• Howdy@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    I just can’t use uber eats. It just feels weird. Like, I am fully capable of getting food myself, I know uber eats, doordash etc, pays shit, delivery folks have to wait at the restaurant if its not ready and then fix it if its not. Get my drink from the fountain if I ordered one. And then, drive all the way to my place. I then receive a cold, tossed meal. It’s just depressing all around. I don’t get it.

    I’ll pay for delivery of pizza or even something like jimmy johns who have delivery drivers, but having a third party involved just feels wrong.

    • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      It’s also freaking expensive. When I used it occasionally at my last job we’d get reimbursed up to $20. I usually just got the $12 combo and by the time all the fees were added, I still ended up paying $2-3 out of pocket.

      • WindyRebel@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        This is how I felt too. Eventually I just stopped using our corporate Grubhub “perk” because I was still paying for it when the entire idea was supposed to be a meal “on the company” once a week for weekly All-Hands meetings.

        Another massive pet peeve that made me stop using these fucking delivery services is many times the restaurants would give you less food than if you went there. Take a place like Red Robin and their basket of fries was basically 25% a basket of fries at a marked up cost because they have to pay fees to these companies and lose money.

        Plus they often got orders wrong. Not sure if that was on purpose or what, but I rarely got everything I asked for or the mods correct.

    • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Also, they handle multiple orders. So, by the time you get your food it’s lukewarm at best, but likely cold and soggy.

      Last time I checked out of curiosity, this Mexican place near me sells burritos for $12. After fees and tips, it would’ve been $28 on Uber Eats. It’s just not worth it to me to pay extra, when I can easily drive the 10 minutes myself.

    • Pickle_Jr@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      The worst are the places that say they have delivery, take you through the whole checkout process on their own site, and then sends you a link to track your order on door dash or something.

      LOOKING AT YOU LITTLE CESARS

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      I don’t share any moral delima with the concept of third party delivery. Conceptually what’s different than the branded delivery drivers? Both by the way rely more on tips than anything else for payout to the delivery person, but at least the base pay rate for the branded driver is typically a tiny bit higher. I am bothered by the ratio of what I pay extra for third party services as compared to what the delivery person receives. You can’t possibly just drive the price up further to fill the gap, the gap is massive and the prices are already a limiting factor for most to utilize these services. I also relate to the cold tossed meal. There is no effort in training these gig workers or supplying them with proper equipment to deliver the food. It often arrives in a terrible state and there is very little in the way of quality control. If I were a restaurant I would hesitate to let these people represent my food. Conceptually I actually rather like the idea of third party delivery. I don’t want to be a domino’s employee and deliver pizza, but give me some freedom to pick my hours and a fare wage that doesn’t rely on tip culture, and I’ll stop by and deliver a domino’s pizza every once and awhile for some extra cash. The real world execution though is currently a mess. These companies took advantage of how badly Americans want food delivery and how hard it is for most restaurants to implement it themselves.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        Conceptually what’s different than the branded delivery drivers?

        • fixed wage plus tips
        • already at the restaurant, so food will typically arrive hotter
        • associated with the restaurant, so the brand has an incentive for drivers to do a good job
        • can batch multiple deliveries from the same store, so drivers have fewer stops (doordssh etc drivers will probably hit multiple restaurants from multiple apps to keep profits high)
        • usually no markup in the menu price, delivery fee is transparent

        So, a lot of conceptual and practical differences beyond the couple you mentioned. I don’t order from doordash etc, but I will sometimes order delivery from dominoes or something where they have their own delivery drivers. It’s not hard for me to drive a couple miles to pick up my own order, which saves me money, has a better chance of having hot food, and I’m not enabling people making poor choices to work below minimum wage.

        That said, I prefer ride sharing apps over taxis.

      • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        I a, bothered by the ratio of what I pay extra for third party services as compared to what the delivery person receives. You can’t possibly drive the price up further

        The solution already existed. It’s called restaurants delivering their own food. But Ubereats shoehorned their way into the equation to be an unnecessary middleman in order to profit. Exploiting a whole new group of people in the process.

        I absolutely share the moral dilemma with the concept of third party delivery. They’re just as useless as health insurance companies, so if you see the problem with the latter, you can def see the problem with the former. (Not to say they’re on the same scale or have similar histories or have equal amounts of blood on their hands, just that they’re similar in structure in a system that work(s)/(ed) fine without them.)

