The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: Bloop Bloop Reloaded on November 24, 2020, 05:35:28 PM
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https://www.theage.com.au/national/now-is-the-time-for-all-of-us-to-consider-our-use-of-food-delivery-apps-20201124-p56hhr.html
I read this interesting article today which says that food delivery apps and the gig economy generally are placing pressure on workers. The article talks about a recent spate of delivery driver / rider deaths.
Do you see anything wrong with the gig economy and using it? Do you think it puts unfair pressure on workers? If legislation was passed turning such 'contractors' into employees, would you support that (and the presumed increase in prices)?
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I typically don't use them often. Honestly I am turned off by the fees and the bloated prices rather than the ethical aspects, but I accept that those represent the true cost of the services (including the platform) - I myself am just not willing to pay for that cost often. That being said, I use them infrequently enough that it truly represents a great convenience/appreciation when I inevitably do and therefore I heavily compensate/tip the deliver/picker for that convenience. If I knew the employees were being fairly compensated, I would tip less. I would be in favor of legislation that better compensates the "employees".
Ricksun
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In general, I only use food delivery apps when I’m on the road for work. I’m in a city I don’t know we’ll with often limited transportation. I don’t think I’d change my behavior much if it cost more.
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Here in the US people would not be delivering food on bikes. They are driving cars.
I have heard that UPS (and other drivers like Amazon) may be under such a pressure to deliver so many packages per shift, that they are running, don't have time to even use the bathroom, etc. Here Uber has gotten a lot of flack that Uber takes advantage of its drivers (again because it is kind of like contract work) where they do not make much, some less than minimum wage when you calculate everything in.
Also pizza delivery drivers especially getting held up because they are carrying cash.
My brother who is an employee at a company, it is crazy the amount of scruntity they are under! They have a GPS thingie attached to the company van. They measure how long it takes him to get from place to place, any stops, and whether he goes above the speed limit. He is then timed how long each installation takes. Basically he is often booked for more jobs than can be done within a normal work day, which means he starts early and ends late (and invariably late appt customers are having to wait). It seems very high pressure to me. He is on salary and expected to work I can't remember how many hours a week (overtime is expected). What is scary is if there is less work they can dock his pay. And only after you work your expected baked in overtime, can you get time and a half. So there are some weeks he works 7 days a week just to make extra money. Does'nt seem sustainable.
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I find the apps' fees to be the opposite of bloated. I can get a UberPool (not in pandemic times) that travels about 10km for about $8. Or a private Uber for about $15. The equivalent taxi fare would be at least $20. The equivalent public transport fare would be $4 and I'd have to walk to the stop and wait and wait and get on a crowded, slow bus/train/tram.
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Basically he is often booked for more jobs than can be done within a normal work day, which means he starts early and ends late (and invariably late appt customers are having to wait). It seems very high pressure to me. He is on salary and expected to work I can't remember how many hours a week (overtime is expected). What is scary is if there is less work they can dock his pay. And only after you work your expected baked in overtime, can you get time and a half. So there are some weeks he works 7 days a week just to make extra money. Does'nt seem sustainable.
Sounds dodgy. If you're a salaried worker and you are paid a fixed rate to encompass normal working hours and reasonable overtime, how can your pay be docked during a non-busy period?
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Basically he is often booked for more jobs than can be done within a normal work day, which means he starts early and ends late (and invariably late appt customers are having to wait). It seems very high pressure to me. He is on salary and expected to work I can't remember how many hours a week (overtime is expected). What is scary is if there is less work they can dock his pay. And only after you work your expected baked in overtime, can you get time and a half. So there are some weeks he works 7 days a week just to make extra money. Does'nt seem sustainable.
Sounds dodgy. If you're a salaried worker and you are paid a fixed rate to encompass normal working hours and reasonable overtime, how can your pay be docked during a non-busy period?
Sounds like FLSA fraud by the employer. If an employee has no discretion over their work they should not be classified as Exempt. He should ask his HR for a FLSA review and to track his overtime, he is likely due some back pay. There are plenty of lawyers that deal in this stuff since it is often abused.
Sounds dodgy. If you're a salaried worker and you are paid a fixed rate to encompass normal working hours and reasonable overtime, how can your pay be docked during a non-busy period?
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Here in the US, I’ve heard that restaurants lose money when they use delivery apps like Grubhub. Admittedly I haven’t researched this, but it’s not a big hassle for us to pick up our orders directly.
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I find the apps' fees to be the opposite of bloated. I can get a UberPool (not in pandemic times) that travels about 10km for about $8. Or a private Uber for about $15. The equivalent taxi fare would be at least $20. The equivalent public transport fare would be $4 and I'd have to walk to the stop and wait and wait and get on a crowded, slow bus/train/tram.
And a round trip of a few miles thus costs 30, and involves waiting 15-20 minutes to be picked up, in my area. I consider that quite a luxury and use it only for doctor’s appointments.
Since I find restaurants to be ridiculously overpriced compared to cooking my own food, I not willing to pay more to have someone bring my food to me.
My experience is that drivers in my area tend to drive for Uber AND Lyft AND Door Dash AND Instacart. It tends to be a second job, or people who work seasonally. I’ve had several Lyft drivers who do landscaping in the summer.
It doesn’t seem to be a great way to make a living. I’ve heard that the fees really hurt small restaurants.
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Basically he is often booked for more jobs than can be done within a normal work day, which means he starts early and ends late (and invariably late appt customers are having to wait). It seems very high pressure to me. He is on salary and expected to work I can't remember how many hours a week (overtime is expected). What is scary is if there is less work they can dock his pay. And only after you work your expected baked in overtime, can you get time and a half. So there are some weeks he works 7 days a week just to make extra money. Does'nt seem sustainable.
Sounds dodgy. If you're a salaried worker and you are paid a fixed rate to encompass normal working hours and reasonable overtime, how can your pay be docked during a non-busy period?
Sounds like FLSA fraud by the employer. If an employee has no discretion over their work they should not be classified as Exempt. He should ask his HR for a FLSA review and to track his overtime, he is likely due some back pay. There are plenty of lawyers that deal in this stuff since it is often abused.
Sounds dodgy. If you're a salaried worker and you are paid a fixed rate to encompass normal working hours and reasonable overtime, how can your pay be docked during a non-busy period?
I myself have never heard of such a situation. But his way of dealing with it is fine, I'll make sure that doesn't happen.. It does seem fishy.
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No one is forcing someone to engage as a food delivery driver...same for Uber / Lyft, etc. Not unethical at all. If it wasn't a profitable enterprise for the driver, then they wouldn't do it and the market would collapse.
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If it wasn't a profitable enterprise for the driver, then they wouldn't do it and the market would collapse.
Not really true... in many cases drivers eventually quit when they find they are losing money on gas, maintenance, and loans. For example:
https://www.fastcompany.com/40538647/nearly-a-third-of-uber-drivers-are-actually-losing-money-study-says
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If it wasn't a profitable enterprise for the driver, then they wouldn't do it and the market would collapse.
Not really true... in many cases drivers eventually quit when they find they are losing money on gas, maintenance, and loans. For example:
https://www.fastcompany.com/40538647/nearly-a-third-of-uber-drivers-are-actually-losing-money-study-says
And don't forget the reality of insurance costs, too. Most of these people are the sorts that have to deal with cut-rate insurance companies with barebones state minimums and no comp/collision because that's all they can afford to begin with. Then they think they're making money until they get into an accident and find out that their personal auto insurance doesn't actually cover them and the "gig provider" leaves them flapping in the wind. If these people actually had the commercial car insurance with the deductibles they could actually afford to pay out of pocket that they actually needed to keep from being financially destroyed or from losing their drivers license, they would have done the math right out of the gate and realized within a month at the latest that their pay isn't even covering their basic out of pocket costs.
And then there's the vehicle requirements, though you kinda touched on the loans end already. No cosmetic damage, newer than ~12-15 years, etc. The people most dependent upon the gig economy to where they're working it full time just to make ends meet can't afford the vehicles that typically qualify without going into debt through financing (and given their precarious financial situation already, that means predatory buy-here-pay-here dealerships with outrageous interest rates and remote kill switches that disable your car from starting if you're more than an hour late with your car payment), and the vehicles that they could realistically afford to run and beat into the ground won't actually qualify for use, or will quickly age out/get damaged and cease to qualify.
There's a lot of hidden costs that most people don't understand are getting foisted off on them as contractors until it's too late, and given the pay barely averages to minimum wage as a contractor with the expectation that the pay covers not just your time but your business expenses as well.... these gig service companies are exploiting that ignorance and those so desperate for work that they're willing to risk life and limb to take it anyway.
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No one is forcing someone to engage as a food delivery driver...same for Uber / Lyft, etc. Not unethical at all. If it wasn't a profitable enterprise for the driver, then they wouldn't do it and the market would collapse.
Name checks out.
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Basically he is often booked for more jobs than can be done within a normal work day, which means he starts early and ends late (and invariably late appt customers are having to wait). It seems very high pressure to me. He is on salary and expected to work I can't remember how many hours a week (overtime is expected). What is scary is if there is less work they can dock his pay. And only after you work your expected baked in overtime, can you get time and a half. So there are some weeks he works 7 days a week just to make extra money. Does'nt seem sustainable.
Sounds dodgy. If you're a salaried worker and you are paid a fixed rate to encompass normal working hours and reasonable overtime, how can your pay be docked during a non-busy period?
Sounds like FLSA fraud by the employer. If an employee has no discretion over their work they should not be classified as Exempt. He should ask his HR for a FLSA review and to track his overtime, he is likely due some back pay. There are plenty of lawyers that deal in this stuff since it is often abused.
Sounds dodgy. If you're a salaried worker and you are paid a fixed rate to encompass normal working hours and reasonable overtime, how can your pay be docked during a non-busy period?
I myself have never heard of such a situation. But his way of dealing with it is fine, I'll make sure that doesn't happen.. It does seem fishy.
Googling keywords like "flsa overtime lawsuit" will turn up a ton of results of court cases involving the Department of Labor. It's a big deal and happens at companies both large and small (including the federal government awhile back).
If someone is salaried, then I'm guessing they're a W-2 employee which have more protections than as a contractor. Here's a case (emphasis mine) where this was important:
https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20190305-1
"While most of Off Duty Police Services Inc.'s employees were uniformed police officers who also worked for other law enforcement entities, others were non-sworn with generally no law enforcement background. The Sixth Circuit found that both groups of workers were employees, overturning a previous district court's finding that the sworn police officers were independent contractors who fell outside the scope of the FLSA's protections. The Sixth Circuit Court went on to affirm the Department's back wage calculations as the best method available to determine wages owed to employees since the employer failed to keep accurate records, and remanded the case to the district court to award damages for the sworn officers.
"The resolution of this case should remind other employers to review their pay practices to ensure they comply with the law," said Wage and Hour Division District Director Karen Garnett, in Louisville. "Violations such as those in this case can add up quickly and become very costly. The Department offers extensive guidance, and encourages employers to reach out to us for assistance to ensure that they understand their responsibilities."
"The U.S. Department of Labor will not hesitate to protect employees, and to level the playing field for employers who obey the law," said Associate Regional Solicitor Theresa Ball, in Nashville."
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I use the gig economy, but tip well. Generally 20%. I don't think the economics work for the drivers otherwise.
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I don't use food delivery (just doesn't appeal to me, all the cost of a restaurant with none of the luxury). But I don't see an ethical problem. If workers or restaurants do not benefit from delivering food, they can choose not to. If they haven't made that choice, by definition they want to keep doing food delivery.
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I don't use food delivery (just doesn't appeal to me, all the cost of a restaurant with none of the luxury). But I don't see an ethical problem. If workers or restaurants do not benefit from delivering food, they can choose not to. If they haven't made that choice, by definition they want to keep doing food delivery.
Wow, some real choice there... you understand that most restaurants didn't even want to do business with these third party delivery services before the pandemic, right? And that the only reason why some have caved was either take on delivery through these exploitative third party delivery services or lose their business entirely, because the only reason why they probably didn't deliver in the first place was due to the responsible and expected cost and overhead of insurance and employee costs for doing so, and understanding that they couldn't afford it. Outfits like DoorDash and GrubHub even opted in locations at points for restaurants who didn't even want to participate.
This is from barely a year ago: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/ (https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/)
...and it's hardly the only story out there.
these gig service companies are exploiting that ignorance and those so desperate for work business that they're willing to risk life and limb to take it anyway.
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I don't use the services and I don't use Lyft/Uber for the same reason. They exploit workers who are desperate/have few options (as stated above) and also may not understand the true cost of "working" for those services.
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I think the industry is in need of reform, but now may not be the time to mess with it. Too many people are depending on it right now, and some businesses as well. Once the dust settles on the current pandemic situation, then we can take stock and try to implement reasonable reforms, but not right now.
IMHO that's why Uber/Lyft managed to get that referendum passed in California --the CA legislature passed a sweeping reform measure that would have deeply disrupted the ride-sharing industry, at a time when even more people than usual are depending on it (due to fear of infection on mass transit, etc.). So voters went with the proposal that would preserve the status quo from a customer standpoint, even though by all accounts it's a terrible "deal" for drivers.
