[HN Gopher] DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC
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DoorDash raises minimum pay to $29.93 per hour in NYC
Author : 1594932281
Score : 142 points
Date : 2023-12-04 19:37 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (about.doordash.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (about.doordash.com)
| jimbok wrote:
| "As always 100% of tips go to dashers" lol it was "as always"
| definitely remember reading that DD kept couriers tips...
| ejstronge wrote:
| 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.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I thought they got the tip if they got more than the minimum
| pay in tips.
|
| Otherwise, DD used the tip to pay them.
|
| Meaning - if you somehow work one job and it takes an entire
| hour - and you got a $10 tip - you would only make $29, not
| $29 + $10x1 = $39.
|
| If you worked 1 hour and did 5 jobs - each with $10 tips -
| you would get paid $50 - not $29 + $10x5 = $79.
| Justsignedup wrote:
| so my understanding is: don't tip on doordash after this.
| This means that the actual cost will be included in the
| work. I'm all for it. I hate tips, it is arbitrary and
| terrible.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| There was a lot of backlash when it was revealed DoorDash
| was taking tips like the method you stated. Now they give
| the entire tip to the driver regardless of minimum pay.
|
| OP was making a joke that no, it's not "as always" because
| there wqs a pretty large scandal just a few years ago
| centered around DoorDash not paying 100% of tips.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Can't beat cash for appreciation money.
| filoleg wrote:
| > 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, but they get to keep all the
| tips. However, if a waiter/server at the end of their pay
| period makes less with their base pay+tips than what the
| minimum wage for the area would be, the employer is legally
| on the hook for making up the difference to the employee.
| toast0 wrote:
| > TLDR: waiters/servers typically have a base pay that's
| below the minimum wage, but they get to keep all the tips.
| However, if a waiter/server at the end of their pay period
| makes less with their base pay+tips than what the minimum
| wage for the area would be, the employer is legally on the
| hook for making up the difference to the employee.
|
| I believe that's the federal rule, but several states with
| higher than federal minimum wages have a uniform minimum
| wage for tipped and non-tipped workers. If I'm reading the
| chart correctly[1], those states/territories include
| Alaska, California, Guam, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada,
| Oregon, and Washington.
|
| [1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-
| wage/tipped
| dangrossman wrote:
| Briefly, in 2019, until it made the news and the policy was
| changed so that drivers kept 100% of tips. There's more nuance
| than "DD was keeping tips", but plenty already written about
| that if you care to find the 2019 articles.
| ryaneager wrote:
| It's not more nuanced they were skimming tips and got caught.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Some programmer wrote that statement in the code, wrote the
| function that was given a tip amount and a driver profile
| and reduced the tip amount to give the driver under certain
| circumstances. Someone cut that ticket, brought it up in a
| grooming session, people asked and answered questions about
| exactly when a driver's pay should be docked. Other devs
| probably approved the PR. I bet it even has a clear and
| concise comment explaining the math and the business
| purpose. I bet there's a unit test about
| "do_not_overpay_driver_with_tip". Jesus
|
| I bet they all came onto HN and bitched about taxes and
| Unions after.
| Panini_Jones wrote:
| DoorDash sent out an email yesterday informing customers of the
| changes. They only mentioned that tipping was moving to after the
| checkout step, but nothing else. I simultaneously decided to stop
| ordering DoorDash yesterday; I've been gaining too much weight
| recently and spending too much money.
| koolba wrote:
| > Dashers who deliver in NYC will now earn at least $29.93 per
| hour of active time, nearly twice NYC's $15 minimum wage for
| other workers.
|
| What's a realistic amount of "active time" per hour? I'm assuming
| waiting for a job is not active time right?
|
| > These new regulations will force us to raise fees for orders in
| New York City. In order to better balance the impact of these new
| costs, we're moving the option to tip in the DoorDash app to
| after checkout.
|
| So hiding the tip until after closing the sale to pretend the
| total price is cheaper? Very classy.
|
| What's funny is that the tip should come after the service is
| complete if it's actually a tip for good service (otherwise how
| did you know what service you got?). But they're clearly just
| trying to hide the true price.
| ketzo wrote:
| Wow I totally missed the "active" part, thanks for pointing
| that out.
|
| Would love to hear from someone with actual DD experience what
| percentage of time is "active," and what you have to do to keep
| that time high?
| koolba wrote:
| > Wow I totally missed the "active" part, thanks for pointing
| that out.
|
| Years of less than honest players have taught me to read
| press releases like a lawyer redlining a contract. Every last
| word is in there for a reason.
| wizardwes wrote:
| Dashed for 3 years, it's highly variable. I probably averaged
| 50% or less tbh. Also, un-tipped orders are weighted more
| into the pay-by-time in my experience, since you can't say
| no. It also means you can't avoid slow/bad restaurants, or
| unsafe/low-tipping neighborhoods.
| hoten wrote:
| They should be forced to be honest and call it a bid, not a
| tip.
| FriedPickles wrote:
| It works as a bid but only up to a certain amount, above
| which Dasher just shows the offer with e.g. "$6+ tip", hiding
| the full tip amount until after the order is delivered.
| filoleg wrote:
| Oh wow, this is actually interesting.
|
| Out of curiosity, do you happen to know whether the
| threshold for hiding the full tip amount is based on a
| percentage of the total order cost or if it is just a flat
| number? I.e., "anything over $6 gets truncated to $6+" vs.
| "anything over 20% of the order gets truncated to
| ${total_order_cost*0.2}+".
|
| Or could it be based off the 3 pre-selected options for the
| tip that are displayed at the checkout page, and if it is
| more than the largest option, then it just shows
| `${largest_predefined_tip_option}+ `?
|
| My personal guess is that it is the last one, but that's
| just pure speculation on my part here, hence the question.
| FriedPickles wrote:
| It seems to be one of several fixed, round numbers
| depending on the market (city). But there may be other
| factors. It's an interesting policy choice and I'm
| curious why they do it. Needless to say, drivers very
| much want to know the whole tip amount and are annoyed
| that the displayed value is capped.
| chavesn wrote:
| obviously drivers would _want_ to know it, but is that
| good for everyone involved? It would make more of an
| auction but should it even be an auction?
