Chapter 958
Changes in the New Era
As autumn deepens, the ground in Tangdu High-tech Zone is covered with golden ginkgo leaves.
Sunlight streamed through gaps in the clouds, illuminating the glass curtain wall of the Galaxy Technology headquarters building and bathing the entire structure in a warm orange hue.
Wang Donglai sat in his office, with the latest quarterly data for the ride-hailing, food delivery, and express delivery industries displayed on three screens in front of him.
All three sets of numbers are increasing, but the growth curves each have their own curves.
Didi's social security coverage rate for drivers has surged from less than 10% to over 40%, Huangtuan Waimai's rider full-time rate has exceeded 50% for the first time, and Xinghuo Express's frontline employee turnover rate has dropped to the lowest point in the industry's history.
Behind these numbers are the real lives of millions of people that are changing.
"Boss, in the past month, Didi, Huangtuan, and Ele.me have all announced the launch of industry association reform plans. Liu Qing of Didi proposed in an internal letter on Wednesday that Didi will convert full-time drivers into formal employees in batches across the country, sign labor contracts, and pay social insurance and housing provident fund. Wang Xing of Huangtuan promised in an open letter on the same day that Huangtuan will complete social insurance coverage for all full-time riders by the first quarter of next year and establish a rider representative assembly system to allow rider representatives to directly participate in the formulation of delivery rules and algorithms. Ele.me followed closely behind, announcing that it will launch the 'Fengniao Care Program' nationwide to provide riders with professional training and career advancement opportunities."
Wang Donglai put down the capacitive pen in his hand, leaned back in his chair, and looked away from the three large data screens, focusing his gaze on the interactive panel on the side of his desk that was specially reserved for Wa.
"Tell me the details of how the talks were conducted."
"First, there's the ride-hailing industry. Last month, the four major platforms—Didi, Gaode, T3, and Caocao—established an 'Alliance for the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Ride-Hailing Platform Drivers' under the leadership of the Tangdu Municipal Transportation Commission."
Wa pulled up an encrypted meeting transcript, projected it onto the screen, and explained in detail: "The three core articles of the alliance charter are: First, all platforms must sign formal labor contracts with full-time drivers and pay social security contributions, while part-time drivers are included in the flexible employment insurance system. Second, the upper limit of commission rates for each platform is uniformly set, and operating costs cannot be passed on to drivers under any pretext. Third, an industry joint training fund is established, with platforms contributing according to a percentage of order volume. This fund is used for drivers' vocational skills training and re-employment, and the management and use of the funds are handled by an independent third-party committee, not by each platform acting independently. These three articles are the institutionalized version of the opinions you mentioned earlier, after refinement."
Wang Donglai nodded without speaking, signaling Wa to continue.
"The changes in the food delivery industry are faster and more intense."
Wa switched the data, and a densely packed comparison table popped up on the screen. Each row corresponded to a rider cost structure item: base salary, social security, commercial insurance, high temperature allowance, electric vehicle depreciation, and negative review fine refund rate.
The numbers for Pinhaofan were marked in green in each column, while the numbers for Huangtuan and Eleme were marked in red in most columns.
The biggest difference isn't the base salary or social security, but the last column: the rider's annual income volatility.
The numbers for Pinhaofan (拼好饭) are almost a straight line, while the numbers for Huangtuan (黄团) and Eleme (饿了么) fluctuate wildly like a sawtooth pattern, soaring to the top during peak season and plummeting to the bottom during off-season. Riders feel like they are riding a roller coaster without brakes.
In fact, Wang Xing also noticed this point, saying at his company's executive meeting: "We've burned so much money, why can't we beat Pinhaofan? Because Pinhaofan isn't competing with us for riders."
“They are redefining what ‘using riders’ means. They are exchanging stable benefits for stable jobs for riders, stable jobs for service quality, service quality for merchants and users, and ultimately, merchants and users for our entire market. This is not a subsidy war; it’s a rules war. If we don’t keep up, we’ll lose even the right to sit at the table.”
There had actually been internal debates within the Yellow Group for some time.
The minority advocates for a hard-line approach, arguing that offering better meals and benefits is a waste of Galaxy Technology's money, and that Galaxy Technology, no matter how wealthy, cannot continue to burn money indefinitely.
Wang Xing countered with a question that silenced his company's executives: "They've been burning cash for two years now. Has their cash flow dried up? Not only has it not, but they're also using the real operational data they've accumulated to tell everyone that paying social security for riders, buying commercial insurance, and smoothing out the income curve, in the long run, only dilutes the platform's performance risk and reduces public pressure. You might think they're doing charity, but they're helping us all try and fail, and then telling us that this path isn't idealistic, it's profitable. If we don't follow suit, we're just hurting our own company's balance sheet."
