several; the game isn't quite clear on how many systems were affected), then what could a star system's worth of it do? How about several star systems? Or an entire galaxy? Coral is potentially a threat to the entire universe if it's allowed to get off of Rubicon 3. That Coral can also be ignited at any time by any sufficient explosion or natural phenomena; solar flares, supernova, nuclear bombs, even a sufficient chemical explosive or friction heating can ignite it. It could all go off for any reason at any time. Coral will present a threat as long as it exists, because there will always be those who seek to claim its power as their own for whatever ends: "Where there's Coral, there's blood."

The calculation as far as Overseer is concerned is simple: burn Rubicon 3, everyone on it, and everyone near it to save the rest of humanity and the universe at large. The casualties are collateral damage compared to the stakes. There are far, far more humans elsewhere than there are on Rubicon 3, and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Is that right? Is it right to make Coral extinct, and genocide those on Rubicon 3, to save the rest of humanity, which apparently lives under an oppressively hypercapitalist megacorporate dystopia?

(It's worth noting at this point that the PCA is not the military of some grand government off to one side somewhere, like the UNSC Navy. It's its own entity and is effectively the Rubicon space police. This is reflected not only in its ship design, but in its ranks ("high-ranking officers" in the PCA are First Lieutenants and Captains, which are junior officers in an army or air force, but high ranks among police), in its language (the PCA treats resistance as a "declaration of war" upon itself, not any government it represents), in its ability to be banished from Rubicon 3 and an inability to reinforce from anywhere else, from the PCA's System AI being buried in the depths leading to Institute City, from the its terminology (Ekdromoi, CATAPHRACT, and NEPENTHES are all references to ancient Greece, notably dominated by city-states), and from the fact that in the Fires of Raven ending, despite being disgraced and shattered it's still in a position to negotiate, which would have been taken over by a higher authority above it after its dismal performance if any such authority existed. The PCA was most likely set up by the corporations (or perhaps planetary-level governments) as an independent actor after the Fires of Ibis. There is no grander government out there to save the day, and Armored Core as a franchise has never centered governments outside of Armored Core 2: Another Age.)

Some say yes, for the reasons Overseer gestures at. It's simply too dangerous to let it live, whether it's exploited by corporations or not, whether it achieves a Coral Collapse or not. It's also not talked about much, but an entity like Ayre also represents an infinitely more capable danger than one like ALLMIND; all she might need is time to gather resources.

Some say no, arguing that entities like Ayre have as much right to exist as humans, and that extinguishing them is not only repeating humanity's greatest crimes but denying its future improvement. It becomes tempting at this point to draw historical parallels, but the truth is that any such parallels are of dubious applicability considering human-on-human violence is not the same as interspecies violence against aliens, which humanity has (seemingly) never encountered, let alone aliens which are effectively weapons of mass destruction unto themselves. Some go even further and suggest humanity as it exists within AC6 is not worthy of survival, which is a much more suspect argument which frankly reeks of ecofascism.

The answer is: it depends on your risk assessment. Neither we the players, nor 621, know enough to actually make a truly informed choice. All the people who do and who aren't blinded by greed and power lust (that is to say, Walter, Carla, and Nagai) think it's the right thing to do. Do you trust them? It's ultimately your judgment call.

If you take the Fires of Raven ending, you (supposedly) destroy all the Coral, purge life from Rubicon 3 and its system, and cripple human civilization at large. Walter, Carla, Chatty, Rusty, Ayre, and everyone else all die. 621 is perhaps the sole survivor. It seems the Fires of Raven are grander than the Fires of Ibis, and the disgraced PCA and depleted remnants of Arquebus and Balam agree to abandon Rubicon 3 as they try to rebuild. 621, as Raven, goes down in history as the greatest monster of all time.

It is, however, entirely possible, given FROMSOFTWARE's Dark Souls series, that the Fires of Raven is merely the second in a never-ending line of humanity having to return to Rubicon 3 to ignite more Fires again and again, in a kind of grim echo of "linking the fire" in the first Dark Souls.

But what if I told you that the reason this ending is bad isn't necessarily because of the apparent extinction of Coral, or all the deaths both personal and statistical? Those are bad things, to be sure, but the real tragedy of the ending is you failed to actually engage with the problem Coral represents. You threw the baby out with the bathwater, and although you may or may not have prevented a Coral Collapse, you did nothing to change humanity's dystopian reality, and actually only made it worse by making it post-apocalyptic on top of everything else.

This fundamental issue—not really engaging with the problem—is true for the other endings as well. Each is an all-or-nothing solution to the problems at hand, and that is why they are all bad. Let's skip over to...