| wizardwes wrote:
| So, it has changed over the years, but it used to be
| {roof(basePay + $5, floor(mileage) * 2)} so with the
| $3.50 base pay of the day, anything under 5 miles had a
| max showing of $8.50, and then anything over would be
| like, $10+. It still roughly works that way, but the
| constants change
| jon_richards wrote:
| I think it should be illegal to ask for a variable tip before
| a service is substantially completed. Go ahead and charge a
| fixed gratuity, but prepaying tips is silly.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| It definitely shouldn't be unlawful for the service
| provider to ask prior to completing the service but I
| really wish more people would see it as distasteful, as
| seemingly most forms of drip pricing are considered.
| Obviously the tip is for exceptionally good service; if
| it's baked into the sale price then it's just another form
| of drip pricing.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I wouldn't burden the service provider, I would burden
| the payment processor and card network. If there's a
| license involved, even better. Some merchant codes can't
| have tips, merchant onboarding can't have tip upselling
| by the sales team
|
| Regulate behavior by regulating the intermediary
|
| Think about anything this way and you can push the same
| changes through any form of government
| ratsmack wrote:
| Tipping in the US has become an obligation or entitlement and
| is rarely associated with the actual service anymore.
| Loughla wrote:
| I would add: especially when using apps or food delivery of
| any kind.
|
| The chances of a server spitting in my food for me leaving
| a bad tip after a meal in a restaurant are 0%. The chances
| of someone mucking with my food because I tipped $1 on a
| $40 order are absolutely >0%.
| zepton wrote:
| Keep in mind that in NYC tips are exempt from sales tax, but
| bids for services are not. So customers would pay 8.875% more
| if DoorDash stopped pretending the payments are tips.
|
| (there is a sales tax exemption for mandatory gratuities, but
| that only applies where the ultimate recipient is an employee
| whereas DoorDash deliverypeople are independent contractors -
| https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/tg_bulletins/st/gratui.
| ..)
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| In the UK with Uber Eats/Deliveroo you can select a tip when
| you order and then you can modify the tip up to a short time
| after the order. So you can just put no tip and then add one
| after delivery if it's good service, or increase/decrease it.
| Is that not how it works with DoorDash?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It is, and apparently a common shitty thing the drivers
| experience is big tips that evaporate shortly after delivery.
| hypeatei wrote:
| Not with DoorDash, drivers recieve the tip no matter what.
| If you talk to support and get your tip refunded (for poor
| service or something), DD eats the cost.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.today.com/food/restaurants/tip-baiting-
| delivery-...
|
| > Tip baiting is when customers enter a certain tip
| amount when they order their food or groceries on a food
| delivery app like Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub or
| Instacart and then lower the amount or remove the tip
| entirely after they have gotten their delivery.
|
| Maybe they changed policy at some point?
| hypeatei wrote:
| I'm not totally sure. There isn't a mechanism in the app
| to remove a tip as a customer. Drivers on DD-related
| subreddits say it isn't possible for a tip to be taken
| back.
| sergers wrote:
| For DD In Canada, you cant reduce the initial tip in the
| app/site.
|
| You can add an additional Tip post order/delivery.
|
| I have been tipping only like 50cents for down the road, to
| maybe 1.50/2$ for within 10 mins drive.
|
| Haven't had issues receiving anyorders.
|
| Plus it's not like you get tipped wages here in BC, but
| they did recent mandate a $21 delivery wage (2$ cad more
| than standard wage)
|
| For long distance I have tipped more but I am reducing my
| tipping overall.
|
| Like I am paying a BC bag fee to get a paper bag for 25
| cents, well unfortunately that means I am paying 25 cents
| less for other things including tip
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Ah, AFAIK the tip is hidden for the UK services. They're
| also batched so the driver can't know who tipped/what tip
| an individual order gave them. It sounds silly to show a
| tip on the order that can then change later.
| whartung wrote:
| I think they're hiding the tip after the talk about drivers
| shopping for tips. As I understand it, before you would tip up
| front, and so the drivers knew which orders would have better
| tips.
|
| Letting the customer tip after the order has been received lets
| the customer evaluate, and tip, the overall actual service. And
| prevents drivers from prioritizing those orders with better
| tips.
| makestuff wrote:
| Hasn't doordash also said if you don't add a tip a dasher is
| unlikely to pickup your order? Therefore, the tip seems more
| like a fee to me.
| wizardwes wrote:
| So, I did doordash for three years during the pandemic,
| working through college. In that time. I received 5 tips
| post-delivery, out of nearly 2000 deliveries. It was so
| uncommon that I remember all of them. At the same time,
| regardless of distance or time, DoorDash would only offer
| $2-$3.50 per delivery. So yes, if you didn't tip up-front, I
| was unlikely to take your delivery after I ealized that. My
| rule of thumb was no less than $5, and $2/mile, decreasing to
| $1/mile with a long enough distance. Otherwise, between
| maintenance and gas, I was losing money. I only broke that
| rule if my numbers were too low. They implemented this style
| of pay shortly before I left the service, but in my
| experience, it paid nowhere near well enough to be
| worthwhile.
| jallen_dot_dev wrote:
| I did a quick search and it appears the law sets a minimum of
| about $20 per hour. So I guess DoorDash considers there to be
| about 40 minutes of "active time" per hour?
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| What law are you referring to, and a minimum of $20 per hour
| for what? Wouldn't your interpretation mean I can sign up for
| DoorDash, keep the app open, never accept a delivery, and be
| guaranteed $20/hr?
| bpicolo wrote:
| https://nypost.com/2023/12/01/business/uber-doordash-and-
| gru...
