DoorDash Drivers Game Algorithm To Increase Pay (bloomberg.com) 123
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Dave Levy and Nikos Kanelopoulos are trying to beat the algorithm. The two DoorDash drivers -- Dashers, as the company calls them -- are trying to persuade their peers to turn down the lowest-paying deliveries so the automated system for matching jobs with drivers will respond by raising pay rates. "Every app-based on-demand company's objective is to constantly shift profits from the driver back to the company," Levy says. "Our objective is the reverse of that." Their main tool is #DeclineNow, a 40,000-person online forum that provides a view into a type of labor activism tailored for the gig economy. While there's no reliable way to quantify its impact, #DeclineNow's members say they've already increased pay for workers across the country, including in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, where Levy and Kanelopoulos live. But the effort raises difficult questions about the nature of collective action, and there are reasons to doubt whether using a company's own software systems against it is a strategy that can prove effective for a sustained period of time.
In October 2019 they launched the #DeclineNow Facebook group. They urge members to reject any delivery that doesn't pay at least $7, more than double the current floor of $3. [...] On #DeclineNow, low acceptance rates are a badge of honor. Levy rejects about 99% of the jobs he's offered, rapidly declining low-paying jobs to find enough lucrative ones to keep him busy. #DeclineNow's strategy of selectively declining orders is well-known among DoorDash workers -- and not universally accepted. Some question the strict minimum fee rule, citing regional price differences. Others find #DeclineNow to be mean-spirited and toxic, a place where people try to ridicule and bully others into going along with their plan. [...] #DeclineNow has little patience for such naysayers. Users who question the $7 minimum rule are punished with suspension from the group or, as the group's moderators like to put it, "a trip to the dungeon." In a statement, DoorDash said drivers are always free to reject orders but added that coordinated declining slows down the delivery process. The company encourages workers to accept at least 70% of deliveries offered, which awards them with "Top Dasher" status.
In October 2019 they launched the #DeclineNow Facebook group. They urge members to reject any delivery that doesn't pay at least $7, more than double the current floor of $3. [...] On #DeclineNow, low acceptance rates are a badge of honor. Levy rejects about 99% of the jobs he's offered, rapidly declining low-paying jobs to find enough lucrative ones to keep him busy. #DeclineNow's strategy of selectively declining orders is well-known among DoorDash workers -- and not universally accepted. Some question the strict minimum fee rule, citing regional price differences. Others find #DeclineNow to be mean-spirited and toxic, a place where people try to ridicule and bully others into going along with their plan. [...] #DeclineNow has little patience for such naysayers. Users who question the $7 minimum rule are punished with suspension from the group or, as the group's moderators like to put it, "a trip to the dungeon." In a statement, DoorDash said drivers are always free to reject orders but added that coordinated declining slows down the delivery process. The company encourages workers to accept at least 70% of deliveries offered, which awards them with "Top Dasher" status.
WOW! (Score:5, Insightful)
which awards them with "Top Dasher" status.
Wow... that's really going to feed my family!
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This isn't a full-time job, remember? This is for people who want to make a bit extra on the side. If you think you'll earn enough to feed your family, you have other issues.
It's why it's called a 'gig' economy. This is a short term gig, not one to live off.
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It's why it's called a 'gig' economy. This is a short term gig, not one to live off.
You misunderstand what "gig" means. It refers to the length of specific employment in that it is temporary in nature rather than permanent.
"Gig is slang for a live musical performance, recording session, or other engagement of a musician or ensemble. Originally coined in the 1920s by jazz musicians, the term, short for the word "engagement", now refers to any aspect of performing such as assisting with performance and attending musical performance. More broadly, the term "gigging" means having paid work, being employed."
There is no intrinsic reason to believe that one would not be able to make a living from being say a studio musician or club performer.
Re:WOW! (Score:5, Interesting)
Why does one employer not have to pay a living wage, while others do? That just creates an unfair competitive advantage and results in a race to the bottom. The flexibility that comes with "the gig economy" should cost employers more per hour, not less.
Re:WOW! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: WOW! (Score:3)
There is no intrinsic reason to believe that one would not be able to make a living from being say a studio musician or club performer.
