[pierat]

And the point behind all those "apps" is that the actual workers get paid peanuts, wear and tear on their vehicle, likely defrauding insurance by doing commercial driving on residential insurance, and getting paid LESS than the total cost to do the job.

And Im sure this ordinance is "hurting gig workers". Well, so is working the fucking gig jobs, but that hurt comes 'down the road' with much more wear and tear on the vehicle, higher incidence of wrecks, no workers compensation, pay double tax for "self employed".

But those billionaire gig companies are doing the rake JUST FINE.

[NovemberWhiskey]

>But those billionaire gig companies are doing the rake JUST FINE.

Are you kidding? All the investors in this space are taking an absolute bath. You can look this up if you want, but I don't think GrubHub, PostMates, DoorDash or Uber Eats have ever made any money.

At this point in time, the only people getting any value out of these services are the drivers, the consumers and the employees (who are, by and large, doing middle class sales, marketing and software jobs).

[mlazos]

Yeah but the VCs got their exit so DoorDash is a success! Growth!

[pierat]

> Are you kidding? All the investors in this space are taking an absolute bath. You can look this up if you want, but I don't think GrubHub, PostMates, DoorDash or Uber Eats have ever made any money.

They never made any money, the same way Titanic, Avengers, Lord of the Rings never made a cent. Those poor studio execs.....

Its a mixture of Hollywood accounting, and an intentional plan to dump all profits back into growing the business all the while undercharging to gain monopoly status. Then, of course once the "gig" is up, they're the only players and can charge high rates and pay pennies cause they're the only mega-delivery place around.

And it doesnt hurt when all the locals fired their drivers and rely on said gig companies.

[NovemberWhiskey]

>They never made any money, the same way Titanic, Avengers, Lord of the Rings never made a cent.

No, they never made any money in the old-fashioned sense that their revenues were less than their costs. This is not hard to look up. GrubHub was doing so well last year that it canned 15% of its workforce.

[TMWNN]

>getting paid LESS than the total cost to do the job

Why do you assume that those workers are so stupid, as to not be able to calculate whether the job in question is worth their while? Perhaps they, with better insight into their own financials, have decided that you may be incorrect?

[pierat]

Sometimes, it is stupid.

Other times, its cause the costs are well hidden UNTIL its time to pay them. And the "gig" seems to pay quite well, until it doesn't. The company side has actuaries to assess risk and understand accurate costs, all the way down to the make/model/year/mileage of your car. You, well, dont. Its all about information asymmetry.

Many times, its simple desperation. When there isn't anything else, you do what you can, even though you're being taken advantage of.

[silverquiet]

Prepare to learn something new - sometimes people don’t make the wisest financial decisions for themselves. Poor people seem even more affected by this sort of irrational behavior.

[floatrock]

Or perhaps they know it's bad long-term, but they're delaying tomorrow to feed themselves today. Sure, they know it'll put more wear on their vehicle, but as long as the breakdown happens in another month or two, well, maybe something else will come along before then.

Some might call this just getting by, some might say this is what climbing the ladder looks like, and some might call this a poverty trap -- the longer you just scrape by, the harder it is to escape.

The debate is about do you call these opportunities or exploitations. It's realistically both, and so you gotta ask yourself how much exploitation are you willing to tolerate before the pizza starts to taste a bit icky? And when it does, how much are you willing to pay to make that pizza conflict-free?