What DoorDash pays, after expenses, and what’s happening with tips
payup.wtf
payup.wtf
Outrageous claim. Source?
An article regarding the P&L:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/12/can-uber-ever-delive...
That just means that Uber is acting as a payment processor for the driver. If you buy an app or make an in-app purchase in the Google Play Store then Google's name appears on your statement; that doesn't make the app publisher Google's employee. The same goes for non-app vendors using Google Pay or similar services such as PayPal. The point of Uber is to connect riders with drivers and provide standard systems for payment and review—the actual transportation is up to the users.
When I was a part time fitness instructor, I taught at corporate gyms where the employees had free memberships. I got a 1099 every year from the gym. Did the employees pay me? Would that be an expense of the corporation?
https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-det...
https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/groupon-changes-its-...
For any less shady business, drivers would be considered contractors for Uber. Uber is merely trying to get around riders being considered employees.
I had a period where I wasn't doing any class work but didn't have my degree and couldn't get a job because of that. The ability to trade time and tires for some of the extra VC money was kind of awesome honestly and I'd imagine it gives people who are in worse situations options they really need (essentially borrowing against car components.)
I know in a few years it will change when they try to become profitable but there will be another thing by then.
Look, we have the technical ability to handle millions of people as hourly workers on timescale granularities of seconds. Require these companies to treat their "contractors" as part-time employees being paid minimum wage: start paying them when they accept their first job on day, pay them for periods of up to ten minutes between jobs, and stop being reviled by everyone who hates slave labor.
It's easy to say "let's do X to make Y better", but it's not that simple with any real world complex system.
Look at bill AB5 for an example currently in progress and ostensibly about helping gig workers. Here's a sobering sample of second order effects:
https://twitter.com/ms_andiloveall/status/120670581104242278...
https://twitter.com/delightedbite/status/1216834042881949697
Also to highlight that currently the government is subsidising these companies by paying food stamps and Medicaid (in the case of the US), and the workers are subsidising them by taking any and all economic and personal risk (injury, accident, car breakdown, long term health issues, etc.)
This just doesn't pass the smell test. It's much, much more likely that their method is flawed than it being the case that a bunch of workers pay DoorDash to work for them.
I can't believe I have to point out that most of the people being affected negatively by this aren't by-and-large "wealthy" or "secure" people to begin with.
They advertise that you'll make well over minimum wage when in reality you'll hardly ever even meet min wage. They could easily guarantee a min wage, which should be no problem if the drivers are all really making so much money, but they obviously don't.
People say "well the drivers shouldn't do it then, they should get different jobs. if it doesn't pay and they keep doing it they're stupid", and then go on to order food from the app and tip $0.50 bc "hey, I only spent $5, that's 10%!"
Drivers are essentially depending on tips to live just like a waiter. They might take home $4/hr from the app. So every time you order you have the chance to make it right for the driver and pay them for doing their job by giving a decent cash tip. IMO $3 is the absolute minimum, $5 is normal. If your reaction to that is "whoa that's way too much what did they do to deserve that?" you're a cheap bastard.
Sorry for the rant, I just did this job for a while and got treated like dog shit by the customers and the companies for efficiently and politely indulging their every whim on demand at any hour, and it makes me sick to hear people who aren't starving living in their cars depending on work like this to survive talking about it in abstract terms like they have any idea. We really should have a period of compulsory food service work for every teenager in this country, seriously.
However, with these gig economy jobs, there effectively is no minimum wage. Yes, things are murky here about the definitions of wage, employee, boss, etc. But the effective hourly rates are all well under the minimum wage. So, these companies can uncover the 'real' minimum wage that the market will deal with (again, suuuuuper murky definitions).
It turns out, that number is very low, so low that most people aren't rationally taking those jobs. Factoring in depreciation, I often hear that they loose money to work (not always, but damn close).
I wonder what Roberts has to say on how the minimum wage and the 'wage' that these gig-econ companies pay relate.
It seems to me that having run the experiments now, the theories that the economists that Roberts is like, well, maybe they should update those ideas.
[0] Excellent deep dives with interviewees, highly recommended: https://www.econtalk.org/
A monopsony labor market is highly unlikely to happen, but something similar can be said of a highly competitive labor market.
If you're wondering how low a wage can be and still retain employees, the answer is pretty close to zero. Even baring the no/very low wages that predominated human history, in the 20th century mining companies were able to avoid paying their employees money at all and instead provided tokens serviceable in stores the mining companies owned. The goods in those stores were sold with inflated prices, essential making the cost of labor close to zero.
The case against minimum wage is largely based off of highly isolated factors typically favoring shareholder economics.
This is simply hard to believe. There are over a million driving for Uber. An overwhelming majority of them must be making money, because the idea that any significant fraction of a million of people is in the red at the end of a year simply is ludictious. Sure, they might be making less than they think after accounting for operating costs, insurance and depreciation, and they might be making less than they would had they got a regular job, but they cannot possibly be actually losing money.
> This is simply hard to believe. There are over a million driving for Uber. An overwhelming majority of them must be making money, because the idea that any significant fraction of a million of people is in the red at the end of a year simply is ludictious.
I think the error you're making is the assumption that everyone in the market is a rational actor with good information and understanding, so that evidence of particular market behavior is evidence that it's rational and beneficial to the person doing it.
It's very believable to imagine gig economy jobs where the workers typically lose money doing them, but it takes them a a long time to figure that out, because the pay is obvious but much of the expense is obscured. Fresh, naive marks take over for those workers who get wise and drop out, maintaining the population of workers. The combination of corporate marketing and desperate hope then help maintain a supply of fresh, naive marks.
Look, the costs with Uber are pretty straightforward: you have car payments, insurance, periodic maintenance and finally gas. People really aren’t too stupid to realize that their Uber income doesn’t cover their car payment.
IRS has a nice estimate of average cost of driving, it’s 58 cents per mile. If you are doing more than that, you are making money, and at Uber you make significantly more than that.
There is room for profit I am sure, but also lots of ways to wear out your car many years earlier than you had expected to.
These economists say what they need to say to get paid.
Usually it boils down to simply believing that "standard of living" is a silly concept.
It's true, the demand for labor is essentially infinite, but having a minimum wage effectively puts a cap on the number of actual jobs. If people could hire maid services for $1 per hour, there'd be a lot of maid service jobs and nearly everyone would have clean homes.
But the standard of living would hit the floor.
Eliminating minimum wage would eliminate unemployment, for sure. But it would also mean rising homelessness or people cramming 5+ people into 400 sq foot studio apartments as the people at the bottom could no longer afford to pay rents on their own. And let's not pretend that only minimum wage workers would be affected, people near minimum would likely wage cuts as well.
Eliminating minimum wage creates a race to the bottom for low-skill jobs as people become more and more desperate for money.
Why do you assume there are enough maids to clean everyone's house at such a low rate?
DoorDash hasn't transferred any money to capital! They are still private. In fact, it is the opposite. Transfers have been from the capital of their investors to labor and to consumers.
There is plenty of innovation here - Uber is a lot nicer than phoning up the taxi company, and DoorDash is a lot nicer than phoning up some small restaurants to get food delivered. The lack of innovation is not the problem.
The problem is that there is no moat. DoorDash, Uber Eats, Postmates, and GrubHub are all providing the same service. There are millions of people capable of being a driver for these services. So competition is currently squeezing profits to zero or negative, and squeezing worker pay. Competition isn't helping the VCs, it's helping the consumers.
Eventually, if some of these companies go out of business, the remaining ones will be able to raise prices, which will be worse for consumers but better for the investors and perhaps better for drivers.
This begs an obvious question: why are people choosing to do this if it pays $0/hr? It’s voluntary. Can they find something better to do with their time?
$2000 will get you a pretty decent vehicle and is probably a better investment than a $1000 repair.
I've since realised that cars are very expensive and you should probably not take a job that requires a lot of driving around in your own car if you don't get reimbursed for it.