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IMHO that's why Uber/Lyft managed to get that referendum passed in California --the CA legislature passed a sweeping reform measure that would have deeply disrupted the ride-sharing industry, at a time when even more people than usual are depending on it (due to fear of infection on mass transit, etc.). So voters went with the proposal that would preserve the status quo from a customer standpoint, even though by all accounts it's a terrible "deal" for drivers.
I'd be more willing to buy that argument if Uber, Lyft and its ilk didn't already have years of lobbying history trying to dodge the employment status issue already. Bottom line is, most taxis and courier services are so much more expensive because the rates reflect the reality of a decent wage, benefits, and proper insurance and licensing and these people know for a fact that the instant they can't shove the hidden cost off on the pool of ignorant and financially desperate drivers to eat anymore, their profit model is going to disappear. Their pricing models and profits are only disruptive because they're exploiting loopholes in labor laws that haven't kept up with changing technology.
The reality is that these gig economy jobs aren't actually legally and financially sustainable for the company running it if the letter and spirit of the law is followed and the people working are actually compensated fairly for their labor... and I certainly don't exclude Airbnb and other services from that list, either. These corporations need to be treated like the industrial businesses they actually are: taxi and courier services and hotels, and they should be forced to be just as compliant to the laws of the land as other outfits like Yellow Cabs, FedEx, and Marriott, and take on the liability themselves instead of expecting desperate workers with their backs against the wall financially to do it for them.
The fact that this business model is successful at all is more a scathing commentary against how poorly we value human life under crony capitalism than it is the success of the free market. When you live in a country where it's literally illegal to be homeless and the economic system is rigged towards financially punishing the impoverished, how are gig economy jobs any different from indentured servitude? You're not working because you like the job and its pay, you're working to try and keep your life from almost irreversibly imploding.
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Nailed it Daley. Started typing up a response in support but you’ve captured everything I wanted to.
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So... can we fix it?
Say I'm a restaurant owner, that wants to add delivery service, but I don't do enough delivery sales to support the minimum of 1 delivery driver. Doesn't it make sense to partner up with other restaurants that are in the same boat? What better way to figure out where the driver is, and put him in touch with restaurant owners that need food delivered than an app?
If the problem is they're charging the restaurant too much, and paying the driver too little, you would think their profits would be high. Some Googling shows Uber Eats is losing money.
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IMO restaurants need to pivot their business model to take advantage of the new channel. Smaller locations, fewer choices, no front end staff, etc. It's not going away. I do think consumers are getting more comfortable with the added costs. I've had a burrito and chips delivered for $20 many times now. Compared to breaking my flow of thought while working, it is a no brainer.
Offering delivery w/o an app isn't going to fix it. I want to tap a couple buttons and magically have food.
I assume on the corporate side, they plan to string out labor issues until automated delivery (cars, drones) makes the problem irrelevant.
I've observed 3 classes of drivers on the uber side of things:
1. They don't care what it pays and are just looking for a reason to get out
2. They've carefully optimized for costs, are maybe even running a couple cars and know exactly what is going on
3. They think it's a good deal, but just downloaded the app and are working for next to nothing
Often the cab drivers themselves were doing just as bad or worse before uber. The company owning the medallion isn't paying them a penny more than required. It's rare the driver is also the medallion owner.
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IMHO that's why Uber/Lyft managed to get that referendum passed in California --the CA legislature passed a sweeping reform measure that would have deeply disrupted the ride-sharing industry, at a time when even more people than usual are depending on it (due to fear of infection on mass transit, etc.). So voters went with the proposal that would preserve the status quo from a customer standpoint, even though by all accounts it's a terrible "deal" for drivers.
I'd be more willing to buy that argument if Uber, Lyft and its ilk didn't already have years of lobbying history trying to dodge the employment status issue already. Bottom line is, most taxis and courier services are so much more expensive because the rates reflect the reality of a decent wage, benefits, and proper insurance and licensing and these people know for a fact that the instant they can't shove the hidden cost off on the pool of ignorant and financially desperate drivers to eat anymore, their profit model is going to disappear. Their pricing models and profits are only disruptive because they're exploiting loopholes in labor laws that haven't kept up with changing technology.
The reality is that these gig economy jobs aren't actually legally and financially sustainable for the company running it if the letter and spirit of the law is followed and the people working are actually compensated fairly for their labor... and I certainly don't exclude Airbnb and other services from that list, either. These corporations need to be treated like the industrial businesses they actually are: taxi and courier services and hotels, and they should be forced to be just as compliant to the laws of the land as other outfits like Yellow Cabs, FedEx, and Marriott, and take on the liability themselves instead of expecting desperate workers with their backs against the wall financially to do it for them.
The fact that this business model is successful at all is more a scathing commentary against how poorly we value human life under crony capitalism than it is the success of the free market. When you live in a country where it's literally illegal to be homeless and the economic system is rigged towards financially punishing the impoverished, how are gig economy jobs any different from indentured servitude? You're not working because you like the job and its pay, you're working to try and keep your life from almost irreversibly imploding.
Oh, I wasn't arguing the merits of it, just why I think the referendum passed.
FWIW, I greatly prefer Uber/Lyft over taxis because they work, not because of price. I've had so many problems with unreliable taxi services over the years; I'd much rather use an app that actually shows me where the driver is and how long I should wait, etc. I'd be willing to pay more for that reliability, vs. what I've experienced with taxis in the past.
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So... can we fix it?
I'll let you in on a dirty little secret. Pizza, Sandwich and Chinese restaurant delivery drivers technically should have commercial insurance on their cars, too, and most of them don't, because they get paid the tipping service minimum wage which is as low as $2/hour in some states... and most restaurants and franchise owners won't spring for the necessary umbrella coverage for their employees. So, realistically, a lot of them are getting screwed as well. There's not many food delivery service people who aren't still getting hosed royally (even though it's been made evident that at least with chain franchise stores, profit margins are high enough to pay delivery drivers reasonable living wages in the states that have pushed tipped minimum wage up to over $10 an hour), we've just been spoiled by the concept of cheap delivery for decades, and I'm pretty sure the instant people have to start paying the realistic price for this sort of one-off, custom, time-sensitive delivery service from thin margin mom-and-pop restaurants, the demand will likely plummet because people are cheap... which is partly why these gig economy businesses appear on paper to flourish in the first place.
But yes, pooling resources would be wise! Volume can help offset costs. I'm not sure a "phone app" service with a business model like Uber is even remotely necessary to make that happen, though. Back-end infrastructure for coordinating resources that's managed exclusively by the restaurants and consumer front-ends for online ordering that's again managed by the restaurant? Sure! A SAAS business model to coordinate this stuff isn't a bad idea, but the delivery people involved need to be employees with a local chain of command and representation and insurance coverage provided by the employer as everything is cheaper in bulk, and the restaurant itself should be the one to take the order directly from the customer without the delivery service as the middlemen. This shouldn't be something that's sold like a mafia protection racket to restaurants as it is currently.
But that brings us to the other dirty secret with the gig food delivery business model, even with the price gouging on the meal delivery costs and the exploitative corner cutting, they're still losing money... but VC people are daffy in the head and high off their own supply and Field of Dreams libertarian logic, and just keep pumping money into an even more unsustainable failing proposition than the other gig business models.
Here's a couple great examples of how screwed up the logic of these outfits are:
https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770 (https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/ (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/)
The reality is, suburban sprawl and car culture has made food delivery financially unfeasible for most independent restaurants in this country anywhere other than dense urban areas where bicycles and mopeds could be used, because people on average are cheap. The only reason the franchise chains can do it is volume, and they still don't often do it right.
But in theory, it's not that it can't be done right, it's just that almost nobody's willing to pay to do it right... and the way it's being done now is clearly not the way to do it either.
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Do you see anything wrong with the gig economy and using it?
No, they are providing a service for a fee. I see nothing wrong with the model. I've never used them, though. If it bothers you, don't use them.
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Here in the US people would not be delivering food on bikes. They are driving cars.
I have heard that UPS (and other drivers like Amazon) may be under such a pressure to deliver so many packages per shift, that they are running, don't have time to even use the bathroom, etc. Here Uber has gotten a lot of flack that Uber takes advantage of its drivers (again because it is kind of like contract work) where they do not make much, some less than minimum wage when you calculate everything in.
Also pizza delivery drivers especially getting held up because they are carrying cash.
My brother who is an employee at a company, it is crazy the amount of scruntity they are under! They have a GPS thingie attached to the company van. They measure how long it takes him to get from place to place, any stops, and whether he goes above the speed limit. He is then timed how long each installation takes. Basically he is often booked for more jobs than can be done within a normal work day, which means he starts early and ends late (and invariably late appt customers are having to wait). It seems very high pressure to me. He is on salary and expected to work I can't remember how many hours a week (overtime is expected). What is scary is if there is less work they can dock his pay. And only after you work your expected baked in overtime, can you get time and a half. So there are some weeks he works 7 days a week just to make extra money. Does'nt seem sustainable.
If your brother is truly salary - then the company is not permitted to dock his pay. If they are anyway, he should file a complaint with the department of labor.
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Daley, you are nailing pretty much everything I've ever wanted to say on this topic. :chefs kiss:
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I don't see an ethical issue with using food delivery apps or things like that. It's a simple exchange of goods and services. It's not forced on anyone to do it for a job or not. Just my opinion. Now, if you are asking me if I think it's too expensive for what you get that's another question.
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I'm not crazy about them from an ethics perspective, because there does seem to be a fair bit of exploitation on the part of the companies. But I'm also not crazy about restaurants in general re: ethics given the amount of food waste and garbage they produce, particularly places that use those god-awful styrofoam/plastic takeout containers, and also the fact that restaurants also are known to be pretty abusive and exploitative towards employees.
You should probably just cook.
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This is an area of deep practical expertise for me.
The biggest reason food delivery companies are losing money is because they are giving it to the diners as incentives, they are giving it to their engineers to make innovative services, and they are spending it on marketing and advertising. All of this is to increase market share, which means as (if anticipated) the industry expands to cover more of the total addressable market, geometrically more future profit is made if the profit margin can be tweaked then as opposed to now. Any of them could be profitably cash flowing to investors within a month if they wanted to be.
They're not making money simply because they want to try to make even more money in the future, not because they couldn't make money if they wanted to. The drivers aren't getting paid more because paying them more isn't showing increases in the metrics that the execs believe will make them all more money in the future, and they aren't getting paid less because it actually hurts profits when too many drivers reject lower paying orders. Of all the cost saving measures in place from every area of the business, programs to reduce driver pay whenever there's a good excuse is nowhere near the biggest line item.
On the topic of driver incentives and pay - any idiot with a handful of functioning brain cells and a means of transportation can deliver food - the barrier to entry is pretty much nil and metrics needed to determine if certain delivery drivers are responsible for more future profit are really hard to create. In addition, you don't have a boss who can tell you to go clean the shit of the walls in the bathroom, can pick whatever hours you want, and have to fail extremely hard to be told not to come back. It's better than working on the kitchen side of things for many people, let alone fast food.
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The biggest reason food delivery companies are losing money is because they are giving it to the diners as incentives, they are giving it to their engineers to make innovative services, and they are spending it on marketing and advertising. All of this is to increase market share, which means as (if anticipated) the industry expands to cover more of the total addressable market, geometrically more future profit is made if the profit margin can be tweaked then as opposed to now. Any of them could be profitably cash flowing to investors within a month if they wanted to be.
They're not making money simply because they want to try to make even more money in the future, not because they couldn't make money if they wanted to.
Wow. So, basically, their priority is to build service and marketshare out at the expense of the two most critical operating parts of the service long term - restaurants and drivers, and can't possibly imagine being profitable short or long term doing anything but spending money on advertising, paying their in-house engineers, and artificially deflate delivery costs for the end users in a desperate effort to monopolize a service area and build brand loyalty? Those values are certainly reflected in their day to day operations thus far, and completely believable.
If it's so easy for them to turn that around on a month's notice, why are they in such financial trouble to begin with, and why were there even talks of Uber potentially buying out Grubhub not six months ago due to Grubhub's value and business plunging?
This is some of the most short-sighted, backwards nonsense logic I've seen peddled in a while. But then, that's the kind of out of touch thinking you get from middlemen who believe they're more valuable than they really are.
The drivers aren't getting paid more because paying them more isn't showing increases in the metrics that the execs believe will make them all more money in the future, and they aren't getting paid less because it actually hurts profits when too many drivers reject lower paying orders.
That's a real fancy way of saying they're refusing to pay their drivers a living wage and are doing everything they can to pay them as little as they can literally get away with without causing open revolt. But then, somehow expecting better than that from businesses who average well over 90% annual driver attrition rates is a bit silly. If it was really about deferring profits to build marketshare, they'd spend money and treat the two most critical components of their service far better than they do. They'd actually pay their drivers well and wouldn't gouge participating restaurants 20-30% of the delivery order, whether the restaurant has the food delivered by the service or their own in-house delivery staff. Instead, you have both drivers and restaurants using these outfits out of desperation with a hope of financially surviving, something near impossible to do given the cut the restaurants have to pay and how little the drivers get compensated.
Sorry, I don't buy it. This sounds like the sort of internal staff propaganda that gets spun to quell dissent among the ranks than congruent with the reality of the situation.
