8 ms·

What the Apps That Bring Food to Your Door Mean for Delivery Workers

79 points by prostoalex 7y ago

sokoloff 7y ago
This article is refreshingly balanced, overall talking about the challenges of the workers in this space but also observing that the prior condition wasn’t unlimited milk and cookies either.
k__ 7y ago
Companies of that type should be cooperatives.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  Cooperatives can be formed today, there are no obstacles for them.
  - rubinelli 7y ago
    Capital. Two-sided markets take a lot of capital to get off the ground.
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
      I wonder where most of the capital goes in launching these ventures given. The why would give some major insights. Technically a far more barebones app could be used for instance. Unlike mobile games there aren't any small budget cheap knockoffs. Is it getting it to have enough people at once that it isn't "Nobody uses it because it is empty?" Since apparently even with high fees relative to the product and poorly paid workers it still loses a lot of money. A lot of those two-way market companies appear to have "waiting for drones to reduce the effective labor cost" as their implicit business model.
      - k__ 7y ago
        Don't know. But in Germany there is one big player in the long distance bus market and they operate their busses with self-employed contractors too. At least such companies would have to rely on humans for delivery in the forseeable future. Some companies in the delivery space even got bought out by bigger players in the last 12 months here. One only offered a website/app for purchases and no own delivery people, the restaurants had to own their stuff, but somehow this didn't work out. Maybe a cooperative between all the restaurants could have saved this.
      - heavyset_go 7y ago
        When new cab-hailing apps pop up in my city, they are very quickly bought out by larger companies and stop operating under their previous moniker.
    - conanbatt 7y ago
      Thats not an obstacle to form a cooperative, just like any farm cooperative pools farm resources, the workers that have the capital of a car can pool their cars.
- Dirlewanger 7y ago
  It would be doomed to fail. These business models run on VC funny money. They lose millions even when already paying garbage wages to couriers. Maybe way in the future once automated delivery is much more mature (and cheaper), could a co-op be possible. But we're talking decades later. And also talking about a completely different world by then.
  - k__ 7y ago
    You think so? I have the feeling, many the co-ops are formed "because" regular company wouldn't survive.
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    https://citiz.coop/english https://citiz.coop/english is a french car sharing cooperative that dates back to 2002.
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    These companies hemorrhage money because they try to stretch a single entity across the entire worldwide market, when many smaller regional companies are the likely equilibrium this space would naturally reach if it wasn't injected with VC money. Certainly a decentralized federation of co-ops would work just as well as many small regional companies, or even franchises.
    - thrownblown 7y ago
      I run a logistics saas that's used by many food delivery co-ops. AMA.
      - heavyset_go 7y ago
        Name drop the SaaS and a few of those delivery co-ops. Genuinely interested in getting involved in the space.
        thrownblown 7y ago
criley2 7y ago
Interesting article but deceptively titled. I guess for the publication it is in it makes sense. This article is almost exclusively about immigrant bike-based couriers in New York City and basically does not mention car based delivery, delivery apps or delivery workers outside of the NYC area. It was interesting to learn about the NYC delivery scene and how fresh immigrants who don't even know english have a long history of being bike couriers. But in my top 10 American city I've never had a Postmates or UberEats driver that wasn't Americanized and speaking good English. Not that it matters at all, food is food and a job is a job, but the article basically describes nothing at all similar to food apps and delivery workers in the rest of the country.
- alanbernstein 7y ago
  I guess this is how people outside the US feel when they read an article that doesn't specify "in the US".
  - criley2 7y ago
    I was unaware non-Americans went to American websites and didn't like that the American content was American. I've personally never gone to a .co.uk or .ca website and felt bothered that the content was British or Canadian, myself.
    - xtracto 7y ago
      I agree. That's why I never visit .us domains, I generally limit myself to the international domains.
      - gruez 7y ago
        Even though .com isn't specific to the US, it is by default. eg. amazon.com vs amazon.co.uk
    - fipar 7y ago
      But were you unaware that non-New Yorkers went to New York websites and didn't like that the New York content was New Yorker? ;)
zaroth 7y ago
It’s sad to me that TFA can paper over what a massive step-up these apps are from the previous status quo, and how much better they will continue to become, in large part because of the independent contractor nature of the delivery people. What was once an entirely untracked and mostly underground exploitation of illegal immigrants is now an app which tracks every minute worked, every task completed, which workers can turn on and off at their own whim. Somehow the fact that workers have to provide a social security number is spun as a negative. Any app that can create features which make the service better will result in higher wages and tips per delivery, and riders/drivers can shift from app to app (sometimes within a single day) to follow these trends. Talk to the actual couriers and they don’t want to be employees, because this very frequently is not a full time job. For the people it is a full time job, conversely, they are the ones least likely to be hired if shoe-horned into employment status. Last week I had dinner delivered by a young woman driving while her son did homework in the passenger seat. This was apparently someone who needed to make some extra cash for a few hours each evening, and the cost of child care would obviously significantly reduce (if not eliminate) any income. The flexibility of being able to jump in the car and earn crucial dollars without the massive overhead of an employment contract is very valuable, and helping a lot of people. I think we need to keep perspective that food delivery is just about the least skilled (lowest training required) job you can find in the US, and these apps are upending a traditionally extremely exploitative market with software that can never steal the driver’s wages, or racially discriminate against the driver, or be verbally abusive, etc. while at the same time providing potential work for millions of people at the click of a button.
- fucking_tragedy 7y ago
  > Talk to the actual couriers I have: they don't like the current arrangement. When they're tipped via apps, they don't even get to keep them. Doesn't sound like they're independent contractors when they can't set their own rates and collect from their clients without the delivery app companies skimming their tips. > they don’t want to be employees, because this very frequently is not a full time job. This is a false dichotomy. Many people work multiple jobs on a flexible schedule where they are considered employees at each of their employers. They also hate the tax burden that is quarterly filing and paying the self-employment tax.
madenine 7y ago
I delivered food while in college before the rise of delivery apps and it was _awful_. Even with grubhub - each restaurant was responsible for hiring and managing its own delivery staff. If the restaurant I was delivering for wasn't busy? I made bad less money (the people I worked for were pretty solid; you made tipped hourly + tips or non-tipped hourly during the shift, which ever was greater). If it was too busy I would be run ragged and my tips would go down as it took longer to complete orders. To make more and more consistent money, some friends and I would 'game the system' to a degree and each be working 1-2 restaurants in the same business district at the same time. We would trade orders back and forth based on where we were going to make trips more efficient and split the payout pretty much evenly (if someone had a hard delivery or something, they might be given a bit extra). If the restaurants knew we were doing this they would probably have fired us. My shifts were fixed; ie I had the sunday evening and tuesday evening shifts every week. I was at the whim of overall demand; slow nights means less money. Most importantly; I could be fired.