As a pizza delivery driver, your pizza shop is your base and you only go out when there's an order that needs to be delivered. My friend used to work at Pizza Hut and he was getting reimbursed for gas (per mile but it was slightly more than his gas mileage so i suppose it covers for wear and tear?).
As far as i know, you're not getting reimbursed for delivering DoorDash and the pickup location could be on the other side of the town.
With pizza delivery, you have to drive to the person's house then back. So you cover the same road twice for a single delivery.
But with DoorDash, theoretically, then could see there's an order from A to B, find a driver near A, have the driver deliver to B, then match that driver up with an order from near B to near A. So the driver could do 2 deliveries in a single out and back trip.
With the assumption that you are going to eventually pay that $3 back into your vehicle, by paying for repairs or buying a new one, you basically just "borrowed" money from your vehicle.
so wouldn't it then make more sense to just sell the vehicle for $10003, then place that money in an interest earning asset like a bond, rather than "borrow" from the value of the vehicle?
chii is suggesting you sell the car. That converts the entire car at once. Then you don't have to spend any hours! As an optimization on top of that, they suggest you store the value in a bond, and pull $3 per hour out of the bond instead.
The real problem with this idea is that selling the car leaves you with no car.
Your objection that "you need the cash now" is based on a misunderstanding of chii's idea. chii's idea does get you all the cash now. It gets you the cash far far faster than $3 per hour. It gets you the cash so fast that you could actually invest almost all of it and pull out $3 per hour and do things you actually want to do during those hours.
It's not "buy a bond, have no money today, have more money tomorrow".
It's "buy a bond, drain the bond for $3 an hour today, have more money tomorrow".
Compared to having 10k under your mattress, the bond has no downside.
The bond is not the problem with the idea.
The problem is that you have no car.
Unless a car is a certain model, it's a liability instead of an asset, so it should be treated like any other expense. If you only use the car for local trips and commuting and taking the bus/biking is doable (perhaps less convenient), then buying a cheap car, keeping a few weeks of food on hand, and taking the bus to work whenever the car breaks down is likely way cheaper than buying a newer, more reliable car.
I used to have two cars (married with kids, so one car for each parent), and then decided to start biking to work to improve my health. I noticed that I can bike most days, and the insurance alone was enough to convince me to deal with the occasional inconveniences (e.g. when it snows, I bike to the bus stop).
The problem is that most people don't actually do the math and just assume that owning a car is better, when it's not most of the time.
it is better, since you cannot do a spur of the moment trip without a car.
It's just that some people over-pay for a car, so you're right about most people not doing the maths.
The deliverer has to be able to earn $1.15 (at least) per dollar depreciated from the vehicle for the work to be "worth it".
(Income - expenses) / hours worked = hourly wage
Is your hourly wage reasonable? If so, it may make sense to optimize away your expenses and generally stay the course. If it's not, would changing your work hours or location make it reasonable?
Unfortunately, I get your feeling that people only look at the income and ignore the rest of the equation (hey, I got $50 tonight! I had to drive 100 miles though...). If you're making $3/trip, you had better drive less than 6 miles or you just lose.
Then maybe you ask why they don't have a cheaper car.
Generally, a cheaper car costs far more to maintain. The total annual cost of ownership of a 2-year-old Camry is far lower than a 10-year-old Camry. But to get that lower cost, you have to temporarily convert more of your money into that car asset.
End result: your cash is stuck in your car, and DoorDash/Uber/whatever lets you liquidate it without selling your car.
That’s a poor example, since a Camry is notoriously reliable and needs minimal maintenance. And ten years really isn’t that old. The depreciation on the two year old car would outweigh the maintenance on the ten year old car. I believe that 5-10 years old is the sweet spot for TCO.
Really? Maybe 10 years ago but cars have become remarkably good recently. I wouldn’t expect a 10 year old car to give you many problems beyond maybe the difficulty of sourcing parts.
Examples:
- Direct Injection : Good for Emissions and Fuel economy, but many first generation systems have carbon build-up issues (Toyota D4S and -newer- Ford Ecoboosts don't have this problem because they have 2 sets of injectors)
- All the transmissions: Ford's DCT is notorious at this point for reliability issues, Hyundai's DCT is not looking so hot so far, Nissan's CVT is a joke, Subaru's CVT is a bit of a diceroll as to whether it blows up at 100k or not, the ZF 9 speed that many manufacturers uses has issues...
I'll note that SOME of these are newer problems, but most of them started happening around 10 years ago and are only finally getting smoothed out.
As a counterpoint, however, the costs of all of these newer safety systems is driving up repair costs in accidents, as well as the insurance premiums for newer cars.
But you can’t argue direct injection is worse than older fuel injection. You save more gas, get better performance (even though you don’t get as many valves), and have a cooler running engine with direct injection. That’s a net positive for the environment and your wallet over the life of your car
A lot of people see car payments as being "normal" and a necessary expense. I have never had a car payment, so adding $200+/month is not something I'm going to consider. However, many people don't have any real cash in savings[1] 40% would struggle with an unexpected $400 expense, 20% don't have $400 in the bank. Personally, I keep at least $500 in cash at home, and I keep enough to cover my single largest "expected" sudden expense (e.g. replace my car), or last at least 3 months without pay (6 months right now since I'm a contractor), whichever is bigger.
The culture around debt is truly alarming. People pay $20k+ at 4+% to drive a car that may be more "reliable", when they could pay ~$10k at 0% (or enter your opportunity cost here for keeping cash) for a car that's approximately as reliable over ~5 years. If both follow the same depreciation curve, buying an older car with cash is way better than buying a newer car on credit. My advice is: buy a cheaper car, pay yourself whatever the car payment would've been on the more expensive car, and use that fund to replace/repair your cheaper car (never pay more than 50% of the value of your car for a repair). I would be very surprised if the majority weren't better off buying older cars with cash than newer cars with credit.
- [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-...
A financially well-off family may have multiple cars, a garage, and some spare time. They can incur the risk of an old cheap car much more easily.
It’s true, though, that you could look at it as a draw-down on a car loan.
My only guess after asking around is people think they "have to". People put their head down and forget to think about the bigger picture. Maybe working for DoorDash is the same type of thing?
Yup, it's called living in the real world.
Yep, it's totally someone's choice to live in a neighborhood with affordable housing as opposed to a mansion across the street from their place of employment. Gee, looks like we both know how to make irrational overgeneralizations.
What's wrong with the commute? The fact that, if you didn't have the commute, you could do all those same things and also anything else you can think of. The opportunity cost is enormous.
I don't think that's true.
In my case, I'd pay the opportunity cost of not being able to both do the PhD with the advisor I wanted and also have my daughter live where I wanted.
If I didn't take the commute, I could do my hobbies, but not simultaneously both do the PhD I wanted and have my daughter live where I wanted.
Only the commute lets me satisfy everything I want.
See?
You can't have your PhD advisor at home, but consider how many people commute to jobs that could be done just as effectively from home/remotely. How many man-hours are lost to that.
Also, it seems like you're using public transport. You're lucky that that is a) a viable option and b) pleasant enough that you don't want to murder people after a few weeks of doing it. The majority of commuters around the world are using personal transport, which has a huge carbon cost and does not allow for doing other things while commuting.
Finally, there are plenty of studies demonstrating the link between longer commute and lower well-being and mental health. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11116-019-09983-9
Personally, I wouldn't mind a 40 minute train trip and a 5 minute walk either side, but a 40 minute drive is awful. I've gone from a 40 minute drive to a 10 minute drive, and I feel "free-er" because of it.
Lived in a bigger place, but had the bad commute.
"The only reason I do it at all is because the few orders where customers tip high enough to make it worth it keep me going on some of them." - Lee, DoorDash worker in Hendersonville, TN
Also of course they may have not done the math yet, or they may be doing this to try and fill in the gaps between their other two shitty minimum-wage jobs that never give them enough hours to be an actual full-time employee with benefits.