On the topic of driver incentives and pay - any idiot with a handful of functioning brain cells and a means of transportation can deliver food - the barrier to entry is pretty much nil and metrics needed to determine if certain delivery drivers are responsible for more future profit are really hard to create. In addition, you don't have a boss who can tell you to go clean the shit of the walls in the bathroom, can pick whatever hours you want, and have to fail extremely hard to be told not to come back. It's better than working on the kitchen side of things for many people, let alone fast food.
That's incredibly condescending and elitist, and truly spoken from a place of privileged ignorance with a life that's never had to actually work in the trenches outside of some sort of Pulp Common People tourist delusion.
I've been the pizza delivery driver. I know what living in grinding poverty is like and being desperate for money and work. I know how these gig economy outfits operate. There's more dignity, better treatment, and greater perks slinging dough and cleaning public restrooms than trying to stitch a full-time job together by trying to be one of the expendable sub-minimum wage contract car jockies for a mess of these Silicon Valley screwjobs. At least Dominos kept you fed, met minimum wage if your tips sucked, and kept a look out for you if you had to deliver to a dangerous neighborhood/address.
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If it's so easy for them to turn that around on a month's notice, why are they in such financial trouble to begin with, and why were there even talks of Uber potentially buying out Grubhub not six months ago due to Grubhub's value and business plunging?
This is some of the most short-sighted, backwards nonsense logic I've seen peddled in a while. But then, that's the kind of out of touch thinking you get from middlemen who believe they're more valuable than they really are.
Which one is in financial trouble? I don't think any of them are. Just because you're losing 100 million a year doesn't mean you're in financial trouble if you have deep enough pockets. A couple are actually hovering on/slightly over the verge of profitability but this highlights the importance of market share growth to perception.
The drivers aren't getting paid more because paying them more isn't showing increases in the metrics that the execs believe will make them all more money in the future, and they aren't getting paid less because it actually hurts profits when too many drivers reject lower paying orders.
That's a real fancy way of saying they're refusing to pay their employees a living wage and are doing everything they can to pay them as little as they can literally get away with without causing open revolt. But then, somehow expecting better than that from businesses who average well over 90% annual driver attrition rates is a bit silly. If it was really about deferring profits to build marketshare, they'd spend money and treat the two most critical components of their service far better than they do. They'd actually pay their drivers well and wouldn't gouge participating restaurants 20-30% of the delivery order, whether the restaurant has the food delivered by the service or their own in-house delivery staff. Instead, you have both drivers and restaurants using these outfits out of desperation with a hope of financially surviving, something near impossible to do given the cut the restaurants have to pay and how little the drivers get compensated.
Sorry, I don't buy it. This sounds like the sort of internal staff propaganda that gets spun to quell dissent among the ranks than congruent with the reality of the situation.
It sounds like internal staff propaganda that companies want to pay as little as possible for services? The low driver pay isn't deferring profits - there's no reason or plan to pay them more than absolutely necessary. Drivers aren't valued because valuing drivers doesn't drive profitability.
Restaurant compensation rates are actually effected by in-house vs contracted delivery, at least as far as I've seen. On the topic of gouging the restaurants (whether they like it or not because all major players auto-create restaurants without their consent) - that's just plain old capitalism. Restaurants (and increasingly other retail) are the revenue source for the growth and/or profits of these companies, that's literally their business model.
On the topic of driver incentives and pay - any idiot with a handful of functioning brain cells and a means of transportation can deliver food - the barrier to entry is pretty much nil and metrics needed to determine if certain delivery drivers are responsible for more future profit are really hard to create. In addition, you don't have a boss who can tell you to go clean the shit of the walls in the bathroom, can pick whatever hours you want, and have to fail extremely hard to be told not to come back. It's better than working on the kitchen side of things for many people, let alone fast food.
That's incredibly condescending and elitist, and truly spoken from a place of privileged ignorance with a life that's never had to actually work in the trenches outside of some sort of Pulp Common People tourist delusion.
I've been the pizza delivery driver. I know what living in grinding poverty is like and being desperate for money. I know how these gig economy outfits operate. There's more dignity, better treatment, and greater perks slinging dough and cleaning public restrooms than trying to stitch a full-time job together by trying to be one of the expendable sub-minimum wage contract car jockies for a mess of these Silicon Valley screwjobs. At least Dominos kept you fed, met minimum wage if your tips sucked, and kept a look out for you if you had to deliver to a dangerous neighborhood/address.
Nope, been there, done that on minimum wage fast food and call centers as a means to survival, meth and stupidity everywhere and some bathroom wall (rarely ceiling) cleaning. Can't say I've done much gig economy work, but I agree it's not a great primary source of income. Doesn't mean the job isn't better to do - e.g. you can just decline dangerous neighborhoods.
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If it's so easy for them to turn that around on a month's notice, why are they in such financial trouble to begin with, and why were there even talks of Uber potentially buying out Grubhub not six months ago due to Grubhub's value and business plunging?
This is some of the most short-sighted, backwards nonsense logic I've seen peddled in a while. But then, that's the kind of out of touch thinking you get from middlemen who believe they're more valuable than they really are.
Which one is in financial trouble? I don't think any of them are. Just because you're losing 100 million a year doesn't mean you're in financial trouble if you have deep enough pockets. A couple are actually hovering on/slightly over the verge of profitability but this highlights the importance of market share growth to perception.
All of them were in trouble this time last year and Grubhub's earnings statements (https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-big-problem-of-the-food-delivery-business-2019-11-19) were dire about the reality of what they were doing, and the only reason why any of them are remotely profitable right now is because of a literal pandemic, financial meltdown, and atrocious unemployment rates. And even then, Doordash couldn't survive on its own and sold out to Uber. The industry's first "profitable" year has literally only been possible by being built upon the misery and fear of millions.
The drivers aren't getting paid more because paying them more isn't showing increases in the metrics that the execs believe will make them all more money in the future, and they aren't getting paid less because it actually hurts profits when too many drivers reject lower paying orders.
That's a real fancy way of saying they're refusing to pay their employees a living wage and are doing everything they can to pay them as little as they can literally get away with without causing open revolt. But then, somehow expecting better than that from businesses who average well over 90% annual driver attrition rates is a bit silly. If it was really about deferring profits to build marketshare, they'd spend money and treat the two most critical components of their service far better than they do. They'd actually pay their drivers well and wouldn't gouge participating restaurants 20-30% of the delivery order, whether the restaurant has the food delivered by the service or their own in-house delivery staff. Instead, you have both drivers and restaurants using these outfits out of desperation with a hope of financially surviving, something near impossible to do given the cut the restaurants have to pay and how little the drivers get compensated.
Sorry, I don't buy it. This sounds like the sort of internal staff propaganda that gets spun to quell dissent among the ranks than congruent with the reality of the situation.
It sounds like internal staff propaganda that companies want to pay as little as possible for services? The low driver pay isn't deferring profits - there's no reason or plan to pay them more than absolutely necessary. Drivers aren't valued because valuing drivers doesn't drive profitability.
Restaurant compensation rates are actually effected by in-house vs contracted delivery, at least as far as I've seen. On the topic of gouging the restaurants (whether they like it or not because all major players auto-create restaurants without their consent) - that's just plain old capitalism. Restaurants (and increasingly other retail) are the revenue source for the growth and/or profits of these companies, that's literally their business model.
That's literally the business model of useless middlemen. That's not Capitalism, that's a protection racket. They think so long as they have hungry customers, they can stay in business. Well, what happens when they run out of honest drivers and piss off or bankrupt enough restaurants that nobody wants to cook or deliver for them outside of maybe fast food chains because their business model is literally predicated upon financially exploiting these two most key elements of making the very service they're selling to customers work in the first place?
Grubhub itself has literally stated out loud that there's no money in delivery service.
On the topic of driver incentives and pay - any idiot with a handful of functioning brain cells and a means of transportation can deliver food - the barrier to entry is pretty much nil and metrics needed to determine if certain delivery drivers are responsible for more future profit are really hard to create. In addition, you don't have a boss who can tell you to go clean the shit of the walls in the bathroom, can pick whatever hours you want, and have to fail extremely hard to be told not to come back. It's better than working on the kitchen side of things for many people, let alone fast food.
That's incredibly condescending and elitist, and truly spoken from a place of privileged ignorance with a life that's never had to actually work in the trenches outside of some sort of Pulp Common People tourist delusion.
I've been the pizza delivery driver. I know what living in grinding poverty is like and being desperate for money. I know how these gig economy outfits operate. There's more dignity, better treatment, and greater perks slinging dough and cleaning public restrooms than trying to stitch a full-time job together by trying to be one of the expendable sub-minimum wage contract car jockies for a mess of these Silicon Valley screwjobs. At least Dominos kept you fed, met minimum wage if your tips sucked, and kept a look out for you if you had to deliver to a dangerous neighborhood/address.
Nope, been there, done that on minimum wage fast food and call centers as a means to survival, meth and stupidity everywhere and some bathroom wall (rarely ceiling) cleaning. Can't say I've done much gig economy work, but I agree it's not a great primary source of income. Doesn't mean the job isn't better to do - e.g. you can just decline dangerous neighborhoods.
You don't actually understand what you wrote either in the initial quote or your response here that's actually so offensive and out of touch, do you... or how the very jobs you dismiss might actually provide more dignity to a person, even as part-time work.
Let me enlighten you with some bolding of your statements and choice words.
Both comments are incredibly dismissive of the very human life that allows these services to exist. These aren't people to you or them, they're "stupid" "idiot" cogs that can be easily replaced. Only a mathematical hurdle towards greater profit. Your own words about your personal experiences even smack of disdain towards the other.
They're humans, Joleran, like you. Made in the shadow and image of the Divine. And they're suffering, in part, because of poor wages and ugly attitudes perpetuated by these exploitative contract employers and words and ideas like yours. Try treating them with a little more respect.
All the same, thank you for proving my point.
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My country's min wage is $19.50/hour and when you add in the cost of payroll tax (4.9%), workers' comp insurance, superannuation (10%), and leave/severance entitlements, the true cost of a min wage employee would be well over $25/hour. Plus you have to provide training, clothing, fuel, minimum shift lengths, etc.
I can see why rideshare apps do so well. Not many employers, and in fact not many consumers, would pay $25/hour for a guy in a car or on a bike to deliver stuff.
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Except it's not $25 an hour. The workers have to register as independent contractors and pay their own super, insurance, leave means they owe $0, fewer protections than casual work.
I don't use these services, but when friends do sometimes I'm there, when I've talked to drivers they'll say their earnings can be as little as $10 an hour which is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy less than the advertised rate. There are dozens of ways for that attractive figure to be reduced for the time you're on the job.
Some relevant records of first hand experience:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgeyex/we-asked-food-delivery-drivers-uber-eats-menulog-deliveroo-which-is-the-worst-company-pay
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/delivery-drivers-australia-pay-rates-coronavirus-work-2020-9
Doesn't sound like anyone really likes it at all.
Read an article about a shelf stocker who'd been at Coles for 54 years. That says a lot about the inherent ok-ness of that work. Hard to imagine anyone delivering food for the same amount of time.
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All of them were in trouble this time last year and Grubhub's earnings statements (https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-big-problem-of-the-food-delivery-business-2019-11-19) were dire about the reality of what they were doing, and the only reason why any of them are remotely profitable right now is because of a literal pandemic, financial meltdown, and atrocious unemployment rates. And even then, Doordash couldn't survive on its own and sold out to Uber. The industry's first "profitable" year has literally only been possible by being built upon the misery and fear of millions.
I still don't understand what you mean by "trouble" here. A growth oriented pseduo tech/middleman company not being profitable doesn't mean they are in trouble. Doordash is going for a 30 billion dollar IPO, think you confused them with Postmates, a much smaller competitor.
It sounds like internal staff propaganda that companies want to pay as little as possible for services? The low driver pay isn't deferring profits - there's no reason or plan to pay them more than absolutely necessary. Drivers aren't valued because valuing drivers doesn't drive profitability.
Restaurant compensation rates are actually effected by in-house vs contracted delivery, at least as far as I've seen. On the topic of gouging the restaurants (whether they like it or not because all major players auto-create restaurants without their consent) - that's just plain old capitalism. Restaurants (and increasingly other retail) are the revenue source for the growth and/or profits of these companies, that's literally their business model.
That's literally the business model of useless middlemen. That's not Capitalism, that's a protection racket. They think so long as they have hungry customers, they can stay in business. Well, what happens when they run out of honest drivers and piss off or bankrupt enough restaurants that nobody wants to cook or deliver for them outside of maybe fast food chains because their business model is literally predicated upon financially exploiting these two most key elements of making the very service they're selling to customers work in the first place?
Grubhub itself has literally stated out loud that there's no money in delivery service.
Want to know a not-so-secret? The diners aren't the customers, the restaurants are. These companies sell services to the restaurants - very aggressively.
They argue they drive business to the restaurants and provide customer support and delivery. The economy is filled with middlemen, but these companies actually do work the restaurants would not otherwise do.
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That's literally the business model of useless middlemen. That's not Capitalism, that's a protection racket. They think so long as they have hungry customers, they can stay in business. Well, what happens when they run out of honest drivers and piss off or bankrupt enough restaurants that nobody wants to cook or deliver for them outside of maybe fast food chains because their business model is literally predicated upon financially exploiting these two most key elements of making the very service they're selling to customers work in the first place?