Ending: Alea Iacta Est

In this ending, Ayre lives, as does maybe Rusty, but you kill Chatty and ALLMIND kills Walter and Carla. ALLMIND betrays you, you fight the personality upload of G5 Iguazu, and finally defeat ALLMIND, but initiate ALLMIND's Coral Release program yourself.

What happens next is... unclear. Interpretations of it vary.

To me, it appears to be a kind of transcendent technological singularity wherein Coral, humanity, and humanity's technology in the form of Armored Cores, all unite together to create new kinds of beings beyond time and space, and beyond even death itself. The closest analogy to this is probably the Human Instrumentality Project in Neon Genesis Evangelion, or the "stargate sequence" in 2001: A Space Odyssey where Bowman is uploaded into the Monolith and becomes the Star Child. Or, to return to Dune once again, Leto II's symbiosis with the Sand Trout of Arrakis to become a human/Sandworm hybrid. Given the other ACs present in the ending, this appears to not be limited to 621, but likely extends to everyone on Rubicon 3, if not all of humanity. Another analogy might be the true ending of Bloodborne, but on a much grander scale.

This has the same problem as a sort of similar ending from the Mass Effect series, Mass Effect 3's Symbiosis ending. While in that game, BioWare attempted to make it the "correct" choice by showing everyone happy and satisfied with it in its ending cinematic, the truth is that nothing can possibly be a grander violation of the rights of sapient beings than forcing them into a new mode of existence which is discontinuous with their lives theretofore. It is not simply a violation of individual decision-making ability, it is a violation of bodily autonomy and control—it is rape, by the commonly understood definition, as rape is truly about bodily power over others and not sex, and it is the most egregious kind of rape imaginable: becoming something else entirely beyond human. This is effectively an eldritch body horror ending in which somewhere between Rubicon 3 and the entirety of humanity, if not the entire universe, appears to have been raped in an irrevocable fashion.

Whatever its exact nature, this ending has the same problems as the Fires of Raven: it does not actually engage with any extant problems at hand, it simply throws the baby out with the bathwater. In this case, rather than it being Coral that's disposed of, it's humanity itself, as V.III O'Keeffe feared when you were sent to eliminate him on the road to this ending. Humans aren't human anymore. None of humanity's issues were actually dealt with, they were simply disposed of wholesale with humanity having been deemed unworthy of any expenditure of effort, merely replacement through upgrading.

And here we come to...

Ending: Liberator of Rubicon

On the surface, this seems like the good ending, which is why most people call it that. Ayre lives, although 621 has to personally kill Walter, Carla, and Chatty, and it seems like Rusty is killed. The RLF takes control of Rubicon 3. 621 and Ayre look to the cosmos with hopeful optimism. What's not to like?

Except... remember Dune? This is the ending of Dune.

Do you know what happens after Paul Atreides and the Fremen defeat Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV and House Harkonnen on Arrakis, and Paul becomes Emperor himself? I'll tell you. His fanatical Fremen warriors spread his name throughout the rest of human space in Muad'Dib's Jihad, conservatively killing 61 billion people, mostly serfs and peasants and those who refused to forsake their faith.

Now you might say that Ayre and 621 don't want that to happen, but that's the point: it's not their choice to make, it's the RLF's. Paul didn't want it to happen in Dune either, he simply knew he couldn't stop it.

What exactly do you think is going to happen now that the faith of the Coral Warriors of the RLF is affirmed as righteous and true, now that they've defeated the PCA and corporations, now that they're in possession of all the Coral and all the Rubicon Research Institute's technology? What do you think Elcano is going to do with that research, alongside BAWS? Do you think they're going to just secure the system and be content?

Also, if Coral and humanity are to coexist together, doesn't that mean both growing in kind, together, as Ayre says? Doesn't that mean Coral augmentation surgery for everyone, with all the drawbacks that has? Or, at least, every human being a Doser to commune with Coral? What about all those who had Coral-replacement augmentation surgery, which negated the need for relying on Coral in the first place? Are they not automatically a threat to the new order, which must be destroyed to safeguard it?

Think that sounds too grim?

Don't you think it's odd that this ending comes with no narrated epilogue like Fires of Raven does, telling you what happened afterward? Instead you get Ayre telling you simply:

"Raven… One day, humanity and Coral will thrive together. You kept our potential safe. I know Walter feared a Collapse… but I promise you, there's another way. Raven… we'll find it. Together."

That sounds quite hopeful, but personally I key in on two particular phrases: one day, and we'll find it together. They remind me of something from another franchise:

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Palpatine seduces Anakin to the Dark Side of the Force by dangling the prospect of cheating death in front of him, preying on Anakin's fear of visions of Padmé dying. After Anakain has committed to betraying his allies and helped kill Mace Windu, Palpatine admits:

"To cheat death is a power only one has achieved, but if we work together I know we can discover the secret."