It's quite likely that someone working multiple jobs will be worse off doing something like Uber and Doordash part time, but they feel like they're better off because they occasionally get that dopamine hit.
I think everyone should record everything about these types of side hustles. It's quite likely that the extra miles on your car completely erodes the money you make. The IRS allows deducting $0.50/mile, which is a pretty reasonable estimate for vehicle costs. I drive an older hybrid, which I paid cash for, and my cost is still ~$0.25/mile for repairs, insurance, depreciation, and gas (gas is <$0.10/mile if you get better than 26mpg, so it's very misleading).
They take those jobs because they lose all access to the chance of profitable jobs otherwise. The people working for door dash aren't exactly the sort of person with the ability to fully understand probabilities and statistics either. I'd say it's fair to assume their business model works by bullying the same psychological behaviors as videogame loot crates, lottery tickets, and casinos. That one huge order that pays $30 after tips quiets the anxiety of losing money on the previous ten orders even if the actual math places the driver in the red.
They take those jobs because they lose all access to the chance of profitable jobs otherwise. The people working for door dash aren't exactly the sort of person with the ability to fully understand probabilities and statistics either. I'd say it's fair to assume their business model works by bullying the same psychological behaviors as videogame loot crates, lottery tickets, and casinos. That one huge order that pays $30 after tips quiets the anxiety of losing money on the previous ten orders even if the actual math places the driver in the red. Most people have a very poor sense for overhead costs like vehicle maintenance. The link between miles driven and the rate of repairs required just isn't there.
If the non financially viable companies did not exist then financially viable ones would.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
The obvious answer is that it actually pays more.
So that means their estimate of expenses is about 200% higher than what it should be. Since they don't really provide sufficient data to recalculate their estimates, it's hard to say exactly what effect this might have on their conclusions, but it probably changes them significantly.
- insurance - $100/6 months for a second car (from when I was debating selling my second car) - repairs - $400/year (I do most of the routine work myself) - depreciation - $1000/year - misc fees - $150 (registration, parking, occasional tickets, etc)
My second car costs >$1500/year. I bought it used (~7 years old) for $10k, and I've had it for 5 years and it's currently worth ~$5k, so my depreciation estimate seems reasonable, perhaps conservative.
If I drive 10k miles/year (I drive less), that's >$0.15/mile + $0.07/mile (~40mpg Prius), so $0.25/mile seems like a decent low end estimate. If you drive more, depreciation will be higher.
I use the IRS figure of ~$0.50/mile to ball park an opportunity. When I calculated it for my car, I got closer to $0.25/mile, but that's because I got a good deal on a reliable, used, efficient car (~$10k for a 60k mile Prius) and I do most of my own maintenance. The average driver (having a shop do repairs, worse mileage, buy from dealer with loan) will likely be closer to the IRS figure.
The job requires no training and is untaxing both physically and mentally. Despite driver complaints, it's much more flexible than the vast majority of unskilled jobs. I'm sure for most long term drivers, the job basically sucks -- but it's still better than their next best alternative.
Couple this with the general lack of financial education among the populace (40% would have trouble with an unexpected $400 expense, 20% don't have $400 in their bank account) and we have a real problem.
As a society, we need to do a better job of teaching people how to evaluate opportunities. Driving 10 miles for a $3 delivery is probably a net loss, unless you can work out a clever tax arbitrage system (e.g. it costs you $0.25/mile to drive, but you deduct $0.50/mile on taxes).
- [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-...
I'm sure the churn is huge because the pay isn't there.
In certain cities, I'd be willing to bet much of the demographic who takes this kind of job are in similar positions. That is, they're looking for full-time work while wanting to make a little income on the side. In my brother's case, he makes minimum wage or better.
The article explains this: "the DoorDash pay model appears aimed at having workers deliver food effectively for free in hopes of collecting tips."
So you might keep doing loops back to the airport (or a good restaurant precinct) because most of the jobs are OK; but it’s only when I hop in the car for a $10 ride to the next suburb that you discover you’ll lose money on this ride.
Great for me as a consumer; lousy for the driver’s income; and a reason why (to answer the question asked) some drivers / riders accept loss-making fares: they don’t get told in advance how much the trip is worth.
I worked GrubHub back in 2018 when I was between jobs(took some time off to do side projects and did deliveries to make ends meet). These apps play this psychological game on you where you have to accept something like 95% of orders in order to get more quantity and quality(supposedly), so some people are desperate to take all the shitty no-tip orders just so they have a shot at getting better ones.
The funny thing was the lowest acceptance rate I had was 3%, and that's because I hung around a rich area of town and waited for those sweet $20-$50 orders that were only a few miles distance. Always felt like I got the golden ticket. I never got fired for having that low of an acceptance rate.
There were some fellow drivers I talked to on Reddit that got kind of a bad deal. They would drive for GrubHub or DoorDash at a town in Podunk, Nowhere with low demand and would often get sent those kind of orders that were 10+ miles away for $3. If that happens to be the demand, then you're either screwed taking bad orders or you're screwed if you reject too many of them and you get fired.
I think the reason I never got fired is because the LA area, at least while I was doing it, was hot(figuratively) and GrubHub just wanted to fill up the market with as many drivers as possible. In areas where they've fully met the demand, then your arse can be on the line if you reject too many orders.
Overall, it was a fun job to have for a while. But it would suck big-time if I had to actually do it for a living. Thank god I'm good enough at software engineering.
EDIT: Saw lots of hilarious things happen while I was on the job. It's amazing how many women order food while they're taking a bath and then either forget to answer their phone or they come to the door wrapped in towels. WTF! I once delivered a 2 dozen donuts to this one guy at ~10:30pm who was super high accidentally walked into the door before opening it. Also had some sad moments, like those times I delivered to an elder hospice. This one sick old lady wanted to give me a handsome tip, but I didn't want to accept it because I just felt like she deserved that ice cream in her condition and was just happy I brought it to her. But she insisted because she said it might be her last ice cream. :(
Wait a second... Are people not giving a cash tip in these cases? I do no-tip and give cash instead (which I thought was preferred). Is that a bad strategy?
It's only a bad strategy if most or all drivers pass on your orders. Some drivers take these offers in hope for cash. I chose to stop taking those offers because I found most people don't end up tipping me in cash. It was more profitable to drive 20 - 30 minutes to a hot spot or a rich neighborhood where I knew I would get worthwhile offers. (and also not end up in the hood!)
Either consumer tolerance for convenience spending is going to break, or the prices will just keep going up astronomically as a perverse form of inflation (indirectly suppressing all jobs who's compensation isn't similarly skyrocketing).
Maybe because they want to do something purposeful with their life, even if it doesn't earn them any net cash? Maybe a "Thank you" and a smile from a delivery customer makes for a better day then just being "lazy" and watching TV/consuming social media?
“I’m hungry; I’d like to give Doordash some money.” “Computer says no.” “Damn; can’t trust Doordash.”
People outsource tasks in part because they don't want to think about the details. Where do UPS trucks get their fuel? Do they use diesel or gas? How long between oil changes? Do the drivers get cold in the truck? Where do Door Dash drivers use the bathroom while they're working? Is the grocery store losing money on those end cap bargains? How does the electrician figure out how to not get shocked? How does the plumber solder pipes without burning my house down? How do roofers stay safe while installing their safety anchors? How long do painters' paint brushes last?
I don't want to think about any of that; I just want to have a reliable service provided with the details handled for me. Every bit of friction you put into the system with fuel surcharges, baggage fees, resort fees, blackout dates, surge pricing, weekend surcharges, and the like represents both financial and attention loss to me in terms of the value you are providing. (At least surge pricing, weekend call-out surcharges, and blackout dates I can understand as maybe essential to giving an attractive overall proposition.)