79 points by prostoalex 7y ago

This article is refreshingly balanced, overall talking about the challenges of the workers in this space but also observing that the prior condition wasn’t unlimited milk and cookies either.

k__ 7y ago

Companies of that type should be cooperatives.

conanbatt 7y ago
Cooperatives can be formed today, there are no obstacles for them.
- rubinelli 7y ago
  Capital. Two-sided markets take a lot of capital to get off the ground.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    I wonder where most of the capital goes in launching these ventures given. The why would give some major insights. Technically a far more barebones app could be used for instance. Unlike mobile games there aren't any small budget cheap knockoffs. Is it getting it to have enough people at once that it isn't "Nobody uses it because it is empty?" Since apparently even with high fees relative to the product and poorly paid workers it still loses a lot of money. A lot of those two-way market companies appear to have "waiting for drones to reduce the effective labor cost" as their implicit business model.
    - k__ 7y ago
      Don't know. But in Germany there is one big player in the long distance bus market and they operate their busses with self-employed contractors too. At least such companies would have to rely on humans for delivery in the forseeable future. Some companies in the delivery space even got bought out by bigger players in the last 12 months here. One only offered a website/app for purchases and no own delivery people, the restaurants had to own their stuff, but somehow this didn't work out. Maybe a cooperative between all the restaurants could have saved this.
    - heavyset_go 7y ago
      When new cab-hailing apps pop up in my city, they are very quickly bought out by larger companies and stop operating under their previous moniker.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    Thats not an obstacle to form a cooperative, just like any farm cooperative pools farm resources, the workers that have the capital of a car can pool their cars.
Dirlewanger 7y ago
It would be doomed to fail. These business models run on VC funny money. They lose millions even when already paying garbage wages to couriers. Maybe way in the future once automated delivery is much more mature (and cheaper), could a co-op be possible. But we're talking decades later. And also talking about a completely different world by then.
- k__ 7y ago
  You think so? I have the feeling, many the co-ops are formed "because" regular company wouldn't survive.
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  https://citiz.coop/english https://citiz.coop/english is a french car sharing cooperative that dates back to 2002.
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  These companies hemorrhage money because they try to stretch a single entity across the entire worldwide market, when many smaller regional companies are the likely equilibrium this space would naturally reach if it wasn't injected with VC money. Certainly a decentralized federation of co-ops would work just as well as many small regional companies, or even franchises.
  - thrownblown 7y ago
    I run a logistics saas that's used by many food delivery co-ops. AMA.
    - heavyset_go 7y ago
      Name drop the SaaS and a few of those delivery co-ops. Genuinely interested in getting involved in the space.
      - thrownblown 7y ago