I find Ayre's very similar speech after 621 has betrayed and killed Carla, Chatty, and Walter to be... uninspiring... personally.

Now, I'm not telling you that Ayre is Darth Sidious or a Sith Lord, although it sure is interesting Coral is red.

What I am telling you is to remember that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and where there's Coral, there's blood. You shouldn't naïvely assume that the story so heavily influenced by Dune, which is at this point directly referencing Dune, will stray very far from it, no matter how good Ayre's intentions might actually be. Because if Ayre is genuine, then she's exceptionally naïve herself, as we see from her reactions to ALLMIND's plans in Alea Iacta Est.

Even if no Dune-like Jihad sweeps AC6's universe, all the problems posed by Coral detonations and Wave Mutations and Coral Collapse still remain.

This ending, too, throws the baby out with the bathwater: instead of losing Coral, or overtly losing humanity, we have instead decided to discard the grim hypercapitalist megacorporate dystopia for a grim ultrafanatical cult religion dystopia which will also probably be even worse and/or the omnipresent threat of total mass destruction. In The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce gave the following definition:

Conservative (n.) A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

If the Fires of Raven is conservative, preserving the status quo and its existing evils and making them worse, then both Alea Iacta Est and Liberator of Rubicon are liberal, ushering in different horrors which are only refreshing in so far as they are different than the ones that came before.

If Balam and Arquebus stand in for, oh, say, Amazon and Apple, then the RLF stands in for ISIS or Al Qaeda or the Shining Path. This is not a happy and uplifting ending, it's simply different and arranged to feel good in the moment to those who don't know what the game is drawing upon so it can pull the rug out from under them later.

Avatar

Since Dune has featured so prominently in this essay, I want to take a moment to talk about James Cameron's Avatar (2009), which has over time variously been derided as a rip-off of Dune, or Dances With Wolves or FernGully: The Last Rainforest in space, among other things. You might be asking why, so I'll cut to the chase.

The problem with Avatar is that nothing is actually resolved. Although Jake Sully's defection to the Na'vi results in the human Resources Development Administration being driven from Pandora, their hunger for unobtanium isn't quenched. Earth's resource crisis isn't solved. The shadowy elites ruling over humanity are still in charge. Nothing actually changes, problems are merely kicked down the road. The reason for this is simple: individual actions cannot solve systemic problems, whatever that systemic problem might be, be it classism, racism, environmental degradation, or so on.

In AC6, we observe systemic problems in the form of humanity's capture by corporations and bureaucracies that serve profits or power and not the common good, and the persistent problem of Coral which must be managed somehow. We do not actually resolve either of those issues as 621. We simply upset the balance one way or another and let the chips fall where they may, invoking this or that abhorrent deus ex machina.

Conclusion

While Fires of Raven represents the status quo (and stagnation and decay), Liberator of Rubicon represents the chaos of change (and likely war and fire) and Alea Iacta Est represents a fundamental rejection of humanity.

621 never actually lives up to the reputation of Raven in choosing a path of their own making. All the endings simply involve 621 choosing to trust one party or another, be it Walter and Carla and Nagai, or Ayre, or ALLMIND, rather than truly coming to their own decisions and directly addressing the actual problems at hand. This is represented in how the player is always held back until they have to deal with Xylem about to hit the Vascular Plant one way or another.

While I said that individual actions cannot solve systemic problems, they can begin to show the way toward systematic approaches to systemic problems. This is what we're told Raven represents when they're introduced properly, and also seems to be what Branch as a faction stand for. (It's notable here that when we meet Branch in NG+/NG++, they're working against the RLF, despite having previously fought the PCA.) It's also a video game, and thus is really about a power fantasy, but there's no power fantasy here. The game is never actually about your choice, it's only about who you choose to side with...

... And all the options they present you with are bad.

If there was to be an expansion, as with so many other FROMSOFTWARE games, I would hope it would be one focused around actually resolving the situation in a way of our own choosing, because that option is sorely lacking in an otherwise fantastic game.

#Out Of Character #Long Post #Meta #Armored Core VI #Armored Core 6 #Rape Mention TW #Genocide Mention TW #Death Mention TW #Spoilers TW

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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In 2020, Nazia was working at a data entry office in Hyderabad, but dreamed of being a beautician. Then, on YouTube, she saw a video about Urban Company, a platform similar to the US site TaskRabbit, which promises to connect workers—plumbers, electricians, painters, beauticians, and others—with clients who need their services. Workers who join the platform as beauticians often pay upward of $500 to register and receive a salon equipment kit. For Nazia, it felt like an investment worth taking.

