5 ms·

To be clear before I say anything: I think the entire food delivery app business model is bad for all parties involved and that these companies are bad actors.

by habosa 3y ago

To be clear before I say anything: I think the entire food delivery app business model is bad for all parties involved and that these companies are bad actors. But … I don’t think the cities are properly accounting for the ease of using multiple apps? If a driver is logged into Uber and Doordash and GrubHub on 3 phones waiting for a delivery they probably should not be accruing $17.96*3 per hour at that time. But it sounds like they might be able to under this new law.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> it sounds like they might be able to under this new law If the apps are idiots, perhaps. In practice, this law basically all but these companies to employ a fleet of drivers.
Gigachad 3y ago
They can just gps log while the workers are clocked on and if they spend a significant amount of time taking random trips not part of a delivery, you kick the driver out.
sneak 3y ago
If it were bad for all parties involved, customers would not willingly and freely choose to use it.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  That would be true if Uber didn't spend so much money subsidizing rides throughout its history. A customer would be dumb to refuse $2 of service for $1 of payment even if the system being created is going to lock them into an extractive duopoly later. You can already see this at work as Uber tries to become profitable - ride availability, cost, and quality are getting worse but people continue to use them out of habit or because regional alternatives have been weakened by years of subsidies.
  - sneak 3y ago
    How does Uber doing price dumping (if in fact they were) lock anyone into anything later? Before Uber the options were "walk" or "call a taxi and pray".
    - DropInIn 3y ago
      ... seriously? The competition ceases to exist and the requirements to re-enter the market once the dumper is a monopoly (usually with the politics power that entails) is beyond the scope for damn near anyone to achieve.
tchalla 3y ago
> If a driver is logged into Uber and Doordash and GrubHub on 3 phones waiting for a delivery they probably should not be accruing $17.96*3 per hour at that time. Why not? The entire shtick of Uber et al is that employees choose their hours and gain "freedom" from employees. This is what freedom looks like. Employers can't tell freelance contractors how they should behave. They decide a contract, they get a service and get their job done.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Employers can't tell freelance contractors how they should behave. They decide a contract, they get a service and get their job done. The contract can absolutely require exclusivity if paying by time.
  - tyingq 3y ago
    Yes, but it does contribute to the somewhat fuzzy rules on whether someone is a contractor or employee. See: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc762 https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc762 It's mostly not whether they can contractually demand any one particular thing. It's the sum total of behavioral and financial control they exert. Exclusivity would be a pretty big ticked box. If Uber/Doordash tick enough of those questions, then they are at risk of having to treat their drivers as employees. Which is more expensive.
- dtech 3y ago
  The agreement is that if you earn a wage you have your time available for the employer, so they could no longer reject offers. You're saying that they should get both the benefits of freelancers (pick work) and employees (minimum wage).
  - DannyBee 3y ago
    So? The employer can refuse to contract with them if they can't fulfill their obligations
    - 3y ago
senttoschool 3y ago