criley2 7y ago

Interesting article but deceptively titled. I guess for the publication it is in it makes sense. This article is almost exclusively about immigrant bike-based couriers in New York City and basically does not mention car based delivery, delivery apps or delivery workers outside of the NYC area. It was interesting to learn about the NYC delivery scene and how fresh immigrants who don't even know english have a long history of being bike couriers. But in my top 10 American city I've never had a Postmates or UberEats driver that wasn't Americanized and speaking good English. Not that it matters at all, food is food and a job is a job, but the article basically describes nothing at all similar to food apps and delivery workers in the rest of the country.

alanbernstein 7y ago
I guess this is how people outside the US feel when they read an article that doesn't specify "in the US".
- criley2 7y ago
  I was unaware non-Americans went to American websites and didn't like that the American content was American. I've personally never gone to a .co.uk or .ca website and felt bothered that the content was British or Canadian, myself.
  - xtracto 7y ago
    I agree. That's why I never visit .us domains, I generally limit myself to the international domains.
    - gruez 7y ago
      Even though .com isn't specific to the US, it is by default. eg. amazon.com vs amazon.co.uk
  - fipar 7y ago
    But were you unaware that non-New Yorkers went to New York websites and didn't like that the New York content was New Yorker? ;)

zaroth 7y ago

It’s sad to me that TFA can paper over what a massive step-up these apps are from the previous status quo, and how much better they will continue to become, in large part because of the independent contractor nature of the delivery people. What was once an entirely untracked and mostly underground exploitation of illegal immigrants is now an app which tracks every minute worked, every task completed, which workers can turn on and off at their own whim. Somehow the fact that workers have to provide a social security number is spun as a negative. Any app that can create features which make the service better will result in higher wages and tips per delivery, and riders/drivers can shift from app to app (sometimes within a single day) to follow these trends. Talk to the actual couriers and they don’t want to be employees, because this very frequently is not a full time job. For the people it is a full time job, conversely, they are the ones least likely to be hired if shoe-horned into employment status. Last week I had dinner delivered by a young woman driving while her son did homework in the passenger seat. This was apparently someone who needed to make some extra cash for a few hours each evening, and the cost of child care would obviously significantly reduce (if not eliminate) any income. The flexibility of being able to jump in the car and earn crucial dollars without the massive overhead of an employment contract is very valuable, and helping a lot of people. I think we need to keep perspective that food delivery is just about the least skilled (lowest training required) job you can find in the US, and these apps are upending a traditionally extremely exploitative market with software that can never steal the driver’s wages, or racially discriminate against the driver, or be verbally abusive, etc. while at the same time providing potential work for millions of people at the click of a button.

fucking_tragedy 7y ago
> Talk to the actual couriers I have: they don't like the current arrangement. When they're tipped via apps, they don't even get to keep them. Doesn't sound like they're independent contractors when they can't set their own rates and collect from their clients without the delivery app companies skimming their tips. > they don’t want to be employees, because this very frequently is not a full time job. This is a false dichotomy. Many people work multiple jobs on a flexible schedule where they are considered employees at each of their employers. They also hate the tax burden that is quarterly filing and paying the self-employment tax.

madenine 7y ago

I delivered food while in college before the rise of delivery apps and it was _awful_. Even with grubhub - each restaurant was responsible for hiring and managing its own delivery staff. If the restaurant I was delivering for wasn't busy? I made bad less money (the people I worked for were pretty solid; you made tipped hourly + tips or non-tipped hourly during the shift, which ever was greater). If it was too busy I would be run ragged and my tips would go down as it took longer to complete orders. To make more and more consistent money, some friends and I would 'game the system' to a degree and each be working 1-2 restaurants in the same business district at the same time. We would trade orders back and forth based on where we were going to make trips more efficient and split the payout pretty much evenly (if someone had a hard delivery or something, they might be given a bit extra). If the restaurants knew we were doing this they would probably have fired us. My shifts were fixed; ie I had the sunday evening and tuesday evening shifts every week. I was at the whim of overall demand; slow nights means less money. Most importantly; I could be fired.