Weekly Summary 3 - Uber loses in the UK, Facebook under fire, and, Microsoft's Xbox.

Microsoft helping developers make more accessible games

Microsoft, one of the pioneers in opening up gaming to the disabled community, is doubling down on its efforts - it’s launching an updated version of its Xbox Accessibility Guidelines(XAGs) to provide studios with a set of best practices, and now, also a platform to test games against XAGs. All of the newly released software will help developers make better console AND PC games.

This is a very important step in the world of gaming, as for a long time only the most physically able players were able to fully enjoy these works of art. For a long time, there were not even settings for people with colour blindness to be able to fully experience video games(!).

This is important news to both gamers, and businesspeople - market of video games is constantly growing, even despite worldwide crisises. Now that it’s opening up to even more people, we should see the growth slightly accelerate.

The UK supreme court denied Uber’s appeal regarding the status of its employees.

This is a big win for all “gig economy” employees, as they are finally recognised as de jure employees in the UK. They are now entitled to minimum wage, and paid holidays.

The win comes after a small loss, as Proposition 22 was passed in November 2020, confirming that Uber employees are contractors, and therefore, under California’s state law, not entitled to health care paid by their employers, unemployment insurance, minimum wage, and other benefits. As a concession, however, they agreed to giving workers some benefits and to establish a minimum pay.

The gig economy can be seen as somewhat of a controversial topic - on one hand it provides people with a mean to make some income on the side, however we have to remember, that for a lot of people, it’s their only job.

Facebook continues to provide incorrect ad metrics

After it was reported, that in 2019, the American social media giant agreed to a $40 million fine for providing incorrect metrics for average viewing time of ads, it’s under fire again, as it turns out that the company has known for years that its “potential reach” metric was inflated. What’s more, is that executives at Facebook an employee decision to adjust it. Even though the reach was actually 10% smaller, it clearly shows that we cannot rely on Facebook’s numbers, or the reports of another companies as well.

We, as marketers, need to have a conversation about building a system for ads, that are opt-in, respectful of the privacy, and that present accurate data to us. The choices we have right now, are simply not good enough.