191–200 of 572 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The person doing the actual driving is likely in the country illegaly or driving with a suspended license/no insurance.
And then in the cyberpunk dystopian future, the illegals in turn build a nano-market by contracting to children, on top of their micro-market under the GrubHub level consumer market. It's grey commerce all the way down!
Why can’t we have normal businesses where you employ your workers and charge your customers the real cost of the transaction ? If that is not viable, don’t start the business to begin with. Let’s just go back to first principles, can we ?
Can we please do that for all jobs? I want the workers at places I get food and such from to actually just have good base pay. Tips should be about rewarding going BEYOND the normal... not as a basis of someone's wage.
Tips are not expected, and are meant only for extraordinary service. The base pay is decent and so are the benefits like vacation, pension etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean the idea is that you operate at a loss until the economies of scale catch up and you begin being profitable. Starting with the low price let’s you maximize growth, and you make it up on the back end. That’s not a problematic system. What is problematic is if there are no economies of scale.
Ahh, what you lose on every transaction you make up in volume. Got it!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same with pizza delivery since forever.
I don't think that's apples to apples comparison. As a pizza delivery driver, your pizza shop is your base and you only go out when there's an order that needs to be delivered. My friend used to work at Pizza Hut and he was getting reimbursed for gas (per mile but it was slightly more than his gas mileage so i suppose it covers for wear and tear?). As far as i know, you're not getting reimbursed for delivering DoorDa…
With pizza delivery, you have to drive to the person's house then back. So you cover the same road twice for a single delivery.
But with DoorDash, theoretically, then could see there's an order from A to B, find a driver near A, have the driver deliver to B, then match that driver up with an order from near B to near A. So the driver could do 2 deliveries in a single out and back trip.
Why can’t we have normal businesses where you employ your workers and charge your customers the real cost of the transaction ? If that is not viable, don’t start the business to begin with. Let’s just go back to first principles, can we ?
We can have those businesses. They just don't make as much money, so are inferior. Unless of course, customers don't tip. Then your suggestion is not an inferior competitor.
Why can’t we have normal businesses where you employ your workers and charge your customers the real cost of the transaction ? If that is not viable, don’t start the business to begin with. Let’s just go back to first principles, can we ?
Because these companies are still finding enough labor after lowering what they pay out drastically. It's the market in action. You're right that as a society we have a duty to step in with policy here, as we do with minimum wage, but this isn't a violation of "first principles".
> “These orders don’t pay for our expenses or our time. We actually lose money when we take those orders. If I pick up an order that is 10 miles away and deliver it 6 miles I’m traveling 16 miles for a $3 order — so I have lost money. I’m in the negative when I account for gas, wear and tear, and other expenses. Not to mention my time.” This begs an obvious question: why are people choosing to do this if it pays $0/h…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can we please do that for all jobs? I want the workers at places I get food and such from to actually just have good base pay. Tips should be about rewarding going BEYOND the normal... not as a basis of someone's wage.
Yes we can, that's how it works in Sweden and AFAIK in many other European countries. Tips are not expected, and are meant only for extraordinary service. The base pay is decent and so are the benefits like vacation, pension etc.
We're destroying society, one working norm at a time. This is ludicrous, and the lack of regulatory oversight of this kind of vampire game, which winds up ripping off the food source, and the delivery agent in some wierd game of capitalism is a huge black mark on our generations time. I cannot think of a reason to want to take work in the developed west, and casually turn it into this kind of serfdom. Every time I se…
Vote to regulate it in your state like CA has started to do. Individual behavior change won't change this system, but system wide regulatory signals can.