Eleme's transformation was more thorough than Huangtuan's.
Jack Ma made a special trip to Tangdu to investigate. After witnessing the operation of several businesses under Galaxy Technology, he sent a message to the internal group on the plane back, setting the tone: "You may not learn from others, but you must adopt Pinhaofan's standards for riders without any deviation."
Ele.me's operations director once said something quite insightful at an internal meeting: "We used to think that the platform was the referee, setting the rules and letting others run. Now we suddenly realize that the referee can be replaced, only the game itself is eternal."
The changes in the express delivery industry are the quietest among the three, but also the most fundamental.
From the day it entered the market, Xinghuo Express never intended to win in the end through a subsidy war. It brought with it a whole set of employment standards that seemed extremely uneconomical, but were increasingly recognized by frontline practitioners as the business continued to operate.
While the Tongda Group's last-mile delivery outlets continue to lose contractors, Xinghuo Express is expanding its transfer centers in lower-tier markets across the country.
It didn't form an alliance like food delivery platforms because its very existence is the standard.
Previously, the last-mile delivery points of STO Express, YTO Express, ZTO Express, and Yunda Express operated on a franchise system, and the social security coverage rate for delivery personnel was so low that it was negligible.
Xinghuo Express does not use franchising; all its stations are directly operated. New employees sign labor contracts and receive all the benefits, including five social insurances and one housing fund, commercial insurance, and high-temperature subsidies. Their monthly income is significantly higher than other companies in the industry. As a result, a large number of couriers from major express delivery companies have switched to Xinghuo, leading to a reshuffling of last-mile delivery capacity in the entire express delivery industry.
The Tongda Group was forced to convert its franchised sites into directly operated ones.
A quote from Xu Zhibin, the head of Xinghuo Express, is widely circulated in the industry: "We are not here to steal market share. The market is constantly changing and will choose the more stable network itself."
Without shouting slogans or setting new rules, Xinghuo Express simply transformed itself into a good enough example, demonstrating that the power of example is sometimes more profound than any written regulations.
"All three are doing the same thing: turning a zero-sum game into a rule-making process."
Wa paused the data stream, and the image on the screen froze on a news photo of an industry association's founding ceremony.
In the photo, representatives from Didi, Huangtuan, Ele.me, Xinghuo Express, and the Tongda Group stand side by side in front of a backdrop that reads "New Business Format Workers' Rights Protection Alliance." In the lower left corner of the backdrop is a low-key but unmistakable logo: the logo of Galaxy Technology.
They are not the organizers or initiators, but the "technical support provider".
Wang Donglai looked at the photo, a thoughtful look flashing in his eyes.
"Wa, do you think they really figured it out, or were they forced into a corner and had no choice but to change it?"
Nuwa answered quickly, clearly having already analyzed the problem.
"Both factors are involved. In terms of the timing of the decision, Huang Tuan made this round of substantial concessions under the circumstances of persistently high rider costs, increasing pressure to comply with social security regulations, and a continuously declining tolerance for losses in the capital market. Liu Qing, on the other hand, only made the decision to fully integrate the autonomous driving system and launch the driver transformation fund after the Tangdu detailed rules were released and the official commercial timetable of the Xuan Nu flying vehicle became clearer."
"Initially, they all hoped to follow the most familiar path, lobbying, delaying, and using complex legal designs to cover up the core contradictions in a gray area. It wasn't until they discovered that these methods were completely ineffective against a competitor who no longer relied on them technically and was no longer afraid of them in terms of public opinion that they had to face the reality that there was no room for bargaining on this path. But what prompted them to move from passive compliance to active participation in industry building was something else: fear. It wasn't the fear of being fined by regulators, but the fear of being squeezed out of the game."
"When Galaxy Technology restructured the ride-hailing market with self-driving cars and the Xuan Nu flying machine, attracted the best riders with Pinhaofan's high-salary standards, and swallowed up stable last-mile delivery capacity with Xinghuo Express's direct-operation network, they realized that their original moat was drying up at a visible rate. And when the peak of fear passed, a more constructive instinct began to emerge. They began to learn to think about their survival strategies within the same pool of rules, and tried to redefine their competitive tracks under a unified compliance framework. They no longer competed on who could exploit loopholes better, but on who provided better service, who had a lower complaint rate, and who had more stable delivery. In the past, they competed on the lower limit; now they compete on the upper limit."