The actual number is that Average Gross Earnings are $18.54 per hour. Obviously there are also some expenses, but average expense is not actually $0.54/mile. $0.54/mile is what you get to deduct from your income on your tax return. (So there's actually a tax advantage here too.)
In other words, the guaranteed amount covers more than your expenses, your earnings come from tips, sometimes in the form of cash, and you get a preferential tax deduction on top. It's actually a great deal.
The simple answer to your question is that DoorDash has so many drivers because the job is easy to do and pays well. But for ideological reasons, some people think this kind of employment arrangement should be illegal.
Got it!
You already can live your whole life and never leave a house, working remote or playing the stock market, having everything delivered. It's grim. And it's coming.
Isn't that a food court? I'm not sure you've described a particularly grim future. I mean, there's lots of grimness in the future. But you haven't described it.
Same with the user perspective. I use UberEats because it has all the restaurants. I'm not going to download the 2nd most popular app.
Brand awareness among both diners and restauranteurs. Integration with POS systems and financial plumbing.
Economies of scale might exist any time you have infrastructure that can be shared.
I'm not trying to disparage people, but without some level understanding of economics, it's not obvious that whatever rate you receive is not your 'wage'. These gig jobs don't pay wages, they pay something closer to a fee. Maybe it's more like rent. Somebody else can comment on the pedantic differences. Point is, the relationship is skewed in favor of the party doing business, not the party providing the service.
So what? This is capitalism, you have the freedom to seek other opportunities elsewhere. Hold up. If this is your business model, you are dependent upon the current wave of de-regulation. What are you going to do if/once the pendulum swings the other direction? What happens if minimum wage ever becomes something reflective of a living wage?
These gig jobs posit themselves, subtly, as a 'side-hustle'. Something which shouldn't have to exist, but does, simply due to the lack of well-paying jobs for those without advanced education.
Tips should be about rewarding going BEYOND the normal... not as a basis of someone's wage.
Tips are not expected, and are meant only for extraordinary service. The base pay is decent and so are the benefits like vacation, pension etc.
Although, a quick web search shows that at least in Quebec, minimum wage for tipped workers is 1.9$ lower vs. not applying at all in many US states - better, but still sad.
Australia is one of the best countries imo. Minimum wage with penalty can be up to as high as $100 per hour ( yes $100) and starts around $25+
The service sector is actually considered to be a low-cost offshoring center for American businesses, due to lower median salaries, and a weak Canadian dollar.
Although if I were doing that if just have a vape of deems rather trying to find some weird nasal spray thing.
What's with the American obsession with outlawing poor people's jobs?
(My adopted home country, one of the richest places in the world and one of the best places to live, doesn't have a minimum wage either.)
Because other countries haven't institutionalised the idea of poverty-line wages.
Their unions regulate wages, and in practice this means the same thing as a government-mandated minimum wage. It just so happens that their structure is a little different.
We don't really have a minimum wage in Austria either, but wages are regulated per industry. So employers are still required to pay certain wages, even though we don't have a general minimum wage.
And there's no such thing as including tips in the wage, tips are always extra.
(There is one major loophole, of course, which is hiring people as contractors, but that requires convincing the authorities that your employees are not really employees)
The countries you mention don't need minimum wages set because they have other mechanisms or even just social norms that ensure nobody is having to work 8 jobs to try to feed their kids.
It's a neoliberal fantasy-land, yes. Lee Kuan Yew's autobiography was called "From Third World to First" for good reason.
What do we know about Singapore? It has masses and masses of public housing, so people are looked after in a way that doesn't happen in the US. The US is very keen to push this sort of thing on employers - see also health insurance.
It's a different model and I would agree probably a worse one, but either way it's the state ensuring people have their basic needs met.
The US healthcare-through-employer tax rebates are crazy. But politically untouchable, alas.
Also living on any sort of low wage is massivly uncomfortable. Just affording air conditioning is difficult.
Even people with great jobs end up living with multiple generations of family in tiny apartments.
Scandinavian countries have massive powerful trade unions that work to negotiate standards and wages for everyone. Even if you're not actively part of a union, your employer will almost certainly use Collective Labor Agreement negotiated by the trade union. This CLA guarantees certain things like vacation time, minimum wages, break times, etc.
Now you could not use a CLA drafted by a union and instead try to fuck people over with your own contracts. That's not very likely to work though since these countries tend to have strong social welfare systems coupled with free healthcare. So if people quite due to shitty pay and/or hours, they can still make do with social benefits. Also people here in Finland at least, know that for most jobs you absolutely want a CLA drafted by one of the unions because that CLA protects you.
Most companies use the CLA's as a base and allow employees to negotiate better contracts if they want to. E.g you can ask for less hours and more pay, the CLA generally only guarantees minimums. Now an employer can always try to renegotiate the agreement with the union for their workers, but you better be damn sure you treat your workers right since if the unions decide that you're not, they will fuck you up.
These unions are massive and hold a ton of power. In Finland over 70% belong to a union and it is not uncommon for them to strike if the employers are trying to fuck them up. The best example of this is the recent chaos with the Finnish Postal Service.
To give you an idea on what happened, the postal service tried to renegotiate the CLA they used, which would have resulted in worse pay and hours for the workers. Union was taking none of it and went to strike. The postal service tried to get around this using questionable means which broke International Labour Organizations rules. This led to a ton of sympathy strikes which eventually ground the nation to a standstill.
Public transportation froze, flights were cancelled, trains didn't run, all goods transported by postal cars were boycotted by unions this led to stores not being stocked up as they should have for example, ferries and cruise ships under Finnish flag froze. Among numerous other things. The unions eventually won after inconveniencing thousands of people and costing corporations tens of millions of euros.
The workers didn't get shafted and their rights were protected even without a government mandated minimum wage.
But the point I wanted to make was that I think even if we had stronger unions, Americans like myself have become lazy and afraid of being inconvenienced. We had Occupy Wall-Street, but I'm just not sure. I just don't envision my fellow Americans striking, together, for things. We're barely united on anything as it is right now.
Just some general thoughts/comments. I'd love to hear other perspectives on this.
That would be illegal in Switzerland (not really a business hating commie hell hole). When a collective agreement exists for specific areas it applies to all companies in that area.
That's not to say that dodgy firms don't try to get around it, but if they're caught it it gets expensive and troublesome. And checks (alas, I don't know if sufficiently) are conducted.
The national mail in Finland is tasked to do letter service, which no other postal company is doing. Letter service is also the most human intensive job there is.
That didn't mean that people were working several jobs to get by, not that they were paying to work. Maybe it was the easily accessible public welfare that forced employers to pay a living wage, or the large proportion of union membership.
If everyone suddenly stopped tipping then service workers would default to minimum wage. For anyone with a different experience your employer was breaking the law.
But what I think you’ll find is that it is the service workers themselves who prefer working for tips.
I'm sure they'd prefer a sensible wage + tips, over a sub-minimum wage supplemented by tips.
Minimum wage in NYC is $15/hour and $10/hour for food service workers. Some restaurants have started paying their servers more and not allowing tips. But are the employees actually earning more? I doubt it.
> Some restaurants have started paying their servers more and not allowing tips.
Service bad? -> complain to employer, employer punishes employee
Service OK? -> employer pays employee for work done
Service good? -> employer pays employee for work done and customer pays employee for good work (and employee shares it with all the other employees who are in the chain of service).
Where people seem to disagree here is with the idea that service workers are better off with low wages + tipping than higher wages + no tipping.
That's how it typically works where i live. servers share the tips and split the haul.
I don't know what social dynamics caused this, if it is a fluke or expected behaviour. So no way for me to predict how Americans would react.
Tipping is generally based on the quality of the establishment, you tip at a higher class restaurant but you don't at restaurants that are franchised or common brands.
At least they acknowledge the problem.
It's not like the US situation where the 'minimum' of $2 or whatever it is would be absolutely unliveable.
The distinction is that a different law exists for that category of workers, not that they aren't paid legal wages.