It's a pretty well known fact that unless you find a "steady gig" you most certainly are not going to make a living that way. The vast majority of performers in those industries work a regular job to pay the bills, only a small percentage of them will ever make enough to do it full time.
Re:WOW! (Score:4, Insightful)
Saying it is just side work, or that it is work meant for young people, is just owning class propaganda. The fact is, people do have to work these shitty jobs full time, and try to feed a family on that salary. Often times, they have to work 80 hour weeks, at two or three jobs, and still live in appalling conditions while going hungry, or foregoing light and heat, and hoping they never get sick.
Meanwhile, the wealthy have no place to invest all the riches they've stolen. Can't invest them in the economy, as there is no demand, because they've stolen all the money and workers have no purchasing power. So they invest in real estate, buying up homes world-wide, and driving up the price of housing. Stocks go up, the price of real estate goes up, and politicians point at that and say "See? The economy is booming!" Except it's only booming for a vanishingly small percentage of people.
What ends up happening is that you, the tax payer, end up subsidizing corporate wealth. Someone has to provide for these underpaid workers' necessities of life. The taxpayers fund the social safety nets that keep these working poor afloat. And the ultra wealthy pocket the difference. Why pay for poor workers to eat, when you can get taxpayers to pay for it instead?
Re: WOW! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Very good point, and par for the course. The US government and the corporate owned media are hostile to workers. Full stop, no sugar coating.
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Exactly, and since I think the gig economy is a bad idea, I vote with my dollars. I've never used Uber, and never ordered anything from a restaurant using Skip, Doordash or any other of these services.
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And zoning laws that the public voted for--height limits, minimum lot sizes, and so on--support this behavior by artificially limiting the supply of housing. So the housing crisis is our own fault. But, I own my own home, so I guess I should be thankful.
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No. Zoning laws are the distraction the rich use to deflect blame from themselves. What is really happening is that builders are selling huge tranches, entire blocks of new housing at a time, to investment firms instead of people who would live in the homes they purchase.
Quote an actual zoning law to me. Show me where it keeps people from building new housing. NIMBYism is an issue, sure, but it is minor compared to the systemic problems facing new home buyers.
Re: WOW! (Score:2)
stolen all the money
That's not how any of this works.
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Except it is. Read Thomas Pikkety. When the value of the stock market rises faster than GDP does, it means the stock market is taking money out of the real economy. And that is only one way the rich legally take value away from the people who produce it. The government socializes risk, bailing out corporations with tax payer money, but privatizes rewards.
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WHY do people have to work these shitty jobs full time? Given the abundance of free education up to the high school level, and student loan availability for college education, ANYONE can have a higher-paying job than DoorDash if they but try.
Like, this list [study.com] that I just found with a random web search. All you need is a high school diploma for any of those jobs.
I realize the lock down has broken the economy, so this may not be true now. But prior to the pandemic the economy was booming and the number of jo
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Blaming people's condition on their innate personal flaws is simply a way to avoid doing hard systemic analysis. Basically, an excuse not to empathize, because the other person "deserves" to fail and suffer. Changing an unjust system is hard work. If a person benefits from an unjust system, they may be afraid that changing it will reduce their benefits. It's easier to say, without any evidence, that "people don't want to work hard." But it's just a cop out.
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Indeed. It also dismisses people's ability to judge a job on the benefits they would receive compared to the sacrifices they would need to make.
The GP noted,
It is true that some of the work is "dirty" work that isn't fun. But somebody's gotta do that work and it PAYS.
They helpfully linked to a short list of jobs requiring only a high school diploma, where 40% of them had negative growth expectations. Of the other 60%, they neglected to consider whether or not there was demand in the area people live, transportation for those people, and whether or not the cost of working (transportation, parking, child care, etc.)
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The weird thing is that most wealthier people tend to vote for the party that wants to increase taxes and fix this issue (D). While the poorer, less educated people
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Yes, this. Make the tax code work for us, not the rich. Back when we taxed the highest bracket at 90% (yes, we really did that) it only cost a rich man a dime to give a worker a dollar raise. And that worker would turn around and spend that dollar, making more demand for the owner's products.