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| I don't know, but presumably OP is referring to a $20min
| wage as covering active time, not "dashing" time. The
| latter means you have the app open and are scheduled to
| work. Active means you are actively driving to a
| restaurant, picking up food or dropping it off.
|
| So if you schedule two hours and the app give you no
| hits, or you decline hits that time wouldn't count.
|
| Now that said, I know nothing about the $20 min wage and
| can't say if that's accurate or not.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| That states they can choose hourly minimum or "or pay per
| delivery at about 50 cents a minute" which is in line
| with $29.93 per hour for what DoorDash calls "active"
| work.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| That seems to "match" what I quickly saw. I'm in no way an
| expert on this, but I did some quick spot checking of what I
| could find online. From 5-10 screenshots I saw of people's
| earnings drivers seem to have about 70% or 75% of "dashing
| time" as active time.
|
| There were exceptions I also saw, someone at 50%, some other
| people said they were at ~90% although I didn't see
| screenshots.
|
| I assume this varies heavily by if your in a city or not or
| how close to meal time it is which I've got no insight into.
|
| And note this could be all entirely wrong - it's people who
| chose to post their screenshots online so huge risk for
| selection bias to it being higher paid workers.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| It's only the time between accepting a delivery and finishing
| it. Time spent waiting for a new delivery offer is not paid.
|
| > After a few minutes of waiting, you are offered and accept an
| order and drive 10 minutes to get to the restaurant. You wait 5
| minutes at the restaurant, then drive another 15 minutes to
| deliver the order.
|
| > In this example, you spent 30 minutes actively on the
| delivery, which includes the drive to the restaurant, the wait
| at the restaurant, and the drive to drop off the order.
|
| https://help.doordash.com/dashers/s/article/Time-Earnings-Mo...
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > So hiding the tip until after closing the sale to pretend the
| total price is cheaper? Very classy.
|
| In practice, it is probably to eliminate customers feeling the
| need to tip, reducing the sting of the higher fees.
|
| Plenty won't tip if the Dasher won't see until after.
| devrand wrote:
| I think you're misunderstanding the change to tipping. DoorDash
| is effectively eliminating it (or at least making it truly
| optional). The city's study [1] advocates for this explicitly:
|
| > Beyond productivity, there also exist several other margins
| for adjustment to higher delivery worker pay. For instance,
| apps could choose to reduce consumers' costs through changes to
| the user interface that discourage or eliminate tipping (or,
| equivalently, consumers could choose to tip less in light of
| workers' higher pay, independent of any changes engineered by
| apps). The Department finds that if tipping were eliminated at
| all apps, costs to consumers would increase by $1.06 per
| delivery (3%) with workers still receiving sizable pay
| increases.
|
| Basically, the previously "mandatory" tip is now baked into the
| price upfront. I think this exactly what you want.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/workers/Deliver...
| catchnear4321 wrote:
| > DoorDash is effectively eliminating it (or at least making
| it truly optional)
|
| it was truly optional before, no? you just had to decide if
| you were taking an option or implicitly being a jerk before
| ordering. now you decide after.
|
| perhaps companies need to stop implying such things
| altogether. such as could be done by not even mentioning a
| tip until food is in hand. as that is what a tip is.
|
| that the delivery person be paid more upfront and outside of
| tips is part of the problem that needs solved. a big part,
| but not the only one.
|
| in fact the case study advocates for more than dd did.
|
| so this doesn't seem to be what the commenter wanted.
| progress but not completion. maybe not time to celebrate yet.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| I think tip amount was known to the drivers before
| accepting an order, so if you select 0 up front you would
| be likely to wait longer.
| devrand wrote:
| The big difference is that before the tip you picked before
| placing the order directly reflected the offers that the
| dashers would see. If you put no tip then very few dashers
| would be willing to take the order. This is what
| effectively made it mandatory.
|
| Now dashers won't see tip variance in offers, it'll
| effectively be post-service from their perspective.
|
| From the consumer perspective, yes, you can tip before you
| have the food in hand, but it's no different than if you
| had gone back after delivery and added a tip.
|
| I don't really see what your remaining point of contention
| is here.
| 1000100_1000101 wrote:
| > What's funny is that the tip should come after the service is
| complete if it's actually a tip for good service (otherwise how
| did you know what service you got?). But they're clearly just
| trying to hide the true price.
|
| This. I had a recent order with a "SkipTheDishes". It was a
| semi-big order, and I left the default tip in place, which was
| over $20 for a 5-10 minute drive. The driver did a few other
| deliveries on the way, so when I got my meal it was only
| vaguely warm. Certainly not worth $20, and enabled by the
| company as they have a mechanism for a driver to take multiple
| orders at once.
|
| Truly horrible service is now standard.
| kazinator wrote:
| Well, you can't pay a tip forward to guarantee good service;
| it's supposed to be a reward after good service.
| chavesn wrote:
| It seems like that's the point of the story -- they were
| willing to tip well, and received bad service. If it came
| after, then drivers would have a reason to make sure food
| was delivered fast and efficiently.
| dontcontactme wrote:
| Interested in how they count hours - are the only hours counted
| the hours where you are actively picking up / delivering an
| order? Or are employees also compensated for time spent
| waiting/looking for orders?
| dangrossman wrote:
| "Tips" were effectively bids for service under the old model, as
| they were paid before the service was performed and determined
| whether a driver felt it worthwhile to accept that order. Now
| DoorDash will have to dynamically figure out how much to charge
| the customer to both interest drivers and meet this minimum pay
| requirement. I'm interested in seeing how it turns out.
| pcl wrote:
| The press release says they're paid "after checkout". I assume
| that that means immediately after payment of what appeared to
| be the price, but still before receipt.
| 19f191ty wrote:
| Assuming a delivery worker works 5 hours a day for 5 days a week,
| that's roughly 35,916 usd. As a PhD student that hits hard.
| wenc wrote:
| As a former PhD student who made $28k (which was on the higher
| end, most made $20k) I'd always known there were better paying
| jobs out there.
|
| But I also lived in a LCOL city where my rent was $500 (room in
| an house with 5 roommates) and I lived super well.
| 19f191ty wrote:
| It's not just any job though. Food delivery is amongst the
| lowest skilled jobs, while research is amongst the highest.
| Also, good for you that you lived super well But not everyone
| is comfortable living with 5 roommates.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| That's "active work" though. So you're also going to be
| spending a lot of extra time sitting in your car waiting for
| delivery offers to come in. Outside of lunch and dinner hours,
| you'll probably be spending an equal amount of time idle as you
| are "active" according to DD.
| 19f191ty wrote:
| I'm aware, that's why I counted just 25 (active) hours per
| week.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| But that 25 active hours per week requires about 50 hours
| of working. You're just not paid for the 25 hours where you
| are waiting for an offer to come in. There's only about 3
| hours per day when you can consistently get an offer within
| minutes of finishing one.