Other countries do make exceptions to their pay rules. For instance, younger people that are likely to be working temporarily may be excluded from benefits rules.
Wage theft by employers is over $20 billion a year (more than all other kinds of theft combined) and wage theft happens predominantly to those being paid minimum wage.
17% of low wage earners are subject to wage theft -- 2.4 million people just in the 10 most populous states -- and the average amount of theft is $64 a week. Which doesn't sound like a lot but is 25% of their weekly wages.
It's nice to say removing tips and adding vacation is what workers want, but how will United States workers afford premium phones and buy larger houses?
Expectations are different. It's an entirely different set of cultures. More space, more premium goods, more modern conveniences seem to be common goals more Americans share than not. We like new cars and big televisions. So it's not surprising that employment compensation is oriented toward that, and less toward things Europeans tend to value like healthcare, social services, etc.
This all breaks down, of course, when wages are low _and_ you don't have a social safety net.
If you're in the US and your problems are vacation time, "buy[ing] larger houses", etc., you're not in a position to even get tips. You would be in a privileged class of educated workers with a perfectly fine quality of living.
We're talking about the average US worker. This person has never taken a vacation in their life because they've never been in a position to. They take what they can get, which in the case of the gig economy is often well below minimum wage. If they have a roof over their head it's likely only by the grace of a wealthier family member. This person works their ass off performing the unskilled labor that makes our world go round and they get treated like a criminal for it.
In Sweden in particular, it seems that the waves of refugees in recent years have only fueled this.
For game theoretic reasons / general equilibrium, you can't restrict tips like that. Even if you try.
Your shop can ban tips, though.
When customers tip, and total wages in the tipped jobs are thus higher than in the non-tipped alternatives, workers will change jobs until expected total wages are about equal.
What works in other countries, eg Japan or Australia, is that different social norms lead to much less total tipping. But you can't transform eg American into Japan or Australia at a whim.
It's up to customers to make tipping the exception and not the norm. But that's hard: because the individual tip goes directly to that starving poor devil who served you and has a relatively big impact on their life, but only a very small impact on workers' expectations when changing jobs, there's a 'tragedy of the commons' going on: each individual tip you give provides you with a nice warm fuzzy feeling of altruism, but it damages your total goal of having decent base pay.
So, it's very hard for individual customers to change that. But: individual employers can drive change. They can forbid tips and prominently display that they do so, so that both prospective workers and customers now what they are in for.
Prospective workers will demand higher base pay. Customers will take the lack of tip into account when comparing prices.
A Google search for 'restaurant bans tips' shows a lot of write-ups about experiments. It's not a panacea, of course.
What society should do is require a decent base pay (regardless of tip). That way I know that my server can make ends meet if I tip them or not, and tipping them becomes a curtesy, not a necessity.
My point: If "society" "requires a decent base pay", then waiters are going to get shafted, unless by "decent" you mean $40+/hour. The people getting screwed by tipping culture are not the front-of-house workers, but the other employees and the customers.
I think the most compelling argument is to point out that the people doing the real work in a restaurant--the cooks and the dishwashers--are paid much worse than the waitstaff, who really aren't even necessary.
I'm not suggesting to "replace" tipping with anything. I'm saying you should pay waiters enough so they don't depend on tips. Tips are a nice bonus, but they shouldn't be necessary.
Which is the situation in most places other than the US.
Here in Austria waiters are grateful if you tip them, and they might think you're cheap if you don't tip, but they still make enough to live even without tips.
the qualifications for FOH vs BOH staff are really not that different, except that you have to speak decent english to be a server. either one you can get hired on the spot with no experience if youre willing to start on the low end. ask any cook whether they would rather do the server's job and they'll probably say no.
In my area, restaurants are allowed to pay waiters less because tipping is expected, and a restaurant is required to pay workers more if they don't make minimum wage after tips. It's really odd, and we should just remove the exclusion for restaurants. I think simply removing the exception will end up fixing the culture around tipping.
This isn't always a bad thing, but on a whole, it does distort the market. At some point you have to weigh up if the good effects of this are worth the bad effects. If there were higher taxes, costs, or otherwise more risk for investing, it would limit that a lot.
Step 1) Use VC money to subsidize the price so that the market price is below cost
Step 2) Continue to use VC money to subsidize while competitors, who don't have the same cash, lose customers and eventually contract or die off
Step 3) Once you are the only real player, use your dominant position to raise prices
1) VCs invest money in companies hoping that some of them grow very fast
2) some of them do grow fast, so more VCs invest more money
3) the really really big companies IPO and the VCs make a lot of money
All of this can happen way before your step 3.
1) Invest in startups and show/push fast growth
2) Leverage FOMO to get more investors
3) Collect management fees
Once in a while get lucky with a unicorn. Bonus.
Most of these pump and dump startups just IPO and their shares are brought via funds and such.
I bet income inequality gradually rising due to these VC funded startups
- borrow ungodly sums of money at near-zero rates for a decade, and splash it on anything that moves.
Moral hazard? never heard of it!
I have business ideas, but I'm completely avoiding the VC game for now because I don't want to play the "build now, figure out profitability later" game where I'll likely be be forced into a profit model I don't agree with. My current approach is:
1. brainstorm solutions to problems I see 2. brainstorm a few profit models for the best ideas 3. Build an MVP, waiving the profit model initially (free trial and whatnot) to validate the idea 4. Implement profit model 5. Seek funding for growth 6. Exit
The VC game seems to go 1, 5, 3, 2, 6 (step 4 comes when?), which seems super broken. It seems like VC funding -> IPO is the profit model for many projects, and the board (after IPO) is left to figure out how to sustain that.
VCs are backed by large amounts of capital because most government policy has been to stimulate growth and the only way they know how is by giving away large loans at insanely cheap (in many cases even negative in real terms) interest. This means that VCs can actually lose out on money by not taking those loans and investing it, and that in turn drives a lot of speculatory investment, as well as inflates asset and stock prices which the government then uses to show how good it is.
This is why you correctly spotted that step 4 is not a requirement for start ups anymore, because so long as you are big enough to be speculated on, you're good for funding. Whether that means it's broken really depends upon your definition of working, as a lot of people believe it's fine because all seems to be going great. This is the gambler's fallacy. It's all fine, until it isn't.
The reason the sequence matters is that, for DoorDash to need to raise its payments to its workers in order to keep them from running to the other employer, that other employer needs to be able to hire all of them, or at least so many that DoorDash finds its access to the labor market significantly restricted. But clearly a new entrant starting small will not be able to do that; they can only do it once they get big. But they will not be able to get big if they are charging higher prices for the same service as DoorDash.
So, no, much more reasonable assumptions are available to justify my inference.
They just don't make as much money, so are inferior.
Unless of course, customers don't tip. Then your suggestion is not an inferior competitor.
Extending that to restaurants may be a bit of a stretch.
Never use Uber, Lyft, Doordash, Uber Eats, AirBnB etc. No exception irregardless how easy or cheap it may be. It's a small sacrifice but can and will make a difference.
Using these services to me is like asking a waiter to pay for part of my meal. When it comes around to paying the bill are you able to face someone and ask them to pay for part of what they just served you knowing that they are barely making a living?
If you live in the US, you have to give up a lot of services if you don't want to buy from people who are underpaid..
Does this mean something completely different in the US compared to the rest of the world? How is anyone in this business being underpaid?!
Relocation agents (employed or freelancing) can easily bill $1000/day over here so I was a bit confused.
She was freelancing and looking forward to Obamacare -- having not had healthcare in 15 years.
I took note of that, because to me not having health insurance seemed completely unreasonable. I almost left the continent when HR tried to convince me I should trust "retroactive" insurance -- and I would get the policy after 30 days, lol.. maybe in just paranoid :)
The latter part is the worst. It's one thing to be a dick but at least if you are then own up to it and be a dick to everyone equally. But this is literally the worst, as it explicitly aims to exploit the most vulnerable (who may not have a huge social media presence or a contact within the press) while attempting to keep a good public image (given the company is still around I guess that's working).