An important point here is that not all democrats want to fix these issues. Many are pro-corporate, pro-rich neoliberals who fake being "woke" to distract from the fact that they are class warriors, for the rich. Just l
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Don't g
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I'm educated, professional and moderately financially stable. If I voted my own pocketbook, I'd be a staunch republican. Instead, my vote goes to the party that would like to fix these issues. The problem is that my vote is swamped out by all these less educated, underemployed, blue collar types who insist on repeatedly taking it up the rear end so that my stock portfolio can grow at an extra 0.5% per year. Shrug. Fine. If they really feel that strongly about it. That's democracy at work. I'm only a single vote.
You're not alone. I live in a state that's republican run for decades, and they've hacked government and services down to the point of pain for a lot of people. But hey, we get a lot of money back from the state each year on our taxes!
I routinely vote for more taxes and progressive policies, because I understand the economic boom that would happen if we reinvested in our communities. It would drive crime down, open new businesses, and allow for a lot of nice things. But I'm in a minority, it seems.
Re:WOW! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Last I heard people don't usually have to compete for work Every Single Day.
Re:WOW! (Score:4, Insightful)
As these Dashers refuse low-paying jobs and force up prices, the higher pay will attract new deliverers and encourage current deliverers to work more hours, which will push prices back down while leaving fewer deliveries per person. This will cause the more demanding Dashers to quit and seek better employment elsewhere. That is how markets work.
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Large cities in the US that control taxi rates generally require one to buy an license or permit of some sort to drive a taxi and limit the number of those that they issue. Hence, to drive a taxi requires an up front expense - often large and often paid to a middle-man who would buy the permits and then lease or sell them out at what the market would bear. Of course that was all a manipulated market with lots of rent seeking and largely Uber/Lyft has put an end to that.
Re: WOW! (Score:2)
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Fuck off. It's work, it should be paid at a rate that pro rata would provide a liveable wage, or else the rest of us are subsidising their shit business model.
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This isn't a full-time job, remember? This is for people who want to make a bit extra on the side. If you think you'll earn enough to feed your family, you have other issues.
In theory this is a part time extra money thing. In practice this is the best/only job millions of workers have to feed their families.
If it is just you, you have issues. If there are millions of you, your society has issues.
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In theory this is a part time extra money thing. In practice this is the best/only job millions of workers have to feed their families.
Who are you to decide what a thing is to someone else?
I delivered newspapers growing up. I certainly didnt make a living wage. But some adults, at the very same time, did make a living wage at it.
While I was on my bicycle and could deliver to 50 or so customers in my neighborhood each morning, there were adults with vans delivering to a dozen neighborhoods as large as mine every morning.
So, please explain how your ethics fits into this. Was the newspaper evil for not paying me a living wage? If not,
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Was the newspaper evil for not paying me a living wage? If not, why not?
Sure, I had a paper route too. What would be evil is if they did not pay the people with vans a living wage either, which is more relevant to the discussion.
When something doesnt pay a living wage, its as if by magic, people dont do it for a living
You must live under a rock well insulated from reality.
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I've not used DoorDash (I've used UberEats though)
Honestly the only reason to not use these apps more often is that the delivery fee, tip and taxes often double the order's price, so it's only worthwhile if you're ordering enough for 4 people.
That said, cheaper orders, I've had delivered to me on bikes/self-balancing electric scooters from UberEats. So that's always an option for delivery drivers if they mainly service a small area, and cheaper than using a car. The delivery drivers that benefit the most fr
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The Grind is Real (Score:5, Funny)
The company encourages workers to accept at least 70% of deliveries offered, which awards them with "Top Dasher" status.
The grind is now real. No more killing giant rats in the fields to get enough pelts for the new hat. Now we can literally drive and deliver our way to those rare skins.
Re: The Grind is Real (Score:1)
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Good time to be white, bad time to be blue.
Well of-fucking-course (Score:3)
It'd be like showing up to a PETA forum and posting "Are you sure, torturing animals is bad?"
How long before drones become practical for this? (Score:1)
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Unless you are a teenager looking to make a few bucks for spending money then these jobs are just not worth it.
That depends on what alternatives are available.
Obviously, enough people think it is worth it or the business wouldn't exist.
