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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

#541

Post by pergadad »

treis wrote: post #514
dsr_ wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article points out that for many DoorDash workers, they aren't getting paid a positive sum, even if they count their time as worth zero. Look, we have the technical ability to handle millions of people as hourly workers on timescale granularities of seconds. Require these companies to treat their "contractors" as part-time employees being paid minimum wage: start paying them when they accept their first job on da…

>The article points out that for many DoorDash workers, they aren't getting paid a positive sum, even if they count their time as worth zero. This just doesn't pass the smell test. It's much, much more likely that their method is flawed than it being the case that a bunch of workers pay DoorDash to work for them.

Instead of posting your personal idea that this must be wrong because it seems extreme, you could read the very lucid and clear article giving exact numbers on how they calculated this and why they are confident in this calculation.

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

#542

Post by lacker »

boh wrote: post #341

It's becoming abundantly clear the real innovation from on-demand services (including ride-sharing companies), is their ability to transfer more money from labor to capital with complex pay structures. For many if not most of these companies, its their only means towards profitability. For instance, any rise in revenue Uber experienced in the last 3 years was exclusively due to cuts in pay for drivers. Tech has long…

the real innovation from on-demand services is their ability to transfer more money from labor to capital

DoorDash hasn't transferred any money to capital! They are still private. In fact, it is the opposite. Transfers have been from the capital of their investors to labor and to consumers.

There is plenty of innovation here - Uber is a lot nicer than phoning up the taxi company, and DoorDash is a lot nicer than phoning up some small restaurants to get food delivered. The lack of innovation is not the problem.

The problem is that there is no moat. DoorDash, Uber Eats, Postmates, and GrubHub are all providing the same service. There are millions of people capable of being a driver for these services. So competition is currently squeezing profits to zero or negative, and squeezing worker pay. Competition isn't helping the VCs, it's helping the consumers.

Eventually, if some of these companies go out of business, the remaining ones will be able to raise prices, which will be worse for consumers but better for the investors and perhaps better for drivers.

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

#543

Post by pergadad »

swiley wrote: post #425
dsr_ wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article points out that for many DoorDash workers, they aren't getting paid a positive sum, even if they count their time as worth zero. Look, we have the technical ability to handle millions of people as hourly workers on timescale granularities of seconds. Require these companies to treat their "contractors" as part-time employees being paid minimum wage: start paying them when they accept their first job on da…

I'll agree you absolutely have to watch what you're doing and count miles and whatnot, but having the option is a powerful thing (even when you're making negative money) and I wonder if regulating it too aggressively might take that away.

Imagine all the alternative ways this valuable human time could be used. Do you really think the majority of people feel empowered and freely do this, or is it rather that they are stuck in a negative loop and can't get out.

Also to highlight that currently the government is subsidising these companies by paying food stamps and Medicaid (in the case of the US), and the workers are subsidising them by taking any and all economic and personal risk (injury, accident, car breakdown, long term health issues, etc.)

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

#544

Post by malandrew »

BelleOfTheBall wrote: post #347
sschueller wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can, stop using and supporting these predatory companies. Never use Uber, Lyft, Doordash, Uber Eats, AirBnB etc. No exception irregardless how easy or cheap it may be. It's a small sacrifice but can and will make a difference. Using these services to me is like asking a waiter to pay for part of my meal. When it comes around to paying the bill are you able to face someone and ask them to pay for part of what they…

Out of curiosity, are there any more ethical alternatives to AirBnB? My partner travels a lot for work and doesn't like staying in hotels. He's fine with staying in rooms vs. whole apartments (which seems to be the biggest strike on AirBnB's model) but it's pretty tough to dig up credible renters for each place he visits. Is there a Craigslist-like option or are hotels the best bet if we decide to drop AirBnB?

I can't think of a tech company with more ethical well-meaning employees than AirBnB. Have you actually ever interacted with someone who works there? They even have a pretty strong ethics/value interview to weed out unethical people. If you don't believe me, go apply for yourself.

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

#545

Post by pergadad »

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…

This is a misunderstanding on your part as the system was/largely still is simply different There was no government mandated minimum wage but the pay in sectors is negotiated and fixed by negotiation between employer and employee representative organisations per sector. The rise of new kinds of pay models to undercut these systems fueled a push to in addition introduce a minimum wage. For most places the minimum wage does not replace the negotiated rates but just covers sectors for which there's no negotiation system.

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

#546

Post by malandrew »

eptcyka wrote: post #302
Reedx wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know what the waiter's situation is, so how can we presume to know better than they do? Are you sure the people who are choosing to work for these services would agree? Secondly, you have the option of giving a nice tip. I suspect they'd prefer that over not renting their Airbnb or whatever service they're offering.

Yeah, but every time you use AirBnB, a would be first-time homeowner cries to his sleep.

