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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

#261

Post by mmh0000 »

nerdponx wrote: post #241
michaelbuck wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other comments pointed out the semi-obvious use of AI due to em dashes. I'm honestly at a point where every suspicious aspect of that post could as well be counted as a countermeasure to getting caught. Said engineer could still be working at the company or could've left years ago. In my opinion the mentioned financial adjustments could've been a discussion topic for higher ups far far earlier than 2025. Considering…

Em dashes are also historically a useful writing tool in English going back 100+ years, and plenty of real people use them.

I love em dashes — they're the greatest — it makes me very sad that LLMs have tarnished their reputation.

Back in the days before LLMs, I went out of my way to set up the Compose key on Linux, just so I could do cool things like —, ®, ™, and ¹ quickly!

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

#262

Post by abustamam »

esseph wrote: post #203
loktarogar wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I choose priority delivery in Uber, I can see the driver go to the store, pick up my order and drive directly to my place. I also see the driver usually have 1-2 stops on the way if I don't select that. If there's enough gap between myself and the restaurant, priority is absolutely a time save. If this is Uber then it's not legitimate.

I don't think this is Uber, I think it's DoorDash?

I thought so too but one of the comments he comments about the ride sharing part of the company.

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

#263

Post by abustamam »

aduwah wrote: post #177
concinds wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest red flag is: "I don't care anymore, I hope they sue me", and saying they're about to contact reporters. It's designed to boost credibility (this is gonna be proven legit, any day now! skeptics will look dumb!), but then why hasn't he gone to them already? Texting a Signal number takes a second. Why would he take additional legal and financial risk for fake internet points on a minor subreddit known for it…

Raising awareness is not a bad call. I would not know about this, if it would surface in a random US paper

Even if it appeared on Guardian or NYT I'd not have heard of it unless it trended on HN lol

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

#264

Post by danaris »

qcnguy wrote: post #245
danaris wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, they "compete", but would you be surprised if they have some kind of under-the-table agreement to keep prices high and payments low...?

Yes. There isn't any need for collusion to keep driver wages at subsistence level in this market. Driving takeouts around is a nearly zero skill required job. Anyone who can pass a driving test can do it. Labor supply is nearly unlimited. Basic economics: lots of supply, limited demand = low prices. Why would it require collusion?

That's also a reasonable argument—comes to the same thing in the end, though. DoorDash and Uber still keep their payments low while retaining their dominant positions in the market.

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

#266

Post by tbrownaw »

pdntspa wrote: post #56
tbrownaw wrote: post #23

A sprint planning meeting seems like the wrong place to put that topic. I'm also not used to developers having that much visibility into accounting practices. And that seems like an odd way to structure things.

Why not? They have to implement the systems that power this. Also, water-cooler gossip

It sounds like the sort of thing that would belong where items get enqueued into the backlog, rather than where a batch of things get finalized and dequeued.

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

#267

Post by plorkyeran »

Izkata wrote: post #246
mlrtime wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mortgages have amortization schedules, Banks love it when you pay more as it only reduces the tail end of your loan. You still pay the interest up front. Not all banks are the same, some have other incentives to pay off early.

With my mortgage, interest is monthly on the remaining principal and paying extra in a month is entirely on the principal - it reduces the total interest paid, so the bank gets less.

The idea that you pay the interest up front is a very common misunderstanding of how mortgages work and more broadly the concept of an amortization schedule.

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

#268

Post by QuiEgo »

MrDresden wrote: post #201
haritha-j wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to pay more money when you pay the total amount you owe? That's just evil.

In some locations banks are allowed to charge you for the interests they will loose out on when their clients pay more of the principal. In other locations this has been deemed illegal and/or only allowed above a certain amount (think 10-15% of total remaining principal). I do not agree with this being an ok practice (to charge).

What country is this?

I believe this to be illegal in the USA but would not be shocked if a rule change was slipped into some random unrelated bill.

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

#269

Post by QuiEgo »

MrDresden wrote: post #161
nxtfari wrote: post #135

Believability aside (I do think it’s believable personally) this is pretty much how “evil” (from outsider perspective) is done at every company, including mine. Inside it’s all sprint meetings, KPIs and terminology that are either intentionally or unintentionally designed to keep engineers far from thinking about impact on real people. It’s easy to convince a 25 year old whiz kid to optimize human assets, it’s just l…

> Believability aside (I do think it’s believable personally) this is pretty much how “evil” (from outsider perspective) is done at every company I used to be in a mobile application team for a bank, where I had genuine meetings with the loans department where it was discussed if we truly wanted to make it easy and obvious to users how they could pay their loans on time (their logic was that those who default and hav…

Not shocking, their ethical responsibility is to do what’s right to make profit for the shareholders, not to do what’s best for the customer.

:(

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

#270

Post by soerxpso »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #259
femto wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond an initial effect when the delay is first implemented, adding a delay would increase the latency (waiting time) but not the throughput (utilisation of the system). It's queuing theory. A way to think of it is that the drivers that are made idle by adding a delay will be kept busy delivering previously delayed orders.

Consider that demand for food delivery is not constant throughout the day and night. I believe throughput would actually be reduced every time demand increases, which would happen in the morning, at various meal times, around the different opening and closing times of various restaurants, etc. I do agree that the throughput reduction would be more complex than “1 driver sits idle for every 1 order”.

Throughput would still remain unchanged. Suppose that the "lunch rush" is from 11AM to 1PM, and imagine that it's uniform for the sake of simplicity. Then drivers would end up being fully utilized from 11:10AM to 1:10PM, instead of 11 to 1. The 10 minute lag at the end where drivers are still finishing the queue makes up for the 10 minute delay at the start.
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