What the Apps That Bring Food to Your Door Mean for Delivery Workers

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/09/20/what-the-apps-that-bring-food-to-your-door-mean-for-delivery-workers/

by prostoalex • 7 years ago

79 57 7 years ago

sokoloff• 7 years ago

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.

k__4• 7 years ago

Companies of that type should be cooperatives.

conanbatt2• 7 years ago

Cooperatives can be formed today, there are no obstacles for them.

rubinelli• 7 years ago

Capital. Two-sided markets take a lot of capital to get off the ground.

Dirlewanger• 7 years ago

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.

k__4• 7 years ago

You think so?

I have the feeling, many the co-ops are formed "because" regular company wouldn't survive.

johnchristopher• 7 years ago

https://citiz.coop/english is a french car sharing cooperative that dates back to 2002.

heavyset_go3• 7 years ago

These companies hemorrhage money because they try to stretch a single entity across the entire worldwide market, when many smaller regional companies are the likely equilibrium this space would naturally reach if it wasn't injected with VC money.

Certainly a decentralized federation of co-ops would work just as well as many small regional companies, or even franchises.

throwaway_law3• 7 years ago

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.

criley24• 7 years ago

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.

alanbernstein• 7 years ago

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

criley24• 7 years ago

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.

simion314• 7 years ago

The immigrant was just a small part at the end, did you missed the rest of the articles, let me sum arise it

- workers are at risk of accidents but they have no insurance, if you get in accident you will probably lose your job and that is all

- workers are tricked using "gamification" to work extra hours or accept bad deliveries

- workers have to suffer for other people faults , like some restaurant delays would cause the worker to get penalized

- when the weather is bad and the risks of accidents is larger you have more deliveries to do, so the worker will receive a few more cents for a delivery but maybe he doubles his accident risks.

IMO that article shows some facts that I did not know about and shows that without regulation to prevent it you will get exploited to injury or death.

The article does not seem to promote the perfect solution but mentioned the new law in California and the fact that some giant companies prepared a big found to lobby against this laws.

gumby• 7 years ago

Odd that the New York Review of Books would write about New York.

In my non "top 10 American city" Palo Alto the food delivery people are a mix, with a small proportion being people who speak fluent English with a local accent. Sometimes on bikes, sometimes in cars. Similar to what the article describes.

criley24• 7 years ago

"Odd that the New York Review of Books would write about New York."

Not really, and that's not what I said.

I clearly said that the title on Hacker News was misleading because Hacker News isn't the same as NY mag, so their limited title made sense for their limited distribution, but when applied here, became misleading.

zaroth4• 7 years ago

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.

fucking_tragedy• 7 years ago

Talk to the actual couriers

I have: they don't like the current arrangement. When they're tipped via apps, they don't even get to keep them.

Doesn't sound like they're independent contractors when they can't set their own rates and collect from their clients without the delivery app companies skimming their tips.

they don’t want to be employees, because this very frequently is not a full time job.

This is a false dichotomy. Many people work multiple jobs on a flexible schedule where they are considered employees at each of their employers.

They also hate the tax burden that is quarterly filing and paying the self-employment tax.

shawnz2• 7 years ago

When they're tipped via apps, they don't even get to keep them.

I thought the only one still doing this was DoorDash, and they reversed it after the recent backlash?

mdorazio2• 7 years ago

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.

zaroth4• 7 years ago

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?

Excel_Wizard• 7 years ago

Improvements that happen on the margin are better than no improvements at all. You seem to agree that the new app-driven delivery jobs are better than before.

"Lack of good jobs" has always been true, but has also been improving over time.

AtlasBarfed2• 7 years ago

It would be so much more palatable ethically if the US had universal health care.

cookie_monsta• 7 years ago

Any app that can create features which make the service better will result in higher wages and tips per delivery

Sounds lovely in theory but I'm struggling to think of a real world example where this happens in low-wage jobs.

food delivery is just about the least skilled (lowest training required) job you can find in the US

If done by car it requires a drivers' license, putting it several steps above zero-training

providing potential work for millions of people at the click of a button

Um... you realise that this work already exists, right? The apps aren't actually creating work. At best they're coordinating logistics.

Kipters• 7 years ago

If done by car it requires a drivers' license, putting it several steps above zero-training

Most of these workers, in Italy at least, use bikes

danans• 7 years ago

If done by car it requires a drivers' license, putting it several steps above zero-training

Outside of a few major cities with comprehensive public transit, having a driver's license is practically a necessity for survival in the United States. Driving is not a skill that elevates anyone beyond the most basic level of employability.

zaroth4• 7 years ago

I’ll give you an example I know from personal experience. Initial versions of the app would let you search for a delivery, select a job, and complete the run. Then you would simply repeat the whole process again.

Newer versions try to plan out a sequence of deliveries, and even concurrent deliveries where you do two pickups and then two deliveries, e.g. two pickups at the same restaurant and then two drops nearby. In urban environments it’s not uncommon to have orders bundled that go from the same restaurant and deliver to different units / offices at the same address.

Intelligently batching orders so that they are delivered both faster and cheaper (saving time by using a courier that’s already at the restaurant, balancing that against needing both orders ready before they can leave)

Every efficiency improvement means more tips for the driver and lower cost for the platform. It’s basically the singular focus of these companies to improve their queuing, matchmaking, pricing and routing algorithms to decrease delivery time and increase driver tips (flip sides of the same coin).

You may have seen basically the same kind of improvement within Uber, where your driver will have a pickup already matched in their queue before they even drop you off. Ideally the app even brings the new pickup to exactly the same curbside location as the drop off. This makes more money for the driver and for Uber - incentives are perfectly aligned, and probably even saves the pickup customer time because they are getting picked up faster with less fumbling around in between customers. Triple win.

Zero training / low skilled doesn’t mean there are no basic requirements (e.g. literacy, but also it may be physically demanding work). It means you don’t need a high school degree and you can start doing the job essentially on Day 1.

Lastly, it’s important to note that the convenience of these apps has ushered in an explosion of growth in the food delivery market. It’s a huge win for restaurants and couriers alike. Maybe not so much for grocery stores and waistlines? Not just new types of food being delivered which normally would not be available for delivery, but growth in the overall delivery volume within well established traditional food delivery verticals like pizza and chinese.

madenine• 7 years ago

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.

What the Apps That Bring Food to Your Door Mean for Delivery Workers

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