5 ms·

I find it funny they're claiming some sort of AI system will help them make better margins. In my city, Nottingham. all the deliveroo people gather in Trinity

I find it funny they're claiming some sort of AI system will help them make better margins. In my city, Nottingham. all the deliveroo people gather in Trinity Square waiting for jobs. There's obviously no special AI needed. I do think though that it raises the issue that they should be paying for their own business premises and stop using our public spaces as their company waiting spots.

mirekrusin 9y ago
Similar at Angel, London. They gather at the shell petrol station; also for some strange reason pretty much all of them speak brazilian portuguese.
- pault 9y ago
  Is that strange because they aren't Brazilian?
  - mirekrusin 9y ago
    They are Brazilians with paulistas accent. It's strange that they are, all, Brazilians.
    - mrisoli 9y ago
      As a Brazilian it makes sense to me, Brazil economy just keeps getting worse and worse, a lot of Brazilians are moving abroad chasing some opportunities. London is very famous as a destination for them, before there was Deliveroo I knew some people who did a lot of construction work because a lot of firms would hire them even if they don't have the proper visa, I assume you can do the same with Deliveroo.
      - tomarr 9y ago
        A lot of Brazilians (allegedly) come in on fake Portugese documents too
        mrisoli 9y ago
        I always assumed most people just come in pretending to go with short stay tourist purposes and try to stay under the radar while living there. London is so expensive anyway most will probably be squatting.
duncanawoods 9y ago
Yep same in Bristol. They remind me of a loitering Bōsōzoku biker gang - scooters, similar outfits, alternative hair etc. eyeballing passersby.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sleavey 9y ago
To be fair, a few motorbikes/bicycles temporarily waiting next to each other is not such a big deal to me in comparison to the fact that roughly half of every street in every big city in the UK is dedicated to parked cars. Putting aside the apparently shitty working conditions at gig economy companies like Deliveroo (which I dearly hope will be resolved with all the recent bad publicity around Uber and co), I like the idea of sharing the delivery services previously provided by individual restaurants between all. This is at least one positive aspect of the "sharing economy", which will hopefully also reduce the number of parked cars clogging up our roads.
- ue_ 9y ago
  You say that Deliveroo has shitty working conditions and I probably don't disagree (I know nothing of them), but I'm a second year university student and I'm being pressured to find a job by my parents while I'm here; Deliveroo seems like my best bet at the moment with flexible hours; I probably wouldn't be making any more than minimum wage elsewhere anyway. I hope that's some insight as to why it's attractive to some people. If you know anything more about Deliveroo or other places I could look for jobs I'd be grateful, as it would really aid my search. As a side note, I despise the way it is called the "sharing economy"; it's no sharing at all, and I wish this term were reserved for ideas I regard as more noble, like the gift economy, or a model in which people chip in a certain amount to a shared product on a large scale (such as democratic management of the economy).
  - sleavey 9y ago
    That's the crux of this whole gig economy debate - for some people, these kinds of jobs are ideal: zero hours contracts, with the ability to work more or less depending on what else is going on in your life. That being said, some people take these jobs because they're the only ones they can get. I don't know your circumstances, so I'm going to guess here, but from what you write it sounds like you have the safety net of your parents if things go wrong. While you study you may also have access to a student loan and/or support from your parents mandated by law (let's not get into an argument about how crappy student loans are, but at least they're an income during your studies). Since you're attending university, I might guess you're at an age where you don't yet care about paying into a pension. Again - making wild assumptions here - but if you don't have kids, you probably don't care if your work-life balance is skewed heavily towards studying and earning, at the expense of sleep and general health. For some others, though, their job is all they have, and "gig economy" jobs are the only ones they can get. This creates the perfect environment for exploitative working practices, where dodgy loopholes are used to underpay and overwork staff, who can be dropped at an instant if the company needs to save money or if workers start to complain about conditions. If Deliveroo and other gigs were worked by students in their free time, I don't think this would be such an issue. The problem is that, increasingly, people without safety nets are joining these companies and working effectively full time, and no longer just for occasional "gigs" a few times a week. That, in my book, requires that they are given the same rights as any other full time workers: holidays, sick pay, pension contributions, grievance procedures and other benefits.
dbbk 9y ago
To be fair Nottingham city centre is tiny, and Trinity Square is bang in the middle. It's obviously a market that would not benefit from some fancy AI system.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  Tiny? It's a bit more compact than other cities, but it's certainly not tiny. It's also damn hilly, which the riders can't enjoy much. Try a bunch of cities at 200m zoom in google maps.
croatially 9y ago
Their logistics solution is just not as advanced as it can be. That's just common startup logic, the hardest problem will be solved with more money and good people and SV network has good people. They need combinatorial search and some travel time data, live re-search when new orders come in. For this to work well they need to predict new orders in advance, this means they need data on the spatial distributions of orders through time (which now they certainly have). They practically need to solve a variant of a problem that Uber has. Their delivery drivers load much more "passengers" but have static pickup points (known restaurants so there's only variance in the delivery point, pickups are pretty much static). It's an interesting problem to solve, given that this kind of logistics research is practically invisible and I can't name any papers that dealt with this problem in any advanced way. If done properly, then they've solved the logistics problem for on-demand companies that have enough data. If solution is some ad-hoc mutated monster then it is just a chance for someone else to get the other pieces of cake.
- robk 9y ago
  Your dismissal of a non SV company's innovation is embarrassing for you. The tech here is as good or better as anyone in the Valley.
  - ChickeNES 9y ago
    When I left there a year ago there was not much innovation going on, just kowtowing to marketing/design.
  - croatially 9y ago
    Sorry if I was unclear, I had no intention to imply that their innovation is weak, or that SV has anything to do with that. It's pretty clear they have access to SV network, despite being based in London.
- gwenzek 9y ago
  > For this to work well they need to predict new orders in advance Calls for deep learning! Or using data from last week…
cakedoggie 9y ago
> I do think though that it raises the issue that they should be paying for their own business premises and stop using our public spaces as their company waiting spots. How is it ok to constantly have cars using these spaces for free? Using roads for free?
notyourday 9y ago
> In my city, Nottingham. all the deliveroo people gather in Trinity Square waiting for jobs. There's obviously no special AI needed. I think you misunderstand: that is the AI system decision. Had it been done by management committee of founders and optimization experts, everyone would have been staged in the most bizarre places around town, typically alone, which would have caused most of their delivery force to quit.

