6 ms·

"However, if a worker rejects too many jobs too frequently, they may receive fewer job offers as a result." They take those jobs because they lose all access t

by cc439 7y ago

"However, if a worker rejects too many jobs too frequently, they may receive fewer job offers as a result." They take those jobs because they lose all access to the chance of profitable jobs otherwise. The people working for door dash aren't exactly the sort of person with the ability to fully understand probabilities and statistics either. I'd say it's fair to assume their business model works by bullying the same psychological behaviors as videogame loot crates, lottery tickets, and casinos. That one huge order that pays $30 after tips quiets the anxiety of losing money on the previous ten orders even if the actual math places the driver in the red. Most people have a very poor sense for overhead costs like vehicle maintenance. The link between miles driven and the rate of repairs required just isn't there.

vector_spaces 7y ago
I've worked these gigs before, and so have friends of mine with advanced STEM degrees. Sometimes you are stuck between a rock and a hard place (usually you are, if you're low income) and your current dilemma is between not being able to afford your rent tomorrow or food tonight, and working some exploitative app gig like this. So cool the condescension. Poor folks -- even those with really low numeracy -- are generally extremely aware that these gigs are exploitative and not sustainable income sources in the long run and see the scam a mile away. In my experience it's folks who haven't been poor who don't have a good sense for how expensive it is to be poor, for how difficult it is to make long term decisions, and the intractability of problems you have to solve just to get by sometimes
- savanaly 7y ago
  None of all of what you wrote addresses how those folks between a rock and a hard place will be better off not having the option to work for a given service at all.
  - gvjddbnvdrbv 7y ago
    Because people still want food cooked and delivered and to use taxis. If the non financially viable companies did not exist then financially viable ones would.
    - tick_tock_tick 7y ago
      These people often have reasons why they are not already working a more classic job and are unlikely be hired or in some cases want to work under whatever new standards and time commitments required for full time employees of these apps.
    - ramraj07 7y ago
      Not completely. I remember life before Uber and seamless. I'd just stay home and eat ramen (this is in Dallas and I didn't have a car). These businesses did genuinely create businesses and also changed lives for many by the service. That's not an excuse for such exploitative behavior of course.
      - jiofih 7y ago
        That has a lot more to do with the tech and distribution model they unlocked than financial viability. In Europe Uber drivers are private (company) drivers, not contractors, and it still works. There is a ton of money in transport, Uber is not even cheap if you’re not in tech / top earners.
      - JCharante 7y ago
        In Vietnam Grab drivers actually make a decent amount of money because a lot of their customers are middle class (relative to Vietnam). I don't think they're missing out on that much business by not having lower prices because you still see them everywhere (17 at a red light is the most I've ever seen) and people who can't afford Grab will use public transportation or their own motorbikes (student jobs may pay 20k-50k/hr, a bus ticket is 6k and a 10km GrabBike ride can be 70k, 4-5km is like 35k). A college graduate after some time may make 100k-200k/hr, and yet you'll still find a large class of people buying the latest iPhones (which would cost around 25 million). I guess the US is a different environment where there's not enough customers who could afford realistic prices for Uber, and there's not enough alternatives for those who can't afford a personal vehicle.
      - frobozz 7y ago