That's what immigration is for. In the 21st century, Marx's Reserve Army of Labour is a couple billion third worlders who would love a chance to eek out a living in the USA driving for DoorDash, rather than suffer the grinding poverty of their homeland.
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All of them were in trouble this time last year and Grubhub's earnings statements (https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-big-problem-of-the-food-delivery-business-2019-11-19) were dire about the reality of what they were doing, and the only reason why any of them are remotely profitable right now is because of a literal pandemic, financial meltdown, and atrocious unemployment rates. And even then, Doordash couldn't survive on its own and sold out to Uber. The industry's first "profitable" year has literally only been possible by being built upon the misery and fear of millions.
I still don't understand what you mean by "trouble" here. A growth oriented pseduo tech/middleman company not being profitable doesn't mean they are in trouble. Doordash is going for a 30 billion dollar IPO, think you confused them with Postmates, a much smaller competitor.
My apologies for confusing one ethically bankrupt outfit with a silly name for another. Doesn't change the point a lick.
It sounds like internal staff propaganda that companies want to pay as little as possible for services? The low driver pay isn't deferring profits - there's no reason or plan to pay them more than absolutely necessary. Drivers aren't valued because valuing drivers doesn't drive profitability.
Restaurant compensation rates are actually effected by in-house vs contracted delivery, at least as far as I've seen. On the topic of gouging the restaurants (whether they like it or not because all major players auto-create restaurants without their consent) - that's just plain old capitalism. Restaurants (and increasingly other retail) are the revenue source for the growth and/or profits of these companies, that's literally their business model.
That's literally the business model of useless middlemen. That's not Capitalism, that's a protection racket. They think so long as they have hungry customers, they can stay in business. Well, what happens when they run out of honest drivers and piss off or bankrupt enough restaurants that nobody wants to cook or deliver for them outside of maybe fast food chains because their business model is literally predicated upon financially exploiting these two most key elements of making the very service they're selling to customers work in the first place?
Grubhub itself has literally stated out loud that there's no money in delivery service.
Want to know a not-so-secret? The diners aren't the customers, the restaurants are. These companies sell services to the restaurants - very aggressively.
They argue they drive business to the restaurants and provide customer support and delivery. The economy is filled with middlemen, but these companies actually do work the restaurants would not otherwise do.
No kidding! You mean to tell me that the large greedy techbros who exploit and treat their drivers like human garbage to get rich are using said demand of their end users and labor of these people to force their way into forcing themselves and their service upon local restaurants so they can exploit them as well by charging them outrageous fees to provide a $10 a month website and phone number that re-routes to their actual phone number of business!? Why... NO! THAT'S UNPOSSIBLE! Who would have thought such a thing! What was I even condemning about these businesses anyway!?
Oh, right. THAT.
If government forces their way into small business to take a cut and demands how people do business, people scream SOCIALISM!
If organized gangs force their way into small business to take a cut and demands how people do business, people scream CRIME!
If Silicon Valley Techbros force their way into small business to take a cut and demand how people do business, you cheer and say, CAPITALISM!"
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So, what will the moral judgment of the gig economy look like when it ends, replaced by robotaxis?
Those who say the current business models are unsustainable are right. And even with the relative corners cut for a contractor vs. an employee, wages are still the highest single cost for any of these companies. That's why Uber was working so feverishly on self-serving cars: they only have a certain amount of time (i.e. investors willing to continue funding a loss-making enterprise) before they need to reach that end state, or fold under the pressure.
Food delivery is a little harder, as you have to get to the door. But there are real sidewalk-roving bots and drone delivery services operating now at a city scale.
The opportunities may look bad, compared to what once was. And the wheel of history will turn again, and the same will be true when we look back again.
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Want to know a not-so-secret? The diners aren't the customers, the restaurants are. These companies sell services to the restaurants - very aggressively.
They argue they drive business to the restaurants and provide customer support and delivery. The economy is filled with middlemen, but these companies actually do work the restaurants would not otherwise do.
No kidding! You mean to tell me that the large greedy techbros who exploit and treat their drivers like human garbage to get rich are using said demand of their end users and labor of these people to force their way into forcing themselves and their service upon local restaurants so they can exploit them as well by charging them outrageous fees to provide a $10 a month website and phone number that re-routes to their actual phone number of business!? Why... NO! THAT'S UNPOSSIBLE! Who would have thought such a thing! What was I even condemning about these businesses anyway!?
Oh, right. THAT.
If government forces their way into small business to take a cut and demands how people do business, people scream SOCIALISM!
If organized gangs force their way into small business to take a cut and demands how people do business, people scream CRIME!
If Silicon Valley Techbros force their way into small business to take a cut and demand how people do business, you cheer and say, CAPITALISM!"
There's two separate points here - 1. that these companies aren't providing any meaningful value, and 2. that what they are doing is immoral to the point as being as bad as crime or socialism.
The companies do provide value with their large marketing and advertising budgets. They meaningfully increase traffic to restaurants, and most restaurants can't compete with their own advertising due to economies of scale. They create technology platforms to incentivize diners to return. They recruit a labor force of drivers and manage that aspect of food delivery. They provide customer support that can resolve issues without needing staff at the restaurant to handle it. If you contract with them, they'll even ensure you can stop the order flow to them (actually a dirty little secret - if these restaurants signed up with a commission based model they incur no particular up front costs and then get access to the tech to essentially permanently turn off their order flow on their own, but if the restaurant doesn't sign up they don't get to control that).
You can argue whether the value they provide is worth the associated costs - but they clearly provide value.
As to this being as bad as socialism or crime - the key difference is force. You don't go to jail or get shot if you don't play along. Yes, having these companies is annoying for many business owners. Having direct competitors is pretty annoying too! Lots of business is annoying, but the heart of capitalism is that you have a bunch of free actors applying forces to each other to try to get what they want (typically money). The government sets laws to limit the amount of force that can be applied by these businesses, and we have courts to enforce those laws when companies overstep. It's not a perfect system, certainly, but there are checks, balances, and rules here.
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The companies do provide value with their large marketing and advertising budgets. They meaningfully increase traffic to restaurants, and most restaurants can't compete with their own advertising due to economies of scale. They create technology platforms to incentivize diners to return. They recruit a labor force of drivers and manage that aspect of food delivery. They provide customer support that can resolve issues without needing staff at the restaurant to handle it. If you contract with them, they'll even ensure you can stop the order flow to them (actually a dirty little secret - if these restaurants signed up with a commission based model they incur no particular up front costs and then get access to the tech to essentially permanently turn off their order flow on their own, but if the restaurant doesn't sign up they don't get to control that).
You can argue whether the value they provide is worth the associated costs - but they clearly provide value.
As to this being as bad as socialism or crime - the key difference is force. You don't go to jail or get shot if you don't play along. Yes, having these companies is annoying for many business owners. Having direct competitors is pretty annoying too! Lots of business is annoying, but the heart of capitalism is that you have a bunch of free actors applying forces to each other to try to get what they want (typically money). The government sets laws to limit the amount of force that can be applied by these businesses, and we have courts to enforce those laws when companies overstep. It's not a perfect system, certainly, but there are checks, balances, and rules here.
All at the low-low price that's higher than the restuarant's actual profit margin per meal! And the only way to opt out is to opt in!
Mob rule isn't force? Making restaurants use your service whether they want to or not isn't force?
That's why they lobby so hard against employee rights laws and get slapped with so many lawsuits, right?
It's a parasitic business model. These are parasites getting fat off the dying carcass of late-stage capitalism, exploiting the poor and hastening the demise of their very target customer base by charging untenable prices. These aren't people to them desperate to survive, they're robots who's sole existence is to make them money at any price, and the instant they become a liability, they're tossed aside. As long as the STONKS! evaluation is favorable, WHO CARES! They can cash out their share right before the collapse and sail away on a golden parachute to "disrupt" another economy until there's nothing left but serfs and a pile of money to sleep on at night. Wash, rinse, repeat.
This is Eddie Lampert making money off of the bankruptcy of Sears territory. There are no checks, balances and rules here because the laws haven't been able to keep up with what's actually happening. These are a handful of people exploiting and making money off of collapsing and destroying small business.
Tell yourself whatever you have to in order to sleep at night, to spin the reality into socially palatable doublespeak that doesn't make the delicate matrons faint in horror, and try to hand-waive away the problem and pretend actual "value" is being provided, but know that this isn't capitalism in the slightest. Your arguments for "providing value" sound like a spoiled, entitled Instagram influencer, "BUT I'M GIVING YOU EXPOSURE! GIMME!".
And the fact that you're willing to argue and defend a group of people who have an undeniable track record of using up and discarding people solely to make money, pretending that you're somehow special and exempt from that sort of treatment shows how much of the Flavorade you've actually drunk.
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Mob rule isn't force? Making restaurants use your service whether they want to or not isn't force?
That's why they lobby so hard against employee rights laws and get slapped with so many lawsuits, right?
...
This is Eddie Lampert making money off of the bankruptcy of Sears territory. There are no checks, balances and rules here because the laws haven't been able to keep up with what's actually happening. These are a handful of people exploiting and making money off of collapsing and destroying small business.
"Mob rule"? And I was very explicit with my use of the term force - everything in human interactions when competing for scarce resources involves the use of force, it is simply a matter of magnitude and legality.
Are they nice fluffy charities that just want to make sure everyone gets a fair cut? No. Are they legitimate businesses? Yes.
Running one step ahead of the law is in some ways the highest expression of capitalism - maximally playing the system to its breaking point for your own personal gain. The law catches up and new tricks are found.
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Running one step ahead of the law is in some ways the highest expression of capitalism - maximally playing the system to its breaking point for your own personal gain.
There we go.
What these gig economy businesses are doing, according to Joleran, is the highest expression of capitalism... and the highest expression of capitalism, according to Joleran, is to do things that violate social contracts and exploit and harm others solely to make money until they're no longer legally able to do so.
There's your answer, Bloop Bloop. The answer is, "Yes."
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Running one step ahead of the law is in some ways the highest expression of capitalism - maximally playing the system to its breaking point for your own personal gain.
What these gig economy businesses are doing, according to Joleran, is the highest expression of capitalism... and the highest expression of capitalism, according to Joleran, is to do things that violate social contracts and exploit and harm others solely to make money until they're no longer legally able to do so.
There's your answer, Bloop Bloop. The answer is, "Yes."
It's one way of looking at capitalism as a more or less pure pursuit. There's nothing about violating social contracts and harming others inherently required though some of them will get trampled over. Others will be put on a pedestal - every company has a massive diversity initiative these days for example, though it doesn't provide direct profit it's something society seems to demand and so it's there because not having it would hurt profit.
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Will someone please take Joleran's shovel?
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Except it's not $25 an hour. The workers have to register as independent contractors and pay their own super, insurance, leave means they owe $0, fewer protections than casual work.
I don't use these services, but when friends do sometimes I'm there, when I've talked to drivers they'll say their earnings can be as little as $10 an hour which is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy less than the advertised rate. There are dozens of ways for that attractive figure to be reduced for the time you're on the job.
Some relevant records of first hand experience:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgeyex/we-asked-food-delivery-drivers-uber-eats-menulog-deliveroo-which-is-the-worst-company-pay
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/delivery-drivers-australia-pay-rates-coronavirus-work-2020-9
Doesn't sound like anyone really likes it at all.
Read an article about a shelf stocker who'd been at Coles for 54 years. That says a lot about the inherent ok-ness of that work. Hard to imagine anyone delivering food for the same amount of time.
That's what I'm saying. A shelf stacker gets paid $20/hour or whatever and it costs the business $25/hour for labour that's super marginal. I mean you can get good white collar workers for $30-$35/hour so would you pay $25/hour for completely unskilled manual work? Maybe for shelf stacking...till the robots take over. Definitely not for food delivery. That's why Uber Eats etc exist. Because there's a market for delivery but no one's willing to pay $25/hour for it. So it falls into the gig economy instead.
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What happened in your life to make you so cynical? Literally every discussion with you is the most anti-humane, silent hand, evading social responsibility, accepting of arbitrary problems that it's possible to get. Seek to improve the world, not stand for the shitty reality greedy and ethical void companies seek to perpetuate.
Plenty of times in the past people 'haven't been willing to pay for xyz' and plenty of times it's changed.
No one should work FT hours and be at the poverty level. No one. Regardless of age, skill, field of work, country, industry, whatever. It's that simple. If uber have to give up their profits to do so fine by me. Anyone who isn't fine with that is trying to justify corporate bootlicking over giving a shit about their fellow man but isn't ballsy enough to articulate their spineless position.
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It's one way of looking at capitalism as a more or less pure pursuit. There's nothing about violating social contracts and harming others inherently required though some of them will get trampled over.
I agree.
I reject the proposition that economic activity within the bounds of ordered liberty violates the social contract.
IIRC, concerning contract law, Justice Holmes opined that a man has a right to make a bad bargain.
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No one should work FT hours and be at the poverty level. No one. Regardless of age, skill, field of work, country, industry, whatever. It's that simple. If uber have to give up their profits to do so fine by me. Anyone who isn't fine with that is trying to justify corporate bootlicking over giving a shit about their fellow man but isn't ballsy enough to articulate their spineless position.
I work 80 hours a week making buttons to sell, but no one is buying. Clearly, the problem is society.
