this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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Dunno how things are in America, but at lest here in continental Europe, during the pandemic, the app-economy delivery shit was mostly run by befuddled immigrants. Who got absolutely screwed over what comes to fair wages. Not to mention the fact that most of the small and medium sized restaurants that had an existing delivery services basically got bullied to joining the app-economy shit. It's capitalism in it's raw form. Fuck all of these apps.
Most of the gig work stuff everywhere will earn less than minimum wage in most areas (where minimum wage is reasonable at least). The only benefit is that there's basically no skill required, just get a thing (person/food/whatever) and take it somewhere, and you can basically work whatever hours you want; you're and independent contractor for all intents and purposes.
So if a person has the ability to pick things up, carry them short distances and put them down, plus the ability to transport yourself from place to place, usually via a car, and having a driver's license, then you can do most of the modern gig work. Whether transporting people or food/whatever... Knowing English isn't even a requirement even if you're working in a predominantly English speaking country.
It's essentially perfect for anyone who doesn't have the skills or knowledge to do much of anything yet. Not to disparage people that work the job, but everyone should already have these skills with the possible exception of having a driver's license. Even a "McJob" or similar will require a basic conversational English (or other native language) understanding.
Don't get me wrong, knowing the language helps, but it's not a requirement. Translations are pretty good these days, so you can get by without really knowing anything of the language, as long as you can translate stuff to whatever language you speak, you're all set.
In this way, the "jobs" tend to attract people of a certain type, immigrants are particularly prone to being taken in by it and immigrants have the least agency in the society they live in.... At least until they become full citizens of the country they find themselves in.
It's both unsurprising and sad that it's happening, but there's pretty much nothing that most people can do about it. If you boycott the services then those that would need that income will go without. So, is it better to get screwed, but still get something, or not get screwed, and get nothing?
Where I am in the US, delivery basically means using one of the apps, and it’s much more expensive but the fees are typically hidden in insidious ways like just having the menu item prices be more expensive instead of having a delivery fee.
No, genuinely, fuck these apps. I'm dashing to survive right now, and it's a fucking joke. You make just enough to cover your gas and collect a tiny bit for paying whatever pressing, dire thing it is that day, and never make enough to cover the taxes you're going to owe or the maintenance on your vehicle. And guess what? You also can't seem to earn enough to get decent clothes for an interview, or the extra gas to drive to one. I'm lucky I have family support, if I didn't... I don't want to think about it
There used to be a way to game Flex/Whole Foods and make decent cash in a couple (early morning or late) hours. Afternoons were even better if you could get the shifts, flirt with people for better tips, and Amazon probably only kept like 40% of the tips. I could hit $120-150 usually in 2 hours. But other drivers would do the shadiest shit to get the blocks before you, like hanging cell phones in trees
Hanging cell phones in trees? O.o
If you really break it down they're not really covering your time. They're just paying you to extract value from your car on their behalf.
Yep! You're being stolen from by a megacorp.
Have you tried instacart or uber instead?
Neither of them are available in my area. Both are available about 45 minutes away, and I've been considering it. On a good shift, if I make the drive to a nearby city, I can 200 in a night... But I'm getting more and more cynical, to be honest. I'm exhausted of it.
I mean honestly 200 in a night really is not bad at all. Think about the alternatives of where you'd be able to get a part-time job working the same amount of hours and come anywhere close to earning that kind of money.
Ya, but you gotta factor in the higher taxes, as I'm sure it ends up being a 1099, you're looking at a third gone right there. Insurance money, both for the car and health insurance. Gas money, and finally wear and tear on the vehicle. Be lucky to clear 40$ off 200 when it's all said and done.
In order to make that, I have to go to a city 45 minutes away. So that's 15 in gas to get to work. Then I'll spend around 65 on gas for dashing. Then 15 back home. And I'll need to pay taxes out of the remaining, plus wear and tear on the vehicle. It's not as bad as it could be, but it's not as good as it sounds, either. The solution is to make dashers employees with healthcare and everything else.
