4 ms·

I can't afford food delivery as it is now, I'm afraid this will just push it to skyrocketing prices and demanding tips.

godzillabrennus 3y ago
Yeah, which is probably best, most of us would benefit from eating out a lot less. It’s also better to have jobs that pay living wages than jobs that don’t. That said, it sucks the government had to get involved at all.
hezralig 3y ago
After having an issue with an order, I investigated reddit.com/r/ubereatsdrivers and /r/ubereats to discover than many of these drivers aren't really earning more than a base rate of a couple of dollars (literally ~$2) plus whatever we leave as tips. It seems like these delivery platforms have positioned themselves in such a way that they are extracting a pound of flesh from restaurants, customers, and underpaying their workers.
LadyCailin 3y ago
If the thing you want can only be economical by exploiting laborers, then too bad, you have to live without that thing.
- willio58 3y ago
  Solid point. It's like when Uber stopped subsidizing their rides as much and people started freaking out. We get complacent thinking we deserve these services with little cost, when real humans are the ones providing these services and we're essentially thinking they shouldn't make enough money to live well.
  - ctoth 3y ago
    See, I completely disagree with this. I am absolutely certain that the economics for these services could work if they weren't piping a majority of profits back to the bloated mothership. > A driver recently shared with me that he made $5 on a $23 ride I booked recently. If I order Doordash, the food is already way more expensive than in the restaurant. The driver gets a delivery fee. The driver gets a tip. Somehow, a $10 meal turns into $25. And there's still not enough money to pay the driver to bring me food from 5 minutes away? (I'm blind and don't have a car.) Of course there is. It's just all going to corporate. You thought Hollywood accounting was bad, wait until you learn about delivery business accounting.
    - nebula8804 3y ago
      I don't see how you can pull enough fat out of the operation to reverse the terrible numbers that Doordash has had for years. Here is a link to their financials. They have had years of losses. [1]:https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/dash/financials/ https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/dash/financials/
- WalterBright 3y ago
  And then those workers are unemployed.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  Thats the entire western way of life. Look at Purism attempting to make a phone in the US: It costs 2000$...How many people would be willing to pay 2000$ for an iPhone? Lets say Apple can be more efficient than a startup like Purism, maybe they can get to 1500$? The recent labor shortages in Florida were caused by undocumented migrants being scared by Desantis's stupid immigrant law. Lets not forget the COVID supply shortages which in hindsight were not a complete collapse thanks to a lot of sacrifice by people who we never see and never think about. China is going offline either now with greater tensions or later due to their demographic bomb and so far Apple and others are making progress transitioning to Vietnam, thailand etc to stave off the eventual truth that the west is structurally bankrupt. Maybe robots will save us? Thats what all the elites are banking on.
lastofthemojito 3y ago
He said it 90 years ago but I still agree with FDR: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country" http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html
- cde-v 3y ago
  Agreed. Farms should not be businesses and should be taken over by the government.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    Because that's always worked out soooo well in the countries which tried that model.
- ChadNauseam 3y ago
  I agree. But we should make them nonexistent by giving better options to their workers. (I assume that workers would not take sub-living-wage jobs if living-wage jobs were available to them.) Making the jobs illegal without introducing a superior alternative is not the favor many people think it is.
- lumb63 3y ago
  Consider the contrary idea from Thomas Sowell: “ Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.” How many workers would work for less than a living wage and are prevented from doing so by minimum wage laws and instead denied jobs?
  - maxfurman 3y ago
    Desperate people with no leverage against their potential employers? There are a lot of them in this country.
willio58 3y ago
If you can't afford food delivery I wouldn't blame the delivery workers. They make near nothing (this bumps them up to a little more than nothing for NYC). I hear a lot of complaints about food delivery prices. And I can't help but fight back a little because: 1. Food costs more. If you go to fast food or local restaurants you will see prices have risen. The cause of this is debated but it doesn't change the fact that food costs more. 2. Delivery workers work pretty hard to do what they do. Due to a lack of good American public transportation (especially outside of NYC) most delivery workers have to drive their own cars which is a cost that gets more expensive with time as cars have a limited amount of miles and tend to break down somewhat randomly with age. 3. Maybe most importantly, you don't need food delivered. Unless you're disabled, it's inherently an out-of-touch argument because there's nothing stopping you from making your own food or going to pick up food. It's a luxury, so I believe the prices aren't really that crazy if it means the workers can make livable wages. And if you're disabled, we should have better systems in place for you than saying "use doordash". - edited to account for disabled people.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  > Maybe most importantly, you don't need food delivered. Nobody does. People with disabilities would beg to differ. There's a reason Meals on Wheels exists.
  - hezralig 3y ago
    Yeah, I agree that there should be some sort of government subsidized program or resource rather than a privately funded company that can only exist by exploiting workers, restaurants, and customers to fulfill that need. In the United States, there are in-home healthcare workers and adjacent support workers that can perform tasks such as grocery shopping and meal preparation, no?
    - alxjrvs 3y ago
      There are, in the same way that there are infinity pools and private planes.
et-al 3y ago
Food delivery startups were a scam anyway. It was always performed by under-the-table workers and somehow VCs thought there's money to be made there.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  I always found these companies weird. Like they bloat so much to grow fast, but that bloat just kills their whole model in the end. Most people have a threshold for costs. And the head count in tech and marketing doesn't help at all with keeping it under that cost.