mirekrusin 9y ago

Similar at Angel, London. They gather at the shell petrol station; also for some strange reason pretty much all of them speak brazilian portuguese.

pault 9y ago
Is that strange because they aren't Brazilian?
- mirekrusin 9y ago
  They are Brazilians with paulistas accent. It's strange that they are, all, Brazilians.
  - mrisoli 9y ago
    As a Brazilian it makes sense to me, Brazil economy just keeps getting worse and worse, a lot of Brazilians are moving abroad chasing some opportunities. London is very famous as a destination for them, before there was Deliveroo I knew some people who did a lot of construction work because a lot of firms would hire them even if they don't have the proper visa, I assume you can do the same with Deliveroo.
    - tomarr 9y ago
      A lot of Brazilians (allegedly) come in on fake Portugese documents too
      - mrisoli 9y ago
        I always assumed most people just come in pretending to go with short stay tourist purposes and try to stay under the radar while living there. London is so expensive anyway most will probably be squatting.

duncanawoods 9y ago

Yep same in Bristol. They remind me of a loitering Bōsōzoku biker gang - scooters, similar outfits, alternative hair etc. eyeballing passersby.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

sleavey 9y ago

To be fair, a few motorbikes/bicycles temporarily waiting next to each other is not such a big deal to me in comparison to the fact that roughly half of every street in every big city in the UK is dedicated to parked cars. Putting aside the apparently shitty working conditions at gig economy companies like Deliveroo (which I dearly hope will be resolved with all the recent bad publicity around Uber and co), I like the idea of sharing the delivery services previously provided by individual restaurants between all. This is at least one positive aspect of the "sharing economy", which will hopefully also reduce the number of parked cars clogging up our roads.