Where on earth is uber not available?
Anywhere that isn't a relatively large city. Source: I live in a uber-less area. I tried once to use uber here. It threw an error that read more like it didn't have a dedicated error for "you live in a farming community what did you expect to happen?"
Okay so I know it's cool to shit on these apps and shit on how much you're making and everything like that, however without apps like this if you think about it we'd have to be back to driving everywhere to go eat at most places most restaurants profits would be down still and you would have to work at those shit restaurants for even worse pay. And that would be just to barely cover your bills, battery you'd have to work some shitty retail job at night or on the weekends to be able to cover anything which also doesn't pay that much. So frankly people should just be happy that they have an option to be able to do something like doordash or Uber or Lyft or anything else like that. And honestly if people didn't like it then they don't have to do it and if people didn't want to use the service that they don't have to use the service. Everybody is always going to complain about some industry and some jobs some place for some reason.
I don't think anyone is complaining about the service they provide. People - specifically, the workers - are complaining because they are being mistreated by the corporations that run these apps. Do you see the difference?
Food Delivery Services and drivers existed before these apps
Yes, I did that for several years. Didn't make much money, and wrecked a car. But the amount of places you can order from now has moved from Chinese and pizza to everything.
Delivery being shit is because capitalism captures the market faster than any federated or worker controlled efforts. Corporate starvation wages are thanks to deregulation by neoliberal capitalist cultists. Needing to drive for food itself is a creation of capitalists that lobbied against walkable cities and public transit. This idea of capitalism letting consumers decide how the economy works is a fantasy.
How about instead of all that we go back to people making their own food at home and let the restaurant industry die off altogether
Nah. That's idiotic thinking.
I can't tell if this is kinda inept unfunny satire or you're just choking on boot. Please clarify.
Give me a better option then. Go ahead.
For a lot of people, those exist, but I feel like you need to spend some time without taxis for your burrito.
Not in like a punishment way. In like a 'touch grass' way. I'll talk to you again when youve spent a couple months on a remote island eating dried food and enjoying the relatively unfucked nature, cooking and existing for yourself. Maybe have a big dramatic primal struggle or fall in love with a bird or something.
Then when you can come back and acknowledge that the same services can be done non-exploitatively, similar services can be done more efficiently, the life you built on toxic exploitation may need some effort to adapt to a world that doesn't have toxic exploitation¹, and most of your underlying assumptions are about made-up imaginary bullshit that doesn't represent anything real anymore–if it ever even did in the first place, we can talk.
¹and in the event of the two being irreconcilable, I consider your life much much more expendable.
Wow what a rambling incoherent non-answer they could ever be posted. I can't a crap tone I don't rely on these services I do probably 40 to 50 nights a year of camping I also cook pretty much all my food I've been a professional chef in the past and I understand the industry the process and the how to. But that doesn't mean that I don't get home late at night and want to order some food or want to spend a weekend in my pajamas and not leave the house at all. Services exist for a reason. There's a reason Chinese food delivery and pizza delivery has been a thing for decades. And those places always say they're exploiting the employees as well. Before it was doordash and Uber and all the other companies doing it they're claiming how bad the wages for those companies were. Bill always be something to complain about and they'll always be people like you that just say don't use the service and I say fucking use it. That's what it's there for. If they didn't want to be paid to do it they could go find something else to do.
The problem with these apps isn't that they're providing the wrong service. The problem is that I am a fucking employee of door dash being treated like I'm an independent contractor. As if I'm a tradesman, a plumber, being brought in on a contract for a plumbing job. I'm not. I'm a delivery driver. Pizza joints the nation over managed to have employee drivers for decades, door dash can manage it too
Some of my local restaurants had to cut their own delivery service and only use DoorDash. There's approximately 3 places that deliver near me now, it absolutely sucks.
Things are in America (pls send help...
In the US, DoorDash is also mostly immigrants and young people.
Though instacart and uber is a bit different. I would guess you make more money on instacart, but the requires some additional skill and time.