11–20 of 124 posts
> A hidden loophole, meant for small businesses, co-opted by multibillion-dollar tech companies to avoid accountability, just because they can. There are a lot of issues with this newsletter, but this bit at the end stuck out. The 'loophole' is for companies with - total annual gross revenues less than $1.07 billion and - less than $1 billion in non-convertible debt in the past three years and - not a “large accelera…
To use a meme, "por que no los dos?"
I hate both the player and the game. No one ordered Mr Xu to get into this business; there's no requirement that he abuse the living shit out of his workers and sell them up the river by helping pass prop 22. At every step in the decision process, he or people he hired and gave instructions to voluntarily made these decisions. From the pay scale to the inclusion of binding arbitration, they own every single one of those choices.
Along the same lines, we own not making the changes we claim to want, while wolfing down our ghost kitchen burritos with subsidized delivery. California voters absolutely own voting for proposition 22, and signing the petition to get it on the ballot. We're not reforming our labor laws to give some people the flexibility they want while not leaving everyone as an unrestricted free agent. We don't separate health care from employment. We gab about it, but little changes, and certainly not at the rate of the people exploiting those pressure points. As someone once told Captain Picard, "you talk and you talk, but you have no guramba."
And now, with COVID, we're watching our economy cleave into the starkest case of haves and have-nots in my lifetime. That split won't be permanent, but fixing it is going to happen when we least expect it and is going to be messy and painful.
> A hidden loophole, meant for small businesses, co-opted by multibillion-dollar tech companies to avoid accountability, just because they can. There are a lot of issues with this newsletter, but this bit at the end stuck out. The 'loophole' is for companies with - total annual gross revenues less than $1.07 billion and - less than $1 billion in non-convertible debt in the past three years and - not a “large accelera…
To me, this is the key claim of the article: This is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive. Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value? To me, the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era. Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the rest…
> A hidden loophole, meant for small businesses, co-opted by multibillion-dollar tech companies to avoid accountability, just because they can. There are a lot of issues with this newsletter, but this bit at the end stuck out. The 'loophole' is for companies with - total annual gross revenues less than $1.07 billion and - less than $1 billion in non-convertible debt in the past three years and - not a “large accelera…
Gross revenue is before expenses. Software tends to have great margins but retail can easily be 1% profit margin. So in many industries that’s a limit of just over 10 million per year in profit.
To me, this is the key claim of the article: This is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive. Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value? To me, the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era. Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the rest…
There is this corrosive process of these gig-economy companies, they end up making life just a little bit more shit for everyone. You'll turn a blind eye to the desperate delivery drivers, to the stress of the restaurant owner as he struggles to make payroll (it's a hard enough business already) as the delivery company pushes him to lower prices with the threat of being dropped. Then you'll notice that the quality of the food starts to drop, or one day that restaurant falls off the app, huh, you'll think, wonder what happened to them, never mind. And the deliveries will start to take a bit longer and make more mistakes as the company squeezes the drivers harder and harder...
Try paying a fair price for fair value and taking pleasure in seeing businesses owned by your neighbours thrive. It really is a better way to live than spending your time on earth with your face buried in an app exploiting the poorest.
Add to this that DoorDash, Uber, etc have given authority over wages and performance evaluations directly to the customers. (Through the practice of delegating tips and ratings to the end user.) There's a clear imbalance of power there -- it costs the customer nothing to not tip or to leave a one star review. But those things could absolutely impact someone's earning potential as a worker. Consider how many people se…
> I’m going to end this by noting as I read through the S-1, you can’t help but develop a grudging respect for Tony Xu and his team. It’s the ultimate encapsulation of don’t hate the player, hate the game . To use a meme, "por que no los dos?" I hate both the player and the game. No one ordered Mr Xu to get into this business; there's no requirement that he abuse the living shit out of his workers and sell them up th…
To me, this is the key claim of the article: This is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive. Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value? To me, the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era. Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the rest…
Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the restaurants are underpaid, maybe the food costs too much, but even if they end up charging more money, are they really going to go away like Groupon did? There is this corrosive process of these gig-economy companies, they end up making life just a little bit more shit for everyone. You'll turn a blind eye to the desperate delivery drivers, to the stress of the restaurant ow…
If you can make better food than your competitors, you'll thrive - the delivery services make that more true, not less. Stick to your USP and outsource everything else.
Add to this that DoorDash, Uber, etc have given authority over wages and performance evaluations directly to the customers. (Through the practice of delegating tips and ratings to the end user.) There's a clear imbalance of power there -- it costs the customer nothing to not tip or to leave a one star review. But those things could absolutely impact someone's earning potential as a worker. Consider how many people se…
There was an eye-opening article in a newspaper on a US chain like Chili's or Olive Garden(?) waiters being rated by diners with a table device.
A waiter could bring out a meal from the kitchen, and if it was "cold" or "not right", that waiter would get a 1 rating, which would result in loss of hours (from 30 or 40 hours down to 20), and eventually dismissal, by company policy.
Pretty horrible outcome since the kitchen is responsible for that.