Re:How long before drones become practical for thi (Score:5, Interesting)
Obviously, enough people think it is worth it or the business wouldn't exist.
One can find many documentaries of life in the third world and the things people will stoop to to provide for their families. Recent immigrants to the first world can relate too. Obviously they think it is worth it or the business would not exist /s
The gig economy is the just first world version. Instinctively, we should all be working to improve people's lives. In practice the third world are trying to be more like us, and we are sadly trying to be more like them. Hope all the first worlders will eventually get used to where they actually meet in the end.
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Obviously, enough people think it is worth it or the business wouldn't exist.
There is a difference between thinking it is worth it, and it actually being worth it. You are arguing the former, wyattstorch516 is arguing the latter.
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Drivers need to advocate for a higher share, but the gig companies really need to economize centrally to make this happen. In my area, Lyft often gives a higher quality service than Uber, but sometime costs twice as much. If I do go with Lyft, for a competitive rate, all I see are drivers accepting then dropping me. Very soon Taxis are going to be competitive again if drivers just look for riders to pay more. It is like
Finding the happy medium (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a happy medium here. In the end, if they can, the gig economy companies will drive their workers into the floor, stamp on them and get a new load to stand on the bodies. OTOH, if the workers bleed one company dry, the others, who are worse, will take over. What's needed is something like the German unions which actually look at the total value and try to get investment into the business, not just for the shareholders but for everyone. A fixed $7 limit sounds dangerous. What they need is an app which allows them to share the decline information and coordinate locally so that they don't damage the business they work for but do avoid being taken advantage of.
Re:Finding the happy medium (Score:5, Interesting)
"Every app-based on-demand company's objective is to constantly shift profits from the driver back to the company," Levy says.
The fundamental reason that these gig economy companies do this is because there will come a limit to how much money these companies raise; at some point they need to sustain themselves on revenue. They can't do that in growth alone, and while they claim it's about "marketshare acquisition" the reality is they're battling each other and everyone is horribly unprofitable. So they take from the drivers to maximize their own revenue to try to outlast their competitors and substitutes (like driving to get your own food).
But the truth is, as long as these companies share revenue, they can't be sustainable. They need to automate the drivers out of the game completely and collect 100% of the revenue to be sustainable; this is why for example Uber is working on autonomous cars.
So I look at efforts like this as fighting for labor rights, but ultimately exacerbating the core problem without addressing it; that gig economy companies are not sustainable with a sharing model. These companies' need to fire all their drivers and not lose revenue to survive, so they'll use delaying tactics as long as they can to buy them time to automation. Then we won't be talking about the rights as employees of gig workers, we'll be talking about how they're all living on the street.
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Yeah, but the solution to that is IMHO UBI + elimination of minimum wages + revenue & wealth taxation. That's a much bigger issue you can't solve locally.
Re:Finding the happy medium (Score:4, Interesting)
Wealth "taxation" will never fly in the US - it's not a tax it's simply wealth confiscation. The only people who seriously push for it are the usual populist rabble rousers.
It's not even necessary. You just increase capital gains, marginal rates about e.g. $500k, and then devalue currency as needed with fiscal policy. Add in generous safety nets and some sort of UBI and you get to the same place without the silly pretense that a "wealth tax" is a thing.
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Explain to me why taxing people on their income, especially people who have bit work and might make money this year and then need to survive on it for the next, is at all fair compared to actually taxing people on what they can afford (their wealth). Actual working people already, earning income, end up subsidising a load of scroungers who, because their income is not financial but instead based on increase in land values or produce that they consume directly or barter, basically completely cheat and bypas
need some minimum wages rules of people may get (Score:2)
need some minimum wages rules of people may get stuck own money to the store just to work there.
Say you start an job and buy the end of day one you are in the hole $200 just for uniforms $30 background check + ServSafe $20 and at then of week one you also own the store the $25 in CC fees for the people you Served. And say some did an change back and now start of week 2 you still own the store $450 and if you quit they will take you to arbitration to get and judgment.
sell automated drivers to the restaurant? (Score:2)
sell automated drivers to the restaurant?
But then what happens when an bot shows up at an place that didn’t agree to be listed and they reject it?