|
| And don't forget DoorDash doesn't pay for gas or other
| required maintenance from the extra use on your car.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _With the changes required by NYC and the impact it will have
| on our system, we are pausing our Priority Access program, which
| gives Dashers who have high ratings priority on higher-paying
| offers. Since Dashers will earn a guaranteed minimum rate, the
| benefits offered by this program will not apply in NYC. The Top
| Dasher program is still available for qualified NYC Dashers._
|
| So they're guaranteeing higher pay for all workers, and cutting a
| benefit for their best workers? I wonder what kind of impact this
| will have. Will this encourage some of these top workers to leave
| the platform, since they can no longer get access to good orders
| based on their track record?
| afavour wrote:
| On the flip side it might encourage the bulk of drivers to stay
| with the platform if they were previously denied access to the
| best jobs.
| 3462346346 wrote:
| Outside rush hour there's already not enough work in the
| sense that there will be long periods of waiting for orders
| in even very large cities. It seems like if anything they
| could afford to raise standards for the consumer by offering
| less to lower performing drivers to make contracting
| unappealing.
| parthianshotgun wrote:
| Rising tide lifts all ships. Maybe we'd get better overall
| throughput and less saturation, though I see where you're
| coming from. The tips might help no?
| wizardwes wrote:
| Trust me when I say, being in those high echelons isn't worth
| it for a driver. Everyone will be happier with this. Getting a
| higher rating priority usually means that you lost money, and
| are just planning to be dashing a ton at a lower quality the
| next month to offset it. You have to purposefully accept
| untipped orders at bad ROI restaurants to achieve those
| numbers.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Will this encourage some of these top workers to leave the
| platform, since they can no longer get access to good orders
| based on their track record?
|
| this isn't uber. Do people actually pick who delivers their
| often fast food?
| perihelions wrote:
| 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' credentials/accounts.
| have_faith wrote:
| 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.
| markha wrote:
| This seems to be the case in bay area too. The person
| delivering the food is not the same person in the DoorDash app.
| It used to be rare before but not anymore. (sample size of 1,
| as recent as 2 days ago).
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Just curious what do you pay in Nyc for delivery? Must be at
| least 15 dollars then?
| mushufasa wrote:
| yep
| 8bitben wrote:
| 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.
| kiba wrote:
| They aren't really viable business models to begin with. Only
| VC funding can keep these online platform up.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| 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've used these services a time or two just to see what the
| fuss is about and I don't get it myself.
| mym1990 wrote:
| The VCs are hoping to hype the product enough in the early
| stage to achieve a lucrative exit, and do that 10% of the
| time(or whatever). What happens with the product once the
| company is public is not of their concern.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >I've used these services a time or two just to see what
| the fuss is about and I don't get it myself.
|
| It's similar to fast food itself. convenient and cheap.
| these days the latter is falling off the wayside (again,
| just like modern fast food). It was invaluable during a
| pandemic to help encourage social distancing, but even if
| it was still cheap it was bound to fall off a bit (probably
| not to pre-pandemic levels, but no longer record
| customers).
|
| >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.
|
| As others have mentioned, it's more a matter that VC's
| aren't necessarily looking to be the next big tech company.
| Many are looking for a profitable IPO and then move on to
| the next company. Lots of problems with enabling that model
| to begin with, but that's a whole other bucket of worms.
| acchow wrote:
| These services are very popular. Just look at DoorDash's
| explosive growth. It's not only out-of-touch VCs that like
| ordering food.
| rendang wrote:
| A lot of Americans can't "reasonably" spend $25+ on a
| single delivery meal but do anyway, probably quite often on
| 25% APR credit cards
| mym1990 wrote:
| 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.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > 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.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Not sure where you folks live but all the major ordering
| apps present in Toronto have been excellent in the
| suburbs. I was fully satisfied at least 9 out of 10
| times.
|
| And even the most expensive, ubereats is only, at most, a
| 20% surcharge compared to the in-restaurant price plus
| tip, for a $50 order.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| I live near Mountain View, California and its probably
| sampling bias but i would swear that for the entirety of
| pandemic there were complaints about food delivery
| missteps and prices on my Nextdoor neighborhood.
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| 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.
| lokar wrote:
| I just opened the DoorDash app. A ton of fast food
| ads/offers
|
| I have not eaten fast food in like 10 years, and never
| had it delivered.
|
| Not really up market imo.
| standardUser wrote:
| 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.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The basic concept of food delivery existed long before tech
| and VC and was viable.
|
| The only reason these companies can't turn a profit is
| because all those microservices, ads and "engagement" don't
| come for free.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Food delivery existed before platforms, but only where it
| made sense. You could order something like a pizza, where
| the marginal cost and effort required to make another meal
| was low, and the sales volume was high enough to justify
| using paid employees for delivery. Service area was also
| chosen by the restaurant itself to ensure that they would
| not spend too much time on a single delivery.
|
| In the end, it's pretty simple. How many deliveries does a
| single person make in an hour, including idle time? Is
| someone paying enough for that? And does the kitchen have
| enough spare capacity for that?
| lokar wrote:
| There were also 3rd party services that would deliver
| from most anywhere, but they were expensive (they made
| actual net profit on each delivery).
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Food delivery existed before platforms, but only where
| it made sense.
|
| This article is about NYC, where food delivery was
| ubiquitous long before DoorDash. In fact, Seamless in
| 2010 was a better experience than Doordash is in 2023,
| when you consider the absurd markup on Doordash.
|
| Doordash struggled to entire the NYC market for a while
| because it was trying to compete with an established
| product, yet using a higher price point. It was only with
| massive amounts of VC funding that they were able to get
| a foothold.
| ghaff wrote:
| >The basic concept of food delivery existed long before
| tech and VC and was viable.
|
| In limited markets, for specific types of food, and for
| pretty crappy wages for the delivery people. (And, yes, for
| mostly pretty low tech approaches.)
| roboror wrote:
| These companies have spent a ton of money to convince
| lawmakers and consumers that they are not in the food
| delivery (or taxi) business. The whole plan was to not have
| to deal with these pesky regulations.
| troupo wrote:
| > The only reason these companies can't turn a profit is
| because
|
| is because their business model is unviable and
| unsustainable
| lhorie wrote:
| That's a somewhat outdated narrative to still be parroting.
|
| Uber just got included into the SP 500. One of the pre-
| requisites for that is being profitable on a GAAP basis.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| Which if I recall correctly they are only profitable due to
| a one time revenue boost right of something like hundreds
| of millions ?
|
| And that one time "revenue" boost was that a company they
| own they are asserting is now valued more than last year.