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I have no ethical objections to "gig" jobs.
The law needs to catch up to the tech with regard to how the workers are classified - too much gray area and room for argument.
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Idk, I've never used any. But my sister in law has relied on driving for Uber eats during the pandemic and drove for Uber prior to the pandemic as well. I don't think it's a great gig for workers, but she's got a spotty job history and "desperate for work" as another poster put it is a good description. And the issues with car insurance have also come up for her - either she or her husband got in a car accident while driving for Uber and their insurance wouldn't cover the damage. I can't remember how they solved that issue, but they've crashed a few times and my in-laws have bought them at least a couple of cars. Anyway...no, I don't think it's a great job to have, but what else do you do if you're desperate for work? And if these companies are employing people who otherwise have few prospects, is it wrong to help them stay employed by using the apps, even if they are being exploited? I think you could argue both sides and be right. Ideally they'd get paid more.
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I've never used one of these apps, because they don't really represent a benefit to me. I can't think of many things more "first world" than paying to have expensive food delivered right to my door, or waiting around for a stranger to show up and drive me around. That being said, consenting adults making their own, completely legal choices don't bother me.
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No one should work FT hours and be at the poverty level. No one. Regardless of age, skill, field of work, country, industry, whatever. It's that simple. If uber have to give up their profits to do so fine by me.
This for sure.
There's a big difference between legal and ethical, which I think is kinda getting glossed over in some of this discussion. It's plenty legal to do all sorts of things. It doesn't make them ethical. Legitimate businesses can do all sorts of things that a court or review board would never blink an eye at, but it doesn't make those things right.
I don't think that Uber/Lyft/Doordash/etc pursue ethical relationships with their contractors or with many restaurants they "service." Their conduct may be perfectly legal, but I don't think it's ethical. So, yes, I think that ethical use of those apps is difficult. Not everyone's ethics are the same; you might not agree. That's fine. But for me? I avoid those services.
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Let's assume that the working conditions of gig workers generally sucks. Whether it does or not can be argued, but let's just assume for the sake of debate that there's exploitation (whatever that is) and lack of job security, etc., etc.
A gig worker, assuming they are not actually a slave, is voluntarily doing that job because they think that it best serves their own values and goals, whatever those are. It may not be the life you would choose. But if you refuse to use their services solely because you think their working conditions are bad, you are essentially saying "my values about your life are superior to yours, so I will force you not to have employment that is not up to my own standards".
It's hard to think of a more condescending attitude toward someone trying to make it with what they have. Especially, when by the very same logic, that person is likely in a desperate or unfortunate situation.
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Here in the US people would not be delivering food on bikes. They are driving cars.
ORly? (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/nyregion/bike-delivery-workers-covid-pandemic.html)
Edgar Sapon makes about $1,500 a month delivering food and has had two bikes stolen, including an electric bike that cost $2,000.
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But if you refuse to use their services solely because you think their working conditions are bad, you are essentially saying "my values about your life are superior to yours, so I will force you not to have employment that is not up to my own standards".
It's hard to think of a more condescending attitude toward someone trying to make it with what they have. Especially, when by the very same logic, that person is likely in a desperate or unfortunate situation.
How short sighted and simplistic... and you're projecting.
If I regularly had $25 burning a hole in my pocket and the time to wait for someone to feed me, I would rather send that $25 to a food bank to help those people make ends meet and volunteer to teach them basic job skills like computer literacy and critical thinking than spend $25 on pre-cooked food delivered to my house, just so they can get the scraps that Grubhub tosses them from making a killing off of forcing their "services" upon and destroying independent restaurants whether they need or want them or not, and helping drive food prices so high that nobody can afford it.
I refuse to believe that enabling abusive greed just for the off-chance of a little trickle down is the best solution. We've been promised this line of swill since Reagan, and it's never materialized. Boycotts work.
The only way to win the game is to not play it to begin with.
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I use the apps occasionally to order takeout that I pick up myself. I find it to be a more pleasant experience than calling in an order. The whole process (available restaurants near you are shown on a map, you know the menu will be right there in the app, you have time to mull things over before submitting the order, no need to talk to a person who might mishear your order, etc.) is much nicer from a customer perspective than what we had before. It's a service that adds value. Whatever types of financial terms these services set with the restaurant are opaque to me and really none of my concern. If the restaurants don't find it worthwhile, they can opt out. This type of trade-off is hardly new for them. They have to make similar decisions about whether the cost to accept credit cards or have a phone line or buy advertising or any number of other things will be worth the extra business these expenses enable them to bring in.
As to the delivery, I almost never find it worth the cost so I don't do it. Knowing that the drivers make pretty much nothing after vehicle expenses does make it harder, because the whole calculus of a proper tip makes my brain hurt enough that I'd usually rather just go get the food myself. If I'm ordering food from a restaurant a mile away, what's a fair wage for that trip? I have no earthly idea. The actual trip takes five minutes. Are they getting ten of these trips in an hour, or just a couple?
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Whatever types of financial terms these services set with the restaurant are opaque to me and really none of my concern. If the restaurants don't find it worthwhile, they can opt out. This type of trade-off is hardly new for them. They have to make similar decisions about whether the cost to accept credit cards or have a phone line or buy advertising or any number of other things will be worth the extra business these expenses enable them to bring in.
If you care about the restaurant and want to keep it in business, you should care.
And no, they're not given the option to opt out. The service is forced upon them whether they want it or not. Whether they already have online ordering and delivery personnel or not. In fact, one of these companies apologists, here in this very thread, basically made it clear that the only way for restaurants to "opt out" of their aggressively forced service is to literally sign up. I repeat, the only way to "opt out" from their service is to sign up, and you're still not opted out entirely from them. There's plenty of articls about how these outfits will actually add restaurants to their app without their permission. They've even added restaurants that have literally gone out of business.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/ (https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/)
https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770 (https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/ (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/)
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I don't understand how these apps work or why the restaurant would care, I've never used them. Isn't an analogy like someone buying a book from Barnes and Noble then reselling it for a higher price to someone else (while also providing the service of delivering the book to them)? What is the harm inflicted by the restaurant if someone wants to place an order, pick it up, then deliver it to someone else?
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And no, they're not given the option to opt out. The service is forced upon them whether they want it or not.
This assertion makes no sense to me. Of course they can opt out. What right does Uber or Doordash or whoever have to force a restaurant to make food that they haven't agreed to make, for a price they haven't agreed to accept? None at all.
Now, if Uber decides that they want to call in orders on behalf of their customers, and pay full price for them, what reason does the restaurant have to say no?
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I don't understand how these apps work or why the restaurant would care, I've never used them. Isn't an analogy like someone buying a book from Barnes and Noble then reselling it for a higher price to someone else (while also providing the service of delivering the book to them)? What is the harm inflicted by the restaurant if someone wants to place an order, pick it up, then deliver it to someone else?
Because if the restaurant isn't opted in, the delivery service is paying someone to place the order and pick it up and deliver the food whether the restaurant knows or wants it or not, and the delivery service frequently will list inaccurate menus and prices and promise unrealistic delivery times. Then, the low-quality delivery service, screwed up order, and cold food gets blamed on the restaurant by the customer who ordered the food leaving negative reviews on the app while the delivery service gets off scott free for botching the transaction. There's no shortage of complaints about this.
And if they do sign up to have more control over when they do or do not accept delivery orders, the delivery service charges the restaurant a finders fee, taking a percentage of every order that usually exceeds the profit margin of the food itself, and they take that percentage whether the app's delivery drivers actually deliver the food or not. And then there's the fake phone numbers in the apps that route to the restaurant's real number where if calls exceed about 45 seconds or so, the restaurant gets charged for a business business referral fee, whether an order actually gets placed over the phone or not.
Seattle Cyclone thinks it's like choosing to have a phone number or take credit cards or buy advertising. Those things they can choose, and find providers if they want that service and are in line with what they actually think they need and can afford. This is techbro millionaires with deep enough pockets telling businesses that they're going to deliver their food and advertise their business whether they want it or not, and the only way to make sure it's accurate and they have any say over customer service beefs is to pay their service fees.
It's not something they opt into, it's forced on them, like a mafia protection racket.
And no, they're not given the option to opt out. The service is forced upon them whether they want it or not.
This assertion makes no sense to me. Of course they can opt out. What right does Uber or Doordash or whoever have to force a restaurant to make food that they haven't agreed to make, for a price they haven't agreed to accept? None at all.
Now, if Uber decides that they want to call in orders on behalf of their customers, and pay full price for them, what reason does the restaurant have to say no?
Just read the articles I linked. It'll start to make sense what's actually happening.
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Just read the articles I linked. It'll start to make sense what's actually happening.
I read the articles.
Doordash in some cases propagated some out-of-date menus that they found elsewhere on the internet, which isn't great, but again the restaurant has no requirement to enter into any sort of contractual agreement with these companies. If Doordash calls in orders based on an outdated menu, the restaurant can reject those orders, just like they would do if anyone else tried to call in a bogus order based on a menu they found on Google, or taped to the fridge of their vacation rental, or whatever else.
If this happens often enough I'd hope Doordash would get the hint and stop trying to sell food from that restaurant until they get the menu right. Sure it might cause some minor customer service issues in the short run, but I know if it happened to me I'd be able to assign blame where it belongs: not with the restaurant.
On the whole I find the service to be very useful.
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Doordash in some cases propagated some out-of-date menus that they found elsewhere on the internet, which isn't great, but again the restaurant has no requirement to enter into any sort of contractual agreement with these companies. If Doordash calls in orders based on an outdated menu, the restaurant can reject those orders, just like they would do if anyone else tried to call in a bogus order based on a menu they found on Google, or taped to the fridge of their vacation rental, or whatever else.
If this happens often enough I'd hope Doordash would get the hint and stop trying to sell food from that restaurant until they get the menu right. Sure it might cause some minor customer service issues in the short run, but I know if it happened to me I'd be able to assign blame where it belongs: not with the restaurant.
How do you reject orders from an outfit that refuses to identify themselves as the source of your orders in the first place if you refuse to sign up with them? From an outfit that spams their own contact information over your own, misrepresenting themselves as your business partner and representative of yours, drowning out your real phone number, menu and website on the internet in search results with their own?
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I use the apps occasionally to order takeout that I pick up myself. I find it to be a more pleasant experience than calling in an order. The whole process (available restaurants near you are shown on a map, you know the menu will be right there in the app, you have time to mull things over before submitting the order, no need to talk to a person who might mishear your order, etc.) is much nicer from a customer perspective than what we had before. It's a service that adds value. Whatever types of financial terms these services set with the restaurant are opaque to me and really none of my concern. If the restaurants don't find it worthwhile, they can opt out. This type of trade-off is hardly new for them. They have to make similar decisions about whether the cost to accept credit cards or have a phone line or buy advertising or any number of other things will be worth the extra business these expenses enable them to bring in.
As to the delivery, I almost never find it worth the cost so I don't do it. Knowing that the drivers make pretty much nothing after vehicle expenses does make it harder, because the whole calculus of a proper tip makes my brain hurt enough that I'd usually rather just go get the food myself. If I'm ordering food from a restaurant a mile away, what's a fair wage for that trip? I have no earthly idea. The actual trip takes five minutes. Are they getting ten of these trips in an hour, or just a couple?
Back when the apps first started delivery was free - it was subsidised by the apps, to get consumers on board. So I used to get that all the time. Now that delivery costs $5-$7 and the meals have also gone up in price, I usually just contact the restaurant directly as sometimes they have their own delivery drivers who do it cheaper, or I grab the food myself. I'm not interested in paying $7 for a 10 minute bike ride. The apps are starting to get greedy and I think they're about to realise that you can clear the market, but if you then hike your prices consumers are going to revolt. Personally I didn't get anything delivered during lockdown as a protest against the fee hikes.
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Doordash in some cases propagated some out-of-date menus that they found elsewhere on the internet, which isn't great, but again the restaurant has no requirement to enter into any sort of contractual agreement with these companies. If Doordash calls in orders based on an outdated menu, the restaurant can reject those orders, just like they would do if anyone else tried to call in a bogus order based on a menu they found on Google, or taped to the fridge of their vacation rental, or whatever else.
If this happens often enough I'd hope Doordash would get the hint and stop trying to sell food from that restaurant until they get the menu right. Sure it might cause some minor customer service issues in the short run, but I know if it happened to me I'd be able to assign blame where it belongs: not with the restaurant.
How do you reject orders from an outfit that refuses to identify themselves as the source of your orders in the first place if you refuse to sign up with them? From an outfit that spams their own contact information over your own, misrepresenting themselves as your business partner and representative of yours, drowning out your real phone number, menu and website on the internet in search results with their own?
By using the most powerful word in the English language: No.
With any shenanigans DoorDash or Grubhub try to pull, the last line is the restaurant. When someone, anyone calls with an order that they choose not to fill for any (non-protected) reason they can simply say no. The restaurant is under no obligation to fulfill an order from DoorDash, GrubHub, or anyone else if they choose not to.
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I think that the delivery apps are unsustainable - they screw over the restaurants and the people who do the work, and they don’t actually make any money, and who on earth pays )10 to have food delivered from Taco Bell? The whole goal is to make money by selling the company.