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Prison labor can't work for free. If they do it's usually in community service, not for a for profit company. Not to mention that given the number of issues with sexual assault from Uber and Lyft drivers, I don't think anyone would want to have a convict driving them or open their door to their house for them to deliver food.
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is this sarcasm? Unicor?
"Under US federal law, all physically able inmates who are not a security risk or have a health exception are required to work, either for UNICOR or at some other prison job.[4][5] As of 2021, inmates earned between $0.23 to $1.15 per hour.[6] FPI is deemed a “mandatory source” and would receive priority for US federal government purchases in the aftermath of damages from the storming of the US Capitol.[7][8]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://businessreview.berkel [berkeley.edu]
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Unicor is a US government owned corporation that employs prisoners because prisoners are required to do labor. They don't make anything, rather they sell the service of prisoners to other companies to do work for them. Unicor mostly operates on-prison facilities or off-prison facilities that can be closely monitored and keep the prisoners observed, like work details on road cleanup o
Right way (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Right way (Score:5, Insightful)
Simply get the people together and agree
There is nothing "simple" about getting a large group of people to act against their individual self-interest.
What is to stop people from defecting from the group goal? As others hold back, the defectors/scabs can make good money by working back-to-back gigs and combining deliveries. There is no way for the others to enforce their strike or even identify the defectors.
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What is to stop people from defecting from the group goal? As others hold back, the defectors/scabs can make good money by working back-to-back gigs and combining deliveries. There is no way for the others to enforce their strike or even identify the defectors.
Note delivery addresses and put into a separate app. Appropriate enforces wait at delivery address and see who makes delivery. Check that they didn't accept the delivery below minimum value. If they did, set fire to car, with or without driver in it depending on taste. Not a suggestion or even a good idea (hopefully in most countries you will be caught quickly and won't be able to bribe the police to get out of it); just an answer to your question.
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As others hold back, the defectors/scabs can make good money by working back-to-back gigs and combining deliveries.
No one's going to make good money even with back to back $3 deliveries.
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...they need you more than you need them
That's an awfully big assumption.
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I load 16 tons (Score:5)
Re: I load 16 tons (Score:1)
I load 16 tons, what do you get?
Bigger and stronger, if you're smart enough to lay off the Taco Bell.
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Some people say economy is made out of gold
A poor man's made out of hustle and bold
Hustle and bold and grit and swag
A head that's empty and a tail to wag
You tweet sixteen lies, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Sasha don't call me, 'cause I ain't got time
I sold my social to the company line
I was born one morning with my name spelled in red
I was told how to work off the debt on my head
I worked sixteen hours at nine side gigs
And my phone application said, "Oh, that must be for me!"
Free market? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the gig economy all about a free market? DoorDash is free to encourage (not force) their employees/contractors/drivers to accept lower paying deliveries in exchange for a title of dubious value. The DeclineNow group is free to encourage (not force) their fellow drivers to decline those lower paying deliveries in the hopes of driving up the pay per delivery.
In the end, the individual driver is free to choose whether they are better off accepting an offered fee for a given delivery or declining in hopes that a better paying delivery comes along. It may or may not, depending on what other drivers in the area are willing to accept and how many there are. Likewise, DoorDash is free to decide whether the current delivery times are acceptable at their current pay per delivery or whether they need to encourage faster acceptance of a delivery by offering more money for it.
In practice, both DoorDash and a moderately savy driver will be watching average delivery times and prices and choose for their own situation whether or not to make a deal for the given delivery at the given price.
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The elephant in the room is that they are not contractors, they are employees. Minimum wage, holidays, benefits, they should get them all.
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I was assured by Slashdot that any rights and protections for those selfish and greedy workers would disadvantage the rugged individualists who are willing to work long hours in unsafe conditions for starvation wages to further enrich the 1%. After all, without a billionaire class to provide them (out of their selfless concern for the well-being of others) no jobs would even exist.
Even now, they're laughing at how foolish these #DeclineNow folks are acting. Now, there is even less competition for the scra
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There sure are a lot of Randians around here. Their ideas are apparently so good they need to mod down anyone questioning them.
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Sure, but the driver has to make those choices without the benefit of all available information. How is that driver to rationally (in the economic sense) decide if the proposed job doesn't show the full amount being paid (by hiding the tip, not showing the destination, etc)?
