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DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

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Re: DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

#251
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you even assess the profitability of a small recipe change? You'd only notice by the time a customer comes back and there are so many variables (and time) going into that I can't imagine you could really get some signal out of your a/b-test of a few drops of chili oil in the soup.

If you have 10 restaurants you could do A/B tests. This is massively prevalent for food science and prepackaged goods (through panels and such; usually not to the end customer). Seems like restaurants are catching up.

I've also seen people test two ingredients, one cheap and one not. If their sample can't tell the difference, it flies. The problem is, we're each sensitive to different things. So while I may not notice the difference between a pricey and mid-range whisky, I will notice when you sub out the Chartreuse. Meanwhile, my neighbor will likely be the opposite. Rinse and repeat this process and you get the beige this process predictably produces.

Re: DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

#252

I read an interesting article about delivery drivers in NYC, specifically how much of the market was completely unregulated and illegal, and how people work within what functions as an underground economy: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/nyregion/migrant-delivery... The person doing the work often isn't the person registered with (e.g.) DoorDash. There's a whole economy of middlemen who resell straw buyers' creden…

This obviously happens with Uber also, and to some extent AirBnB. A lot of "super" hosts have someone completely different manage the listing and the host is really just a brand for the listing page at that point.

That seems less problematic for Airbnb if you’re getting the actual listing as described.

Re: DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So does it include health and sick pay for when you get injured or older and you’re less mobile? Cycling all the time could be way more taxing than driving.

Sitting in a chair in a metal box is definitely worse for health than cycling all day

Than (e-)biking on roads alongside metal boxes? This ain’t biking through the woods. Just think about the pollution and chance of getting hit.

Re: DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

#254
post #147

DoorDash is being misleading when they imply that NYC required a minimum wage of $29.93/hr for delivery workers. DoorDash could comply with the bylaw by paying its contractors $17.96/hr for the full time they work (including time waiting for orders). But DoorDash instead chose to use the "Alternate Method" which has a 67% higher minimum wage, but only for the time the contractor is actively delivering food (not stand…

+9000. Thank you very much to share this vital information.

How do you know this information? Example: Are you involved from the legal or labor (union?) side? Or, are you a DoorDash "partner"?

Re: DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

#255
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't really viable business models to begin with. Only VC funding can keep these online platform up.

I've never really gotten this. We can speculate about the intelligence of VCs, but I assume most of them know a bit of basic math. I wonder if perhaps they are so deep into a bubble of wealth and privilege that to them, spending $50 for a (cold by the time it arrives) burger seemed reasonable. Perhaps they thought that once everyone could experience this for an amount of money they find trifling, it would catch on? I…

They work kind of OK in dense expensive cities like SF or NYC where people don't drive as much. Less so in other sparse areas where driving and picking up or even eating out is less of a hassle. I think you're using $50 as hyperbole; more realistically, a $20 takeout becomes $30 with delivery, and a lot of people seem to be OK with that.

Re: DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really insane when you consider that money can buy you more time. It's very convenient to get food delivered on these apps. Whether it's financially responsible or not depends on the individual.

Also health. The idea thing to do is cook the food: cooking the food esp. chopping etc. I feel is good for mental health and prepare the body to digest. And you have moved somewhat. At least if you go pick up the takeaway, you have done some walking. If you are too busy to do physical things in day to day life, so you can crank out another page of code, or do a deal, I think that is poor and leads to bad health in th…

Sure, I don’t disagree on that. But it’s nice to occasionally use delivery services and enjoy the time or convenience.

I also live in the suburbs where I’m not walking to the restaurant, I’m getting in my car.

Re: DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

#257

I worked in this industry and I know for a fact that if you don't include tipping in the checkout flow, tips will drop precipitously. But if drivers are being paid $30/hr, it's fair to drop tipping altogether. I would love for the US to eschew tipping culture like other countries and just pay a wage that is transparent.

How much does vehicle maintenance and fuel cost? Does that come out of the driver's pocket?

Nearly everyone in NYC delivers using e-bikes.

Re: DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

#258
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a generalization, that is actually a fact. Doordash and other delivery apps gradually added restaurants on their platforms and still add new ones regularly. The fact that this happened in itself is a proof that they didn’t have food delivery as an option before. If you want more concrete data, you need to look at how McDonald’s did deliveries in Manhattan but not rest of the US until they partnered with f…

Without commenting on this topic in general, you appear to have a flaw in your reasoning. That a restaurant was added to Doordash does not prove that it never had the ability to deliver before that.

It doesn’t guarantee that they never had the ability to deliver. But the fact that delivery apps grew (kept adding more restaurants so quickly) was in part that restaurants could do delivery when previously they didn’t. The parent‘s argument was that delivery was already a norm before, which clearly was not the case.

And I also point to restaurants that are newly added to delivery platforms, because you can easily verify if they previously could deliver or not.

Re: DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sitting in a chair in a metal box is definitely worse for health than cycling all day

Than (e-)biking on roads alongside metal boxes? This ain’t biking through the woods. Just think about the pollution and chance of getting hit.

How often are people on e bikes getting mowed down where you live? What kind of hellscape do you live in where cycling causes you to ingest more polluted air than sitting in your bioweapon-proof, hermetically-sealed, fart-fermenting 3000 kilo Tesla? Sheesh

Re: DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food delivery didn't used to be a luxury back in the days when you had to actually call up your local pizza or Chinese place. Is Papa John's really considered a luxury?

Depends on the markup. As a person who earns a decent wage I cannot afford to eat delivery food casually as the markup on a per item basis is steep. Even the good pizza place costs near me is $43 for a single large with 4 toppings, with delivery it is closer to $50.

Sure but delivery mark ups and high delivery fees are a recent thing. Plenty of restaraunts offered the same price in-store as for delivery, and the fee was usually $2-4 plus tip. It's not like technology has gotten worse or cars have gotten slower. So it was sustainable, and now they want us to believe it's not sustainable.

Right now yes food delivery is a luxury. I guess the point is... how and why did that happen?

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