The system, up close
A close analytical essay on one specific mechanism in China's delivery platforms — the piece of the dispatch system your weekly checkpoints have been circling
Due: 6 September 2027 · Weight: 20%
The brief#
Take one mechanism from the dispatch system — not “the algorithm,” one named piece of it — and trace exactly how it shapes what a rider does.
By week 6 you’ve covered the ETA and scoring models (week 2), the Trapped in the System case study (week 3), algorithmic control theory (week 4), and rider resistance tactics (week 5). This essay asks you to go narrow instead of wide: pick one mechanism and follow it all the way from its design intent to its effect on the road.
A common failure mode is writing about “the algorithm” as a single, undifferentiated villain. That flattens exactly the thing this course is trying to teach you to see — that a dispatch system is a bundle of separate, individually defensible decisions (route estimation, order batching, a lateness penalty, a rating threshold) whose combined effect is often not what any one of them intended alone.
What you submit#
A 900–1200 word essay. State the mechanism you’re analysing in the first sentence. Evidence can be the case-study readings, reporting, or a documented rider workaround — cite what you use.
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.
- names one specific mechanism (an ETA model, a scoring penalty, an incentive structure, a resistance tactic) rather than "the algorithm" in general
- traces how that mechanism affects rider behaviour, with a specific example
- 900–1200 words, evidence linked or cited
How it is marked
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Precision about the mechanism | 50% |
| Response to the brief | 35% |
| Use of evidence | 15% |