ue_ 9y ago
You say that Deliveroo has shitty working conditions and I probably don't disagree (I know nothing of them), but I'm a second year university student and I'm being pressured to find a job by my parents while I'm here; Deliveroo seems like my best bet at the moment with flexible hours; I probably wouldn't be making any more than minimum wage elsewhere anyway. I hope that's some insight as to why it's attractive to some people. If you know anything more about Deliveroo or other places I could look for jobs I'd be grateful, as it would really aid my search. As a side note, I despise the way it is called the "sharing economy"; it's no sharing at all, and I wish this term were reserved for ideas I regard as more noble, like the gift economy, or a model in which people chip in a certain amount to a shared product on a large scale (such as democratic management of the economy).
- sleavey 9y ago
  That's the crux of this whole gig economy debate - for some people, these kinds of jobs are ideal: zero hours contracts, with the ability to work more or less depending on what else is going on in your life. That being said, some people take these jobs because they're the only ones they can get. I don't know your circumstances, so I'm going to guess here, but from what you write it sounds like you have the safety net of your parents if things go wrong. While you study you may also have access to a student loan and/or support from your parents mandated by law (let's not get into an argument about how crappy student loans are, but at least they're an income during your studies). Since you're attending university, I might guess you're at an age where you don't yet care about paying into a pension. Again - making wild assumptions here - but if you don't have kids, you probably don't care if your work-life balance is skewed heavily towards studying and earning, at the expense of sleep and general health. For some others, though, their job is all they have, and "gig economy" jobs are the only ones they can get. This creates the perfect environment for exploitative working practices, where dodgy loopholes are used to underpay and overwork staff, who can be dropped at an instant if the company needs to save money or if workers start to complain about conditions. If Deliveroo and other gigs were worked by students in their free time, I don't think this would be such an issue. The problem is that, increasingly, people without safety nets are joining these companies and working effectively full time, and no longer just for occasional "gigs" a few times a week. That, in my book, requires that they are given the same rights as any other full time workers: holidays, sick pay, pension contributions, grievance procedures and other benefits.

dbbk 9y ago

To be fair Nottingham city centre is tiny, and Trinity Square is bang in the middle. It's obviously a market that would not benefit from some fancy AI system.

mattmanser 9y ago
Tiny? It's a bit more compact than other cities, but it's certainly not tiny. It's also damn hilly, which the riders can't enjoy much. Try a bunch of cities at 200m zoom in google maps.

croatially 9y ago

Their logistics solution is just not as advanced as it can be. That's just common startup logic, the hardest problem will be solved with more money and good people and SV network has good people. They need combinatorial search and some travel time data, live re-search when new orders come in. For this to work well they need to predict new orders in advance, this means they need data on the spatial distributions of orders through time (which now they certainly have). They practically need to solve a variant of a problem that Uber has. Their delivery drivers load much more "passengers" but have static pickup points (known restaurants so there's only variance in the delivery point, pickups are pretty much static). It's an interesting problem to solve, given that this kind of logistics research is practically invisible and I can't name any papers that dealt with this problem in any advanced way. If done properly, then they've solved the logistics problem for on-demand companies that have enough data. If solution is some ad-hoc mutated monster then it is just a chance for someone else to get the other pieces of cake.

robk 9y ago
Your dismissal of a non SV company's innovation is embarrassing for you. The tech here is as good or better as anyone in the Valley.
- ChickeNES 9y ago
  When I left there a year ago there was not much innovation going on, just kowtowing to marketing/design.
- croatially 9y ago
  Sorry if I was unclear, I had no intention to imply that their innovation is weak, or that SV has anything to do with that. It's pretty clear they have access to SV network, despite being based in London.
gwenzek 9y ago
> For this to work well they need to predict new orders in advance Calls for deep learning! Or using data from last week…

cakedoggie 9y ago

> I do think though that it raises the issue that they should be paying for their own business premises and stop using our public spaces as their company waiting spots. How is it ok to constantly have cars using these spaces for free? Using roads for free?

notyourday 9y ago

> In my city, Nottingham. all the deliveroo people gather in Trinity Square waiting for jobs. There's obviously no special AI needed. I think you misunderstand: that is the AI system decision. Had it been done by management committee of founders and optimization experts, everyone would have been staged in the most bizarre places around town, typically alone, which would have caused most of their delivery force to quit.