When it launched in 2014, Urban Company was revolutionary for India’s disjointed home services market, providing customers with vetted and trained workers through an easy-to-use interface. Nazia was one of tens of thousands of workers who joined the platform, which grew and grew thanks to consecutive rounds of fundraising from investors including Tiger Global and Prosus Ventures, becoming the largest home services provider in India, valued at almost $3 billion. Then it expanded into the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. In 2023, it launched in the US.

For workers it promised an opportunity to work flexibly, and earn well. In 2020, Fair Work, a research group that studies gig work companies, rated the company the best for workers in India, giving it a score of eight out of 10 on parameters that include fair pay and working conditions. (Uber scored one out of 10).

Nazia got stellar ratings and reviews from customers on the platform—so much so that she was invited to pay $300 to upgrade her account to Prime, which gave her access to better-paying jobs.

“Everything was going great,” she says. “With the money I made, I was able to help my family, buy a two-wheeler, and save money for my wedding.”

Urban Company fostered an identity for itself that was different from other gig work platforms, particularly for women. But since the start of the year, things have gone downhill, fast. Thousands of workers have found themselves arbitrarily dumped from the platform for not meeting new targets that they say have been set unattainably high. Nazia is among them. The platform, it seems, is subject to the same cycle of “enshittification” as its peers, sacrificing the incentives it had offered to get workers onto the platform in order to turn a profit—and abandoning its promises of flexibility in the process.

Urban Company declined to comment.

The first sign of trouble at Urban Company started in 2021, as the pandemic hit the home services business. The company slipped in Fairwork’s rankings, scoring five out of 10. Workers twice held protests demanding lower commissions and safer working conditions. After a media storm, Urban Company published a Medium blog introducing a “12 point program” to “improve partner earnings and livelihood”—which included lowering commissions and introducing an SOS helpline for women’s safety. In an attempt to be more transparent, the company started publishing a partner earnings index, but it also filed lawsuits against four protesters for “illegal and unlawful” actions.

But things got really difficult for Urban Company’s workers in 2023. The platform introduced a new rule stipulating that workers had to maintain an acceptance rate of at least 70 percent, a customer rating of at least 4.7 out of 5, and cancel fewer than four jobs per month. Failure meant being blocked from the app. Nazia managed to keep her ratings above 4.8 until May 2023, when they slipped to 4.69. She was temporarily blocked and put into “retraining”—an online video course followed by 10 bookings that she had to take free of charge in an attempt to boost her rating. Unfortunately, for Nazia, her rating did not budge from 4.69. Since then, she’s been out of work.

“It all happened so quickly,” Nazia says. Now she’s stuck with $2,500 in loans.

I spoke to more than a dozen women like Nazia, all of whom asked for anonymity to protect themselves from retribution and say they were blocked by the platform after failing to meet what they believe were unrealistic expectations.

In Bengaluru, Shabnam—who used a friend’s credit card to pay the $500 joining fee—found that Urban Company started assigning her jobs farther and farther away from home. With rising costs and high commissions, taking these distant trips was “as good as earning nothing,” she says. She turned down the jobs that weren’t economically viable, and soon her response rate—the number of jobs she accepted—dropped to 20 percent. In June, she was dropped from the platform.

Seema, who had worked for Urban Company for five years, had a miscarriage earlier this year. As she was being rushed to the hospital, she didn’t have time to mark in the Urban Company app that she wasn’t able to work that day. Her acceptance rate of bookings fell to 30 percent. She couldn’t get her rate back up to the mandated 80 percent, and she was permanently suspended from the platform. “I went to the office with the doctor’s prescription and everything. They still did not agree to reinstate my account,” Seema says.

In Hyderabad, Sunanda says her account was deactivated earlier this year after a death in the family meant she had to cancel some jobs. She pleaded with a company representative on its helpline and in person—she even submitted the death certificate, but she’s still blocked. “They said they cannot reinstate my account because my rating is not 4.7 or above. I told them my rating is 4.69 and if they give me a chance I will bring it back up, but they refused,” Sunanda, 42, said. “They have given the customers this one weapon: ratings.”

As well as the stick of targets and quotas, Urban Company also offered a carrot for workers: shares in the business.

In 2022, the company announced its Partner Stock Options Program (PSOP), granting shares worth $18 million over the next five to seven years. The following November, they awarded stocks worth approximately $635,000 to 500 partners. But while the PSOPs seemed to be almost guaranteed for workers, the process of accessing them is heavily gamified.