| And they are calling that "revenue".
| lhorie wrote:
| No, it's operating profit.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I mean, Enron was in the S&P 500, too.
| troupo wrote:
| > That's a somewhat outdated narrative to still be
| parroting.
|
| It's not. Most of those "innovators" are still posting
| losses in the hundreds of millions
|
| > Uber just got included into the SP 500. One of the pre-
| requisites for that is being profitable on a GAAP basis.
|
| Because you can somehow lose a billion dollars a year for
| 10 years, become a publicly traded company with a
| steatement "we don't even know if we'll ever turn a
| profit", still continue operating at a huge loss for
| several years, write off 6 _billion_ in losses, and finally
| become profitable enough to be included in S &P.
|
| Any any other, sane world, Uber would be gone after two
| years of losing a _billion_ dollars a year. Not crawl into
| S &P after 10 years of unsustainable losses.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _One of the pre-requisites for that is being profitable
| on a GAAP basis._
|
| Uber lost money for 22 straight quarters, then made money
| for the last two. Bit optimistic to think it's smooth
| sailing from here, in my opinion. I enjoy Uber, the
| product, but they are middle manning a couple of low margin
| industries. Hard to imagine it being a multi-hundred-
| billion dollar company.
| crdrost wrote:
| I mean I think it can be, given that there's a $20-$30 markup
| per order, but it definitely requires some particular
| circumstances.
|
| The bigger thing is that if you're thinking of Lean
| manufacturing principles or Theory of Constraints, where the
| goal is to get the noise out of the system, you would never
| maximize a business the way that Uber Eats and Doordash are.
| It'd instead be something like the following pipe dream:
|
| - We sell "pizza delivery as a service" to businesses who
| want it -- at first we're trying to partner with Target and
| Walmart, etc. Our value proposition to them is "hey Amazon is
| eating you alive, how about we help you offer ultra-rapid
| delivery and the people you're working with basically become
| fellow trusted Target employees?" (Of course, we'd be happy
| to double-dip -- ideally we'd convince Amazon that we're a
| cheaper way to reach their customers than their own delivery
| drivers. But that's a really hard sell.)
|
| - The company rents delivery people from us per day, we
| provide the delivery network. If you need to "burst" we can
| provide extra folks to augment at a premium. Ideally someday
| we'll get some lucrative Amazon contract where the Amazon
| warehouse, but to start with we're doing laundry delivery and
| other odd jobs. The company maintains their brand; we're just
| a courier service. You don't go to the FedEx website to order
| something, you select FedEx at the end with "how would you
| like this to come to you."
|
| - On the side, we do sell a service of "we will give you a
| new pickup/delivery portal web site that works with our
| delivery service" to smaller businesses so that they can get
| started with us.
|
| - We are a courier service but we only operate in cities
| where we can sufficiently average out the volumes needed.
| Amazon, UPS, FedEx can be the kings of the countryside,
| that's fine.
|
| - The company, assuming food, sends their delivery-person
| right when the food is cooked, they are our employee and
| package it to our standards and bring it straight out to our
| delivery hub. In general they will not be going to the final
| address. We use this as a process buffer to maximize our
| throughput for the people actually driving to the home
| addresses, we can make sure that certain people get to know
| neighborhood X better, etc.
|
| - The shipping price should come in two tiers, give people a
| generous shipping discount for advance orders where we can
| have more opportunity to batch and optimize.
|
| - Because the company pays us (and the user pays them for
| "shipping"), under no circumstance does the user tip; that
| workflow is just too indirect to sustain tipping.
|
| - Which means we have to do a 180 on how we treat the
| delivery folks; ideally they'd be full-time employees and
| we'd proactively unionize them.
|
| That last bit sounds like suicide but really there's a ton of
| noise in terms of all of this "well the question of who are
| our delivery people is fraught, they can drop off the map at
| any time" and it's like, no, I want to be able to say at the
| central hub, "here's the route you're about to follow, review
| it while you wait 2 more minutes for Tina to arrive with
| order 6AF12B, that's your third one, we've got the motor
| running for you and you know these streets better than
| anybody," and under no circumstance is that person saying
| "eh, I have a party I want to go check out, I'm just going to
| go with these 2 orders and leave Tina in the lurch." And, we
| can sell it to city-goers as "this is the ethical way to
| deliver, the union makes sure that we maintain the cars and
| that we pay as well as we can."
|
| And the rest of it is making the profit back up in volume.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| FWIW, the people that order food regularly don't care that they
| are paying an exorbitant fee for it, and there are plenty of
| them. The folks that don't regularly order may order less, but
| that's not going to really have a significant impact on the
| business overall.
| legitster wrote:
| 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.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order
| of magnitude less valuable than yours.
|
| Targeting mainly the wealthy isn't necessarily a bad business
| strategy.
|
| It should also be noted that it's also useful for bulk order
| to people and those unable to physically move themselves to a
| place (disability, lack of car, etc). It's not a "use
| everyday" mechanism, but it has uses.
| lokar wrote:
| But the whole structure of these companies (and valuations)
| is based on a much larger scale/market.
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| Indeed, the only way it is working right now is because a
| significant piece of their revenue is from discounted gift
| cards so their revenue grows while taking a loss. In the
| future, they will have to replace the driver with something
| automated if they want to make money.
| grecy wrote:
| > _The only way it works is if someone else 's time is an
| order of magnitude less valuable than yours_
|
| I mean, you've basically just described the entire service
| industry and virtually any job in North American where tips
| are expected.
|
| There is an entire class of people ready to serve you.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order
| of magnitude less valuable than yours.
|
| Ish.
|
| There's clearly a logistics problem here. 1-meal being
| delivered promptly on time scales poorly. But 15 meals
| delivered to 15 different people within 45 minutes is in
| fact, a net gain.
|
| Alas, Doordash and Uber have gone about it in all the wrong
| ways. Its the drivers who double-book this process (ie:
| picking up more orders than they can handle), leading to
| inconsistent quality, cold food, late deliveries and more.
|
| Its a legitimate model though. A more "proper" company that's
| doing this officially is Foodsby, where one Restaraunt makes
| a single delivery to 15-ish people in one trip at a
| designated time and location (usually within 5 minutes
| walking distance of an office complex. IE: One particular
| office building has a Foodsby drop-off point).