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At $3.50 a run, I'm sure many Dashers agree with customers. As you've admitted, DoorDash needs to keep customers coming back but at those rates, it's obvious that quick service isn't the priority they claim.
Taxis have that problem too: Thankfully, there's a limited supply of taxis on in-demand days, guaranteeing work but anyone can be a Dasher or Uber, and compete for 'customers'.
It's easy to become a Dasher: But it's necessary to know a gig is not like a job. It's a competition and like all competition
Wouldn't work with Uber (Score:1)
I have to admit I don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
...why people would take a "delivery job" at shit rates of $3 (or even $7) per delivery, put wear and tear on their car/bike/whatever when you can instead get a job at pretty much any McDonald's anywhere for AT LEAST $15/hour, benefits, and a reasonably straightforward progress route that if you simply come to work on time, do a good job, and aren't a lazy shitwit you can easily get to $20/hour.
To say nothing of a pretty good growth program that lets you move into salaried roles of greater and greater responsibility and pay over not unreasonable amounts of time.
Because schedule flexibility for a second job (Score:3, Interesting)
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If you have an hourly job, it can be tough to get scheduled for 40 hours/week. How many part-time jobs will let you wait until you know the schedule for your first job before signing up for shifts at a second job? Or if your plans fall through for the evening and you want to pick up some extra cash by working a few hours? Very few.
It's "work" to be sure, but are you actually making any money at that "second job" if it's gig work? Even if you take a Doordash gig at $7, if it takes 45 or 50 minutes to pickup and deliver that item then you still have to consider all the input costs that went into it. If you're the schmuck making $3.00 a throw, your "profit" quickly gets eaten up in gas.
And all of this is despite the fact that the business model is not profitable which means they can and will make more cuts.
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I am always amazed by people like you. If it was not profitable for the people who do it why would they do it? Do you think doordash drivers cannot do math? They have no other options in life? Slashdot IT guys think they are the smartest people on the planet. Doordash drivers can do math. If it did not pay enough there would be no drivers.
I didn't infer any of that in my comment but since you want to open your ass and pontificate, ok.
Maybe people do it because it's convenient and fits available time.
Maybe they do it because the services aren't real diligent in making sure the driver's paperwork is in line.
Maybe they just don't want to have a boss.
None of that means it is profitable, it simply means it's a "job".
According to one analysis, after IRS expense deductions and self employment tax drivers make $1.45 an hour. [salon.com] More directly to your p
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What seems more likely here?
1: Millions of people have completely misunderstood their options and all of them could easily get paid way more and have better working conditions.
or
2: You have completely misunderstood the situation those millions of people are in.
Especially since you even say yourself you have no explanation for your hypothesis...
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Fair enough, when I went through the local McDs after you posted, I actually read the sign and it is indeed "up to" $15/hour, $17.50/hour for closers.
However, I asked my kids to ask their HS friends that work at McDs what they ACTUALLY get paid, and it ranged (across a sample size of 4):
$9.10 for someone who just started since christmas, and does closing shifts.
$10.50 for someone who has worked there a year
$9.75 for someone there 6 months
$15.85 for a shift leader (an 18 year old high schooler who has worked
$3.50 including tip (Score:4, Informative)
I remember a story awhile ago (2019 perhaps) when Doordash was caught using tips in their calculations on how much to pay which ended up reducing the actual wage. At the time the company said the practice would end. At those rates, I don't see how it did.
I don't consider myself a socially conscious person, but after all I have been reading lately I think I'm done with the food delivery services.
Got it (Score:2)
The developers of the game that DoorDash Drivers play (apparently to earn money) was tweaked to pay more.
So if... (Score:2)
They've got a forum of 40,000 people who basically don't like working for DoorDash, but do. Instead of declining jobs (which fucks the person who ordered it) to drive up their own income, and probably would ultimately come back double on the orderer in the form of just higher prices in the long run, why don't they form their OWN FUCKING DELIVERY COMPANY?
Is DoorDash a *good* company? Fuck no. But if I were in charge of it, all 40k of these drivers get banned from the platform for trying to fuck with it. Not
DoorDash driver myself (side job, at least) .... (Score:5, Informative)
I've got a few thoughts/comments on this one!
