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I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

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Re: I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

#111

Lyft is also a scam for the drivers. In a ride from the airport to home during rush hour (1h and 15 minutes drive) I got charged ~$140. The company was paying, so whatever. During the ride I was chatting with the driver, and I was curious how much he was making from the ride. At the end of the ride he showed me. $48 (before my tip). WTF. From that he had to pay gas, maintenance and taxes. How is this legal? What is t…

I know plenty of Uber (and normal taxis) drivers around the airport here who pick up a someone, then ask if they mind taking someone else. Because it is usually vans and business customers, they don't care and actually kind of like talking with other business guys who probably went or are going to the same seminar/conference etc. The driver will then load up whatever fits who are waiting for taxis or drivers and only…

How do people pay the driver? I guess cash isn't really a thing anymore in a lot of places.

Are those drivers driving for multiple services (uber, lyft, whatever) at the same time?

Re: I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

#112

Blockchain and split payments would work here. The transparency would be useful. Maybe even using x402? So buyers should be able to see where and how their money is going to be distributed after payment. How much does the driver get? How much is he/she earning? Comparable drivers can compare metrics. Perhaps unions could build some type of payment app and have gig workers use it as part of their employment contract?…

This is not a tech problem, it will not be solved by new tech. It is a civil problem coming from institutional degradation and corruption.

I actually disagree; the only way to get to the bottom of any wrongdoing here would be to do an external audit of their systems. That can get expensive and complicated.

Using cryptocurrency with on-chain verification of the paper trail could actually solve this problem without having to get auditors and lawyers involved.

Re: I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a tech problem, it will not be solved by new tech. It is a civil problem coming from institutional degradation and corruption.

I actually disagree; the only way to get to the bottom of any wrongdoing here would be to do an external audit of their systems. That can get expensive and complicated. Using cryptocurrency with on-chain verification of the paper trail could actually solve this problem without having to get auditors and lawyers involved.

And who is going to allow upending the entire current infrastructure of payment processing and businesses? That's right, the government. If you were going to go through the government either way, the easier sell is to just make them do their damn job and prevent scammers from scamming.

Re: I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thanks to zepbound I order delivery much less, but when I did (doordash/uber eats/grubhub) the priority delivery proposition was not about dispatch but about routing: driver going straight to your house, without any intermediate stops and deliveries to other people. What occurs if your order is placed in a bucket of other priority deliveries? Doesn't that simply become a regular order? Also, AFAIK based on some dig…

>What occurs if your order is placed in a bucket of other priority deliveries? Doesn't that simply become a regular order? Also, AFAIK based on some digging, the drivers are not alerted to priority orders they are simply routed for it. That could have changed though. At least on the platforms in the UK, the only thing that priority is advertised as doing is making your driver exclusively deliver your food. If you don…

From the Uber website:

> If you select the Priority Delivery option, a Priority Fee will be added on top of the delivery fee for your order to be dropped off first in case of a batched delivery.

Looks as if the only requirement is that you are first in a batched delivery. However, does not cover anything about picking up at multiple locations or waiting for separate orders. Nor does it explain multiple priority orders in a batch.

Re: I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

#115

Blockchain and split payments would work here. The transparency would be useful. Maybe even using x402? So buyers should be able to see where and how their money is going to be distributed after payment. How much does the driver get? How much is he/she earning? Comparable drivers can compare metrics. Perhaps unions could build some type of payment app and have gig workers use it as part of their employment contract?…

I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. This is actually a really good solution that I hadn't thought of.

I'm eager for the web3 economy to truly take off. There are so many little improvements to the way things work with blockchain compared to the black hole that is fiat currency; it's astounding.

But yes, in essence, if the post is true, then this is a misrepresentation of what the service is actually doing. Being able to verify where your payment is going on a publicly available blockchain would provide customers and employees with some clarity.

Re: I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

#116
If true (I'm not sure), this is kind of economics in action. There's a monopolistic market maker, screwing every last cent out of providers, with enormous power imbalances. The market maker is semi monopolistic, the labour is low-skilled, with little bargaining power and few better options. The "winners" are shareholders of the company and to some extent the end customers (who, other things being equal, would have to pay more for the labour).

In other words, I see this not a special greed of this particular company, but a logical conclusion of the economic system it operates in.

(I'm not saying it is good either. Only that raging against the symptom is a bit misplaced, and instead you should focus attention at the causes).

Re: I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually disagree; the only way to get to the bottom of any wrongdoing here would be to do an external audit of their systems. That can get expensive and complicated. Using cryptocurrency with on-chain verification of the paper trail could actually solve this problem without having to get auditors and lawyers involved.

And who is going to allow upending the entire current infrastructure of payment processing and businesses? That's right, the government. If you were going to go through the government either way, the easier sell is to just make them do their damn job and prevent scammers from scamming.

Yes, but the government is notoriously inefficient and ineffective.

Bitcoin was started right under their noses (and I'm not just referring to the U.S government here, but all national governments), and it continues to operate all across the globe. It's kind of what makes it so interesting, you can't really kill it, it's like a good financial virus.

I hate to break it to you, but the infrastructure of payment processing and business has already been upended by Bitcoin alone. It's only a matter of time before we see layer-2 solutions like the one OP mentioned.

Bitcoin might not be the best blockchain to target for small-scale financial transactions like delivery apps, but you catch my drift. Just about any blockchain would do in this scenario.

Re: I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

#118

> I’m posting this from a library Wi-Fi on a burner laptop because I am technically under a massive NDA. I don’t care anymore. I put in my two weeks yesterday and honestly, I hope they sue me. Why bother using library Wi-Fi on a burner laptop if he doesn't care anymore? Why give out the biggest clue, which is the time of his resignation letter? If the story is real, this company is a straight-up scammer waiting for t…

It's the biggest clue that it's typical reddit brained fanfic.

Meh, I wouldn't read too much into it. They might be a backend dev but that doesn't make them perfectly rational under stress. Being in a whistle blower situation makes smart people do dumb things.

To me it's coherent BUT I'll still wait from a source I trust, e.g. 404 Media, to actually do journalism. I'm not saying it's fanfic or not, I'm saying "Noted, might read about it later in few days in a proper format with verified claims." nothing more.

Re: I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

#119

I thought I would share this just because I found it interesting: https://www.pangram.com/history/a22e7372-5970-4537-b511-0416... Pangram is an interesting company and, to me, seems to be SOTA in AI detection. This came back as “Fully AI Generated.” It has been interesting to read about the methodology. Still not sure how I feel about it! Either way, as other comments have suggested, important to take things with a g…

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Re: I'm a developer for a major food delivery app

#120

Lyft is also a scam for the drivers. In a ride from the airport to home during rush hour (1h and 15 minutes drive) I got charged ~$140. The company was paying, so whatever. During the ride I was chatting with the driver, and I was curious how much he was making from the ride. At the end of the ride he showed me. $48 (before my tip). WTF. From that he had to pay gas, maintenance and taxes. How is this legal? What is t…

How does this compare to typical taxi corporations? In Europe at least, taxis are often organised into companies, with centralised bookings, and taxi drivers paying a cut to the corporation. Here the cut is, based on your numbers, 65%, which does seem very high, but then what do I know.
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