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Doordash in some cases propagated some out-of-date menus that they found elsewhere on the internet, which isn't great, but again the restaurant has no requirement to enter into any sort of contractual agreement with these companies. If Doordash calls in orders based on an outdated menu, the restaurant can reject those orders, just like they would do if anyone else tried to call in a bogus order based on a menu they found on Google, or taped to the fridge of their vacation rental, or whatever else.
If this happens often enough I'd hope Doordash would get the hint and stop trying to sell food from that restaurant until they get the menu right. Sure it might cause some minor customer service issues in the short run, but I know if it happened to me I'd be able to assign blame where it belongs: not with the restaurant.
How do you reject orders from an outfit that refuses to identify themselves as the source of your orders in the first place if you refuse to sign up with them? From an outfit that spams their own contact information over your own, misrepresenting themselves as your business partner and representative of yours, drowning out your real phone number, menu and website on the internet in search results with their own?
By using the most powerful word in the English language: No.
With any shenanigans DoorDash or Grubhub try to pull, the last line is the restaurant. When someone, anyone calls with an order that they choose not to fill for any (non-protected) reason they can simply say no. The restaurant is under no obligation to fulfill an order from DoorDash, GrubHub, or anyone else if they choose not to.
Again, HOW does the restaurant do this without refusing to take ALL orders over the phone or in person? It's not like the people from Grubhub and Doordash placing the orders with the restaurant that isn't signed up are going, "I'm from X company placing an order for someone else!"
You can say no all you want, but they don't take no for an answer.
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Doordash in some cases propagated some out-of-date menus that they found elsewhere on the internet, which isn't great, but again the restaurant has no requirement to enter into any sort of contractual agreement with these companies. If Doordash calls in orders based on an outdated menu, the restaurant can reject those orders, just like they would do if anyone else tried to call in a bogus order based on a menu they found on Google, or taped to the fridge of their vacation rental, or whatever else.
If this happens often enough I'd hope Doordash would get the hint and stop trying to sell food from that restaurant until they get the menu right. Sure it might cause some minor customer service issues in the short run, but I know if it happened to me I'd be able to assign blame where it belongs: not with the restaurant.
How do you reject orders from an outfit that refuses to identify themselves as the source of your orders in the first place if you refuse to sign up with them? From an outfit that spams their own contact information over your own, misrepresenting themselves as your business partner and representative of yours, drowning out your real phone number, menu and website on the internet in search results with their own?
By using the most powerful word in the English language: No.
With any shenanigans DoorDash or Grubhub try to pull, the last line is the restaurant. When someone, anyone calls with an order that they choose not to fill for any (non-protected) reason they can simply say no. The restaurant is under no obligation to fulfill an order from DoorDash, GrubHub, or anyone else if they choose not to.
Again, HOW does the restaurant do this without refusing to take ALL orders over the phone or in person? It's not like the people from Grubhub and Doordash placing the orders with the restaurant that isn't signed up are going, "I'm from X company placing an order for someone else!"
You can say no all you want, but they don't take no for an answer.
What does it matter where the order comes from? If it is for an item at the agreed price, who cares?
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This is literally the most ridiculous circular logic I've seen in a while.
What does it matter where the order comes from? If it is for an item at the agreed price, who cares?
I don't understand how these apps work or why the restaurant would care, I've never used them. Isn't an analogy like someone buying a book from Barnes and Noble then reselling it for a higher price to someone else (while also providing the service of delivering the book to them)? What is the harm inflicted by the restaurant if someone wants to place an order, pick it up, then deliver it to someone else?
Because if the restaurant isn't opted in, the delivery service is paying someone to place the order and pick it up and deliver the food whether the restaurant knows or wants it or not, and the delivery service frequently will list inaccurate menus and prices and promise unrealistic delivery times. Then, the low-quality delivery service, screwed up order, and cold food gets blamed on the restaurant by the customer who ordered the food leaving negative reviews on the app while the delivery service gets off scott free for botching the transaction. There's no shortage of complaints about this.
And if they do sign up to have more control over when they do or do not accept delivery orders, the delivery service charges the restaurant a finders fee, taking a percentage of every order that usually exceeds the profit margin of the food itself, and they take that percentage whether the app's delivery drivers actually deliver the food or not. And then there's the fake phone numbers in the apps that route to the restaurant's real number where if calls exceed about 45 seconds or so, the restaurant gets charged for a business business referral fee, whether an order actually gets placed over the phone or not.
Seattle Cyclone thinks it's like choosing to have a phone number or take credit cards or buy advertising. Those things they can choose, and find providers if they want that service and are in line with what they actually think they need and can afford. This is techbro millionaires with deep enough pockets telling businesses that they're going to deliver their food and advertise their business whether they want it or not, and the only way to make sure it's accurate and they have any say over customer service beefs is to pay their service fees.
It's not something they opt into, it's forced on them, like a mafia protection racket.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/ (https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/)
https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770 (https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/ (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/)
Now this is the part where you respond just like Seattle Cyclone did with something like:
Doordash in some cases propagated some out-of-date menus that they found elsewhere on the internet, which isn't great, but again the restaurant has no requirement to enter into any sort of contractual agreement with these companies. If Doordash calls in orders based on an outdated menu, the restaurant can reject those orders, just like they would do if anyone else tried to call in a bogus order based on a menu they found on Google, or taped to the fridge of their vacation rental, or whatever else.
If this happens often enough I'd hope Doordash would get the hint and stop trying to sell food from that restaurant until they get the menu right. Sure it might cause some minor customer service issues in the short run, but I know if it happened to me I'd be able to assign blame where it belongs: not with the restaurant.
Which I'll save you some time and posting to find out what the resulting dialogue will look like...
Doordash in some cases propagated some out-of-date menus that they found elsewhere on the internet, which isn't great, but again the restaurant has no requirement to enter into any sort of contractual agreement with these companies. If Doordash calls in orders based on an outdated menu, the restaurant can reject those orders, just like they would do if anyone else tried to call in a bogus order based on a menu they found on Google, or taped to the fridge of their vacation rental, or whatever else.
If this happens often enough I'd hope Doordash would get the hint and stop trying to sell food from that restaurant until they get the menu right. Sure it might cause some minor customer service issues in the short run, but I know if it happened to me I'd be able to assign blame where it belongs: not with the restaurant.
How do you reject orders from an outfit that refuses to identify themselves as the source of your orders in the first place if you refuse to sign up with them? From an outfit that spams their own contact information over your own, misrepresenting themselves as your business partner and representative of yours, drowning out your real phone number, menu and website on the internet in search results with their own?
By using the most powerful word in the English language: No.
With any shenanigans DoorDash or Grubhub try to pull, the last line is the restaurant. When someone, anyone calls with an order that they choose not to fill for any (non-protected) reason they can simply say no. The restaurant is under no obligation to fulfill an order from DoorDash, GrubHub, or anyone else if they choose not to.
Again, HOW does the restaurant do this without refusing to take ALL orders over the phone or in person? It's not like the people from Grubhub and Doordash placing the orders with the restaurant that isn't signed up are going, "I'm from X company placing an order for someone else!"
You can say no all you want, but they don't take no for an answer.
What does it matter where the order comes from? If it is for an item at the agreed price, who cares?
This is literally the most ridiculous circular logic I've seen in a while.
I don't understand how these apps work or why the restaurant would care, I've never used them. Isn't an analogy like someone buying a book from Barnes and Noble then reselling it for a higher price to someone else (while also providing the service of delivering the book to them)? What is the harm inflicted by the restaurant if someone wants to place an order, pick it up, then deliver it to someone else?
Because if the restaurant isn't opted in, the delivery service is paying someone to place the order and pick it up and deliver the food whether the restaurant knows or wants it or not, and the delivery service frequently will list inaccurate menus and prices and promise unrealistic delivery times. Then, the low-quality delivery service, screwed up order, and cold food gets blamed on the restaurant by the customer who ordered the food leaving negative reviews on the app while the delivery service gets off scott free for botching the transaction. There's no shortage of complaints about this.
And if they do sign up to have more control over when they do or do not accept delivery orders, the delivery service charges the restaurant a finders fee, taking a percentage of every order that usually exceeds the profit margin of the food itself, and they take that percentage whether the app's delivery drivers actually deliver the food or not. And then there's the fake phone numbers in the apps that route to the restaurant's real number where if calls exceed about 45 seconds or so, the restaurant gets charged for a business business referral fee, whether an order actually gets placed over the phone or not.
Seattle Cyclone thinks it's like choosing to have a phone number or take credit cards or buy advertising. Those things they can choose, and find providers if they want that service and are in line with what they actually think they need and can afford. This is techbro millionaires with deep enough pockets telling businesses that they're going to deliver their food and advertise their business whether they want it or not, and the only way to make sure it's accurate and they have any say over customer service beefs is to pay their service fees.
It's not something they opt into, it's forced on them, like a mafia protection racket.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/ (https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/)
https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770 (https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/ (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/)
See how fun this is? Now pretend being a restaurant owner having to deal with businesses trying to take 30% off the top of all your orders with this sort of logic.
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This is literally the most ridiculous circular logic I've seen in a while.
What does it matter where the order comes from? If it is for an item at the agreed price, who cares?
I don't understand how these apps work or why the restaurant would care, I've never used them. Isn't an analogy like someone buying a book from Barnes and Noble then reselling it for a higher price to someone else (while also providing the service of delivering the book to them)? What is the harm inflicted by the restaurant if someone wants to place an order, pick it up, then deliver it to someone else?
Because if the restaurant isn't opted in, the delivery service is paying someone to place the order and pick it up and deliver the food whether the restaurant knows or wants it or not, and the delivery service frequently will list inaccurate menus and prices and promise unrealistic delivery times. Then, the low-quality delivery service, screwed up order, and cold food gets blamed on the restaurant by the customer who ordered the food leaving negative reviews on the app while the delivery service gets off scott free for botching the transaction. There's no shortage of complaints about this.
And if they do sign up to have more control over when they do or do not accept delivery orders, the delivery service charges the restaurant a finders fee, taking a percentage of every order that usually exceeds the profit margin of the food itself, and they take that percentage whether the app's delivery drivers actually deliver the food or not. And then there's the fake phone numbers in the apps that route to the restaurant's real number where if calls exceed about 45 seconds or so, the restaurant gets charged for a business business referral fee, whether an order actually gets placed over the phone or not.
Seattle Cyclone thinks it's like choosing to have a phone number or take credit cards or buy advertising. Those things they can choose, and find providers if they want that service and are in line with what they actually think they need and can afford. This is techbro millionaires with deep enough pockets telling businesses that they're going to deliver their food and advertise their business whether they want it or not, and the only way to make sure it's accurate and they have any say over customer service beefs is to pay their service fees.
It's not something they opt into, it's forced on them, like a mafia protection racket.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/ (https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/)
https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770 (https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/ (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/)
Now this is the part where you respond just like Seattle Cyclone did with something like:
Doordash in some cases propagated some out-of-date menus that they found elsewhere on the internet, which isn't great, but again the restaurant has no requirement to enter into any sort of contractual agreement with these companies. If Doordash calls in orders based on an outdated menu, the restaurant can reject those orders, just like they would do if anyone else tried to call in a bogus order based on a menu they found on Google, or taped to the fridge of their vacation rental, or whatever else.
If this happens often enough I'd hope Doordash would get the hint and stop trying to sell food from that restaurant until they get the menu right. Sure it might cause some minor customer service issues in the short run, but I know if it happened to me I'd be able to assign blame where it belongs: not with the restaurant.
Which I'll save your some time and posting to find out what the resulting dialogue will look like...
Doordash in some cases propagated some out-of-date menus that they found elsewhere on the internet, which isn't great, but again the restaurant has no requirement to enter into any sort of contractual agreement with these companies. If Doordash calls in orders based on an outdated menu, the restaurant can reject those orders, just like they would do if anyone else tried to call in a bogus order based on a menu they found on Google, or taped to the fridge of their vacation rental, or whatever else.
If this happens often enough I'd hope Doordash would get the hint and stop trying to sell food from that restaurant until they get the menu right. Sure it might cause some minor customer service issues in the short run, but I know if it happened to me I'd be able to assign blame where it belongs: not with the restaurant.
How do you reject orders from an outfit that refuses to identify themselves as the source of your orders in the first place if you refuse to sign up with them? From an outfit that spams their own contact information over your own, misrepresenting themselves as your business partner and representative of yours, drowning out your real phone number, menu and website on the internet in search results with their own?
By using the most powerful word in the English language: No.
With any shenanigans DoorDash or Grubhub try to pull, the last line is the restaurant. When someone, anyone calls with an order that they choose not to fill for any (non-protected) reason they can simply say no. The restaurant is under no obligation to fulfill an order from DoorDash, GrubHub, or anyone else if they choose not to.
Again, HOW does the restaurant do this without refusing to take ALL orders over the phone or in person? It's not like the people from Grubhub and Doordash placing the orders with the restaurant that isn't signed up are going, "I'm from X company placing an order for someone else!"
You can say no all you want, but they don't take no for an answer.
What does it matter where the order comes from? If it is for an item at the agreed price, who cares?
This is literally the most ridiculous circular logic I've seen in a while.
I don't understand how these apps work or why the restaurant would care, I've never used them. Isn't an analogy like someone buying a book from Barnes and Noble then reselling it for a higher price to someone else (while also providing the service of delivering the book to them)? What is the harm inflicted by the restaurant if someone wants to place an order, pick it up, then deliver it to someone else?