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          But tons of restaurants didn’t offer delivery before. That’s what the other commenter was saying. For many places, especially smaller, locally owned restaurants, a 3rd party enabling delivery for them is a huge boon. But like the other commenter said, it needs to be implemented well and fairly, which it currently is not.

          Also, comparing 3rd party food delivery to health insurance is definitely something…

          • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            In my experience, plenty of local shops delivered. And when Uber eats came about, they had to fire their own delivery people because so many would check Uber eats first. Not to mention the restaurants get less on the food, when small, locally owned restaurants are already surviving on razor thin margins.

            So the idea for these services is basically “I don’t want to go to my local restaurant to pick up food, so I’m going to financially hurt them so a middleman can profit by forcing them to deliver to me (which plenty were doing already).”

            My point is it’s such a uniquely stupid, uniquely American concept that hurts everyone involved, and makes a ton of money for one large company—who completely inserted themselves into it unnecessarily.

            If the argument is whether or not there should be a moral dilemma when ordering from them, I say yes. We can’t absolve ourselves of our laziness on this one, I don’t think.

            And the likening it to insurance companies was strictly for the purpose of a meaningless middleman who changed the structure of the system they exist in, in order to profit unnecessarily. I tried to make it clear the likeness stopped there, but maybe I wasn’t.

            ETA: you also can’t discount the factor of newer restaurants trying to open, who now don’t even have the foothold of existing in-house delivery in order to wrest some of their own profits back from fuckin uber. For those previously existing businesses, of course some of their established customers would still use their delivery, but UE bit off a huge chunk of their business. But newer places? Forget it. They don’t stand a chance. It’s just a leech company looking at smaller businesses’ profits and saying, “hey, by name recognition alone, we could take a bunch of that by making an app and not even hiring employees but forcing people to use their own vehicles so we don’t have to pay for any of that shit.”

            It’s indefensible.

          • Samsonreturns@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            I highly doubt it’s a “huge boon” to any small restaurant/business. With fees attached and drivers who really don’t give 2 shits, anything bad gets reflected on the restaurant. When in reality it could be the over worked driver that made a mistake, droppped off 4 orders at once so most of it is cold, rough handling, etc… Every place I have worked maybe came out even on good days from 3rd party orders. But you need extra kitchen staff (hard to find) extra host staff (parce and final prep on orders, plus regular duties). Maney way better spent ensuring people actually attend your restaurant in person and have a good experience

              • ascense@lemm.ee
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                1 month ago

                One issue I’ve heard is if a restaurant chooses not to use the service someone else can set up a page in their name without permission, and the platforms often won’t do anything to prevent it. Then confused delivery drivers start to show up, and customers complain to the restaurant about the markups/high pricing even when the restaurant is not actually involved at all.

                On top of all that, many people just use delivery apps to find local restaurants, so you lose a lot of visibility if you aren’t listed, but for that one you can argue it’s in fact paying for the service you get (i.e. marketing).

        • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          The solution did not exist at all. There was a huge market gap. Lots of restaurants didn’t have the population density or resources to support a built in delivery service. I had two restaurants that delivered to my location prior to ride share delivery. It instantly jumped to dozens as soon as door dash came to town.

    • dirthawker0@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      During the pandemic I can see why these services blossomed, but I have only used them once or twice - and only in NYC where I didn’t have a car, and even if I did, getting around by car and parking is more challenging anyway. (Delivery drivers in NYC get around by scooter which they drive anywhere they want (street, sidewalk, wrong way on the street, they do not care. They’d probably get on the elevator if they could).

      To me the service charges and tips are higher than I want to pay and I’ll just pick up the stuff myself. It’ll probably be hotter anyway since there aren’t other deliveries that need to be made before mine. The one exception is pizza where they already have their own delivery people.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Asian food has been doing to-go for centuries, though. It packs well and keeps well for 30 minutes. In fact there is a to-go only Thai place near me which uses an industrial kitchen and literally a hole in the side of the building to take payments and hand over food. Other restaurants we know in our area stopped seating people during COVID and would just hand out to-go orders at the door. But I can only think of Asian restaurants that did this.