Yeah, which is probably best, most of us would benefit from eating out a lot less. It’s also better to have jobs that pay living wages than jobs that don’t. That said, it sucks the government had to get involved at all.

hezralig 3y ago

After having an issue with an order, I investigated reddit.com/r/ubereatsdrivers and /r/ubereats to discover than many of these drivers aren't really earning more than a base rate of a couple of dollars (literally ~$2) plus whatever we leave as tips. It seems like these delivery platforms have positioned themselves in such a way that they are extracting a pound of flesh from restaurants, customers, and underpaying their workers.

LadyCailin 3y ago

If the thing you want can only be economical by exploiting laborers, then too bad, you have to live without that thing.

willio58 3y ago
Solid point. It's like when Uber stopped subsidizing their rides as much and people started freaking out. We get complacent thinking we deserve these services with little cost, when real humans are the ones providing these services and we're essentially thinking they shouldn't make enough money to live well.
- ctoth 3y ago
  See, I completely disagree with this. I am absolutely certain that the economics for these services could work if they weren't piping a majority of profits back to the bloated mothership. > A driver recently shared with me that he made $5 on a $23 ride I booked recently. If I order Doordash, the food is already way more expensive than in the restaurant. The driver gets a delivery fee. The driver gets a tip. Somehow, a $10 meal turns into $25. And there's still not enough money to pay the driver to bring me food from 5 minutes away? (I'm blind and don't have a car.) Of course there is. It's just all going to corporate. You thought Hollywood accounting was bad, wait until you learn about delivery business accounting.
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    I don't see how you can pull enough fat out of the operation to reverse the terrible numbers that Doordash has had for years. Here is a link to their financials. They have had years of losses. [1]:https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/dash/financials/ https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/dash/financials/
WalterBright 3y ago
And then those workers are unemployed.
nebula8804 3y ago
Thats the entire western way of life. Look at Purism attempting to make a phone in the US: It costs 2000$...How many people would be willing to pay 2000$ for an iPhone? Lets say Apple can be more efficient than a startup like Purism, maybe they can get to 1500$? The recent labor shortages in Florida were caused by undocumented migrants being scared by Desantis's stupid immigrant law. Lets not forget the COVID supply shortages which in hindsight were not a complete collapse thanks to a lot of sacrifice by people who we never see and never think about. China is going offline either now with greater tensions or later due to their demographic bomb and so far Apple and others are making progress transitioning to Vietnam, thailand etc to stave off the eventual truth that the west is structurally bankrupt. Maybe robots will save us? Thats what all the elites are banking on.

lastofthemojito 3y ago

He said it 90 years ago but I still agree with FDR: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country" http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html

cde-v 3y ago
Agreed. Farms should not be businesses and should be taken over by the government.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  Because that's always worked out soooo well in the countries which tried that model.
ChadNauseam 3y ago
I agree. But we should make them nonexistent by giving better options to their workers. (I assume that workers would not take sub-living-wage jobs if living-wage jobs were available to them.) Making the jobs illegal without introducing a superior alternative is not the favor many people think it is.
lumb63 3y ago
Consider the contrary idea from Thomas Sowell: “ Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.” How many workers would work for less than a living wage and are prevented from doing so by minimum wage laws and instead denied jobs?
- maxfurman 3y ago
  Desperate people with no leverage against their potential employers? There are a lot of them in this country.

willio58 3y ago

If you can't afford food delivery I wouldn't blame the delivery workers. They make near nothing (this bumps them up to a little more than nothing for NYC). I hear a lot of complaints about food delivery prices. And I can't help but fight back a little because: 1. Food costs more. If you go to fast food or local restaurants you will see prices have risen. The cause of this is debated but it doesn't change the fact that food costs more. 2. Delivery workers work pretty hard to do what they do. Due to a lack of good American public transportation (especially outside of NYC) most delivery workers have to drive their own cars which is a cost that gets more expensive with time as cars have a limited amount of miles and tend to break down somewhat randomly with age. 3. Maybe most importantly, you don't need food delivered. Unless you're disabled, it's inherently an out-of-touch argument because there's nothing stopping you from making your own food or going to pick up food. It's a luxury, so I believe the prices aren't really that crazy if it means the workers can make livable wages. And if you're disabled, we should have better systems in place for you than saying "use doordash". - edited to account for disabled people.

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
> Maybe most importantly, you don't need food delivered. Nobody does. People with disabilities would beg to differ. There's a reason Meals on Wheels exists.
- hezralig 3y ago
  Yeah, I agree that there should be some sort of government subsidized program or resource rather than a privately funded company that can only exist by exploiting workers, restaurants, and customers to fulfill that need. In the United States, there are in-home healthcare workers and adjacent support workers that can perform tasks such as grocery shopping and meal preparation, no?
  - alxjrvs 3y ago
    There are, in the same way that there are infinity pools and private planes.

et-al 3y ago

Food delivery startups were a scam anyway. It was always performed by under-the-table workers and somehow VCs thought there's money to be made there.

Ekaros 3y ago
I always found these companies weird. Like they bloat so much to grow fast, but that bloat just kills their whole model in the end. Most people have a threshold for costs. And the head count in tech and marketing doesn't help at all with keeping it under that cost.