
What the Apps That Bring Food to Your Door Mean for Delivery Workers - prostoalex
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/09/20/what-the-apps-that-bring-food-to-your-door-mean-for-delivery-workers/
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zaroth
It’s sad to me that TFA can paper over what a massive step-up these apps are
from the previous status quo, and how much better they will continue to
become, in large part because of the independent contractor nature of the
delivery people.

What was once an entirely untracked and mostly underground exploitation of
illegal immigrants is now an app which tracks every minute worked, every task
completed, which workers can turn on and off at their own whim. Somehow the
fact that workers have to provide a social security number is spun as a
negative.

Any app that can create features which make the service better will result in
higher wages and tips per delivery, and riders/drivers can shift from app to
app (sometimes within a single day) to follow these trends.

Talk to the actual couriers and they don’t want to be employees, because this
very frequently is not a full time job. For the people it _is_ a full time
job, conversely, they are the ones least likely to be hired if shoe-horned
into employment status.

Last week I had dinner delivered by a young woman driving while her son did
homework in the passenger seat. This was apparently someone who needed to make
some extra cash for a few hours each evening, and the cost of child care would
obviously significantly reduce (if not eliminate) any income. The flexibility
of being able to jump in the car and earn crucial dollars without the massive
overhead of an employment contract is very valuable, and helping a lot of
people.

I think we need to keep perspective that food delivery is just about the least
skilled (lowest training required) job you can find in the US, and these apps
are upending a traditionally extremely exploitative market with _software_
that can never steal the driver’s wages, or racially discriminate against the
driver, or be verbally abusive, etc. while at the same time providing
potential work for millions of people at the click of a button.

~~~
mdorazio
Here's the problem. Rather than actually solving the underlying problems of
lack of good jobs, training, and support networks for these people you're just
giving them a slightly less-shitty "job", rationalizing away all the bad parts
by saying it's "flexible" now, checking the box for employment, and calling it
good until automated delivery completely destroys these jobs in a few years.

I would personally argue that this is worse in many ways than if we could
point to high unemployment and people marching in the streets as reasons we
need to change the status quo in more meaningful ways.

~~~
zaroth
I mean, if you need people starving and rioting in the street to obtain your
policy goals, maybe that’s a good point to stop and rethink?

~~~
colinyoung
This comment is wildly out of touch with how power works and change happens in
this world

~~~
zaroth
I’m not taking the flame bait. TFA is discussing the app economy for last mile
delivery, a market which TFA admits was previously largely exploitative of
illegal immigrant labor paid under the table and often abused in the process.

The is a prime example where the world has changed for the better through
software. The job is now above board, tracked, and accounted in ways that make
it better paying, more reliable and even safer work.

The competitiveness of the marketplace will only ensure these jobs become even
better paying and safer over time.

Exceedingly low job switching costs is a _massive_ contributor to the
competitive forces which lead to these advances, which in fact serve to
protect low skilled workers from otherwise abusive employers.

Every delivery app platform lives in absolute fear of all their contractors
switching to the competition because they found a way to more efficiently
schedule, queue, route, deliver, fulfill their customers and therefore can pay
the couriers a higher rate or ensure them more profitable routes or a larger
tip share.

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madenine
I delivered food while in college before the rise of delivery apps and it was
_awful_. Even with grubhub - each restaurant was responsible for hiring and
managing its own delivery staff.

If the restaurant I was delivering for wasn't busy? I made bad less money (the
people I worked for were pretty solid; you made tipped hourly + tips or non-
tipped hourly during the shift, which ever was greater). If it was too busy I
would be run ragged and my tips would go down as it took longer to complete
orders.

To make more and more consistent money, some friends and I would 'game the
system' to a degree and each be working 1-2 restaurants in the same business
district at the same time. We would trade orders back and forth based on where
we were going to make trips more efficient and split the payout pretty much
evenly (if someone had a hard delivery or something, they might be given a bit
extra).

If the restaurants knew we were doing this they would probably have fired us.

My shifts were fixed; ie I had the sunday evening and tuesday evening shifts
every week. I was at the whim of overall demand; slow nights means less money.
Most importantly; I could be fired.

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sokoloff
This article is refreshingly balanced, overall talking about the challenges of
the workers in this space but also observing that the prior condition wasn’t
unlimited milk and cookies either.

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k__
Companies of that type should be cooperatives.

~~~
Dirlewanger
It would be doomed to fail. These business models run on VC funny money. They
lose millions even when already paying garbage wages to couriers.

Maybe way in the future once automated delivery is much more mature (and
cheaper), could a co-op be possible. But we're talking decades later. And also
talking about a completely different world by then.

~~~
throwaway_law
>It would be doomed to fail. These business models run on VC funny money.

No reason a VC couldn't invest in a co-op. Or if they feel they aren't getting
the unicorn returns they want, then instead of a co-op it could be organized
as an employee owned and operated entity.

I think that is the future, and the disruption SV needs at this point...stop
the madness of centralizing the wealth among founders and investors, and
distribute it to the workers.

~~~
ericd
Why would the investors invest in something where they wouldn’t get a large
part of the returns?

They’re not investing their own money, they have investors (things like
pension funds) that they have to answer to. And honestly, the majority of VC
funds don’t do very well, even taking the large stakes they do. It’s a hits
driven business, and if you don’t get those one or two breakout successes, you
probably don’t make back your fund.

~~~
throwaway_law
>Why would the investors invest in something where they wouldn’t get a large
part of the returns?

Why would you think the investors would get any less returns if the entity
(say uber) was driver owned?

They wouldn't everything remains the same, except instead of a concentration
of ownership in a small group of founders, that same percentage of ownership
would be distributed among a larger group of workers.

So the real question is why are investors so adverse to employee owned
enterprises and invest in small groups of founders.

~~~
ericd
>stop the madness of centralizing the wealth among founders and investors, and
distribute it to the workers.

This seemed to imply that the investors would take less of a stake.

Are they adverse to funding employee owned enterprises? I've never looked into
it.

Maybe they think that companies with dictatorial management are more effective
at competing?

For the record, having been a founder, I agree that equity tends to be overly
concentrated with the founders.

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criley2
Interesting article but deceptively titled. I guess for the publication it is
in it makes sense. This article is almost exclusively about immigrant bike-
based couriers in New York City and basically does not mention car based
delivery, delivery apps or delivery workers outside of the NYC area.

It was interesting to learn about the NYC delivery scene and how fresh
immigrants who don't even know english have a long history of being bike
couriers.

But in my top 10 American city I've never had a Postmates or UberEats driver
that wasn't Americanized and speaking good English. Not that it matters at
all, food is food and a job is a job, but the article basically describes
nothing at all similar to food apps and delivery workers in the rest of the
country.

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alanbernstein
I guess this is how people outside the US feel when they read an article that
doesn't specify "in the US".

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criley2
I was unaware non-Americans went to American websites and didn't like that the
American content was American. I've personally never gone to a .co.uk or .ca
website and felt bothered that the content was British or Canadian, myself.

~~~
xtracto
I agree. That's why I never visit .us domains, I generally limit myself to the
international domains.

~~~
gruez
Even though .com isn't specific to the US, it is by default. eg. amazon.com vs
amazon.co.uk