Because if the restaurant isn't opted in, the delivery service is paying someone to place the order and pick it up and deliver the food whether the restaurant knows or wants it or not, and the delivery service frequently will list inaccurate menus and prices and promise unrealistic delivery times. Then, the low-quality delivery service, screwed up order, and cold food gets blamed on the restaurant by the customer who ordered the food leaving negative reviews on the app while the delivery service gets off scott free for botching the transaction. There's no shortage of complaints about this.
And if they do sign up to have more control over when they do or do not accept delivery orders, the delivery service charges the restaurant a finders fee, taking a percentage of every order that usually exceeds the profit margin of the food itself, and they take that percentage whether the app's delivery drivers actually deliver the food or not. And then there's the fake phone numbers in the apps that route to the restaurant's real number where if calls exceed about 45 seconds or so, the restaurant gets charged for a business business referral fee, whether an order actually gets placed over the phone or not.
Seattle Cyclone thinks it's like choosing to have a phone number or take credit cards or buy advertising. Those things they can choose, and find providers if they want that service and are in line with what they actually think they need and can afford. This is techbro millionaires with deep enough pockets telling businesses that they're going to deliver their food and advertise their business whether they want it or not, and the only way to make sure it's accurate and they have any say over customer service beefs is to pay their service fees.
It's not something they opt into, it's forced on them, like a mafia protection racket.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/ (https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/12/18/grubhub-doordash-add-milwaukee-restaurants-without-permission/2667379001/)
https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770 (https://gizmodo.com/doordash-pizza-arbitrage-shows-the-fubar-economics-of-d-1843530770)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/ (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrigie/2019/08/21/this-is-how-grubhub-is-hurting-your-favorite-restaurants-and-why-you-should-care/)
See how fun this is? Now pretend being a restaurant owner having to deal with businesses trying to take 30% off the top of all your orders with this sort of logic.
How can a restaurant lose 30% off the top if they don't fulfill the order?
Here's the conversation over the phone:
* Hi, I want a burrito meal take-out
- Sure, that'll be $10 and it will be ready in 15mins.
* Great, I'll pay you $7.
- No, you will pay $10
* Here's $7
- click...
Done.
If they try to play games with the CC, reporting them to the CC company will get them in hot water quickly (seen it, personally).
ETA:
I get where you are coming from, that these are some fairly shady tactics but at what point is it now the responsibility of the restaurant to not allow themselves to be taken advantage of? On this type of topic outside the world of the gig apps, so many people get into hot water simply be cause they allow it to happen. Does it suck that GH/DD take 30% - yes. Does it suck that they don't pay the drivers much - sure. These companies operate on fairly thin ice, actually, so it would take very little disruption to send them under.
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How can a restaurant lose 30% off the top if they don't fulfill the order?
Here's the conversation over the phone:
* Hi, I want a burrito meal take-out
- Sure, that'll be $10 and it will be ready in 15mins.
* Great, I'll pay you $7.
- No, you will pay $10
* Here's $7
- click...
Done.
If they try to play games with the CC, reporting them to the CC company will get them in hot water quickly (seen it, personally).
See, this is a fundamentally flawed understanding of what's actually happening. Read the linked articles.
This is how the one pizzeria was doing arbitrage with their own pizzas through Doordash. Doordash added the pizzeria and its menu to their app without permission and with incorrect, lower than what the placed charged prices for what was being sold. The "customer" paid the cost listed on Doordash's menu, but had their delivery people pay the restaurant what they were actually charging. The pizzeria then had Doordash deliver the order to themselves. This place, without signing up for the service, has no way to tell which order is coming from actual customers or from Doordash because the company and delivery people don't identify themselves at the time of the order. They only find out which orders were from where when angry customers who ordered through the app they don't participate in call in to complain about crappy service, or when the company sends them a promo mailer showing how many orders and how much business they supposedly gave the restaurant. The only way they can take any form of control over what this delivery service is offering, to properly correct menu prices and have any control or say over the customer service issues and delivery times is to have to opt in, and opting in is where the delivery service then starts charging fees on orders that eats all their profit margin by getting charged up to 30% per order through the service and for any phone call taken through the app's listed phone number that exceeds ~45 seconds or so.
The business model is basically set up to sabotage the restaurant by peeling away customers from unsigned restaurants with cheaper prices ordered through their app and potentially hosing the restaurant's reputation in app due to the problems that naturally arise with a third party horning in and pretending to be a restaurant's order and delivery partner, but getting just enough right to make signing up look appealing in relation to how much business was supposedly sent to them through the app despite the problem with the problems supposedly disappearing once they sign up. But if they don't sign up? The delivery service keeps doing it anyway, strong arming them until they do sign up. Literally the only way to "opt out" is to sign up and cave to their tactics according to our own resident apologist. The only way they can take any sort of control over a third party forcing their way into their business is to let them in and give them the cut they want, a cut that most restaurants can't afford without massively jacking prices up higher, which reduces the number of customers.
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How can a restaurant lose 30% off the top if they don't fulfill the order?
Here's the conversation over the phone:
* Hi, I want a burrito meal take-out
- Sure, that'll be $10 and it will be ready in 15mins.
* Great, I'll pay you $7.
- No, you will pay $10
* Here's $7
- click...
Done.
If they try to play games with the CC, reporting them to the CC company will get them in hot water quickly (seen it, personally).
See, this is a fundamentally flawed understanding of what's actually happening. Read the linked articles.
This is how the one pizzeria was doing arbitrage with their own pizzas through Doordash. Doordash added the pizzeria and its menu to their app without permission and with incorrect, lower than what the placed charged prices for what was being sold. The "customer" paid the cost listed on Doordash's menu, but had their delivery people pay the restaurant what they were actually charging. The pizzeria then had Doordash deliver the order to themselves. This place, without signing up for the service, has no way to tell which order is coming from actual customers or from Doordash because the company and delivery people don't identify themselves at the time of the order. They only find out which orders were from where when angry customers who ordered through the app they don't participate in call in to complain about crappy service, or when the company sends them a promo mailer showing how many orders and how much business they supposedly gave the restaurant. The only way they can take any form of control over what this delivery service is offering, to properly correct menu prices and have any control or say over the customer service issues and delivery times is to have to opt in, and opting in is where the delivery service then starts charging fees on orders that eats all their profit margin by getting charged up to 30% and for any phone call taken through the app's listed phone number that exceeds ~45 seconds or so.
The business model is basically set up to sabotage the restaurant by peeling away customers from unsigned restaurants with cheaper prices ordered through their app and potentially hosing the restaurant's reputation in app due to the problems that naturally arise with a third party horning in and pretending to be a restaurant's order and delivery partner, but getting just enough right to make signing up look appealing in relation to how much business was supposedly sent to them through the app despite the problem with the problems supposedly disappearing once they sign up. But if they don't sign up? The delivery service keeps doing it anyway, strong arming them until they do sign up. Literally the only way to "opt out" is to sign up and cave to their tactics according to our own resident apologist. The only way they can take any sort of control over a third party forcing their way into their business is to let them in and give them the cut they want, a cut that most restaurants can't afford without massively jacking prices up higher, which reduces the number of customers.
I fail to see the problem with the pizza arbitrage situation. It's moronic, granted. They screwed DoorDash out of a good sum of money since DD was covering the fees to entice the pizzaria into joining by paying more for the pizza than they were charging. This is a self-solving problem. Once there is enough red ink on the books these companies will either go under or have to start charging market prices (and probably go under since their cost > value in most cases).
Regarding the bad reviews. I'm not so sure about that. A reasonable customer would likely place the blame for a cold pizza on the delivery service rather than restaurant. Not to say most customers are all that bright, though. A restaurant could easily cook the reviews in the arbitrage scenario to their advantage - two can play that game.
That article draws a good parallel to MoviePass that I was a part of for a while. I paid $30/mo (or was it $20? I don't remember) to get up to one theatre pass a day ($9.50 avg in my 'hood). They paid the theater full asking price for each ticket. As long as I went more than 3x per month, MP lost money. They only survived for a few years before their investors realized they were doomed. They rewrote the plan to start making a profit and died with a whimper when their customers vanished.
As I said in my ETA, there is some shady stuff going on here but the restaurants and the drivers have enormous power to improve the situation if they choose to. If these companies continue to survive and eventually make decent money then the conclusion I draw is that they are OK with the situation.
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joleran is only partially right about these companies.
Uber etc. are just like Amazon/Walmart, in that the channel wants to occupy the market, and they have a huge advantage. Why? Because if you're the channel for multiple competing products, you then have the information with which to create your own product at the best prices/margins.
Amazon has their own brands for things they sell based on the research of other retailers selling on their site, same with the Walmart "great value" brand.
So, Uber doesn't care about the drivers, or the restaurants, they want all of it. The drivers are just a nuisance until self driving cars/drones can do the work. Once that happens, or concurrently, they'll take the data from what people are ordering from restaurants, and either open their own "kitchens" that don't have storefronts to compete, or buy out or build their own restaurants. That way they can take their superior market information and dominate all of the delivery restaurant industry pretty much.
Is any of this unethical? Meh. I mean, credit card companies are there, they were just too dumb to use their market data to create competing companies. I don't know why people aren't riled up that credit card companies exploit all of these restaurants through their profits.
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Doordash in some cases propagated some out-of-date menus that they found elsewhere on the internet, which isn't great, but again the restaurant has no requirement to enter into any sort of contractual agreement with these companies. If Doordash calls in orders based on an outdated menu, the restaurant can reject those orders, just like they would do if anyone else tried to call in a bogus order based on a menu they found on Google, or taped to the fridge of their vacation rental, or whatever else.
If this happens often enough I'd hope Doordash would get the hint and stop trying to sell food from that restaurant until they get the menu right. Sure it might cause some minor customer service issues in the short run, but I know if it happened to me I'd be able to assign blame where it belongs: not with the restaurant.
How do you reject orders from an outfit that refuses to identify themselves as the source of your orders in the first place if you refuse to sign up with them? From an outfit that spams their own contact information over your own, misrepresenting themselves as your business partner and representative of yours, drowning out your real phone number, menu and website on the internet in search results with their own?
By using the most powerful word in the English language: No.
With any shenanigans DoorDash or Grubhub try to pull, the last line is the restaurant. When someone, anyone calls with an order that they choose not to fill for any (non-protected) reason they can simply say no. The restaurant is under no obligation to fulfill an order from DoorDash, GrubHub, or anyone else if they choose not to.
Again, HOW does the restaurant do this without refusing to take ALL orders over the phone or in person? It's not like the people from Grubhub and Doordash placing the orders with the restaurant that isn't signed up are going, "I'm from X company placing an order for someone else!"
You can say no all you want, but they don't take no for an answer.
If the restaurant literally can't tell the difference between a Doordash order and an order placed directly by the person eating, where's the problem? Why would I want to reject customers who are offering to pay full price for the products I'm advertising? That makes no sense.
The problems arise when the restaurant can tell the difference: when someone orders the asparagus dish that hasn't been on the menu since springtime, or offers to pay $7 for a $10 burrito. Just say no. What's the worst they can do? Take you off the app you didn't want to be in anyway? Keep spamming your phone with orders you don't want to take?
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As I said in my ETA, there is some shady stuff going on here but the restaurants and the drivers have enormous power to improve the situation if they choose to. If these companies continue to survive and eventually make decent money then the conclusion I draw is that they are OK with the situation.
But that's the thing, the delivery outfits have structured their business all-in on exploiting the restaurant with obscene service fees as the way to turn a profit short term to help get them to end game. This time last year, they were collapsing...
...and then the pandemic happened. Record unemployment hits with barely any government assistance. People are scared, people are hungry. Restaurants are terrified of going under and desperate to do anything to keep the doors open.
This year, suddenly they're making a profit, and yet the restaurants are still drowning financially with these partnerships and the drivers are treated and paid like dirt. People do stupid things during desperate times, most people aren't very good at math (even when they run a business), and will sell out their future for a short term "win".
The question was whether using these services were unethical. You admit yourself these outfits are acting shady when everything is laid out in how they operate. There's the answer. A large corporation that exploits their contractors and customers does deeply unethical things to make money. In other news, sky blue, water wet.
joleran is only partially right about these companies.
Uber etc. are just like Amazon/Walmart, in that the channel wants to occupy the market, and they have a huge advantage. Why? Because if you're the channel for multiple competing products, you then have the information with which to create your own product at the best prices/margins.
Amazon has their own brands for things they sell based on the research of other retailers selling on their site, same with the Walmart "great value" brand.
So, Uber doesn't care about the drivers, or the restaurants, they want all of it. The drivers are just a nuisance until self driving cars/drones can do the work. Once that happens, or concurrently, they'll take the data from what people are ordering from restaurants, and either open their own "kitchens" that don't have storefronts to compete, or buy out or build their own restaurants. That way they can take their superior market information and dominate all of the delivery restaurant industry pretty much.
Is any of this unethical? Meh. I mean, credit card companies are there, they were just too dumb to use their market data to create competing companies. I don't know why people aren't riled up that credit card companies exploit all of these restaurants through their profits.