        I remember life before Uber and I'd never heard of Seamless, until your comment. These businesses genuinely just used VC funding and exploitative contracts to undercut perfectly viable existing services. Before Uber, I'd take public transport, phone for a minicab or walk to their office to get one. (and I still do) Before Deliveroo, I'd call the local takeaway and get them to deliver, or walk there and collect it myself. (and I still do). You can argue that they have improved the lives of people who find it hard to use the phone, However, that was already solved for food delivery before these new delivery services came along and I would be surprised if there weren't minicab firms that accepted SMS or web bookings.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    Because these exploitative schemes displace other delivery jobs and services that work under fairer terms.
    - darawk 7y ago
      These businesses are already unprofitable. So you probably couldn't have another DoorDash that pays its workers more. I suppose you could argue that some restaurants might have their own delivery services, or something. But that'd be tiny in scale compared to what these services are doing.
      - squiggleblaz 7y ago
        A tiny delivery service based around a local group of restaurants could easily have a fairer distribution of income and time consumed. Since the delivery service operates from about five or ten shops there's no "drive 10 miles to the pickup". Since the service is basically local there's no "take money from the poor and give it to the richer" - even the profits that go to the capitalists is still going to local members of the community who are making some money, but not too much to know what to do with. "Unprofitable" is relative.
        JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Consider: restaurants often consider delivery to be a 'loss leader'. It's not a terribly profitable industry, maybe not at all profitable. A more limited service (unable to average costs over a large number of restaurants and customers) is going to be even less so?
        darawk 7y ago
        Right, but as I said, the scale of these local delivery services is much smaller. Even if we accept your premise that each local job would be better (which i'm not sure is true, but i'll grant you it), there would be far fewer of them. It's not obvious to me which is better: A lot of bad jobs, or a few good ones?
  - vector_spaces 7y ago
    I'm not saying that they would be -- correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that has been a point of discussion. A job/app gig can both exploit someone and also give them the ability to survive where they might have few options otherwise. See sweatshops and the agricultural industry for example
  - rusticpenn 7y ago
    I could probably have fuel in my car for two weeks, but be hungry and without food today, Maybe I am looking forward to getting another jon in 2 days so this might help me now.
  - abandonliberty 7y ago
    There's something wrong with this statement because prostitution can be substituted as your suggested service.
    - baddox 7y ago
      Sex work should not be criminalized and those workers should have protections too. Nothing’s wrong with these statements.
filmgirlcw 7y ago
I would also add that people take the jobs because of initial sign-up bonuses (although those have greatly diminished over the years) and because the sales pitch is often compelling. It isn’t until the person signs up that they realize it’s harder to get jobs and that the average pay isn’t worth the hassle. At that point, people quit. It’s why turnover is so high for the food delivery apps (I’m excluding Seamless/Grubhub, who I believe offer a different model. Or at least it did — Seamless used to rely on a restaurants own delivery staff). Turnover is still high for car services, but there are stricter requirements to get approved there and in a busy area, the average pay is going to be better than for DoorDash or Postmates or whatever.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deft 7y ago
They market to drivers in the same way with the same language as MLMs.
rjkennedy98 7y ago
> The people working for door dash aren't exactly the sort of person with the ability to fully understand probabilities and statistics either Yet the same person featured in the article has 3 children. I just don't understand why we allow this. China at least had the 1 child policy so there is only so much damage an incompetent person can do.
- dang 7y ago
  "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by cc439 7y ago

