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Companies aren't required to employ people. More people want to work for Google than Google current needs to hire. The inability of drivers to calculate deprec

Companies aren't required to employ people. More people want to work for Google than Google current needs to hire. The inability of drivers to calculate depreciation prevents them from being able to assess whether or not the contract they're agreeing to is fair. If they actually knew how little they were being paid after depreciation they would probably sit at home and try to find a better job. This is a market inefficiency in that the actual cost of delivery is not properly reflected in the primary market (between Target & customer) price and instead offloaded on another party. The delivery costs are being artificially lowered by Target taking advantage of workers with low financial acumen. If the cost of delivery as paid by Target to their delivery drivers was closer to the cost + wages it would most likely result in higher prices paid by the consumer. This would end up as less people using the service and getting off the couch and into Target. Or they wouldn't buy stuff. If a product or service is only sustainable by exploiting people's ignorance and paying them below minimum wage then I don't think that product or service should exist.

macspoofing 6y ago
>More people want to work for Google than Google current needs to hire. That's just a factually wrong statement. But it also don't apply here. Google restricts the number of people it hires, Uber/Target do not restrict the number of people that register to drive for them ... yet. >The delivery costs are being artificially lowered by Target taking advantage of workers with low financial acumen. Yes. I agree with that, but fixing this is harder than you think. Let's say Target (or Government) decides to raise the rates from, equivalent of $10/hr to $15/hr, to properly account for delivery costs (and let's assume this has no impact on demand, which it will to the detriment of the drivers). At that point, you're going to attract the delivery drivers who weren't willing to drive for $10/hr but are willing to drive for $11/hr or $12/hr or..etc. Meanwhile demand hasn't changed, which means there is less work for individual drivers, and their wages do not go up, or go up much less than you would expect. The only way to mitigate this is for Uber/Target to become a gatekeeper, and control the supply of drivers. This means that this gig-economy business goes out the door. Not everybody would be able to just start driving for Uber.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "At that point, you're going to attract the delivery drivers who weren't willing to drive for $10/hr but are willing to drive for $11/hr or $12/hr or..etc." But are there enough people who are willing to drive for $11/hr but not for $10/hr to balance out the ones already driving for $10/hr? We don't know. It's possible that all or most of those willing to be delivery drivers for $15/hr are already driving for $10/hr, and raising the wage to $15/hr won't have an appreciable impact on the supply of drivers.

macspoofing 6y ago

>More people want to work for Google than Google current needs to hire. That's just a factually wrong statement. But it also don't apply here. Google restricts the number of people it hires, Uber/Target do not restrict the number of people that register to drive for them ... yet. >The delivery costs are being artificially lowered by Target taking advantage of workers with low financial acumen. Yes. I agree with that, but fixing this is harder than you think. Let's say Target (or Government) decides to raise the rates from, equivalent of $10/hr to $15/hr, to properly account for delivery costs (and let's assume this has no impact on demand, which it will to the detriment of the drivers). At that point, you're going to attract the delivery drivers who weren't willing to drive for $10/hr but are willing to drive for $11/hr or $12/hr or..etc. Meanwhile demand hasn't changed, which means there is less work for individual drivers, and their wages do not go up, or go up much less than you would expect. The only way to mitigate this is for Uber/Target to become a gatekeeper, and control the supply of drivers. This means that this gig-economy business goes out the door. Not everybody would be able to just start driving for Uber.

pmoriarty 6y ago
"At that point, you're going to attract the delivery drivers who weren't willing to drive for $10/hr but are willing to drive for $11/hr or $12/hr or..etc." But are there enough people who are willing to drive for $11/hr but not for $10/hr to balance out the ones already driving for $10/hr? We don't know. It's possible that all or most of those willing to be delivery drivers for $15/hr are already driving for $10/hr, and raising the wage to $15/hr won't have an appreciable impact on the supply of drivers.