While I do agree with the sentiment of the article and that all these workers should be paid a good living wage (especially the ones labelled essential during covid!)... I love on-demand everything. There is no way I ever will go back to doing some chores manually, like grocery shopping.
_Some_ things will always stay ultimately, like great restaurants/bars/clubs/... _if_ they focus on the human experience. I do not drive to a italian restaurant any longer to have a great pizza - I could simply order me one nowadays! - but the experience maybe a few hours of the flair being there.
I used to think the same, until my local walmart went self checkout only. From that point forward I started using the 'pickup' option. I flat out refuse to bag my own groceries.
I'm not sure what the thought process was there. Walmart went from me doing most of the work to them doing almost everything. The day pickup stops being free, I'll likely just throw in the towel and start paying more to get groceries from another chain.
1) Pickup is asynchronous, so no long lines will form. If it's busy you get the notification ~15 minutes later than you normally would
2) There's no possibility of shop lifting (not saying that _you_ steal, but inevitably some people do)
3) Maybe the parking lot or the store is actually full (fire code) and the actually amount of commerce is being bottlenecked by people in the store. You can literally just sell more stuff if you have everyone do a 2 minutes pickup.
4) Pickup selection requires you to go into the app, perhaps where they have opportunities to upsell you in clever algorithmic ways.
Chalk it up as a win-win. Not everything has to be either they lose or I lose
Interesting. I usually bag my own if I can, in order to keep the rotisserie chicken from being packed with the frozen peas. Most baggers don't care enough about this kind of thing in my experience.
It seems like DoorDash, Uber etc. really are great jobs for people who have trouble getting more traditional jobs: people without prior skills or connections who just want an easy job, "want to be their own boss", don't want rigid structure, etc. As they were originally and still are marketed.
They just need to be treated and payed better. The people using these services by design have money to spend, "outrageous" delivery tips and fees can be justified if the fees are actually going to the workers.
Getting what you want when you want it does not necessarily mean cheap exploitation.
We „only“ need to stop shareholders siphoning money and redirect that wealth back to the workers instead.
Worst case the working class would have money to spend, maybe even for other convenience on-demand stuff, recursively. I would be willing to accept a few dozen billionaires being degraded to millionaires as the prize, when in doubt they can protest on the streets against that.
The more you have to pay for it, the fewer people have access to "on-demand everything". Meaning it'll become a luxury of the richer side of the arbitrary cut-off line where ordering groceries or getting an Uber is financially feasible. The less these services cost, the better for all of us.
The solution that solves that problem is to remove the infrastructure from the capitalist market - for example, by nationalizing UberEats or Amazon (although nationalization isn't the only option)
Doing so would allow the business to continue as usual but the expenses that are external to each transaction would be offloaded to a third party (the government for example, or just written off) thus allowing the maximum amount of people to access the service at the lowest price.
Not long ago teens up to twenty or so did this kind of work. Fast food, pizza delivery, etc. The skills-required and profit margins for these jobs aren't the kind to support raising a family on. Everyone knew this and accepted it.
Transitioning folks into skilled/good-paying jobs would be better than trying to make service jobs a desired destination.
For example Edeka (German supermarket chain) increases prices when ordering significantly as well as adding a base fee for shipping. This roughly adds 30%-50% compared of buying the same things in the same store manually.
Sure, it’s a luxury position to say that, but I happily pay that.
I am not sure if this is exactly your intention, but you are advocating the position that "my convenience is worth your agony". I think we can do better than that. A person's role in society goes far beyond that of the mere consumer.
I need high quality supplies, restaurant food at my doorstep. If it somehow result in low wage/ worker agony, this is the sacrifice I am willing to make
I think the way to have this cake and eat it too is to personally be an extraordinarily good cash tipper. You'll still be supporting the system, but you'll ameliorate your personal use of it.
Adding tips will probably just cause the business to lower the wages, making the workers more dependent on a semi-random stream of tips instead of a fixed income, making life worse for them. Restaurants now work like that, and workers are voting with their feet. No need to extend this to other industries.
If it's a cash tip the app doesn't know it happened. It's not like restaurants. No manager is there to make everyone count up their tips at the end of the shift.
> I don’t get it why convenience _has to_ translate into agony for someone else.
It doesn't have to. But it does, often, nonetheless, currently.
Do you know anyone who does gig work for their main or only income? Are they happy with their lives? For now we are leaving aside "externalities" such as all the extra cars on the road creating traffic and extra emissions and focusing on the topic of TFA.
One has to wonder: what sort of systemic, material forces sustain this imbalance? which companies are propped up with subsidies, investment, etc.? why do people put money into those companies in which ways and for which reasons? how are those companies incentivized to operate given their positions in the economy? what does that mean for the people who are dependent on the money they are paid in wages from the only company willing to employ them to avoid a destitute life of food and housing insecurity? what could we do differently to alleviate this very real pain felt by millions every day?
Paying people "accordingly" for running Doordash orders would result in a complete collapse of Doordash because its business model is unsustainable without 1) subsidies a la venture capital and 2) minimizing compensation (wages, liabilities, wear&tear on personal property) paid to the drivers vis-a-vis the maximization of quarterly profits. Delivery fees would cost absurd amounts and no one would be able to afford the service without these factors.
Some people make arguments in favor of the company surviving at the expense of the workers; others prefer to insist in the opposite direction.
I don't know about agony, but your ability to pay for it depends on having an underclass whose time is significantly less valuable than your own. You're talking about having servants (servants as a gig of course).
That's hardly an issue if you think about it: my time, as a student, was significantly less valuable than my current time as a senior software engineer.
I can't hire myself in the past, but there are other people who are in other places in their lives than I am.
Reality does not follow the dictates of models. The notion of "division of labor" comes so underspecified that I'm not really sure what you're trying to say.
> Also, everyone may decide...
A normative claim, not a substantive one. Besides, it's a misappropriation of what "liberty" means. Liberty is a collective phenomenon: it is not enough for each person to express it individually, but in order to stand for liberty we must act in such socially beneficial ways as to promote liberty for all. "Liberty for me, not for thee" is a contradictory statement.
_Some_ things will always stay ultimately, like great restaurants/bars/clubs/... _if_ they focus on the human experience. I do not drive to a italian restaurant any longer to have a great pizza - I could simply order me one nowadays! - but the experience maybe a few hours of the flair being there.