Pratima, an Urban Company beautician, was very excited at the end of 2022 when she realized she’d made it to the top 10 list of workers in her category in Bengaluru. If she continued to stay in the top 10 until April, she was told she’d be granted the company’s stock options that following November. “They call us partners, but don’t treat us like it,” said Pratima, requesting to be referred to under a pseudonym. “I was hoping that if I get a share in the company, maybe then I will be treated like a partner.”

By February, Pratima had completed more than 200 jobs, and she was still in the top 10. Then, a series of low ratings by disgruntled customers pulled down her overall rating, blocking her temporarily and dropping her off the leaderboard. She kept at it, worked back-to-back jobs, and got herself unblocked and back into the rankings. April came around, and she was in the top 10. But then the company seemed to have extended the contest—the leaderboard has kept on counting, but the workers don’t know what’s going on. “It’s like they are making us run a marathon in the name of shares,” she says.

For women who were sold Urban Company’s promises of flexibility and empowerment, the shock of losing their livelihood or being forced to work longer and longer hours has been exacerbated by a sense of betrayal.

“For women especially, a lot of times they have care responsibilities at home, and so there’s hope to find work that’s flexible, that allows them to pick up their kids from school or take junior to the doctor,” says Alexandrea Ravenelle, an author of two books on gig work and a sociology assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. “A lot of these platforms are playing off of that need for flexibility because, for many of the workers who are coming to these platforms, an alternative isn’t a white-collar job in a tech office where they can bring the play pen and set the kid up.”

The mismatch between the promise of these platforms and their reality becomes clear when the businesses move from their early growth phase, in which they are able to burn investors’ cash, to one where they have to start to turn a profit.

When two-sided marketplaces that match workers with clients grow, they try to make things as comfortable as possible for workers to create a deep pool of available services. “The shortcut way to do this is to offer incentives to them—be it sellers, drivers, or other gig workers—showing them that this is a lucrative business,” says Rutvik Doshi, a general partner at VC firm Athera Venture Partners.

Companies spend big on marketing as they try to grow as fast as possible (during the 2021–2022 financial year, Urban Company spent close to $30 million on marketing and clocked a loss of over $60 million), working on the assumption that one day the demand for their services will become organic, the suppliers will start making enough money without incentives, and the platform will be able to raise the commissions it takes off its workers.

But when this doesn’t happen, companies desperately rework their models. When they need to curb spending, or when they struggle to raise new funding, marketing is the first thing they cut. Demand drops, creating an oversupply of workers on the platform. “And the excessive supply on the platforms feels the pinch. That’s the typical cycle with a two-sided marketplace,” Doshi says.

On July 10, Urban Company CEO Abhiraj Bahl released a video to the company’s workers explaining the new strict policies. He said that each year, 45 percent of customers use the platform just once and don’t make a second booking, while 15 to 20 percent of workers leave. “And as a result of all of this, Urban Company is still a loss-making company,” he said in the video, part of which has been viewed by WIRED. “So we are losing customers and we are also losing money.”

He blamed the decline in customers on “poor quality service” and “off-platform jobs”—that is, workers making private arrangements with clients and taking their work off Urban Company, something that’s a serious risk to the company’s model. “It’s kind of an existential question: They need the workers and the customers to stay on their platform in order to remain an intermediary,” says Ambika Tandon, a tech and labor researcher at the Center for Internet and Society think tank.

All of this has led the company to push its workers into a mold that essentially has all the downsides of regular employment but few of the benefits. For workers who joined the platform for its flexibility and autonomy, this reality of platform work becomes difficult to reconcile with.

“Urban Company is trying to imagine an ideal worker for this particular model to be someone who is always available, gives their 100 percent, [doesn’t] cancel at all, has no family responsibilities,” Tandon says. “But a lot of these workers are single parents, who have family responsibility and children to take care of. These are not folks who will fit into this model of having a 80 percent, 90 percent acceptance rate.”

In June, WhatsApp groups used by Urban Company workers were flooded with messages about one of their peers, who had reportedly died by suicide after the company deactivated her account—leaving her with no source of income. Several workers I spoke with said that while the news was shocking, none of them knew the victim. “We were vexed,” Seema from Bengaluru says, “But the problem is that all of us are so isolated from each other. The platform doesn’t have any get-togethers, nothing. We all don’t have any relationships, which is a plus point for Urban Company.”

But, like their peers across the platform economy, Urban Company workers are now getting organized. In June and July, hundreds of Urban Company workers took to the streets in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Kolkata. Shabnam was present at one of the protests last month in Bengaluru, demanding that the company reinstate her account. With this, they have joined thousands of Indian gig workers from Uber, Ola, Swiggy, Blinkit and more.

