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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

#301

Post by troupo »

shmatt wrote: post #233
zepton wrote: 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…

While true this would lead to thousands of people being online without demand. If one really wants their food in 45 minutes, or an uber driver always 3 minutes away, they need a lot of people doing nothing staring at their screens for long periods of time Capping the # of people online would cause tons of other issues, its very easy to exploit a system like that, plus it would slow everyone down Either we want people…

> Either we want people to do things for us, want it super fast, and want to pay everyone for every second of their time.

Yes, you either pay people for every second of their time, or pay enough money for their work hours. There's no way out of this.

A courier or a taxi driver does not chose to sit on their ass the entire day. You can get a hundred orders in a row, or you can have no orders for an hour or two, and you have no control over that. And it's not like they can just get up, get a cup of cofee and go to a second job in the meantime.

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

#302

Post by troupo »

interactivecode wrote: post #203
darth_avocado wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was not very doable pretty much everywhere outside NYC. The lower density of restaurants made it harder for delivery to be a thing except all the pizza places that offered it.

Doordash could just employ delivery drivers to solve this problem. No need for a 100% at will temp work force. They could just hire people part time or full time. And if work is really that surgy they could just have workers on call. Why does “innovation” have to go hand in hand with fucked up labor practices?

> Why does “innovation” have to go hand in hand with fucked up labor practices?

While still losing a billion dollars a year, or more, for years.

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

#303

Post by shiroiuma »

legitster wrote: post #92
8bitben wrote: post #18

The platform fees and the insane menu price markups that restaurants apply for delivery app orders have made it impractical to use Uber Eats & DoorDash for a couple years now IMO. I only ever consider using them when offered at least 50% off. Mandated minimum earnings will benefit the drivers, but that won't help drivers that have to quit the platforms because people stop using them.

It was never a sustainable business model to begin with. It takes 10 minutes for a chef to make my meal, and 25 minutes for someone to come to the restaurant, pick it up, and drive it to my house. The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order of magnitude less valuable than yours.

>It takes 10 minutes for a chef to make my meal, and 25 minutes for someone to come to the restaurant, pick it up, and drive it to my house.

And in that 25 minutes, the food has gotten cold and its chemistry has changed too. You could reheat it in the microwave, but now it'll just taste like reheated leftovers.

Why do people buy this crap?

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

#304

Post by Aeolun »

crmd wrote: post #131

As an old person, I'd like to point out that my hometown of New York City had a dynamic, world class restaurant scene, including a cornucopia of home delivery, long before the tech platform companies found a way to siphon ~40% of consumer spend out of the local restaurant economy in exchange for some friction reduction. We were doing great. But you had a drawer full of paper menus and had to call the restaurant.

Kinda, but just like Steam captured 80-90% of PC sales with convenience, so did others.

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

#305

Post by ejstronge »

filoleg wrote: post #106
ejstronge wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used tips (and may still use tips) to refund themselves for the minimum pay offered to dashers. The language was very deceptive, as giving a tip did not always increase the amount of money received by a dasher.

> They used tips (and may still use tips) to refund themselves for the minimum pay offered to dashers. Not trying to make a stance one way or another, just wanted to make sure I understand what you meant by this correctly. Is what you are describing essentially the same way it works in the restaurant industry for waiters/servers? TLDR: waiters/servers in the US typically have a base pay that’s below the minimum wage,…

It would seem to be the same - but also restaurant workers likely don’t hit the minimums frequently, since the kitchen would probably be unprofitable to run in settings where front of house are only making $3/hr.

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

#306

Post by oldandboring »

Aeolun wrote: post #304
crmd wrote: post #131

As an old person, I'd like to point out that my hometown of New York City had a dynamic, world class restaurant scene, including a cornucopia of home delivery, long before the tech platform companies found a way to siphon ~40% of consumer spend out of the local restaurant economy in exchange for some friction reduction. We were doing great. But you had a drawer full of paper menus and had to call the restaurant.

Kinda, but just like Steam captured 80-90% of PC sales with convenience, so did others.

Wait. What? For the first time in my life I am not being a wise ass. Can you please tell me more about this?

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

#307

Post by oldandboring »

crmd wrote: post #131

As an old person, I'd like to point out that my hometown of New York City had a dynamic, world class restaurant scene, including a cornucopia of home delivery, long before the tech platform companies found a way to siphon ~40% of consumer spend out of the local restaurant economy in exchange for some friction reduction. We were doing great. But you had a drawer full of paper menus and had to call the restaurant.

I love that you have posted this. I am also old and I think about this from time to time.

Nothing makes me feel so old as observing the phenomenon of people (mostly younger) habitually ordering food through these platforms, paying $5 to $10 in platform and delivery fees per meal. All this against the economic reality that wages have not kept up with the rising cost of, well, everything and it just looks a lot like rent-seeking on the part of these platforms. I do appreciate how the platforms have brought near-universal delivery to the suburbs, but I've lived in the suburbs my whole life and I simply do not use these services due to the cost. Same goes for ride-sharing. My only usage of these platforms is when I'm traveling.

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

#308

Post by mym1990 »

standardUser wrote: post #186
mym1990 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you got downvoted, its true. These platforms are all a race to the bottom to capture market share and then jack up of prices to recover lost revenue. Overall, it ends up being a terrible experience for the customer and the driver/deliverer.

How does the customer have a terrible experience? I order delivery more often than is reasonable across many different platforms and I usually have a perfectly fine experience.

Because I put it a 9$ burrito in the cart and somehow at checkout the price ends up being 25$ before tip. The only way I use those apps is if I have really good incentives/discounts…so maybe I am not the target market, happy to eat in or not order at all. I have not had any problems with the delivery people, they are always super nice.

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

#309

Post by mym1990 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #52
mym1990 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you got downvoted, its true. These platforms are all a race to the bottom to capture market share and then jack up of prices to recover lost revenue. Overall, it ends up being a terrible experience for the customer and the driver/deliverer.

> a race to the bottom to capture market share That is the real problem, not that the concept of food delivery is unprofitable by itself.

I think food delivery at scale is unprofitable, at this point the technology in those apps doesn’t really have a moat. The next logical big step is to have drones delivering the stuff, and at that point you have this massive amount of tech and research to get food 2 miles down the street…it seems pretty counterproductive.

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

#310

Post by mym1990 »

WendyTheWillow wrote: post #107
mym1990 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you got downvoted, its true. These platforms are all a race to the bottom to capture market share and then jack up of prices to recover lost revenue. Overall, it ends up being a terrible experience for the customer and the driver/deliverer.

Because it’s not true anymore, and complaining about high prices for a service that is just moving up market kind of ignores the reality that a business can make fewer sales if its margins on the remaining sales are sufficiently high, which is exactly what has happened. In other words, delivery apps went through the “burn vc money” phase already, and are now focusing on profitability, and successfully so.

Food delivery products and companies are definitely not moving up market. Valuations have plummeted and many are still struggling to turn a profit despite layoffs and cutbacks.
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