vector_spaces 7y ago

I've worked these gigs before, and so have friends of mine with advanced STEM degrees. Sometimes you are stuck between a rock and a hard place (usually you are, if you're low income) and your current dilemma is between not being able to afford your rent tomorrow or food tonight, and working some exploitative app gig like this. So cool the condescension. Poor folks -- even those with really low numeracy -- are generally extremely aware that these gigs are exploitative and not sustainable income sources in the long run and see the scam a mile away. In my experience it's folks who haven't been poor who don't have a good sense for how expensive it is to be poor, for how difficult it is to make long term decisions, and the intractability of problems you have to solve just to get by sometimes

savanaly 7y ago
None of all of what you wrote addresses how those folks between a rock and a hard place will be better off not having the option to work for a given service at all.
- gvjddbnvdrbv 7y ago
  Because people still want food cooked and delivered and to use taxis. If the non financially viable companies did not exist then financially viable ones would.
  - tick_tock_tick 7y ago
    These people often have reasons why they are not already working a more classic job and are unlikely be hired or in some cases want to work under whatever new standards and time commitments required for full time employees of these apps.
  - ramraj07 7y ago
    Not completely. I remember life before Uber and seamless. I'd just stay home and eat ramen (this is in Dallas and I didn't have a car). These businesses did genuinely create businesses and also changed lives for many by the service. That's not an excuse for such exploitative behavior of course.
    - jiofih 7y ago
      That has a lot more to do with the tech and distribution model they unlocked than financial viability. In Europe Uber drivers are private (company) drivers, not contractors, and it still works. There is a ton of money in transport, Uber is not even cheap if you’re not in tech / top earners.
    - JCharante 7y ago
      In Vietnam Grab drivers actually make a decent amount of money because a lot of their customers are middle class (relative to Vietnam). I don't think they're missing out on that much business by not having lower prices because you still see them everywhere (17 at a red light is the most I've ever seen) and people who can't afford Grab will use public transportation or their own motorbikes (student jobs may pay 20k-50k/hr, a bus ticket is 6k and a 10km GrabBike ride can be 70k, 4-5km is like 35k). A college graduate after some time may make 100k-200k/hr, and yet you'll still find a large class of people buying the latest iPhones (which would cost around 25 million). I guess the US is a different environment where there's not enough customers who could afford realistic prices for Uber, and there's not enough alternatives for those who can't afford a personal vehicle.
    - frobozz 7y ago
      I remember life before Uber and I'd never heard of Seamless, until your comment. These businesses genuinely just used VC funding and exploitative contracts to undercut perfectly viable existing services. Before Uber, I'd take public transport, phone for a minicab or walk to their office to get one. (and I still do) Before Deliveroo, I'd call the local takeaway and get them to deliver, or walk there and collect it myself. (and I still do). You can argue that they have improved the lives of people who find it hard to use the phone, However, that was already solved for food delivery before these new delivery services came along and I would be surprised if there weren't minicab firms that accepted SMS or web bookings.
- mlyle 7y ago
  Because these exploitative schemes displace other delivery jobs and services that work under fairer terms.
  - darawk 7y ago
    These businesses are already unprofitable. So you probably couldn't have another DoorDash that pays its workers more. I suppose you could argue that some restaurants might have their own delivery services, or something. But that'd be tiny in scale compared to what these services are doing.
    - squiggleblaz 7y ago
      A tiny delivery service based around a local group of restaurants could easily have a fairer distribution of income and time consumed. Since the delivery service operates from about five or ten shops there's no "drive 10 miles to the pickup". Since the service is basically local there's no "take money from the poor and give it to the richer" - even the profits that go to the capitalists is still going to local members of the community who are making some money, but not too much to know what to do with. "Unprofitable" is relative.
      - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Consider: restaurants often consider delivery to be a 'loss leader'. It's not a terribly profitable industry, maybe not at all profitable. A more limited service (unable to average costs over a large number of restaurants and customers) is going to be even less so?
      - darawk 7y ago
        Right, but as I said, the scale of these local delivery services is much smaller. Even if we accept your premise that each local job would be better (which i'm not sure is true, but i'll grant you it), there would be far fewer of them. It's not obvious to me which is better: A lot of bad jobs, or a few good ones?
- vector_spaces 7y ago
  I'm not saying that they would be -- correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that has been a point of discussion. A job/app gig can both exploit someone and also give them the ability to survive where they might have few options otherwise. See sweatshops and the agricultural industry for example
- rusticpenn 7y ago
  I could probably have fuel in my car for two weeks, but be hungry and without food today, Maybe I am looking forward to getting another jon in 2 days so this might help me now.
- abandonliberty 7y ago
  There's something wrong with this statement because prostitution can be substituted as your suggested service.
  - baddox 7y ago
    Sex work should not be criminalized and those workers should have protections too. Nothing’s wrong with these statements.

filmgirlcw 7y ago

I would also add that people take the jobs because of initial sign-up bonuses (although those have greatly diminished over the years) and because the sales pitch is often compelling. It isn’t until the person signs up that they realize it’s harder to get jobs and that the average pay isn’t worth the hassle. At that point, people quit. It’s why turnover is so high for the food delivery apps (I’m excluding Seamless/Grubhub, who I believe offer a different model. Or at least it did — Seamless used to rely on a restaurants own delivery staff). Turnover is still high for car services, but there are stricter requirements to get approved there and in a busy area, the average pay is going to be better than for DoorDash or Postmates or whatever.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

deft 7y ago

They market to drivers in the same way with the same language as MLMs.

rjkennedy98 7y ago

> The people working for door dash aren't exactly the sort of person with the ability to fully understand probabilities and statistics either Yet the same person featured in the article has 3 children. I just don't understand why we allow this. China at least had the 1 child policy so there is only so much damage an incompetent person can do.

dang 7y ago
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html