There have been at least half a dozen such protests across different cities in India since the beginning of the year—all of them essentially fighting for the same reasons: better pay and working conditions, a ban on unfair practices, and laws governing gig work that workers can lean on for safety and protection. “It’s not just Urban Company that has been blocking accounts,” said Shaik Salauddin, founder of Telangana Gig and Platform Worker Union. “Ola, Uber, Swiggy, Zomato, Amazon, Flipkart—all aggregator companies are doing this.”

Rikta Krishnaswamy, a coordinator with the All India Gig Workers Union, said that the union has had conversations with the labor departments across different cities, including Delhi and Pune. Another meeting is coming up in Mumbai. “We have raised complaints against these illegal dismissals, and the labor departments in Delhi, Noida, and Gurugram have sent notices to the company for a meeting,” she said. “Let’s see if they actually show up.”

Some of the workers whose accounts were blocked have been able to get it reinstated, provided their rating was not lower than 4.7 and they weren’t blocked for trust and safety issues. But, if the video shared by Bahl is any indication, things are only going to get worse by the end of the year. The company has launched a salon quality improvement program called Project Shakti, under which, by December, the performance metrics are going to get even stricter for beauticians: an acceptance rate greater than 80 percent, no more than three monthly cancellations, and “100 percent orders delivered on UC app only.” The rating threshold will continue to be at a minimum of 4.7.

The new policy is being hammered home. Workers whose accounts have been reinstated and those already active on the platform are being called for a meeting to the Urban Company office in small groups of around 10. Some have to watch Bahl’s video. Then they are presented with new terms and conditions to sign, which include consent for them to be permanently blocked from the platform if they miss their targets.

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uniquesdata · 8 months ago

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Benefits of Outsourcing Data Digitization Services

Outsourcing data digitization is one of the novel ways for organizations to manage their crucial data in an organized format in a single database. Outsourcing helps to save crucial time for business and have efficient results for data management.

✅Hire Uniquesdata as the best and most reliable outsourcing data digitization partner for result-oriented outcomes.

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cargoconnect · 2 years ago

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5 ways to make your fulfillment center run more efficiently

Running a fulfillment center can be extremely challenging in today’s complex and challenging business environment. As an online seller, it's important to ensure that your fulfillment center runs efficiently to meet the demands of your customers. In this blog, we will explore the best five ways to make your fulfillment center run more efficiently.

Optimize your inventory management system

Managing your inventory is one of the most important aspects of running a fulfillment center efficiently. An effective inventory management system can help you track your stock levels and ensure that you have enough products on hand to meet customer demand. Use inventory management software that integrates with your order management system to help you track inventory in real time and avoid stockouts. Utilize demand forecasting to make sure you have enough inventory to fulfill orders during peak demand periods.

Implement efficient picking and packing processes

Picking and packing are the two most critical processes in the order fulfillment cycle. Optimize your picking and packing processes by grouping orders by proximity, picking in batches, and using barcode scanning to avoid errors. Use automation and packing materials that are appropriate for the product being shipped to ensure that items arrive in good condition. You can also implement a quality control process to ensure accuracy and minimize errors.

Invest in automation

Automation can help you improve efficiency and reduce labor costs. Consider investing in automation tools such as conveyor belts, sortation systems, and robots to streamline your fulfillment process. Automation can also help you increase throughput and accuracy, reduce manual labor, and minimize errors. On the other hand, instead of installing all these tools, you can simply partner with NimbusPost, a tech-enabled shipping aggregator that already has 540 fully-equipped facilities and several types of warehouses to provide easy order fulfillment.

Streamline your shipping process

Shipping is a crucial aspect of fulfillment. To make your shipping process more efficient, use shipping software that integrates with your order management system. This can help you automate shipping label generation and reduce manual data entry. Choose a reliable courier service in India or a global shipping partner to ensure timely delivery and track your shipments in real time.

Train and empower your staff

Your employees are the backbone of your fulfillment center. To improve efficiency, provide regular training to ensure that they understand their roles and responsibilities. Empower your staff by giving them the tools and resources they need to succeed, such as mobile devices for picking and packing or access to real-time inventory information. Encourage open communication and solicit feedback to identify opportunities for improvement.

Conclusion

There are several ways to make your fulfillment center run more efficiently. You can follow the mentioned ways to improve your fulfillment center’s efficiency or just hire a solid shipping aggregator to get everything handled without stress at the best rates

#fulfilment #logistic services #Courier partners

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datainox · 2 months ago

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Outsourcing Data Entry Services Help You Stay Competitive

Data is a crucial resource that demands precise management and secured storage. With accurate data entry services, companies can create a solid database that streamlines the workflow and gives them a competitive edge in the market. Read more to learn how data entry services are useful for businesses.