      There’s nothing wrong necessarily with having a separate delivery service. Restaurants aren’t good at making menu apps or driving cars. It may be a little awkward fit for restaurants who rent retail space and offer dine-in tables, but the world is transitioning and I fully expect more Doordash-first restaurants operating out of less expensive kitchen space and just skipping the whole dine-in waiter thing.

      I hate to hear that Doordash pays so poorly but we always tip 20% or more which, even if it is the only payment the driver receives, usually seems fair for 30 minutes of work. We are a family of four and our order is always over $50. So that’s $10 / 30 minutes or $20 / hour minimum (if everyone used it the way we do). That seems like an okay wage for a job with so much flexibility. Probably the real thing that kills it is gas and wear on the car being invisible costs. Just like with regular Uber drivers.

      EDIT: hey /u/womble have you heard of this other American concept called “fuck you, Jack.”

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Maybe it’s what I eat but I find the food is always worse after delivery. It’s usually gotten a bit cold and steamed a bit. Some stuff like pizza and Asian food handles it well, but falafel and anything fried is best served immediately

        • scarabic@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          For sure, delivery time will never be a good thing for any food. Some just handle it worse than others.

  • jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 month ago

    I’ve never delivered for Uber Eats specifically, but I don’t know how they managed less than $2 an hour without doing obviously impractical things like trying to deliver at off hours, or in a poor area for it. I average about $27/hour. This is however, with GrubHub that has a wait list for drivers and they deliberately don’t overcrowd regions. Area really has a lot to do with it. I can imagine that if Uber doesn’t cap the amount of drivers in an area, a full on city is probably the worst example of a place to try it. I know that DoorDash is the same way in Atlanta, and the few times I have tried there, it wasn’t worth the trip. One thing you learn very fast through observations is that the “hot zones” mentioned in the article don’t matter. All they mean is that someone ordered from a place there before the map refreshed.

    I guess my point here, is that the pay isn’t necessarily shit. You have to put in some leg work and learn the best areas around you as well as the times to work.

    I do have a lot to say about doing this line of work with over 1k deliveries done across 3 apps, but it is kind of out of the scope of this comment unless someone asks.

    Editing to add because people asked:

    To address some comments here; I already had an LLC, and insured my car through that which made it cheaper. No, the driver doesn’t get basically nothing if you don’t tip. It’s around $1/mile driven with an order (sorry, but I’m not up to doing the approximate .625 km/mile conversions here). I hate to say it, but if you are doing this even as a side job, you need to find overly gentrified suburbs, or a town that has almost nothing as far as restaurants go. I happen to be in a sweet spot between the two. My “assigned area” is Woodstock, GA but that still covers all the way up to Jasper. Woodstock is the overly gentrified suburb, and Jasper has almost nothing.


    A discussion of the apps I’ve delivered for

    • DoorDash: Extremely low barrier to entry. Good to start with. However, if you don’t do 100 deliveries in your first month it falls apart (trust me, that’s more than you realize). You will need to schedule everything and it is extremely competitive and low pay since DoorDash focuses more on fast food.
    • InstaCart: You’re entering waiting list territory here. My wait time was 3 months. It seems fantastic at first until you have to do an order that the customer will pick up. Do not accept these orders, because you will not only have to shop for potentially 40+ items, you will also have to do a large bagging job… for maybe $15 that takes you an hour. The key with InstaCart is to do the smallest (in terms of distance) delivery orders.
    • GrubHub: This is what I currently do. I had to wait 7 months. Because of marketing stuff, it focuses on sit down restaurant orders. This means the pay for the driver is much higher (not only tips, the orders tend to be high cost by themselves, also the $1/mile driven with an order thing still applies). The giant benefit for driving for GrubHub is that it is unique in that as a driver it is almost like being a taxi driver. You can turn on the meter whenever. You are, however, limited to an area (and that is, as I stated earlier, the most important thing).

    Is it worth it?

    Many have noted the operational costs. With the mileage deduction of ¢60 per mile for tax purposes, it adds up a lot. Remember that you make roughly $1/mile driven with an order. I net around $19/hour with expenses, including tax. For me, that very much makes it worth the time. There are roughly 7 hours a day for my area that are worth driving for. 11 AM-1 PM, and 5-9 PM. Expenses included, I can make around $500 on weekends. I do, however, own a compact car with very good mileage. That’s an extra $2000/mo. So, yes, if you really do the leg work it is worth it. You can not, as shown in this article, show up with a bike in a major city and every hope to make money. Bare minimum, you’d need a car.


