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This will essentially kill these platforms. I don't have the data but I can see how a delivery can take, on average, one hour. Between waiting for an order to a
by csomar 3y ago
This will essentially kill these platforms. I don't have the data but I can see how a delivery can take, on average, one hour. Between waiting for an order to arrive, accepting it, going to the food place, taking it to the destination, delivering it, etc...
$17 + fees + tips? => $20+ delivery fee.
Unless you are delivering for a well-off family of 5, it makes no sense.
- criddell 3y agoHow does that compare with spending your time going out and picking up your food or taking your family to a restaurant? That has to be a minimum of 30-45 minutes of time spent traveling plus car or transit expenses. It might be more, but is it a lot more?
- csomar 3y agoSure. If you make $150/hour, it might make sense. But that's hardly the case for the average person.
- Gigachad 3y agoThe average person can do more things for themselves rather than rely on an army of underpaid immigrants to deliver their food.
- criddell 3y agoEven for the average person, a $20 fee might not seem that crazy. Imagine it's night time, you live in a not great neighborhood, and you're a young woman. How much would you pay to avoid having to get on a bus, ride twelve stops, pick up your food, then wait for another bus to get you home? I think the higher fee will push out the boundary of where average, healthy people are willing to travel, but it doesn't push it out great distances.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> I can see how a delivery can take, on average, one hour In New York? > will essentially kill these platforms It will curtail them. They will need to trim their driver network, which will reduce the number of drivers and increase delivery times. Restaurants and consumers outside high-density areas no longer make sense to cater to. Dropping restaurants who don’t meet minimums will also, likely, be necessary. In summary, this is entirely solved with densification—food delivery in New York predates these platforms.
- csomar 3y agoI can see it working in New York City (and closer denser areas) but these platforms operate in the broader US and other markets (which can have now laws influenced by the US).
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoAdopted nationally, this would absolutely kill the platforms as well as a number of restaurants. This law is particular to New York, whose density both makes it work and raises living costs.
- klyrs 3y agoNobody forced them to use this business model. If it isn't profitable without exploiting workers, it was a bad idea to begin with.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> If it isn't profitable without exploiting workers There are two classes of gig workers whose interests are at odds: the ersatz full time and true part time. The former, whom worker rights activists highlight, is being exploited. The latter, which companies like to talk about, benefit from a high-flexibility additional source of income. The ratio of the former to the latter increases with density; there is more work to fill the hours. Below a certain level of density, the former cannot exist. It’s absolutely possible that the optimum for New York is not the same as in rural Kentucky, where outlawing the odd job an otherwise stay-at-home parent takes to earn extra cash does more harm than good.
- klyrs 3y agoYep. Now do the math on living in NYC with a car payment making $7/h. The alternative is restaurants hiring delivery drivers with reasonable ranges. There are a few of these in my area and I greatly prefer them. The food arrives on time and hot, every time.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> alternative is restaurants hiring delivery drivers with reasonable ranges The next step would be restaurants near each other banding together to share a pool of delivery workers. In practice, I think that is what these platforms will become. The city divided into zones, each zone with a set of drivers, and consumers strongly encouraged to order from in zone.
- senttoschool 3y agoAren't these delivery apps intelligent enough to already group restaurants and nearby drivers together?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Aren't these delivery apps intelligent enough to already group restaurants and nearby drivers together? Yes. But there are clearly other factors of higher weight. I am not usually shown the closest restaurants first, but instead close enough restaurants.
- CPLX 3y agoWe had ubiquitous fast and free local restaurant delivery in NYC for decades before these apps showed up. Before cell phones even. Every hallway had a pile of menus. It’s not really better now and killing these apps wouldn’t make it worse.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> not really better now Discoverability is better. There may be a niche for a non-profit app that identifies local restaurants with free delivery. A virtual hallway pile.
- CPLX 3y agoYeah we have the internet now obviously. That’s orthogonal to having actual third party services delivering the food or taking a cut.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> we have the internet now obviously. That’s orthogonal to having actual third party services delivering the food or taking a cut I don’t think local restaurant discovery, in the context of delivery, is a remotely solved problem outside the food-delivery apps.
- erik_seaberg 3y agoThat's nice, but the suburbs never had that unless you're ordering pizza or maybe Chinese food. A single restaurant needs a lot of volume to hire its own full-time driver. Amortizing a driver sitting on his couch to come to any restaurant in the area was a big change.
- CPLX 3y agoThis article is about a dispute between these companies and New York City.
- Eumenes 3y agoYou could cook a meal for a family of 5 for ~ $20, likely way less. Unless its pizza, sounds like it'd be closer to $100+. Using these delivery apps feels akin to buying a bottle of water at a concert or alcohol from a hotel mini bar. One of the biggest rip offs out there.
- Gigachad 3y agoIt’s not a rip off, it’s the fact that having another person do everything for you is fundamentally too expensive unless there is a massive pay imbalance.
- Eumenes 3y agoUnless you're loaded, its most def a rip off. After the restaurant gets their share, the government fee/taxes, employee wages, doordash fees, delivery driver wages ... 5-10% of the bill is actually food cost.
- Gigachad 3y agoA rip off implies some kind of scam or unreasonable markup. Which isn't the case, it's just inherently expensive to have someone bring food to your door.
- beepbooptheory 3y agoIt makes no sense relative to what? Is the idea that that is simply too much to pay for the service of getting your food delivered, that it crosses some line of economic propriety? Could it maybe be the case that this service was previously undervalued, or is that somehow out of the question?
- Gigachad 3y agoIf they can’t pay minimum wage, then maybe they don’t need to exist.
- mikecoles 3y agoIf someone doesn't like their employment situation, then maybe they should get a different job.