|
| Everyone pays $2 each, the driver is happy, the restaraunt is
| happy (their personal staff deliver and therefore ensure
| quality food / hot food at the appropriate, predesignated
| time), and a ~5 minute walk for a bunch of office workers is
| a good idea anyway cause we're all sitting on our asses all
| day.
|
| ---------
|
| It double-benefits because professional chefs like doing ~15
| or 20 of the same order all at once, its more efficient for
| them... especially if they can plan such an order ahead of
| time (Foodsby isn't offered every day for a Restaraunt, they
| pick-and-choose the days that they'll offer the service).
|
| So the chefs can cut-down on scheduling if they're burning
| out, or they can plan ahead and offer more days if they know
| some days are lulls / they have extra freetime.
|
| Doordash / Grubhub / Uber is almost malicious for everyone
| involved. There's some ideas of convenience to some people,
| but its not good enough for the overall environment. In
| contrast, Foodsby (and hopefully more companies that adopt
| that model) has proven itself sustainable, at least in my
| area.
| handy2000 wrote:
| You are describing a completely different service though.
| Prep-meal delivery also works, but it's addressing a
| different usage pattern.
|
| In the same way you could propose to replace Uber with...
| buses? 15 people get on the same bus at a specific time and
| get dropped off within 5 miles, thus optimizing the
| process.
| dragontamer wrote:
| UberEats is a "bus" that pretends otherwise.
|
| I've seen the Uber drivers come in. They always grab like
| 4 or 5 orders, and possibly drive to a 2nd or 3rd
| restaraunt before they start delivering.
|
| Its not like those UberEats drivers have a big penalty if
| they arrive late or if the food is cold.
|
| -----------
|
| What I'm saying is, consolidated food delivery services
| is *already* what we have with
| DoorDash/UberEats/whatever, they just lie to you about
| the details.
|
| The reason why Foodsby works (albeit on a smaller scale)
| is because they're honest about it. There's nothing wrong
| with consolidating orders to minimize driving time, the
| problem occurs because those other services _PRETEND_
| they're a 1-to-1 order service with dedicated drivers.
| IE: Its the lies where things have gone wrong, not
| necessarily the practice.
|
| If all the drivers are double-booking / consolidating
| orders anyway, then work it into the model. Embrace it,
| rather than pretend otherwise.
| handy2000 wrote:
| You are partially correct describing that some delivery
| drivers already batch their orders. But that's still a
| different use case. Foodsby can't scale to 15 min
| increments for all restaurants in the city. While some
| people can preplan and are OK ordering food from a
| specific restaurant that Foodsby works with, most people
| don't want that. How many people want to order food from
| an expensive Spanish (i.e. Spanish, not Mexican)
| restaurant I order from sometimes? So my options are
| going to be: #1 not ordering from this restaurant because
| it's not a common food preference and is expensive or #2
| wait for 15 people to join the order for this restaurant
| and get food hours or days later.
|
| It's a good business idea, it's just a different usage
| pattern. I order food when I am hungry. I don't preplan,
| don't like food from the majority of popular local places
| (pizza, Mexican, Chinese).
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Foodsby can't scale to 15 min increments for all
| restaurants in the city.
|
| For some definition of increments and "all", yes they
| can.
|
| Restaraunt#1 delivers at 10:15am.
|
| Restaraunt#2 delivers at 10:30am.
|
| Etc. etc. etc. Covering the entirety of lunch hours. This
| is how it works in practice, today.
|
| If you're in a location with lots of Foodsby usage, then
| you might have 3 or 4 different Foodsby locations to
| check within a reasonable distance, which dramatically
| increases the restaurants and timeslots available. Like
| 1x Foodsby is already fine, but if you're in an area with
| 5x walking-distance Foodsby dropoff points like I am,
| things start to get really convenient, and the selection
| becomes dramatically wider.
|
| It also means for the drivers, that one "trip" can hit 3,
| 4, 5 offices in one drive. I'm sure that on Foodsby days,
| these drivers are delivering multiple dozens of meals. In
| fact, the *MANAGER* of one local Restaurant was the
| driver for one of my recent orders (we recognize each
| other's faces because I visited his restaraunt a lot, so
| it surprised me to see the manager making delivery runs).
| So its more fulfilling work than typical grunt labor,
| since they're making so many deliveries on relatively low
| effort. If he's got ~30 orders, that's $60 ($2 per meal)
| in less than 30 minutes of driving/delivering, which is
| certainly more money flowing than most UberEats /
| DoorDash setups.
|
| --------
|
| Now yes, you may be arguing that "its not what you want".
| But... when that Spanish Restaraunt says "We're offering
| $2 delivery (no tip) 3 days from now at X-oclock"... I
| think you'll be thinking of using Foodsby that day.
|
| Or maybe you check the website to see today's Restaraunts
| and whether or not your favorite is on the list.
|
| -----------
|
| In any case, _THIS_ is innovation. Actually playing with
| models and finding things that are better for everyone
| (chefs, restaraunt owners, drivers, users) as a whole.
| I'm sure other models can work too, for some sliding
| scale of individualism, bulk deliveries and whatnot.
|
| But as far as the personalized 1-to-1 service? Its dead,
| its so dead I'm convinced it never even existed. UberEats
| _never_ promised a driver on the standby ready to
| personally serve you, and months/years of using the
| service has made it obvious to everyone.
|
| There's only so many times that I get a meal 1.5 hours
| too late that causes me to give up on UberEats (and
| similar) services.
| handy2000 wrote:
| > In any case, _THIS_ is innovation. Actually playing
| with models and finding things that are better for
| everyone
|
| Yup, that's a good point. The current model doesn't seem
| to be sustinable.
| dragontamer wrote:
| [delayed]
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I spent a number of years working at a pizza place in high
| school/college and on busy nights they had a dedicated
| "router", a human who was sometimes also a driver, who
| grouped orders together so they got where they needed to go
| in a timely fashion and the food was always warm.
|
| When I order DoorDash my driver either only has my order or
| they have a secondary delivery that is insanely out of the
| way. This is a very inefficient use of driver time.
|
| The pizza place is practically all delivery and it's easy
| to bunch up the orders heading in the same direction.
| Comparing that to UE/DD, a single restaurant might have 2-3
| delivery orders at any given time, but what are the odds
| they are all headed in the same direction? I wonder if
| extreme density cities have less of a problem with this.
