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This would be great, but you still need the oversight and accountability that the apps provide. That needs to be offloaded to either you (you pay and trust your

This would be great, but you still need the oversight and accountability that the apps provide. That needs to be offloaded to either you (you pay and trust your courier) or the restaurant (they charge you for their trusted couriers). It makes more sense to me for the restaurant to validate their own team of couriers, so what you really need is a company that builds a widget which allows restaurants to cheaply host a grubhub/doordash equivalent on their own. They just need some super low-code no friction solution because restaurants can be pretty tech averse. You would need to really figure out what the killer features of grubhub/doordash are and how to put those in the hands of the restaurant, I imagine the 20+% cut that grubhub takes would make it an easy sell.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
A courier’s union could provide oversight and loss compensation. It’s the most decentralized way to do it imo. EDIT: and health insurance and worker protection!
- ericmcer 4y ago
  Isn't a union just another form of centralization? Ostensibly the whole appeal of decentralization is that larger organizations incentivizes stray from workers and customers, and a large union is a large organization. The idea of a restaurant being the central unit appeals to me because it is never going to be > 30 individuals so will always be exposed to workers interests.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    Centralization describes a system where one organization controls the whole network. This is like Uber or Twitter. Decentralization describes a system where multiple organizations work together and there is no central point of control. This would be couriers unions or mastodon. In mastodon a single server can host thousands of users but no server controls the network. Then there is peer-to-peer and this would be like Matrix chat or a system where customers pay couriers as individuals. Here is a diagram: https://teblocha.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/sas.png https://teblocha.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/sas.png A system where restaurants take responsibility for deliveries is in principle decentralized as well, but I would argue that being a restaurant and managing deliveries are generally different tasks. Without other controls that system would likely devolve to one central firm contracting our delivery workers to restaurants, which is essentially exactly what we have now. The issue with worker protection is not really about the size of the organization, but about who has control and decision making power. I suppose I should have said a cooperative of delivery drivers instead of a union, because in the USA the Taft-Hartley act severely compromised how unions behave and centralized their power in union leadership. So that was my mistake in phrasing. But I believe a cooperatively run delivery service would better look out for the rights of delivery drivers specifically, compared to restaurants who are more focused on managing food service and would be likely to subcontract delivery service to a centralized firm. Or look we have it both ways and restaurants subcontract to a cooperative of delivery drivers. My point is delivery drivers should organize and collectively manage their jobs. Actually I think every firm in our economy should be a cooperative.
    - ericmcer 4y ago
      ah cool that is a good description. The line between de & centralized is a bit blurry.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

A courier’s union could provide oversight and loss compensation. It’s the most decentralized way to do it imo. EDIT: and health insurance and worker protection!

ericmcer 4y ago
Isn't a union just another form of centralization? Ostensibly the whole appeal of decentralization is that larger organizations incentivizes stray from workers and customers, and a large union is a large organization. The idea of a restaurant being the central unit appeals to me because it is never going to be > 30 individuals so will always be exposed to workers interests.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  Centralization describes a system where one organization controls the whole network. This is like Uber or Twitter. Decentralization describes a system where multiple organizations work together and there is no central point of control. This would be couriers unions or mastodon. In mastodon a single server can host thousands of users but no server controls the network. Then there is peer-to-peer and this would be like Matrix chat or a system where customers pay couriers as individuals. Here is a diagram: https://teblocha.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/sas.png https://teblocha.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/sas.png A system where restaurants take responsibility for deliveries is in principle decentralized as well, but I would argue that being a restaurant and managing deliveries are generally different tasks. Without other controls that system would likely devolve to one central firm contracting our delivery workers to restaurants, which is essentially exactly what we have now. The issue with worker protection is not really about the size of the organization, but about who has control and decision making power. I suppose I should have said a cooperative of delivery drivers instead of a union, because in the USA the Taft-Hartley act severely compromised how unions behave and centralized their power in union leadership. So that was my mistake in phrasing. But I believe a cooperatively run delivery service would better look out for the rights of delivery drivers specifically, compared to restaurants who are more focused on managing food service and would be likely to subcontract delivery service to a centralized firm. Or look we have it both ways and restaurants subcontract to a cooperative of delivery drivers. My point is delivery drivers should organize and collectively manage their jobs. Actually I think every firm in our economy should be a cooperative.
  - ericmcer 4y ago
    ah cool that is a good description. The line between de & centralized is a bit blurry.