Secondly, you have the option of giving a nice tip. I suspect they'd prefer that over not renting their Airbnb or whatever service they're offering.
DoorDash is litterally taking the tips left for the staff though ...
Give cash instead as long as this is the case.
Ride hailing is regulated, in part, to ensure that people aren't being taken advantage of. It's also regulated to make sure that taxes and fees are being properly collected.
Taxis and private bus services weren't always regulated, but they became regulated because they took advantage of their customers. Similarly, regulations are placed on ride hailing to that passengers get what they paid for and there is at least some accountability.
Everyone that stayed over would become friends or friendly and we'd provide anything they requested.
The problem is the trash hotel nearby doesn't like competition and reported us to the city.
Airbnb corrupted that by incentivizing a business model where investor groups buy up entire properties solely for Airbnb use. That's very different from what you're describing. They're acting as full-scale hoteliers, but evading hotel regulations and zoning laws by setting up shop in residential neighborhoods. And of course, reducing the overall housing supply for all the people who actually live in that area.
- incumbent taxis are also predatory services that abuse drivers, arguably worse than Uber/Lyft - and they're a shitty rider experience in many many ways.
- hotels are OK but rarely provide kitchens, let alone friendly hosts who bake you killer banana bread (yesterday's stay)
- delivery from individual restaurants is rarely available at all, and thus you're going to call a Postmates/etc to help pickup. Delivery is all-but-required when feeding a large group, e.g. work function.
You can thank the likes of Uber Eats, Deliveroo, etc. A lot of restaurants would've otherwise had their own service, and some actually replaced their own service with these companies.
I'm sure it's usually pretty easy to convince oneself that others won't give up the comforts so nothing will change and just continue using the services.
Great, but is taking away bad jobs really the best way to do that?
I have to assume any VC taking part in a business that needs additional human labor to scale and hence has significant marginal costs is simply betting on being able to dump the company in the public markets.
My gut non-PhD economist feeling is that AirBnb has very few people from the bottom 2 quartiles participating in it in the first place. It's wealthy land owners offering short term rentals to people with substantial disposable incomes.
Cash and capital poor people are largely excluded (priced out) from the platform altogether, whereas on DoorDash and Uber/Lyft they comprise the vast majority of the service providers.
When I need delivery, I'll check to see if they offer it in-house. For pizza places I know they hire their own delivery staff, so I make sure to tip well.
Because that's the model. Let's make a story good enough to be funded and then pay ourselves with that money. The business just has to appear to be a good enough bet to sell it to the money.
Why would you ever consider running a legitimate, profitable, down-to-earth business when you can do the above instead?
This is also why I quit the startup scene and despise most of them (including some that I used to work at). I try my best to focus on local, real businesses. They might be legacy, you might find "uncool" technologies but most of them at least have a real product they sell at a profit without screwing anybody and the work-life balance is often better.
You have those. What's wrong with trying alternatives? There are good reasons to contract out services. If you're building widgets maybe it doesn't make sense for you to also employee cleaning crews or maintain your own transportation infrastructure - why not contract out these non-core services?
On a side note, the kind of question you raised typically can be reduced to "I don't understand why anyone would do something different, therefore they shouldn't do something different" ... it's in the same spirit as a UFO consipracy theorist who may say "This light in the sky isn't Venus, isn't a satellite or a plane and isn't anything else I'm familiar with, therefore it must be aliens". You have to be careful with setting constraints on innovation because YOU can't envision why it makes sense.
People who don't know any better get sold on the "be your own boss, earn what you put in" concept. Reality doesn't match expectations. The people work their asses off and wind up with a lot less money than they expected because costs and actual spent time aren't taken into account. The people they're working for continue to make lots of money. People quit, but are soon replaced by the next sucker.
MLMs still exist and are going strong, but culturally we're more aware of what they are. But maybe we're becoming more aware of what "gigs" are.
Perhaps, and I both love and hate myself for saying this, 'the gig is up'?
"I'm an entrepreneur!"
"Cool, what does your business do?"
"Help people get started on their own businesses!"
"And what do their businesses do?"
"Help even more people get started on their businesses!"
I believe that is what the OP means by MLM (multi-level marketing)
The proposed business virus is different. Unlike a pyramid scheme most costs are on signup, and there are no multi-level incentive structures.
The same goes for "thought leaders" selling "masterclasses" on "building an online business" or "blogging from home". I won't even touch on the crypto space which is full of these charlatans.
Sorry I should qualify that statement. Obviously for certain niches it has been viable for a long time (e.g. pizza delivery) but it seems like delivery is already baked into (pun intended) that business model. Perhaps it only works with the “ghost kitchen” model which gets rid of the overhead of an eating area and waitstaff.
>People who don't know any better get sold on the "be your own boss, earn what you put in" concept.
I personally know no person who thinks driving Uber or delivering food is a job where you are “being your own boss”. It seems like these jobs are generally perceived as low-status low-paying jobs for people without education who have no better opportunities.
Then my first child was born, and there's a great mixing of classes and social circles that happens. You no longer necessarily choose the adult friends you interact with.
All of a sudden, the whatsapp chat we setup among parents to coordinate 'kids things' became yet another platform for these MLM moms to push their shit (the dads are too busy talking about sports and gambling.)
It's really sad, desperate, and shows a complete lack of social awareness -- something I was never exposed to.
I was once stumped in trying to figure out why people do things against their own interests, but the MLM moms gave me the answer: A lot of people lack the critical thinking, distancing and math I consider fundamental.
Mother in law took my partner and I to a "flipping houses seminar" with one of the TV hosts (by which I mean there was a cardboard cutout and some vague promise that if you signed up for the course there might be some meet and greet at some point).
They boasted "10s of thousands of members, some of whom had flipped 30+ houses with us!", and "We've financed 100 million of purchases".
Wow, exclaimed people, that's a lot of money! And for only $4,995 for the course!
And then I pointed out to MIL that at, say $100K a house, that formerly impressive $100MM investment was only 1,000 homes flipped...
... from 10s of thousands of members... "some of whom have flipped 30+ homes".
So, extrapolating, the average person that went through their course flipped... maybe 0.025 homes.
Faced with that math, she put away the checkbook and we left at the intermission.
But then once in awhile I'd get a string of maybe 3 or 4 runs that paid like $12. over 2 or 3 hours.It was too inconsistent. Had no idea if I ever got tips, from my understanding I think the company pocketed it due to how they were paying at the time.
The community talks about gaming the system and denying deliveries less than x dollars but I personally couldn't bring myself to do it. And after waiting an hour I'd be dying to get moving again anyway.
This was before all the pay drama, it sounds like they've gotten much worse. There's just too many drivers I think.
That's fascinating. Seems like the free market really would drive the wage to 0. DoorDash's "innovation" is the black box to obscure the fact. If they paid more fairly like their competitors, they wouldn't be growing as fast.
Seems kindof like a cyberpunk future, with corporations negating regulations through advanced technology. Also in those cyberpunk futures, society breaks down into a lonely free-for-all, where the poor masses escape drudgery by playing with high-tech entertainment fantasies like games and VR and ...
oh wait...
It's grey commerce all the way down!
Classic information asymmetry exploitation, only in this case, they're the ones that created the asymmetry.
I'm guessing partly because few understand their expenses and net pay.
And some really do value the ability to work whenever.
interesting, I'm desperate for more drivers.
I run a side business that delivers cookies, drivers do just under 30 deliveries a day (about 3-4 every hour) and make minimum wage plus 100% of tips are split at the end of pay period. it ends up being about $3/delivery in tips, which is an extra $9/hr for a total of $21/hr (minimum wage is $12). A driver could theoretically make over $50k/yr if they worked 6 days a week, but most choose not to (4-5 days a week).