|
| For reference, I live in a "2nd tier" city. Not NY/LA, but
| a city everyone has heard of.
|
| On an unrelated note, I've always thought the big problem
| is their market is too narrow. These companies should
| deliver literally anything that can fit in a passenger car.
| One example I know of is that auto shops do not keep parts
| for every car in the shop all the time. They contract out
| to parts warehouses. Those warehouses have employees which
| deliver your new carburetor to the auto shop that's
| installing it. There's no reason your Uber driver can't
| pick up pasta and a carburetor.
| adolph wrote:
| > The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order
| of magnitude less valuable than yours.
|
| Food delivery also seems to work with vertically integrated
| geo-segmented services like pizza and Chinese takeout. My
| best guess is that the profit margin and delivery packing are
| high enough to make it worthwhile.
| pcurve wrote:
| Most of my favorite local restaurants use other platforms
| now. It's been 3 years since I've last used Uber or DD. If
| they don't deliver, I just go pick it up myself.
| prawn wrote:
| I wish there were Indian curry vans instead of ice cream
| vans, driving around the streets playing distinctive music
| from 5-8pm. Group buy discounts for individual streets to
| promote pre-purchase, etc. Do a different suburb each night
| of the week. Please someone make this.
| itamarst wrote:
| Visiting NYC a few weeks ago the bike-based restaurant delivery
| people were interesting to see, not a thing where I live.
|
| Relevant to "active time", they seemed to spend a lot of time
| during the day just waiting around...
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| I personally feel like outsourced delivery for hot food orders at
| peak hours is a flawed idea. I've used Grubhub and it seems like
| they try to group deliveries. In my situation, I had a driver
| pick up my food only to drive it around down and deliver it to me
| 40 minutes later. If I order from a place and they don't have a
| driver on staff, I won't order delivery.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The problem isn't that they group orders, it's that you weren't
| aware of it and weren't given the choice. You were made to
| believe that you were paying for a direct order and it's only
| after the fact you realize but by then it's too late and
| getting your money back is a hassle. There would be no problems
| if you were given the choice upfront to pay less for a grouped
| order or more for a direct order.
|
| The problem is that these companies need to somehow pay for all
| that "growth & engagement" and so have insane overheads, so
| being upfront about the costs will mean they'd get no business,
| so instead they obfuscate it as much as possible like in the
| above scenario or outright steal drivers' tips.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Seems insane that people living in inner cities need to get
| food delivered. Unless there is a good reason you are
| handicapped etc. or maybe just had a baby. But for most people
| routine delivery when you can walk 5 minutes and phone ahead
| that order is fine.
| hypeatei wrote:
| 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.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| 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 the long term.
| hypeatei wrote:
| Yeah, stacked orders are a joke. From DD-related subreddits, it
| seems the algo typically bundles low tip orders with higher
| tipping orders. This is so the low tippers finally get their
| stuff delivered because no one else was taking it individually.
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| They can keep it. I refuse to bribe someone to deliver my food
| with a tip, before. I'm not even going to get into when a driver
| eats the meal, you have zero recourse, in practical terms.
|
| I'm done with companies not only charging more, but requiring
| that I assist them AGAIN with payroll.
|
| Fucking pay an actual wage or fuck off.
| levelz wrote:
| In New York City five years ago I was switching from one IT
| career to another (Unix sysadmin to programmer), and was working
| part-time for a very small startup that had run out out of seed
| money, while interviewing for more lucrative positions (which I
| found four years ago). The founders were working a day job, and
| funding me out of pocket, which was to the tune of $100 a month.
| For a variety of reasons I decided to do Postmates deliveries,
| one reason being the flexibility.
|
| Running around Manhattan on cold November nights five years ago,
| I began to appreciate the $100 a month I was getting programming
| for this small startup at my desk at home or in their co-working
| space. If you don't have a bicycle or car, you pretty much need a
| metro-card, which goes to your expenses. Sometimes orders came in
| right away, sometimes I'd be sitting around for over 20 minutes
| waiting for one. The food pickup location was always within half
| a mile of my location. The quickest pickup offer to delivery for
| me was 23 minutes, longest was 52 minutes. With waits of up to
| half an hour before a next offer.
|
| Deliveries usually paid a little over $4, but there were bonuses
| of $2 for some deliveries, and you'd be paid for long distances
| or long waits for food. You would also get tips (up to $7).
|
| As I said, I was getting paid $100 a month to do some programming
| for a small startup, which seemed very little, but it was a lot
| easier than how much time and effort it took running around
| Manhattan to earn $100 from Postmates.
|
| About six months after doing occasional Postmates deliveries I
| was making over $60 an hour programming for a multi-national.
| gen220 wrote:
| Do other people in NYC use Doordash? Curious to understand people
| who do.
|
| Anecdotally, I never have even considered it - although it's true
| that I'm somebody who prefers choosing my own groceries.
|
| I feel like the value prop (i.e. value less [opportunity] costs)
| is de minimis to most in NYC, with abundant grocers and
| restaurants at every price point.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Yeah but then you have to leave your home. I know people who
| use it plenty because they're too lazy or busy (the person I
| know who uses it most is in med school and has basically no
| life currently except for studying and school).
|
| I use it when I'm too sick to leave home and I'm not stocked up
| on food. Or board game nights when we don't want someone to
| have to leave to pick up food. All the delivery apps have such
| bad customer experience though, we usually now just agree on
| food beforehand and have one person pick it up on their way.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I did it (delivered) years ago.
|
| Absolutely blows my mind the kind of money people will spend to
| avoid 10 minutes of driving.
|
| Even now that I am making substantially more money, pretty much
| Doordash's prime demographic, I find it such a terrible deal
| that I simply cannot bring myself to use it.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| Why not just get rid of prices and the contractors can just put
| in a price per delivery that makes it worth it to them?
| legitster wrote:
| The NYC report is interesting but also very problematic.
|
| The justification of the minimum pay over NYC minimum wage is a
| mixture of reasonable (DoorDash not paying employee taxes, worker
| costs) and ... creative (like rolling in cost of living
| adjustments to minimum wage _just because you can_ ).
|
| More importantly:
|
| > First, the model assumes that, from 2023 to 2025, apps will
| respond to the minimum pay rate by increasing deliveries per hour
| worked from the current 1.63 to 2.50. This assumption is based on
| the Department's identification, using the record-level data
| obtained from apps, of large differences between apps in the
| number of deliveries per hour.