    Tips Vs. Bids

    I’ve seen comments here saying that your tip is not a tip, but a bid. This is partially true. I do need to reiterate that I’ve not done much of this work in a full fledged city (Atlanta being the only one I’ve covered). Your tip is not a bid. What happens is that your order (if just plain unprofitable) gets bounced from driver to driver. Your “tip” never has to escalate. What happens is that the pay from whatever service escalates. Say, someone makes an order and the total the potential driver might make is $10. If one driver declines, it gets passed to the next “best driver” - so on an so forth. Each time the pay from the company initially providing the service increases. There is no increased cost to the customer. This is why there is no reason, as a driver, one should never accept a low offer. That’s how the bids work. It isn’t from customer tips. There tends to be, however, a charge that will get you priority as a customer. Usually, drivers will have more than one order. You can pay to not get the meme of “lol took 20 mins over time, cold, and thrown around.”


    The Ways You Can Stick It To A Bad Delivery Person

    • Rate them low. Seriously. It’s based on an average. 1 ⭐ out of 5 can very easily get them fired. Most services require at least a 4.2 average, or they will be terminated. You need to be willing to do that, though. That’s it. You can fire people almost on the spot for slow, cold, incorrect, or undelivered food. And, honestly - you should. There are those of us that give a shit.
      • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        Considering that the average pay for doordash workers are usually between 15 to 20 an hour, I’m guessing that 27 an hour is before taking out for expenses.

        27 an hour becomes 22.8/h after taxes (assuming you are in a state with no state income tax) minus whatever paid for fuel expenses, and that’s before you take into consideration the wear and tear on the vehicle and unless you are flying under the radar(bad idea they’ll refuse your claim or even drop you) the increase Insurance costs for using the vehicle commercially

    • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      This was in Toronto, and to call the ebike courier job market here “oversaturated” would be an understatement.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    What a sad country, where people have to accept being paid so little.
    I’ve been arguing for decades that EU needs to tax imports from USA, because USA is using social dumping to compete unfairly.
    The US minimum wage is not a living wage, and employers can even go below that if they can claim tips are part of the wage. And they don’t even provide healthcare for all. This is causing extreme poverty unbecoming of a developed country, and is social dumping.

    USA has created a system where employers are not paying the actual cost of labor. By tilting the power balance to vastly favor employers, and fail to regulate against abuse.

    Apparently this is in Canada, which surprises me a little, I thought they were better regulated. This gig economy shit should clearly be illegal, and workers should be paid a reasonable living wage.

  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Had a colleague that did it as a side gig and no matter how many times I told him to do it, he always refused to do the calculation to figure out how much he was making after expenses.

  • rumba@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    The awful part is, even without tipping the driver the food is drastically more expensive. The restaurant takes an extra cut, The delivery service takes an extra cut. This person’s delivering your food practically for free and the meal is already sit down restaurant price.

    • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Just one note, restaurant prices go up because uber eats charges a percentage based fee for each menu item. So, restaurants need to up the prices on the app just to make the same amount of money. Just some good ol’ under-the-table fuckery courtesy of Silicon Valley bastards.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        In any case, when it cost me $20 more to get the meal through delivery, and f**** over a delivery person I’ve got a lot more incentive to drive 10 minutes to pick up food.

          • rumba@lemmy.zip
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            1 month ago

            Voice dictation censors, getting to the setting is a pain, I use dictation for work a lot so it’s better for you to be imaginative them me to screw up and get in trouble.

  • gearheart@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    I hear the smallest violin Everytime I hear about UberEATS executive complain about the company not being profitable.

    I know GrubHub is bad too but I typically only pay a small fee of 3$ for their service and a tip of 20% to the driver.

    Yet UberEATS usually includes a $10-15 UberEATS fee which the employee sees none of. Yet “oh no UberEATS is not profitable, oh no my 3rd yacht isn’t big enough”

    • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I only use eats if there’s a solid promo, and then I pick up the food myself. They don’t get the fee, I don’t have to tip, and I get the deal. A lot of time the price per item is cheaper on pickup too. Their fees are absolutely ridiculous, and they are just a middleman. They for sure are losing money on me.

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Best to just call it in. Even for pick up, all these online providers take a huge cut, eating the profit margin from the people actually making the food you like.