I've put a lot of work into the software to make it as efficient as possible so driver can get more orders and tips.
My business: https://cravecookie.com/
If the mileage cost is the $0.58/mi stated in the article, then the cost of driving ~15-30 miles in that hour is $9-17.
Split with who?
If a baker went on only 2 deliveries then they get 2% of tips. Ends up averaging to "$3/delivery in tips" that i shared above.
Thats just for tips from the checkout form, they keep cash tips.
* Drivers want consistent volume; a single popular vendor can provide that. * Drivers prefer ultra efficient transport with what they have. A car in a low-density city like Fresno can work well. But a car in a city like SF is a hassle. * Pay needs to be transparent.
Doordash / Uber eats appear to be finding that “ride”-share for food order delivery can’t make ends meet with the above. Having more traditional dedicated delivery is probably just a better business. Probably why TK decided to do cloud kitchens.
>poverty wages
This is the California minumum wage, but our location is in fresno which is a lower cost of living than the bay or LA.
>Gee, I wonder why nobody wants to work for you?
chill. Starting a company is hard.
> Why should they work for you when they could work there (Aldi)
Why work for Aldi when they can work for Dangus?
At the $3 tip per delivery you cite, that's 133-167 deliveries. It's not improbable that the all-in cost of driving is $1+ per delivery, also tips of more than $20/month are taxed (at the full value of the tips) for both income and payroll tax (unlike, incidentally, mileage reimbursement up to the IRS limit of $0.58/mile which is completely tax free.)
That sucks (EDIT: that is, the pay you are offering.) Back when I was driving delivery (pizza, but it doesn't matter) with a personal vehicle, we got minimum wage, plus $1/delivery (and this was in the early 1990s), plus kept 100% of tips at the end of the night. The only drivers I knew of not getting a per-delivery reimbursement were driving employer-provided vehicles. If there isn't a per-delivery or mileage reimbursement, you are effectively paying below minimum wage before tips, because cars cost money to operate.
I'm not saying that's why wages and prices suck - because it's pretty much the same for all the apps.
Every time I order from one of these apps I'm paying $40 for something I could have paid $20 at the restaurant. For the 10 min car ride that seems like everyone involved should be making a killing so I don't know how people aren't getting paid. If it wasn't 10 degrees outside or I had a car I'd just bike/drive the 3 miles myself. Unfortunately having a car where I live would mean I'd be paying $400 for parking, so might as well order $40 food delivery 10 times a month instead.
As a customer I suppose I should start adding tips only after the order is finished rather than when I place the order.
According to a quick search federal standards in the US requires at least $2.13 per hour be paid to employees who receive at least $30/mo in tips, with the total needing to hit 7.25. It's probably higher in some areas. This is part of why wage theft is such a pervasive problem in the US because it's very easy to get away with it in scenarios where you're supposed to be compensating for variable tip income, etc - sometimes the boss just doesn't pay what they're supposed to, oops!
Of course you can tip after in some of these apps, but they don't consistently surface that to you. I know offhand how to add a tip hours after a Lyft ride (i've done it before, there's a little link buried in the receipt) but honestly don't know how I would do that for a doordash or grubhub order, I'm not even sure I can.
I try to tip delivery drivers with cash now that I know the services used to steal tips, I can't trust them not to do it again - but if I don't have any cash on hand I'm probably just going to plug 15-25% into the app when placing the order and if I get unbelievably bad service I can try to claw it back by complaining to support.
FWIW it seems like these services are pretty generous with refunds/discounts when you have a bad experience if you contact them. I've only had to do it once, but my sister has gotten $5-15 refunds from services like grubhub or doordash multiple times when a delivery goes haywire. I assume they build that into their model as an expected expense on N% of deliveries.
I bet the refund comes from the delivery person's pay.
and by doing this, you're just perpetuating the problem. If the base pay is too low, the worker _needs_ to quit, but if you force yourself to tip just enough to string them along, you're only kicking the can down the road.
Edit: to clarify, the tip isn't included in the sticker price of the meal/service. Therefore, a business is indirectly mis-advertising the true price of their product/service, and thus, gain unfair advantage in the market. The business then surreptitiously charging you more by adding the tip, and therefore, the true price is hidden until after you're already completed the meal, and too late to refuse the tip.
This is only true for the first time you buy a meal in the US. After that first experience, you know the tipping etiquette. So, at the time you peruse the menu, you can factor in the tip you expect to leave at the end of the meal.
However, where the real price is hidden is in establishments which add a surcharge labelled 'SF Health' or similar to the bill. This is sneaky because:
i) Unlike sales tax, the SF health mandate is not a consumption tax. It's just a regulation that specifies the minimum an employer must contribute to employees' healthcare costs. It's just like any other business cost, like cooking oil or lightbulbs.
ii) some businesses declare the amount they will charge on the menu, but usually in small writing (the most egregious example I've seen is yellow text on a white background, on a sign near other random promotional signs at the cash register)
- some businesses don't tell you about it at all. I bought some burgers (which were yummy) and paid by card. I had no opportunity to see the itemised bill on the POS machine, but paid anyway because the total was in the range I expected. Only when I received the email receipt moments later did I discover the extra charge.
All those hipster restaurants where you need to go up, order, and pick up your own food?
I mean when you order Papa John's for example they tell you explicitly that the delivery fee isn't a tip for the driver. In some vague but not terribly meaningful way your delivery fee does pay for the driver's wage but so does the every other form of revenue.
And likewise, if there's a delivery fee and a separate service fee for a delivery, I would assume the delivery fee goes to the one who does the delivery and the service fee goes to the middle man. What's the point otherwise? Why not just merge them into one single fee?
If you had to add "delivery: $5.99" and "process order through FoodApp: $1.99" to your cart would it make more sense? They're services your purchasing. Do you expect the money for the pizza goes to the chef?
> I assume that the rental cost goes to the owner, and the service fee goes to AirBNB.
Why? Hostels.ru negotiates a rate with hotel chains and then charges you as much as they think they can get away with. No reason to think they're related.
If they're taking dollars where they should be taking dimes, you expect somebody else to come in and undercut them. So customers expect that most of a $10+ fee is going to go to the driver, regardless of how that fits into the structure.
That's clearly not the case, and the real question is why. It's not profitability.
But stealing tips is as low and unethical as it gets. By definition a tip is a direct payment to the service provider. Even pooling tips is not ethical. But literally stealing tips is false advertising. They are selling tips and delivering something else. Call it something else, but if you call it a tip and don’t pass 100% to the delivery person you are an unethical person. And this is coming from a free market capitalist.
I went to Popeyes last week and there’s just a stream of receipts from online orders constantly printing, and they have to fulfill all those while dealing with everyone that comes in. And of course they aren’t getting paid any more to do maybe 3-4x the work they did before these apps got popular.
In that world being paid per job seems better than making the same to do much more work.
I worked for $5.25 an hour as a teenager, and that doesn't mean they just employed more people and we all took it easy. I would challenge the assertion that a business would not optimize worker output just because they are cheaper (and cheaper is relative, I'm sure even when it was lower the business owners still claimed it was too high).
Lastly, there are many ways a business divides its costs and there are many ways to be successful, even if sharing more profits with workers. Just ask Costco.
We’ve suffered a breakdown of the sense of community, and a failure in education resulting in growth in the number of people that continue to believe the fallacy that a business primary function is to maximise value to shareholders.
A business is ultimately a collection of people coming together for mutual benefit. If it stops being mutually beneficial and/or only becomes beneficial for some people if some other people are exploited, it probably shouldn’t continue to be.
Also, this article isn't about making restaurants pay...it's about making DoorDash pay fairly
Restaurants have always adjusted staffing based on order volume; so while the restaurant may have 3× the order flow, the work per employee probably hasn't increased that much.
Anytime I go to a place that does heavy app delivery I remark to myself how much more frenetic all the workers seem now. I mean it was only in last 3 years this has become as widespread as it is now. It’s actually a bit depressing.
