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What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

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Re: What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

#271

Post by pjc50 »

eru wrote: post #265
franga2000 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any other country other than the US where paying service workers below minimum wage is legal or acceptable? I've been around a fair bit of Europe and surroundings and I've never encountered the US system.

Germany didn't even have a minimum wage until fairly recently. The Scandinavian countries don't have a minimum wage either, see eg https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/12/nordic-countri... Neither does Switzerland. What's with the American obsession with outlawing poor people's jobs? (My adopted home country, one of the richest places in the world and one of the best places to live, doesn't have a minimum wage…

However, those countries generally have decent benefits and social housing, so people's net wages provide an adequate standard of living. And the wages are collectively negotiated by unions in a way that is now very rare in the anglosphere: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/12/nordic-countri...

Re: What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

#272

Post by JCharante »

ramraj07 wrote: post #203
gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people still want food cooked and delivered and to use taxis. If the non financially viable companies did not exist then financially viable ones would.

Not completely. I remember life before Uber and seamless. I'd just stay home and eat ramen (this is in Dallas and I didn't have a car). These businesses did genuinely create businesses and also changed lives for many by the service. That's not an excuse for such exploitative behavior of course.

In Vietnam Grab drivers actually make a decent amount of money because a lot of their customers are middle class (relative to Vietnam). I don't think they're missing out on that much business by not having lower prices because you still see them everywhere (17 at a red light is the most I've ever seen) and people who can't afford Grab will use public transportation or their own motorbikes (student jobs may pay 20k-50k/hr, a bus ticket is 6k and a 10km GrabBike ride can be 70k, 4-5km is like 35k). A college graduate after some time may make 100k-200k/hr, and yet you'll still find a large class of people buying the latest iPhones (which would cost around 25 million).

I guess the US is a different environment where there's not enough customers who could afford realistic prices for Uber, and there's not enough alternatives for those who can't afford a personal vehicle.

Re: What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

#273

Post by Drakar1903 »

chii wrote: post #131
wnoise wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you weren't dependent on the vehicle to be able to travel, sure. Or as a backup home if you get evicted.

And this is why working under this scenario, the vehicle is a money losing asset (where every dollar you earned driving costs a dollar in vehicle depreciation, even with a tax deduction, it's still a money losing asset). The deliverer has to be able to earn $1.15 (at least) per dollar depreciated from the vehicle for the work to be "worth it".

The other issue is uncertainty - you have no idea how much you will earn on a given day or if this will be the day your car finally hits one pothole too many and dies.

Re: What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

#274

Post by mjevans »

hocuspocus wrote: post #250
jopsen wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxis, restaurants, relocation assistants, fast food, online shopping, ... If you live in the US, you have to give up a lot of services if you don't want to buy from people who are underpaid..

> relocation assistants Does this mean something completely different in the US compared to the rest of the world? How is anyone in this business being underpaid?!

They're talking about the labor for moving things, and yeah, it's a "service" job so it too is owned by someone else who takes most of the profits.

Re: What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

#275

Post by michaelt »

eik3_de wrote: post #210
marcell wrote: post #30

> “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…

> This begs an obvious question: why are people choosing to do this if it pays $0/hr? It’s voluntary. Can they find something better to do with their time? Maybe because they want to do something purposeful with their life, even if it doesn't earn them any net cash? Maybe a "Thank you" and a smile from a delivery customer makes for a better day then just being "lazy" and watching TV/consuming social media?

I find it hard to believe someone who wanted to work for free on something meaningful would choose to volunteer for DoorDash in preference to a normal charity?

Re: What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

#276

Post by krageon »

eru wrote: post #265
franga2000 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any other country other than the US where paying service workers below minimum wage is legal or acceptable? I've been around a fair bit of Europe and surroundings and I've never encountered the US system.

Germany didn't even have a minimum wage until fairly recently. The Scandinavian countries don't have a minimum wage either, see eg https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/12/nordic-countri... Neither does Switzerland. What's with the American obsession with outlawing poor people's jobs? (My adopted home country, one of the richest places in the world and one of the best places to live, doesn't have a minimum wage…

> The Scandinavian countries don't have a minimum wage either

Their unions regulate wages, and in practice this means the same thing as a government-mandated minimum wage. It just so happens that their structure is a little different.

Re: What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

#277

Post by break_the_bank »

kragen wrote: post #180
dmode wrote: post #160

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 ?

If you try to compete with DoorDash using that model, you will either have to charge much higher prices than they do, or you will lose money on every transaction. Either way you will go out of business as long as DoorDash or similar companies are able to compete with you.

This assumes that door dash is able to maintain it's employees despite another employer paying hire for the same job.

Re: What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

#278

Post by ISL »

devmunchies wrote: post #127
bobloblaw45 wrote: post #2

I drove for DoorDash for about a month. What killed me was the wait between deliveries. I think it was like 45 minutes on average and when I did get a delivery it was like a tiny $7 delivery. There would be 2 hour stretches of times pretty often. But then once in awhile I'd get a string of maybe 3 or 4 runs that paid like $12. over 2 or 3 hours.It was too inconsistent. Had no idea if I ever got tips, from my understa…

>There's just too many drivers I think. interesting, I'm desperate for more drivers. I run a side business that delivers cookies, drivers do just under 30 deliveries a day (about 3-4 every hour) and make minimum wage plus 100% of tips are split at the end of pay period. it ends up being about $3/delivery in tips, which is an extra $9/hr for a total of $21/hr (minimum wage is $12). A driver could theoretically make ov…

Is that $21/hr in revenue or $21/hr in profit for the driver?

If the mileage cost is the $0.58/mi stated in the article, then the cost of driving ~15-30 miles in that hour is $9-17.

Re: What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

#279

Post by LocalH »

fxtentacle wrote: post #253
franga2000 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any other country other than the US where paying service workers below minimum wage is legal or acceptable? I've been around a fair bit of Europe and surroundings and I've never encountered the US system.

There's also no other developed country that has drug problems like the US. If you stop treating people with respect, they need some way to cope. First painkillers, then the opioid crisis, now alcohol-related deaths are on the rise. And I recently read that the new hip thing are LSD nose spray trips timed to your lunch break.

LSD can't be "timed to your lunch break" as far as I know. Whether micro, threshold, or full-on trip, LSD usually has a duration of around 8-12 hours before you're back to baseline (and tolerance is long, usually two weeks before another similarly-dosed experience would have the same potency)

Re: What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips

#280

Post by TrackerFF »

jamisteven wrote: post #232

These "gig" and "service" companies are simply re-defining minimum wage and taking advantage of a segment of the populace that cant get minimum wage jobs for one reason or another. But yea, dont want 1.45 an hour then find another job. Dont want to be broke AF then dont have 3 kids. How can anyone take the examples in this article even remotely serious.

>> But yea, dont want 1.45 an hour then find another job.

>> Dont want to be broke AF then dont have 3 kids.

Life is pretty uncertain and dynamic, it's entirely possible to be a parent w/well paying job, until you don't have it anymore. Victim blaming is BS.

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