It makes no sense to blame AirBnB (or any form of demand in general) for a broken housing market where people can't build more supply.

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

#547

Post by FireBeyond »

matthewaveryusa wrote: post #460
mabbo wrote: post #411

Is anyone else starting to get the feeling that "gig economy" is this generation's "multi-level marketing"? People who don't know any better get sold on the "be your own boss, earn what you put in" concept. Reality doesn't match expectations. The people work their asses off and wind up with a lot less money than they expected because costs and actual spent time aren't taken into account. The people they're working fo…

I always thought MLMs were a bit of a joke and no longer existed. In the social spheres I willfully interact with MLMs are always the butt of a joke. In my whole life I've never had a close or distant friend try to sell me something. Then my first child was born, and there's a great mixing of classes and social circles that happens. You no longer necessarily choose the adult friends you interact with. All of a sudden…

> A lot of people lack the critical thinking, distancing and math I consider fundamental.

Mother in law took my partner and I to a "flipping houses seminar" with one of the TV hosts (by which I mean there was a cardboard cutout and some vague promise that if you signed up for the course there might be some meet and greet at some point).

They boasted "10s of thousands of members, some of whom had flipped 30+ houses with us!", and "We've financed 100 million of purchases".

Wow, exclaimed people, that's a lot of money! And for only $4,995 for the course!

And then I pointed out to MIL that at, say $100K a house, that formerly impressive $100MM investment was only 1,000 homes flipped...

... from 10s of thousands of members... "some of whom have flipped 30+ homes".

So, extrapolating, the average person that went through their course flipped... maybe 0.025 homes.

Faced with that math, she put away the checkbook and we left at the intermission.

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

#548

Post by xyzzyz »

Seenso wrote: post #539
xyzzyz wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out, that number is very low, so low that most people aren't rationally taking those jobs. Factoring in depreciation, I often hear that they loose money to work (not always, but damn close). This is simply hard to believe. There are over a million driving for Uber. An overwhelming majority of them must be making money, because the idea that any significant fraction of a million of people is in the red at the…

>> It turns out, that number is very low, so low that most people aren't rationally taking those jobs. Factoring in depreciation, I often hear that they loose money to work (not always, but damn close). > This is simply hard to believe. There are over a million driving for Uber. An overwhelming majority of them must be making money, because the idea that any significant fraction of a million of people is in the red a…

Million of people are not rational and naive? I doubt that.

Look, the costs with Uber are pretty straightforward: you have car payments, insurance, periodic maintenance and finally gas. People really aren’t too stupid to realize that their Uber income doesn’t cover their car payment.

IRS has a nice estimate of average cost of driving, it’s 58 cents per mile. If you are doing more than that, you are making money, and at Uber you make significantly more than that.

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

#549

Post by sybarita »

mkane848 wrote: post #532
swiley wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expected to see something like this here. I had a period where I wasn't doing any class work but didn't have my degree and couldn't get a job because of that. The ability to trade time and tires for some of the extra VC money was kind of awesome honestly and I'd imagine it gives people who are in worse situations options they really need (essentially borrowing against car components.) I know in a few years it will…

Taking a few delivery jobs while being relatively well off isn't the same as people picking this up as a 2nd or 3rd job and depending on it. I can't believe I have to point out that most of the people being affected negatively by this aren't by-and-large "wealthy" or "secure" people to begin with.

You'd be surprised how prevalent that attitude is, the people with good paying jobs doing it for "extra cash on the side" say they don't care about the pay rate or unionizing or anything and so the going rate for these little delivery contracts is super low.

They advertise that you'll make well over minimum wage when in reality you'll hardly ever even meet min wage. They could easily guarantee a min wage, which should be no problem if the drivers are all really making so much money, but they obviously don't.

People say "well the drivers shouldn't do it then, they should get different jobs. if it doesn't pay and they keep doing it they're stupid", and then go on to order food from the app and tip $0.50 bc "hey, I only spent $5, that's 10%!"

Drivers are essentially depending on tips to live just like a waiter. They might take home $4/hr from the app. So every time you order you have the chance to make it right for the driver and pay them for doing their job by giving a decent cash tip. IMO $3 is the absolute minimum, $5 is normal. If your reaction to that is "whoa that's way too much what did they do to deserve that?" you're a cheap bastard.

Sorry for the rant, I just did this job for a while and got treated like dog shit by the customers and the companies for efficiently and politely indulging their every whim on demand at any hour, and it makes me sick to hear people who aren't starving living in their cars depending on work like this to survive talking about it in abstract terms like they have any idea. We really should have a period of compulsory food service work for every teenager in this country, seriously.

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

#550

Post by sybarita »

mjevans wrote: post #173
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 ?

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.

This is essentially all people like Bernie are proposing, it's really insane how much backlash there is against the idea from people who would only benefit from such a redistribution of wealth. It's Stockholm Syndrome 100% honestly
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