Bingo. You see what I see, however, I clearly find it more troubling than you do. The problem is, this isn't capitalism. It takes deep pockets to play these games, and the end goal is monopolistic mega-corporations, not diversity. How do you compete with someone who has the money to bury your own advertising and contact information replacing it with their own to hijack your own customers, from a company who's only purpose and end goal is to make enough money off of you and your brand to either put you out of business or turn you into a namebrand to exploit before the laws catch up to prevent them from taking over the entire industry, provided they don't run out of money before the glorious robot revolution to outspend you?
As for concerns over credit card fees? I'm not one of those rewards jockeys from the forums here. I've honestly been bothered by it for years, and it does trouble me that they exploit the greed of end users with bonus money who's cost they pass off to the retailers with service fees. The problem is, credit cards have become so pervasive, the retailers' losses have to be baked into the prices of the stuff they sell because so many pay with plastic and they're not allowed to directly pass the processing fee onto the user, removing any incentive and ability to pay cash.
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Companies and restaurants have always had to change as technology improved. Businesses didn't have parking lots until cars, telephones until well telephones, or websites until the internet.
The main principle for any successful business is evolve or die.
There we go again, folks. Thanks for such an eloquent response Bloodaxe.
Vertically and horizontally integrated, multi-billion dollar corporations trying to take over an entire industry with the sole intent of monopolizing restaurant service in entire regions is just another telephone.
Evolve or die, restaurants! You're standing in the way of progress.
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Don't forget, kids! Government regulation and taxes are evil. Nobody should have any say in how you do business or have access to take such a massive amount of your gross profit for doing almost nothing but exist.
Now be sure to use the technology we've developed that inserts us between you and your customers through domain hijacking and false phone number listings, and pay us a 30% tribute from your ticket sales for doing business on our turf so we can make money off of your labor... or die.
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Don't forget, kids! Government regulation and taxes are evil. Nobody should have any say in how you do business or have access to take such a massive amount of your gross profit for doing almost nothing but exist.
Now be sure to use the technology we've developed that inserts us between you and your customers through domain hijacking and false phone number listings, and pay us a 30% tribute from your ticket sales for doing business on our turf so we can make money off of your labor... or die.
Yes pretty much this. The restaurant business is about as far as you can get from fair and easy.
Hypocrite.
MOD NOTE: Disagree without name calling please.
« Mod Edit: 05 December 2020, 12:22:49 by arebelspy »
That is not name calling, Rebs. Name calling is saying something along the lines of delivery drivers can be any idiot.
Hypocrite, as in Bloodaxe's values and actions are literally that of a dictionary defined hypocrite due to the fact that they defend doing what they hate and present said behavior as a virtue based solely on who the person doing it is. Much like crying foul and seeking to censor someone for calling out said hypocritical behavior by equating it to a personal attack, while letting far uglier things said against an entire economic class of people stand without nary a peep simply because they're not as well off or skilled. That is the sort of thing that happens when a board moderator is behaving like a hypocrite by defending other hypocrites who would rather cry victim than wrestle with the uncomfortable tension between their actions and stated values.
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joleran is only partially right about these companies.
Uber etc. are just like Amazon/Walmart, in that the channel wants to occupy the market, and they have a huge advantage. Why? Because if you're the channel for multiple competing products, you then have the information with which to create your own product at the best prices/margins.
Amazon has their own brands for things they sell based on the research of other retailers selling on their site, same with the Walmart "great value" brand.
So, Uber doesn't care about the drivers, or the restaurants, they want all of it. The drivers are just a nuisance until self driving cars/drones can do the work. Once that happens, or concurrently, they'll take the data from what people are ordering from restaurants, and either open their own "kitchens" that don't have storefronts to compete, or buy out or build their own restaurants. That way they can take their superior market information and dominate all of the delivery restaurant industry pretty much.
Is any of this unethical? Meh. I mean, credit card companies are there, they were just too dumb to use their market data to create competing companies. I don't know why people aren't riled up that credit card companies exploit all of these restaurants through their profits.
Bingo. You see what I see, however, I clearly find it more troubling than you do. The problem is, this isn't capitalism. It takes deep pockets to play these games, and the end goal is monopolistic mega-corporations, not diversity. How do you compete with someone who has the money to bury your own advertising and contact information replacing it with their own to hijack your own customers, from a company who's only purpose and end goal is to make enough money off of you and your brand to either put you out of business or turn you into a namebrand to exploit before the laws catch up to prevent them from taking over the entire industry, provided they don't run out of money before the glorious robot revolution to outspend you?
As for concerns over credit card fees? I'm not one of those rewards jockeys from the forums here. I've honestly been bothered by it for years, and it does trouble me that they exploit the greed of end users with bonus money who's cost they pass off to the retailers with service fees. The problem is, credit cards have become so pervasive, the retailers' losses have to be baked into the prices of the stuff they sell because so many pay with plastic and they're not allowed to directly pass the processing fee onto the user, removing any incentive and ability to pay cash.
I guess I'm not as concerned as you for a few reasons:
1) Harm to the consumer hasn't occurred. If anything, the consumer has benefitted greatly from Amazon, Walmart, Uber, etc. in the form of lower prices and better services.
2) I think long term we will eventually coalecse around UBI (or a "Freedom dividend" for the conservatives out there) that is funded in large part by taxes on these megacaps
3) New business entrants aren't being stopped - the megacaps (Mircosoft, Google, Amazon, Walmart, Facebook, etc.) are increasingly competing with one another in multiple dimensions, and new folks are coming in as well (wayfair, etc.)
3.1) I do agree that many more products and services are being commoditized by these megacaps, but I think that's generally good result.
Why do I think 2) will happen? Because as we can see, especially during this pandemic, even though the fiscal and monetary printing presses are going full on, there's little to no inflation. Why is that? Because the same few companies/people are soaking up all the money, inflation only occurs if money actually moves. At the end we need a way to get money back into the hands of people and that's why I think the efficiencies that these tech and other companies produce will be so great as to allow for an ever increasing UBI (or negative income tax, or freedom dividend, or name it how you want it), and I think that will be great for society.... getting there will be painful for the warehouse workers and drivers etc. so I'm sympathetic to that but I don't think the solution is to slow down the progress to more automation or reduce the market efficiencies these companies are generating/exploiting.
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At the end we need a way to get money back into the hands of people and that's why I think the efficiencies that these tech and other companies produce will be so great as to allow for an ever increasing UBI (or negative income tax, or freedom dividend, or name it how you want it), and I think that will be great for society.... getting there will be painful for the warehouse workers and drivers etc. so I'm sympathetic to that but I don't think the solution is to slow down the progress to more automation or reduce the market efficiencies these companies are generating/exploiting.
I've not been convinced these tech companies have actually addressed inefficiencies so much as added needless complexity through opaque methods to an already broken system that creates the illusion of efficiency while consolidating control.
I don't entirely disagree with the need, but I view UBI as a false panacea, a solution to a problem that doesn't actually address the root cause of the suffering in the first place... but instead permits the power hungry behaviors of society to retain control while supposedly leveling a playing field in an imperfect universe where entropy, suffering and poverty can never truly be cured by human hands. Any system that maintains any form of status quo towards preserving any behavior that inflicts harm will inevitably metastasize and inflict harm in unintended and unexpected ways, and UBI can't exist without a concentration of industrial power. It may look good in theory, but it's likely UBI will instead be turned into a gilded cage in application.
...but, this too, must happen.
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Let's say I'm just "the restaurant guy". People come to me personally and pay me for recommendations, to place their orders for them, and to bring them food. Is that OK capitalism Daley or no?
If it's OK, it seems your problem is just that these companies can get really powerful because everyone wants to use them, and that's apparently bad.
If it's not OK, why is it OK for the restaurants to buy food that diners could easily prepare themselves and charge a markup, but not OK for me to do things the diners could easily do themselves and charge a markup?
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@dividendman This is why I have no faith in UBI longer term, and have greater concern over these behaviors than you do.
The people in charge of creating these wonderous technologies are people who are rich enough to burn money building corporate cultures that hold zero respect and value for human life and the labor of the little guy that enables their efforts in the first place, outside of how much money can be extracted from them. These are going to have to be, out of necessity, the same people left in charge with copious amounts of power over the wonderous technologies needed to "fix the market inefficiencies necessary" to make UBI actually work. There is no shame or remorse for their behavior, no clue why people are upset over how they behave despite being told in clear language why, only excuses and word games to try and justify their actions.
If they treat their customers like open wallets to plunder and datamine for their own profit, view forcing their service on others without their permission and demanding that they opt in and pay obscene fees or effectively lose control of their own business and customer base as perfectly acceptable behavior, while actively looking for legal loopholes to justify said behavior that would otherwise send them to prison today and actively lobby against laws that close those loopholes, refuse to see the value in paying their contractors who are actively working for them a living wage, and treat everyone involved like inhuman cogs deserving to be thrown away the instant they cease to bring them added profit right now... what makes you think those attitudes will change when they're the people holding the reigns to the infrastructure that the world has become dependent upon? People may get their "freedom dividend", but their survival is still dependent upon a group of powerful industrialists fueled by deep data who hate their fellow man so much that they refused to pay a living wage to the sorts of people they refer to as "idiots" surrounded by "meth and stupidity" (just as an example) when they actually did work for them directly. Their loyalty to the average consumer only goes so far as their ability to still be called a consumer, otherwise they're freeloaders who hold no value. How do you think those attitudes will manifest against the general populous when they're getting money for not working at all and someone chooses to do something with that freedom dividend other than consume ÜberGrubDash Taco Platter #4?
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If they treat their customers like open wallets to plunder and datamine for their own profit, view forcing their service on others without their permission and demanding that they opt in and pay obscene fees or effectively lose control of their own business and customer base as perfectly acceptable behavior, while actively looking for legal loopholes to justify said behavior that would otherwise send them to prison today and actively lobby against laws that close those loopholes, refuse to see the value in paying their contractors who are actively working for them a living wage, and treat everyone involved like inhuman cogs deserving to be thrown away the instant they cease to bring them added profit right now... what makes you think those attitudes will change when they're the people holding the reigns to the infrastructure that the world has become dependent upon? People may get their "freedom dividend", but their survival is still dependent upon a group of powerful industrialists fueled by deep data who hate their fellow man so much that they refused to pay a living wage to the sorts of people they refer to as "idiots" surrounded by "meth and stupidity" (just as an example) when they actually did work for them directly. Their loyalty to the average consumer only goes so far as their ability to still be called a consumer, otherwise they're freeloaders who hold no value. How do you think those attitudes will manifest against the general populous when they're getting money for not working at all and someone chooses to do something with that freedom dividend other than consume ÜberGrubDash Taco Platter #4?
You could always start a competing business with more "fair" fees, or, if you feel you can't compete, appeal to legislators to cripple your competitors so you can.
You also seem quite dismissive of meth, but boy does it get the job done when it's needed.
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How do you think those attitudes will manifest against the general populous when they're getting money for not working at all and someone chooses to do something with that freedom dividend other than consume ÜberGrubDash Taco Platter #4?
You're kind of obsessed with fatalistic thinking. I get it, I go there sometimes too, but in your zeal to fast forward to full corporate ownership of humans you're raging and trampling on everyone in this thread. Joleran pointed out in his first comment that the money is going towards tech workers, without even giving his personal judgment on it, and you're practically screaming at him about tech bros.
removing any incentive and ability to pay cash
Really? Restaurants have now removed the ability to accept cash because of credit cards? I'd love for you to find data about that
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removing any incentive and ability to pay cash
Really? Restaurants have now removed the ability to accept cash because of credit cards? I'd love for you to find data about that
Not to jump in the middle of this fight, but this rang a bell for me. I'm not saying this is a trend, but yeah there are cashless restaurants. And It's not just a pandemic thing.
https://www.todayfm.com/best-bits/irelands-first-cashless-cafe-opens-dublin-845780
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/dublin-city-cafe-in-the-money-after-going-completely-cashless-1.3792267
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Posted today on Facebook by a small, family-owned business that I have frequented for years:
It has come to our attention that we are now on GrubHub. This was done without our permission. GrubHub has asked to partner with us numerous times in the past. We have always DENIED them. The menu and pricing on their app was NOT created by us. We are NOT a "Taqueria'". We are and have always been a TAMALERIA. We are not associated with GrubHub at all or any online services , our only internet outreach is this Facebook page. We are not responsible for any misinformation through GrubHub and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you.
This could seriously hurt the tamaleria in question because unhappy customers will leave negative Google and Yelp reviews on their page after not getting the food they've ordered.
Edited to add that the Grubhub page for this tamaleria lists tamales that they don't even make, doesn't list the ones that they actually do make, lists side dishes that they don't sell (they literally only sell tamales by the dozen for cash only), and claims to still be taking orders at 8:30 PM when the business closes at 6 pm daily.
Unethical? Yes. GrubHub is risking ruining this company's ratings and defrauding customers.
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How does GrubHub not get sued for that? It's misleading to use another business's goodwill like that without permission.
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How does GrubHub not get sued for that? It's misleading to use another business's goodwill like that without permission.
It's not even using the business's goodwill. GrubHub went so far as to fake a logo, menu/pricing, and operating hours. It's straight up fraud.
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How does GrubHub not get sued for that? It's misleading to use another business's goodwill like that without permission.
All the companies do this - Doordash basically took over the market by being the first to adapt this strategy. But yes, they are all getting sued too.