>To be clear before I say anything: I think the entire food delivery app business model is bad for all parties involved and that these companies are bad actors. Funny I have the exact opposite opinion. I think it's good for all parties involved. Restaurants get a bigger market. Delivery people get more freedom at work. Eaters get convenience. Delivery apps get a piece of the revenue for efficiently routing drivers and customer service. If it's truly bad for all parties, there'd be no Uber Eats, no one would order from Uber Eats, no restaurant would sign up, and no one would deliver.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > If it's truly bad for all parties, there'd be no Uber Eats, no one would order from Uber Eats, no restaurant would sign up, and no one would deliver. What a strange take. If I take 3 billion dollars and setup a company that flies in people from other parts of the country at a loss to do your job for half the money you get for it, and have everyone compete for it, then when you lose your job and the business you worked for gets dependent on a business model requiring cheap disposable labor and I own the market I then I jack up prices to more than you were being paid but take the difference as profit, would you consider that a win for all parties?
  - Shaanie 3y ago
    I don't think the moat for food delivery is big enough that capturing the market and hiking prices is a realistic option. Uber eats already has plenty of competition (at least in my country) from foodora, wolt and bolt food.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      So, with a net income of -$9 billion, what is their business plan, then? * https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/uber/company-profile?mod=mw_quote_tab https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/uber/company-pro...
      - CodeSgt 3y ago
_8j50 3y ago
I disagree, the business model works out just fine for a lot of people. At the core of the problem is the concept if a contractor. These cities are trying to go around a federally defiend concept of contracting. You agree, as a self-employed business operator to provide services and get paid for it. Employees on the other hand provide labour which means performing assigned tasks under a specific job title, typically under some sort of management with performance reviews and accomodations provided. Anyone from IT workers to general contractors contract out services as a business, not labour as an employee. When you hire a general contractor to fix your roofing for example, they are not your employee, you don't have to pay them minimum wage, withold taxes or provide medical care and paid vacation to them. I have been a contractor and hated it but I know people who love it. The scale and nature of Uber's business is no reason to treat them differently when everyone is supposed to be equal under the law. Taxii drivers were typically independent contractors as well unless they had their own medallion back in the day. I have not read any argument so far as to why Uber and friends should be treated differently. I would hate to pay more for their services just because a bunch of people who can't ger a job elsewhere want to force uber into employing them when it wants to contract them. Most people I have met who do this work have another day job and uber is extra income. If you wanna do it full time, you can pick locations like airports for uber and downtown areas for doordash and ubereats, especially in places like manhattan or miami and make much more than minimum wage. To be clear, under this law, the guy who hustles and makes $25/hr will get paid minimum wage just like the guy who takes a nap in his car near his house until he gets an order/ride. Essentially, in addition to other burdens, they want drivers to be paid for being available but also drivers would have to be told where to work and how to work, for example you can't park in the middle of nowhere, where you know you won't get any orders and get paid for it.
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  People judge the business model on the American market. It's shortsighted.
- hubertjeannine 3y ago
  [dead]
macintosh-hd 3y ago
Doordash has been adding increasingly annoying penalties for rejecting orders, to the point where I doubt it would be worth it to run them alongside another app. I’ve done it in the past but I basically cannot anymore as I had a <30% acceptance rate due to low paying orders, and now I’d be stuck only getting bad orders for days to get out.