#data entry services #outsource data entry services #outsourcing data entry #data entry service providers #outsource data entry #data entry india #data entry services india #data entry services in india #outsource online data entry

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gtechwebindia1 · 2 months ago

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Seamless Data Entry Services for Streamlined Business Operations

Our experts team for data entry services ensuring speed, accuracy with confidently all business requirements. We provides error-free data entry services at large scale to maintain smooth operations of organization.

#Data Entry Services #Product Entry Services #Data Entry and Product Entry Services #online data entry services in India

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udyamregistration1 · 11 hours ago

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Digital Transformation for Small Businesses: How Udyam Registration Catalyzes Digital Growth

For those who think that digital transformation is not an option now, but rather a do-it-now affair in this fast-moving landscape, for micro, small, and medium enterprises or MSMEs, the adoption of digital tools will make them efficient, competitive, and scalable. Udyam Registration assumes significance in making it possible for these enterprises in India. The article attempts to examine the concept of digital transformation for small-scale businesses and how Udyam Registration works as an enabler.

What is Digital Transformation for Small Businesses?

Digital transformation, in general, means the application of technology to every dimension of the business processes towards making a better process with increased experience in customers, and even the creation of new opportunities:

• Cloud Computing; makes businesses scalable.

• E-commerce Platforms; mean reaching larger audiences

• It Saves Time and Cost

Advantages of Digital Transformation for Small Businesses

• Cost-effective: Automating mundane chores eradicates extra overheads.

• The reach to the market becomes possible by digital channels alone.

• Better Decision: Data analytics offers actionable input.

• Customer Engagement: One-to-one marketing creates brand loyalty.

Why Udyam Registration Matters to Small Businesses?

Udyam registration is the plan taken by the Government of India to make udyam registration for MSMEs less complicated and provide legal recognition to them. It provides an entry point by which small businesses can avail themselves of many schemes and benefits designed by the government to support digital transformation.

Critical Benefits of Udyam Registration:

1. Fiscal Incentives:

Udyam-registered businesses can use the available software tools, low-interest loans, and easy credit facilities to invest in the digital infrastructure

2. Market Access and Growth Opportunities

The GeM registration allows for accessing the Government e-marketplace (GeM) e-procurement platforms

3. Training and Skill Development

Once registered, MSME gets access to training to implement and use digital tools effectively

4. Tax Benefits:

Most of the small business companies have various tax rebates, and that saves funds for technological upgradation.

5. Global Competitiveness:

Digital transformation makes small business enterprises globally competitive and Udyam Registration provides most of the required certifications for International business.

How Udyam Registration Enhances Digital Growth?

Availability of Funds for Digital Tools:

MSMEs get subsidies along with priority lending schemes and can invest in CRM software, ERP systems, digital marketing platforms, etc.

Digitally Integrated Ecosystem:

Udyam registered businesses have access to GeM and other digital payment gateways; it is a fully integrated digital ecosystem.

Business Credibility:

Udyam Certificate facilitates credibility in business and easier cooperation, It makes the clients feel comfortable in forging online partnerships.

Ease of operations:

Digitized processes facilitated by government initiatives help companies in automating the management of the supply chain, tracking inventories, and relating with customers for smooth-running.

Government Compliance Guide for MSMEs Going Digital:

1. Updates on Policy Change of MSME:

Go upward every time to discover each update in policy so the MSME will be rightly up to date about such laws and regulations, for it not miss or fall behind.

2. Data Privacy:

Companies now digitally advance with strong Cybersecurity in place to protect confidential details of their company.

3. Only Registered Software SHALL Be Used:

Use the legitimate software software and, from hereon, get updated and steer clear of legal issues.

4. Training Programs:

Take advantage of digital literacy programs from the government to implement for your employees to unleash the full potential of digital tools.

Conclusion:

Digital transformation proves to be a game-changer for small businesses to flourish in a competitive market by Udyam Registration acts as catalysts that make resources and financial support easily available to them along with other opportunities for digital integration on which they should look and improve their function and scale up the business to seek sustainable growth for MSMEs.

Whether you are just starting or scaling up, your starting point for an empowered digital future is Udyam registration.

#udyam registration #udyam certificate

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kumard12 · 18 hours ago

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A Business Lawyer's Perspective on Relaxed FDI Norms of Space & Other Sectors

“India now permits up to 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) in space sectors like satellite manufacturing and operation, satellite data products, and ground segment and user segment. “

- Archana Rao, India Briefing

India's Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy has undergone significant changes in recent years, reflecting the government's commitment to enhancing the country's investment climate. Asbusiness lawyersand legal experts closely monitor these developments, it's crucial to understand the latest shifts in FDI regulations, particularly in the newly relaxed FDI norms for the space sector and other key areas as talked about by Vaneesa Agrawal in her Thinking Legal article, “Government Relaxes FDI Norms For Single Brand Retail.”