First? I have zero interest in some kind of "collective" trying to push drivers to reject any delivery that pays under $7 or whatever price they feel is "just". I already reject plenty of deliveries offered to me, whenever I don't feel like they're a good deal. I'd rather decide that on MY terms, which tend to change based on where, when and why I'm doing DoorDash on a particular "run".
Beyond that, though? There's truth to what DoorDash is saying; that people consistently taking the deliveries that pop up make the service appear far more useful to customers. Too many people rejecting deliveries in an area leads to people deciding "DoorDash sucks for ordering stuff around here," and they stop trying. They just become converts to Grubhub or Uber Eats or Postmates or what-not, or decide the whole thing is worthless and go back to only ordering directly from places offering delivery themselves.
When I see the really low offers like $3.50 to drive some food across town, it's almost always a fast food delivery. These are usually generated because DoorDash is doing some kind of deal with a big chain so they can turn around and promise "free delivery with DoorDash". Typically, these wind up going to apartment complexes, in my experience, to lower income people (sometimes broke college students), who probably can't afford to pay extra for food delivery otherwise. It's a very different kind of customer than the ones you get ordering from the "sit down" places for entire families.... I usually do skip these, but sometimes grab one if it's close to where I'm at and doesn't need to go very far. I mean, I literally had one like that where the McDonalds was about 500 feet from my location, and the destination was a house on the street behind it. (Turned out it was a babysitter who ordered some snack stuff for the kids she was watching there.)
I don't get the people arguing that these delivery services "need to pay better" because of the people trying to making a living doing them full-time? That was NEVER the point of these gig economy "jump in any time and quit any time" phone app based things! If anything, it's a testament to their success that anyone can actually consider TRYING to do them full-time and earn enough so it seems like a possible option. DoorDash earns me an average of about $18/hr. if I average the whole thing out over the last year or so of doing it. I made $26 in about 45 minutes, 2 days ago, when I took a couple deliveries during my lunch break during my day job. But that's the key: You earn more only during a lunch or dinner rush, so a 2 hour window, essentially. You can't expect you'll earn that consistently at any time or day or night.
Re: (Score:3)
Is that $18/hr after expenses? A car typically costs 0.59 $/mi in the US. That includes fixed costs; marginal costs ("I have the car anyway") are harder to estimate, but I'm not convinced that it is fair to discuss the business economics by considering only the marginal costs.
re: pay rate (Score:2)
No, that's $18 before taxes or expenses. I'm driving an EV to do my deliveries in, 90% of the time, so my cost per mile is considerably lower. Of course, the monthly payment for an EV is also considerably higher -- but yes, I bought it regardless of any interest in doing deliveries in it so.
If you really want to try to analyze the economics of it in fine detail though, there are even more factors to consider. For example, it's not a "regular" thing, but it is definitely at least an "occasional" thing tha
Re: (Score:2)
I already reject plenty of deliveries offered to me, whenever I don't feel like they're a good deal.
That is a luxury some people can not afford.
With enough desperate people you will not get any good deals because there will always be someone desperate enough to do it for less.
Everyone games the algorithm (Score:2)
Industrial psychologists are aware that workers will always game the algorithm used to measure their performance. This is not a bad thing if the performance metric is one that directly benefits their employer as well as the workers. Correlated events are sometimes used to measure performance because they may be easier to measure; for example, arriving at work early can be correlated with a worker's dedication and productivity and it is easy to measure. But, workers very quickly figure this sort of thing
Punished? (Score:2)
If you don't want to decline jobs, why is it a punishment to be banned from #DeclineNow group? I don't use Facebook, so maybe I am missing something, getting banned from a group you don't want to be in, does it affect your Facebook points, badges, stars, smiley faces, achievements, or something else that is of value to the person being banned?
$3 minimum? That’s only a gallon of gas (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As a consumer ... (Score:2)
As a consumer I'm out. Let's start here https://www.npr.org/2019/07/30... [npr.org] . Then look at the prices. It simply costs too much.
Learn to cook. It's cheaper, better, and healthier. Often it's faster.
I'm a crank, so... (Score:2)