by habosa 3y ago

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> it sounds like they might be able to under this new law If the apps are idiots, perhaps. In practice, this law basically all but these companies to employ a fleet of drivers.

Gigachad 3y ago

They can just gps log while the workers are clocked on and if they spend a significant amount of time taking random trips not part of a delivery, you kick the driver out.

sneak 3y ago

If it were bad for all parties involved, customers would not willingly and freely choose to use it.

AlexandrB 3y ago
That would be true if Uber didn't spend so much money subsidizing rides throughout its history. A customer would be dumb to refuse $2 of service for $1 of payment even if the system being created is going to lock them into an extractive duopoly later. You can already see this at work as Uber tries to become profitable - ride availability, cost, and quality are getting worse but people continue to use them out of habit or because regional alternatives have been weakened by years of subsidies.
- sneak 3y ago
  How does Uber doing price dumping (if in fact they were) lock anyone into anything later? Before Uber the options were "walk" or "call a taxi and pray".
  - DropInIn 3y ago
    ... seriously? The competition ceases to exist and the requirements to re-enter the market once the dumper is a monopoly (usually with the politics power that entails) is beyond the scope for damn near anyone to achieve.

tchalla 3y ago

> If a driver is logged into Uber and Doordash and GrubHub on 3 phones waiting for a delivery they probably should not be accruing $17.96*3 per hour at that time. Why not? The entire shtick of Uber et al is that employees choose their hours and gain "freedom" from employees. This is what freedom looks like. Employers can't tell freelance contractors how they should behave. They decide a contract, they get a service and get their job done.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Employers can't tell freelance contractors how they should behave. They decide a contract, they get a service and get their job done. The contract can absolutely require exclusivity if paying by time.
- tyingq 3y ago
  Yes, but it does contribute to the somewhat fuzzy rules on whether someone is a contractor or employee. See: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc762 https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc762 It's mostly not whether they can contractually demand any one particular thing. It's the sum total of behavioral and financial control they exert. Exclusivity would be a pretty big ticked box. If Uber/Doordash tick enough of those questions, then they are at risk of having to treat their drivers as employees. Which is more expensive.
dtech 3y ago
The agreement is that if you earn a wage you have your time available for the employer, so they could no longer reject offers. You're saying that they should get both the benefits of freelancers (pick work) and employees (minimum wage).
- DannyBee 3y ago
  So? The employer can refuse to contract with them if they can't fulfill their obligations
  - 3y ago

senttoschool 3y ago

>To be clear before I say anything: I think the entire food delivery app business model is bad for all parties involved and that these companies are bad actors. Funny I have the exact opposite opinion. I think it's good for all parties involved. Restaurants get a bigger market. Delivery people get more freedom at work. Eaters get convenience. Delivery apps get a piece of the revenue for efficiently routing drivers and customer service. If it's truly bad for all parties, there'd be no Uber Eats, no one would order from Uber Eats, no restaurant would sign up, and no one would deliver.

Eisenstein 3y ago
> If it's truly bad for all parties, there'd be no Uber Eats, no one would order from Uber Eats, no restaurant would sign up, and no one would deliver. What a strange take. If I take 3 billion dollars and setup a company that flies in people from other parts of the country at a loss to do your job for half the money you get for it, and have everyone compete for it, then when you lose your job and the business you worked for gets dependent on a business model requiring cheap disposable labor and I own the market I then I jack up prices to more than you were being paid but take the difference as profit, would you consider that a win for all parties?
- Shaanie 3y ago
  I don't think the moat for food delivery is big enough that capturing the market and hiking prices is a realistic option. Uber eats already has plenty of competition (at least in my country) from foodora, wolt and bolt food.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    So, with a net income of -$9 billion, what is their business plan, then? * https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/uber/company-profile?mod=mw_quote_tab https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/uber/company-pro...
    - CodeSgt 3y ago

_8j50 3y ago

I disagree, the business model works out just fine for a lot of people. At the core of the problem is the concept if a contractor. These cities are trying to go around a federally defiend concept of contracting. You agree, as a self-employed business operator to provide services and get paid for it. Employees on the other hand provide labour which means performing assigned tasks under a specific job title, typically under some sort of management with performance reviews and accomodations provided. Anyone from IT workers to general contractors contract out services as a business, not labour as an employee. When you hire a general contractor to fix your roofing for example, they are not your employee, you don't have to pay them minimum wage, withold taxes or provide medical care and paid vacation to them. I have been a contractor and hated it but I know people who love it. The scale and nature of Uber's business is no reason to treat them differently when everyone is supposed to be equal under the law. Taxii drivers were typically independent contractors as well unless they had their own medallion back in the day. I have not read any argument so far as to why Uber and friends should be treated differently. I would hate to pay more for their services just because a bunch of people who can't ger a job elsewhere want to force uber into employing them when it wants to contract them. Most people I have met who do this work have another day job and uber is extra income. If you wanna do it full time, you can pick locations like airports for uber and downtown areas for doordash and ubereats, especially in places like manhattan or miami and make much more than minimum wage. To be clear, under this law, the guy who hustles and makes $25/hr will get paid minimum wage just like the guy who takes a nap in his car near his house until he gets an order/ride. Essentially, in addition to other burdens, they want drivers to be paid for being available but also drivers would have to be told where to work and how to work, for example you can't park in the middle of nowhere, where you know you won't get any orders and get paid for it.

WeylandYutani 3y ago
People judge the business model on the American market. It's shortsighted.
hubertjeannine 3y ago
[dead]

macintosh-hd 3y ago

Doordash has been adding increasingly annoying penalties for rejecting orders, to the point where I doubt it would be worth it to run them alongside another app. I’ve done it in the past but I basically cannot anymore as I had a <30% acceptance rate due to low paying orders, and now I’d be stuck only getting bad orders for days to get out.