Software products built around gig work thrive in jurisdictions with weak pay and labor protections. Rappi founder Simón Borrero has said [1] > In the US, pr

Software products built around gig work thrive in jurisdictions with weak pay and labor protections. Rappi founder Simón Borrero has said [1] > In the US, products are cheap and labor is expensive; in Latin America, products are expensive and labor is cheap, so [the on-demand delivery model] makes more sense This is why the experience between using something like Rappi in Bogotá and Doordash or Ubeareats in San Francisco are so different. One is quick, cheap, and efficient, and the other is slow and expensive. The limiting factor is always labor. On-demand delivery companies in North America and Europe will probably never be profitable under the current gig work paradigm, their aggressive lobbying notwithstanding[2] By the way, Rappi and other gig work apps do lots of lobbying in Latin America -- see the new lobbying alliance they've formed with other on-demand apps in response to mounting labor strikes, publicity fiascos, and government regulation [3][4][5]. Last mile delivery won't be solved in the West by gig work unless things really go down the tube -- anyone working on this should realize this is a pathological paradigm that is bad for everyone involved. I'm optimistic that even Rappi won't be sustainable as regulations catch up to these platforms in LatAm. See for instance their recent challenges in Baja California [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210228011421/https://lavca.org/2016/12/01/entrepreneur-profile-simon-borrero-co-founder-ceo-rappi/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210228011421/https://lavca.org... [2] https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/497472-food-delivery-companies-turn-to-k-street-as-industry/ https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/... [3] https://forbes.co/2020/05/20/tecnologia/rappi-uber-didi-y-otras-apps-crean-un-nuevo-gremio-en-colombia/ https://forbes.co/2020/05/20/tecnologia/rappi-uber-didi-y-ot... [4] https://labsnews.com/en/news/economy/rappi-delivery-protests-bogota/ https://labsnews.com/en/news/economy/rappi-delivery-protests... [5] https://cuencahighlife.com/app-based-businesses-face-roadblocks-in-colombia-for-labor-law-violations/ https://cuencahighlife.com/app-based-businesses-face-roadblo...