        I try to only use online orders for restaurants that have their own website cart. I do sometimes resort to the big ones when I’m busy / lazy, but I make a point to try to make sure the actual restaurant gets my money, because I want them to survive and keep making me tasty food.

  • snooggums@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Food delivery only made sense as an operating cost of the business, so third party delivery would have only made sense as something that the businesses subsidized. It also only makes sense if it is structured around the busy times of day as well.

    I worked in a few businesses in the late 90s that offered delivery. In every case the delivery drivers were basically kitchen staff who went on deliveries OR the business itself was primarily delivery based in the first place and they still had the drivers do some other work around the place during downtime between meals. Both approaches spread the cost of the employees over more than the literal time delivering, because otherwise the cost per hour would be ridiculous. They also delivered food that held up to delivery times, so the food waiting 10-15 minutes before being delivered wasn’t an issue.

    There was a reason that pizza places and Chinese restaurants frequently had delivery even in smaller towns while things like McDonald’s did not. The food held up to delivery and was frequently of a volume that made the restaurant subsidizing the cost of delivery feasible.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I think the trick is you’ll never make it just driving for one service, you have to do Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, maybe even Instacart as well if you want to do it for a living.

    Just like the people who drive for both Uber and Lyft.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I’ve never used the third party delivery apps because it was clear their business model was going to screw over the drivers from the beginning.

      • dan1101@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        And be very expensive for the customer at the same time. Food is expensive enough already without adding more fees and overhead.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      I use it, I just tip way more than anyone else in my area tips. Mostly out of guilt, partially out of solidarity for the working person. I like to think my order at bumps that avg hourly rate up at bit.

      • Allero@lemmy.today
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        1 month ago

        I feel like it’s a double-edged sword.

        For as long as there are people willing to tip more, the company can get away spending less and shifting it onto customers.

        As a result, workers get highly unpredictable and generaly low income and customers feel guilty for leaving low tips. Everybody but the company loses.

        • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          This is why I only tip if the staff performed some actual service, not just calling my name for me to pick up my own order from the counter. Tipping in those situations (all situations actually) will allow the employer to pay shit wages longer and avoid a union to get them the benefits they deserve.

      • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        This just makes your house a target for robbery because the criminals who deliver on the side will think you have lots of money

        • BrattiAtti@reddthat.com
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          1 month ago

          As a former driver for both UE and GH, I disagree. The rich fucks who tip nothing could be a target. My best tips came from the blue collar and lower-middle-class houses. Solidarity. (Also why I won’t use the services myself; I can’t tip enough to justify wasting an hour of their time and missed opportunities.)

          As a driver, I started losing money once pandemic pay became a thing. It seemed like nearly all the furloughed teachers and daycare workers got in on the gig. I was lucky if I got one run per hour, and my area had no guaranteed minimum pay, even on scheduled blocks.

          I haven’t found a greener pasture yet, but at least I didn’t totally ruin my car with the excess miles. Silver linings, I guess.

    • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.uk
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      1 month ago

      Well, I’m definitely not using any delivery service - we live ~25 mins drive from the nearest town, so it’s just not an option.

      I’ve lived most of my life in the countryside and just think that getting someone else to go get my food is a weird concept anyway… I’d go as far as saying that I’m no-one special, so why ask someone else to get my food - just get it myself (lazy, etc.)

      Plus, I like driving, so I’m happy to get out of the house for a while (and drive like a delivery driver to get the food home whilst it’s still hot)

  • doingthestuff@lemy.lol
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    1 month ago

    I was just commenting on a thread about public transportation (there’s none where live) and someone commented that they’re moving to micro transportation by just buying a $3 Uber every time they need to go somewhere. Even if uber is only taking $1 of that, $2 isn’t paying someone to drive you somewhere. Uber drivers should make at least $30/hr.