Wang Donglai stood up and walked to the window.
Outside the window, the tower cranes at the Tanghuangcheng construction site are still turning, and the silver-gray factory buildings of the Xuanwu Battery Industrial Park reflect a quiet light under the autumn sun. In the distance, the outline of the Qinling Mountains is faintly visible in the thin mist.
"You just said they've started comparing their upper limits."
He turned around, a faint smile playing on his lips: "But it's not because they're more conscientious, it's because the bottom line has been blocked. Before, it was about who could find the best loopholes—outsourcing, temporary workers, not signing contracts, not paying social security—whoever exploited it the most had the lowest costs. We blocked that path, so they started competing on who provides better service, has a lower complaint rate, and whose delivery is more stable. That's normal competition."
"Business competition should not be about who is more ruthless to workers, but about who is better to users. And what ultimately brings these seemingly scattered changes together into a network is the same driving force: when a company no longer relies on traditional manpower in terms of technology, but actively chooses to provide workers with higher treatment, more stable contracts, and stronger protection, it is no longer a follower of industry rules, but a definer of rules. This right to define rules does not need to be proven by market share; it will automatically spread through every price adjustment, every rider agreement, and every vote in the industry association."
"The formation of traditional industry alliances usually requires two conditions: shared interests and a sufficiently long game cycle. Xinghuo Express, along with the framework you promoted within the industry association, has compressed this game cycle into an extremely short window. The key to this compression isn't money, but certainty. When everyone saw that Xinghuo Express's delivery capacity organization could remain relatively stable in any region under extreme weather conditions, while the last-mile networks of the Tongda system experienced significant fluctuations under the same weather peaks, franchisees began to proactively request headquarters to switch to direct operation. This wasn't because they agreed with our philosophy, but because they saw the data: the risk resistance, service stability, and customer repurchase rate of the directly operated network were all superior to the franchise network. This wasn't a moral choice, but a survival choice. From a game theory perspective, they entered into a 'coordination game,' not a zero-sum game like the prisoner's dilemma, but rather a situation where, among multiple possible equilibrium points, everyone tends to converge towards the more efficient equilibrium point."
"What Galaxy Technology did was simply stand at that equilibrium point ahead of time and tell everyone: there is a way to go. If they continue to delay this process, they are not fighting against Galaxy Technology, but against their own cash flow, capacity stability, and capital market valuation for the next few years."
"You're right. Fear will make them start to think, but real change will only happen when they find that following the rules is more profitable than breaking them. So the most crucial clause of this industry association, not just social security and contracts, is that the power to formulate delivery rules and algorithms must be made public to rider representatives. This clause is equivalent to putting the lowest-level workers at the forefront of rule-making. Not bystanders, not just being notified, but truly sitting at the decision-making table."
Wa's screen flickered, and an electronic mechanical voice sounded, echoing Wang Donglai's words.
"Yes. And this clause has an implicit consequence that may be greater than its direct impact. Once rider representatives enter the algorithm rule-making process, the platform can no longer use 'it's the algorithm's decision' as a shield to shirk responsibility. You have agreed on the rules with them, so you are responsible for the rules themselves."
“I think this might be the real reason why they have been avoiding setting industry benchmarks before. It's not that they can't do the math, but that they don't want to give up their discretionary power. They are used to unilaterally adjusting riders' delivery time limits, reward and punishment rules, and pricing strategies without any external constraints, without having to explain to anyone. Once this system is put into a framework of multi-party consultation, operational decisions change from a black box to a transparent negotiating table, which is more painful for them than the increase in costs. But now they have no choice but to do it. This is both the bottom line of labor protection and the bottom line of technological ethics.”
Wang Donglai looked at the radial diagram he had drawn on the draft paper.
Each line points in a different direction: ride-hailing, food delivery, express delivery, retail, education, healthcare, and aerospace.
"Wa, do you remember the question you asked me before? You asked why I would take such a big risk to do these things, why I would voluntarily give up short-term profits to exchange for long-term rules. What I told you then was the closed loop of 'technology-rules-distribution-market-technology'. Now, the third and fourth links of this closed loop are starting to turn on their own. More importantly, once the fourth link starts turning, it will in turn strengthen the second link. As more and more industries accept this set of rules, the rules themselves become the threshold for competition. Companies that abide by the rules will gain more stable transportation capacity, better reputation, and lower regulatory risks. Companies that do not abide by the rules will be eliminated by the market. On that day, the rules will no longer need to be pushed by Galaxy Technology. The market will push them for us, the workers will push them for us, and their own balance sheets will push them for us." (End of this chapter)