|
| Their "model" is making HUGE assumptions about the apps being
| able to "innovate" in NY, based on data coming from their own
| black-box reported numbers. And nearly all of calculations about
| how the pricing, cost to businesses, customer price sensitivity,
| and take-home pay of the workers is entirely based on very flimsy
| projections.
|
| I have no problem if NY wants to level the playing field between
| employees and contractors so that apps have to pay fair. But they
| are taking things one step further just because they have the
| mandate to do so. And there's no way that the people setting
| policy based on these arbitrary numbers are ever going to be held
| accountable for them.
| blindriver wrote:
| 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.
| imchillyb wrote:
| > I would love for the US to eschew tipping culture like other
| countries and just pay a wage that is transparent.
|
| Few servers in the US share your sentiment. Servers are the
| aristocracy of the retail industry. They don't want their gravy
| train to run out.
|
| An decent server at a decent restaurant can easily clear 60k /
| year. An excellent server at an excellent restaurant can clear
| 6 figures.
|
| What other industry is this possible with so little training or
| experience?
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| How much does vehicle maintenance and fuel cost? Does that come
| out of the driver's pocket?
| crmd wrote:
| 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.
| graphe wrote:
| Did you experience the automats?
| candiddevmike wrote:
| And if you called the restaurant enough, you typically got on a
| first name basis with them and had incredible customer service.
| Now you're just another customer #47523 that created order
| #37324.
| koolba wrote:
| > And if you called the restaurant enough, you typically got
| on a first name basis with them and had incredible customer
| service.
|
| Also Caller ID isn't _that_ new.
| tsm wrote:
| We had friends who got Domino's every Thursday. On days when
| they hadn't called by a certain time, Domino's would _call
| them_ and ask if they wanted their usual.
|
| (This was in Tegucigalpa in the '90s, fwiw)
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Has the local restaurant scene recovered from the lockdowns? I
| live in a smaller city and we have recovered some but it's
| nothing like it was. I heard it was particularly rough in NYC.
| crmd wrote:
| In my experience, the more "corporate" restaurant groups are
| growing but the less well capitalized small businesses are in
| a world of hurt trying to balance the books with the
| leftovers after the rise in physical rent and
| advertising/platform company costs.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Now that you have written it, this models my experience
| too. Thanks for sharing.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the more "corporate" restaurant groups are growing but
| the less well capitalized small businesses are in a world
| of hurt_
|
| Within the <$50/diner category, yes. It seems this is where
| the new Applebees/Ruby Tuesdays are forming. Above that,
| there is an explosion of creativity in the fine and
| pseudufine dining categories.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| I'm not sure that's true. Only change I saw was a growth
| of fine dining Korean food in nyc
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _only change I saw was a growth of fine dining Korean
| food_
|
| I can count half a dozen on my block in Flatiron alone.
| The only Korean fine-dining place to have opened near me
| is Noksu, and I'm a few blocks from Koreatown.
| standardUser wrote:
| There are still more amazing places to eat in NYC than you
| could comfortably visit in a lifetime. I can't even keep up
| with the new places that open in my own neighborhood.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I live in the NYC suburbs.
|
| COVID killed a number of restaurants, but some, thrived. A
| couple of local sit-down restaurants switched to take-out
| only, fired all their waitstaff, and probably got a lot of
| financial assistance. They made out well.
|
| A couple, never went back to in-house dining. They are still
| take-out only.
|
| Doordash became _huge_ around here (Ubereats, too). Pretty
| much every restaurant does them.
|
| The prices have gone _way_ up, for many of these places. A
| few places have doubled their prices, in just a few months.
|
| Not sure of all the causes, or the long-term effects, but I
| am not seeing too many "Help Wanted" signs.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| 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.
| handy2000 wrote:
| At the end of the day this is all driven by market dynamics
| that affect everyone. Uber Eats doesn't have a secret sauce
| that makes it cheaper for drivers to deliver food in cities
| with lower restaurant density. Someone has to pay for gas,
| someone has to pay for drivers' time. Even in large cities
| Uber Eats is now more expensive than ordering directly from
| restaurants in the past, why would it be different for cities
| with fewer restaurants?
| theappsecguy wrote:
| I feel like the only viable model for these delivery apps is
| delivery with autonomous vehicles like Nuro (or any other, this
| is just the company I have heard of). Whether that's actually
| viable and how soon, I have no idea, but the model as it stands
| does not work currently.
|
| A whole lot of people will lose income (no matter how mediocre)
| if this were to come to fruition though.
| zepton wrote:
| 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 standby time). (full text of bylaw:
| https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYC...)
|
| The implication that Dashers earn 2x more per hour than "other
| workers" earning minimum wage is false, since "other workers" are
| paid for 100% of the time they work, including when they are
| waiting for work.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| The other part of this is that Doordash workers need to pay for
| their own delivery vehicles (gas, upkeep etc.) which factors
| into the actual wages they get. They are not making
| significantly more than minimum wage workers.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| The delivery vehicles being used in NYC are almost entirely
| e-bikes, so the expense is not as big as you might be
| thinking. It's certainly nothing close to the cost to gig
| workers for running an Uber car.
| standardUser wrote:
| I'd estimate in NYC that 90% of deliveries I get are made by
| bicycle, so their average expenses are comparatively very
| low.
| handy2000 wrote:
| Does this also introduce a bad incentive for drivers to
| delivery food slowly? Or do delivery apps account for that
| somehow already?..
| asfasfo wrote:
| I'm pretty sure Doordash tracks that and will boot drivers
| that don't deliver quickly as that affects their bottom line.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| Nit: Most food delivery workers in NYC are on e-bikes or
| mopeds. There are surely some drivers but it is prohibitively
| difficult to use a car for food deliveries in nearly all of
| Manhattan and decent portions of Brooklyn/Queens/the Bronx.
|
| As it is there is public outcry about dangerous and
| aggressive riding behavior from food delivery workers. It is
| not strictly a bad idea to tilt the incentive structure so
| that while you can earn a little extra on tips for completing
| more deliveries, it's not such a huge part of your earnings
| that you need to cut corners, ride the wrong way on one-way
| streets, ride on sidewalks etc. to hyperoptimize your
| delivery rate.
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