Recent Developments in the Space Sector

In April 2024, the Indian government announced substantial reforms in its FDI policy for the space sector, allowing 100% foreign investment under the automatic route. This marks a significant shift in the country's approach to space-related activities.

Vaneesa Agrawal, founder of Thinking Legal and a seasoned business lawyer specialising in early-stage investments, comments: "The space sector liberalisation is a game-changer for India's global aspirations."

The reforms are part of the broader Indian Space Policy 2023, which aims to enhance the country's capabilities and create a robust commercial presence in space. The policy defines clear limits for foreign investment across various sub-sectors, including satellite manufacturing and launch vehicle operations.

These changes provide much-needed clarity for international investors looking to enter India's space market, as highlighted by business lawyers. By easing entry routes for activities such as satellite operation and spaceport creation, the government has opened up exciting opportunities for both domestic and foreign players.

Business lawyers anticipate that these reforms will generate employment opportunities, facilitate technology transfer, and support initiatives like 'Make In India' and 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' (self-reliant India) by encouraging domestic manufacturing in the space sector.

Current Status of FDI Norms in Other Key Sectors

While the space sector has seen significantly eased restrictions, other sectors have maintained relatively stable FDI norms since the last major updates in 2018-2019. Business lawyers and legal advisors are closely monitoring the current state of FDI regulations in single-brand retail, coal mining, digital media, and contract manufacturing.

Single-Brand Retail Trading (SBRT)

The FDI policy for single-brand retail continues to allow 100% foreign investment under the automatic route, with certain conditions. Vaneesa Agrawal explains: "Local sourcing requirements have become more flexible for foreign entities."

Business lawyers point out that SBRT entities can now initiate e-commerce operations without first establishing physical stores, provided they open brick-and-mortar outlets within two years. This change creates a more conducive environment for international brands to test the Indian market through online channels before committing to physical retail spaces.

Coal Mining

The coal mining sector has benefitted from relaxed FDI norms since 2019. Business lawyers point out that the government permits 100% foreign investment under the automatic route for coal mining activities intended for captive consumption, including coal processing plants like washeries.

This amendment has significantly enhanced FDI inflows into the sector, as observed by business lawyers, reflecting India's commitment to attracting foreign capital into its resource-rich industries.

Digital Media

In the digital media landscape, FDI regulations remain more restrictive compared to other sectors. Business lawyers note that for uploading and streaming of news and current affairs content through digital media, 26% FDI is permitted under the government approval route, aligning with the regulations for the print media sector.

Vaneesa Agrawal points out that for other digital media sectors, including entertainment and online platforms, there are fewer restrictions. The favourable demographics and high internet penetration in India present substantial opportunities for foreign investors looking to capitalise on this rapidly growing market.

Contract Manufacturing

The contract manufacturing sector has seen positive developments since 2019. Vaneesa Agrawal, a prominent business lawyer, explains that investments in Indian entities engaged in contract manufacturing are permitted under the 100% automatic route, provided these activities are conducted through legitimate contracts.

Business lawyers emphasise that this move aims to bolster India's manufacturing capabilities and attract foreign companies looking to establish production facilities in the country.

The Road Ahead: Balancing Growth and Regulation

As India continues its journey toward becoming a global economic powerhouse, its FDI policies remain a crucial element of this strategy. The recent relaxation of FDI norms in the space sector marks a significant shift towards attracting international investment while fostering domestic growth.

Vaneesa Agrawal offers her perspective: "Sector-specific reforms allow for a nuanced policy balancing national interests and foreign investment needs."

Business lawyers across the country stress the importance for investors and businesses to stay informed about these evolving regulations. Each sector presents unique opportunities and challenges, and navigating this complex landscape requires expert guidance from business lawyers and a deep understanding of India's regulatory environment.

Conclusion

India's FDI landscape continues to evolve, with the space sector leading the way in recent liberalisation efforts. While other key sectors like single-brand retail, coal mining, digital media, and contract manufacturing have maintained relatively stable FDI norms, as discussed in the article byVaneesa Agrawal, a business lawyer, they still offer significant opportunities for foreign investors.

"India's FDI approach balances domestic growth with global investment opportunities."

- Vaneesa Agrawal, Thinking Legal

Business lawyers with expertise in FDI regulations will be invaluable partners for companies looking to capitalise on India's evolving economic landscape. As the regulatory environment continues to adapt, the guidance of experienced legal professionals will be essential in unlocking the full potential of investment opportunities in India.

#sebi expert lawyer #business lawyers

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