    • wellheh@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      I haven’t done the math but if you don’t drive that much, did it beat their yearly costs (maintenance/insurance/gas)? Honestly that scheme is wild but makes total sense for a customer because not having to deal with car maintenance and insurance seems like a good tradeoff. I wonder when the dominos are all gonna tumble for these driving companies

      • doingthestuff@lemy.lol
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        1 month ago

        I don’t know where the person who commented that lives, but you can’t get an Uber five blocks for under $10 around here. If I was that close and walkable I’d just walk. I do know uber is losing drivers locally though because they don’t pay enough, certainly not enough for people to maintain their cars. It’s predatory employment at this point, and it is becoming normalized.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          I took one recently and found out Lyft was taking the ride at a loss. (They must average out the rides). I needed to drop my vehicle somewhere for maintenance, called a Lyft and it was something like 5.42 before I added a tip. I asked the driver when it had gotten so much cheaper and he said he had been doing well and checked and was getting paid $9 before tip for the ride. Told him I was giving him $10 for going out of his way as a tip, and the app actually wouldn’t allow me to tip that much, I couldn’t get above 9.58 or something. Anyways, slower areas they must be taking a loss to try to get more market in the area.

          Also, Lyft has always been better for me when needed, Uber won’t allow me to schedule a ride, so you have to wait till you want to leave, and in a slow area that just means… There might not be anyone. If I schedule it with Lyft for a set time I’ve never had an issue with that.

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 month ago

    I think the problem is: what they call a “Tip” is more like a “Bid”/“Offer”. People see “Tip” and thus believe its optional, I mean it technically is optional, but the base pay is like $2.50 so its customarily required. I think for even the shortest delivery of a place 10 minutes away with a 2 mile distance is supposed to tip at least $5. and if the delivery is done in 30 minutes, that’s an effective wage of $15/hour, that is, if they get orders back-to-back.

    Customers don’t understand how this works and puts $0 as the “Tip”, buts its really a “Bid”, effectively making anyone who is willing to accept the order, to work below minimum wage. And also new drivers doesn’t understand how this works and acceepts orders without a good enough “Bid”, effectively working below minimum wage.

    I mean, why even call it a “Tip” if its customarily required, just change the base pay to $7.50 (which I’m sure those companies will charge the customer for it, but anyways…). So for an order that takes 30 minutes, its an effective wage of $15/hour, assuming they get orders back-to-back. Much less confusion amongst both customers and drivers.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I think for even the shortest delivery of a place 10 minutes away with a 2 mile distance is supposed to tip at least $5. and if the delivery is done in 30 minutes, that’s an effective wage of $15/hour, that is, if they get orders back-to-back.

      Since these shitty companies don’t provide vehicles or gas money most of that $15 is going to vehicle costs.

      When I delivered for a pizza place in the late 90s in a midwest college town with my own car I got 15-20 per hour between base pay, gas and car use subsidy, and tips. That business was 90% deliveries, so the delivery was baked into the cost.

      • Womble@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        “Let me help subsidise a company paying below minimum wage” totally normal not batshit insane idea.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      1 month ago

      why even call it a “Tip” if its customarily required,

      Nice psyop there tbh… Why fuck over your worker when you can shift that blame on your idiot customers?

      It is your fault Joe delivery guy doesn’t get paid!!!

      • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        Lol, “everyone except me is a government agent”.

        Its not blaming customers, its not the customers fault, its the company making things confusing to scam both the customers and drivers.

        I’m saying, if the company wants to effectively make customers pay the wages of the drivers, then it should be transparent, like how it is in Europe.

        Raise the base pay to match at least the minimum wage. If the company isn’t happy with their greed (they charge restaurants somewhere from 5% to 30% btw), then they can charge the customer more delivery fees to make it up (like they do in Europe).

        But the point is, if companies want to be greedy, at least be transparent about it.

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          1 month ago

          Sir, we are aligned. If I was not clear, the corpo is shifting responsibility of wages to the end user and then makes them tip out of guilt.

          If companies gonna be this greedy, deny the parasite profit full stop. Delivery is a luxury, nobody has yet to die from lacking delivery slop.

  • cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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    1 month ago

    “Minimum wage and the idea that hard work should lead to economic security, can be — and are being — destroyed by these A.I. systems.”

    • Joe@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 month ago

      Not A.I, just a terrible system that incentivises (and even demands for public companies) abusive behaviour.

      • Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        Yep, blaming it on A.I. is just an easy way for corporates to shift the blame to something they can’t control. A.I. is just a tool, the people using it and HOW they use it are responsible for the outcome.

        • snooggums@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Yeah, AI is making the same practices worse, but tryijg to destroy the concept of the minimum wage goes back to at least the early 80s if not before.

    • Higgs boson@dubvee.org
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      1 month ago

      Lol. AI has so very little to do with this. That’s only mentioned because it’s the latest bogeyman.