[vector_spaces]

I've worked these gigs before, and so have friends of mine with advanced STEM degrees. Sometimes you are stuck between a rock and a hard place (usually you are, if you're low income) and your current dilemma is between not being able to afford your rent tomorrow or food tonight, and working some exploitative app gig like this. So cool the condescension. Poor folks -- even those with really low numeracy -- are generally extremely aware that these gigs are exploitative and not sustainable income sources in the long run and see the scam a mile away. In my experience it's folks who haven't been poor who don't have a good sense for how expensive it is to be poor, for how difficult it is to make long term decisions, and the intractability of problems you have to solve just to get by sometimes

[savanaly]

None of all of what you wrote addresses how those folks between a rock and a hard place will be better off not having the option to work for a given service at all.

[mlyle]

Because these exploitative schemes displace other delivery jobs and services that work under fairer terms.

[darawk]

These businesses are already unprofitable. So you probably couldn't have another DoorDash that pays its workers more. I suppose you could argue that some restaurants might have their own delivery services, or something. But that'd be tiny in scale compared to what these services are doing.

[squiggleblaz]

A tiny delivery service based around a local group of restaurants could easily have a fairer distribution of income and time consumed. Since the delivery service operates from about five or ten shops there's no "drive 10 miles to the pickup". Since the service is basically local there's no "take money from the poor and give it to the richer" - even the profits that go to the capitalists is still going to local members of the community who are making some money, but not too much to know what to do with. "Unprofitable" is relative.

[JoeAltmaier]

Consider: restaurants often consider delivery to be a 'loss leader'. It's not a terribly profitable industry, maybe not at all profitable. A more limited service (unable to average costs over a large number of restaurants and customers) is going to be even less so?

[darawk]

Right, but as I said, the scale of these local delivery services is much smaller. Even if we accept your premise that each local job would be better (which i'm not sure is true, but i'll grant you it), there would be far fewer of them. It's not obvious to me which is better: A lot of bad jobs, or a few good ones?

[gvjddbnvdrbv]

Because people still want food cooked and delivered and to use taxis.

If the non financially viable companies did not exist then financially viable ones would.

[ramraj07]

Not completely. I remember life before Uber and seamless. I'd just stay home and eat ramen (this is in Dallas and I didn't have a car). These businesses did genuinely create businesses and also changed lives for many by the service. That's not an excuse for such exploitative behavior of course.

[frobozz]

I remember life before Uber and I'd never heard of Seamless, until your comment. These businesses genuinely just used VC funding and exploitative contracts to undercut perfectly viable existing services.

Before Uber, I'd take public transport, phone for a minicab or walk to their office to get one. (and I still do)

Before Deliveroo, I'd call the local takeaway and get them to deliver, or walk there and collect it myself. (and I still do).

You can argue that they have improved the lives of people who find it hard to use the phone, However, that was already solved for food delivery before these new delivery services came along and I would be surprised if there weren't minicab firms that accepted SMS or web bookings.

[ramraj07]

Looks like you haven't lived in a city like Dallas. Public transport is a joke (which I did resort to when I finally run out of food; will take me half a day to do groceries and I need to come back home and shower). Cabs will take thirty minutes to come to your home and will charge outrageous amounts (4x what Uber used to charge initially).

When I say I'd just sit at home I wasn't joking. I and many friends (mostly women) would just not do shit most of the time and just watch TV instead. Hell I'd go years without visiting my cousin in Plano (a suburb) because commuting there is a multi day ordeal (I need to start from their home at 5 pm if I needed to use public transport).

Did I and others just exploit Ubers unreasonably cheap prices? Yes. Did it improbe our lives measurably? Also yes. If you were lucky enough to live in New York or some city like that power to you but not every place was blessed.

[frobozz]

That's true. I have only lived in walkable areas. This is because I have not owned a car until recently.

I understand that public transport and minicabs are poor in tiny villages where the only amenities are a pub and a church, but I assume that when something is a city, it is a large built-up area with all the normal amenities that I expect of a city (shops, offices, entertainment, bus routes, possibly a light railway etc.). Is Dallas really not like that? What is it? Just miles and miles of big houses?

Out of curiosity, what caused you to live in a car-dependent area without a car?

[JCharante]

In Vietnam Grab drivers actually make a decent amount of money because a lot of their customers are middle class (relative to Vietnam). I don't think they're missing out on that much business by not having lower prices because you still see them everywhere (17 at a red light is the most I've ever seen) and people who can't afford Grab will use public transportation or their own motorbikes (student jobs may pay 20k-50k/hr, a bus ticket is 6k and a 10km GrabBike ride can be 70k, 4-5km is like 35k). A college graduate after some time may make 100k-200k/hr, and yet you'll still find a large class of people buying the latest iPhones (which would cost around 25 million).

I guess the US is a different environment where there's not enough customers who could afford realistic prices for Uber, and there's not enough alternatives for those who can't afford a personal vehicle.

[jiofih]

That has a lot more to do with the tech and distribution model they unlocked than financial viability. In Europe Uber drivers are private (company) drivers, not contractors, and it still works. There is a ton of money in transport, Uber is not even cheap if you’re not in tech / top earners.

[Grue3]

Just because a service exists doesn't mean the same service can exist and be financially viable for every employee. There are many businesses that are inherently unprofitable. It can be argued that such businesses should be subsidized because their existence is beneficial to society (e.g. Ubers in the neighborhoods that taxis wouldn't serve).

[tick_tock_tick]

These people often have reasons why they are not already working a more classic job and are unlikely be hired or in some cases want to work under whatever new standards and time commitments required for full time employees of these apps.

[vector_spaces]

I'm not saying that they would be -- correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that has been a point of discussion.

A job/app gig can both exploit someone and also give them the ability to survive where they might have few options otherwise. See sweatshops and the agricultural industry for example

[rusticpenn]

I could probably have fuel in my car for two weeks, but be hungry and without food today, Maybe I am looking forward to getting another jon in 2 days so this might help me now.

[abandonliberty]

There's something wrong with this statement because prostitution can be substituted as your suggested service.

[baddox]

Sex work should not be criminalized and those workers should have protections too. Nothing’s wrong with these statements.