Those workers are slammed, I can see them from the window. I assumed it was just fried chicken taking forever.
I guess the deliveries are waiting in the drive thru line. I see a lot of people not order.
I had Popeye's for the first time one afternoon last week. There was a handwritten sign in the window saying they'd run out of chicken sandwiches for the day :(
It makes sense but it’s also sad to see that the best use of valuable retail-level real estate is restaurants designed for no one to go to.
This is to say nothing of the variation in check size. You have a whole range in full-service dining from small checks all the way to fine dining, where alcohol can add hundreds of dollars to a meal, that can make for really good tips. For the right personally type, this can be really lucrative. (Bar fending is even more lucrative. My older sister was making six figures as a bar tender at a chain restaurant in suburban Atlanta 15 years ago and I don’t even think she worked 30 hours a week.)
Food delivery has always been different. Historically, most drivers/bikers for a restaurant got an hourly wage and tips, but tips aren’t usually based on the price of the order. Sure, there are exceptions (really large orders), but if I order a $45 steak from delivery or a $15 pizza, the tip is often going to be $5 or so either way. That’s just how it works. And even then, tips are often withheld more for issues such as timing, whether food arrives hot or cold, etc.
With food delivery apps, tips aren’t guaranteed the same way they often are for non-apps, in part because the apps charge their own service fees that are often confusingly displayed to the customer (who might not understand the difference) and because the relationship between restaurant and driver/delivery service are often separate. When I call my local pizza place and order delivery, they send their own person. If the order is wrong or late or has an issue, I can call the restaurant and figure out what is going on, demand a refund or get something re-delivered. With apps, I have to deal with the delivery service, which is often a PITA — and in most cases (Seamless/Grubhub being the exception), the delivery driver doesn’t have any connection to the restaurant anyway. (I’ll say that the 7 years I lived in NYC gave me great respect for Seamless (Grubhub) because they always took care of me, but as that service has had to compete with Uber etc., it hasn’t been as good. That could also be a Seattle thing.)
For me, when I use Uber Eats or Door Dash and I’m charged a $5 order fee, taxes, whatever inflated rates the restaurant is charging over menu price, and the delivery driver is often de-incentivized to even come to my door (or in the case of Uber Eats, will not), I have to be honest and say that my inclination to tip more than a few dollars is often lowered. More to the point, if I give a large tip and the driver can’t even be bothered to come to my door (and I get it, go down the elevator and wait outside - but part of the reason I order out is to avoid putting on shoes), I’m now pissed off I’ve given someone $10 to deliver lukewarm food that came with lots of fees. And no matter how unfair it is, that is going to impact how much I’m willing to tip with those apps the next time.
They still "exploit" it but not as much. Every restaurant worker (and workers in other industries) still needs to get to and from work. They are either paying for public transportation or their own vehicle, expect when they are lucky enough to live close enough to walk. They are also not being paid for their time going to and from work.
Still the best online delivery by me even if they are a shit company. Hate Grubhub more.
I've been doing it for ubers lately as well.
If so, can you add the actual price of the delivery as charged to you by DoorDash to the message so they can know how much they can game DoorDash?
If I tip only cash, does my order sit and sit and sit?
I personally don't accept any offer below about $8 total. On average I see Doordash pay $3 'Base Pay.' I'm just not willing to gamble because there are a ton of people who are more than happy to not tip either out of ignorance or willfully being a cheap ass.
What should I do if I want to maximize what the driver receives? My typical tip was to ensure the driver was receiving at least 25% of my order or $15, whichever is higher. Our orders are typically in the $50-$100 range since we use it primarily for dinner.
What’s the benefit of real-time reporting? Just require disclosure on the receipt.
If a line item says "tip," it's paid on the assumption it's going to the staff. If it said "management keeps this," I wouldn't tip as much (or at all).
Consider this report from AAA: https://exchange.aaa.com/automotive/driving-costs/
Notice that the cost per mile actually goes down the more miles you drive! You have to drive 20,000 miles to get down the ballpark of the IRS number. This indicates that expenses affected by mileage like gas, maintenance, and depreciation are dominated by up front costs like insurance and taxes. Now consider that most door dash drivers already chose to have a car before working for door dash, so they will have to pay the up front costs regardless. For this reason, I don't think $0.58 per mile is a good estimate of the marginal cost associated with extra driving for door dash. The AAA report estimates gas and maintenance costs per mile at $0.17 to $0.23 depending on the type of car.
Second, I don't believe it is right to include depreciation in a household budget because it does not manifest as an additional cost on top of the price of the car. Unless the car is listed as a line item on your household budget, you don't have to account for any additional loss in value. Imagine that you bought a car in cash for $1000 and never drive it. You lose the $1000 immediately. If some years later the car is worth $0, your total cost of ownership is still just $1000, not $2000.
I believe the fact that people still chose to work for door dash is additional evidence that the estimated costs in this article are too high. We may not be perfect rational actors, but most of us can tell if our bank account is going up or down.
None of this excuses the unethical behavior of door dash, and personally I choose not to use them. I believe tips are intended as a gift to the driver, so it is misleading to call it a tip if the driver isn't getting it. That said, I didn't find this analysis convincing for the reasons above.
For example, can you say in advance “Only accept $25+ jobs” or “Max distance 5 miles”?
DoorDash is the worst of all of these types of gig services. They are expensive, late, forget to grab items from the restaurant and they are not careful with food.
After a few times using them (and getting a different delivery person every time) a chilling thought occurred to me. There is nothing preventing a driver from either eating part of your food or tampering with it. Think about that. A total stranger is completely alone* with your food with zero oversight.
Once I was at a Starbucks when I saw the strangest thing. Some dude rushes in with a carryout bag and sat at the nearest table. He opened the bag, opened one (of many) styrofoam containers and hurriedly ate only part of one meal. Then he packaged it all back up and drove away without buying anything from Starbucks.
At least in a restaurant you are dealing with employees and people are everywhere. DoorDashers work for a massive faceless corporation who has been shitty about pay and tips.
Why wouldn't they grab a bite or two?
I am never dealing with them again.
Also, tips in a lot of jobs in USA are now basic for a job to be sustainable, incredible. Maybe 'Tip' is no longer the appropriate word for that.
How are they allowed to pay such a misery?
I'm against the practices they put in place, but am more leaning on better universal income, health, basic amenities, things like that. And I'd hope that if that was the case, it would also mean no one works for DoorDash making 2$ an hour, since that's less then your universal benefits would even give you. But I'm not sold on any one idea. So I'm asking to help refine my opinion. I feel I'm missing a piece of the picture here.
Now why does this whole incentive/reward model get flipped on its head when this person is delivering food to my table (or door)? If my DoorDash driver takes a long time, I have NO IDEA whether that's because traffic was bad, there was snow on the road, the restaurant was busy, etc. What is even the purpose of the tip?
I'm more and more convinced, especially after doing a 7-day cruise last week, that tips are kept in place by the establishment merely as a way to lower perceived prices. DoorDash wants to charge you $25 for something, but advertise that it only costs $20. DoorDash is in a much better place than I to detect patterns of performance in their employees, as are restaurant managers, haircut salons, the list goes on.
In the end, the world would be a better place without tips. Those most capable of monitoring service quality would be stuck with that responsibility, prices would be communicated transparently, and, above all, total prices wouldn't even change anyway!
I cannot think of a reason to want to take work in the developed west, and casually turn it into this kind of serfdom. Every time I see gig economy workers in developing world economies, I think about this, and how immoral it is to uplift their drudgery and replace it into our context like there is no downside.
Has anyone else here read "Down and out in Paris & London" which is Orwell's record of his time in the Paris restaurant business, and then as a tramp (bum) on the road between workhouses in the UK? This is what we're going back to.
This is insane. We have to stop backing the gig economy.
Vote to regulate it in your state like CA has started to do. Individual behavior change won't change this system, but system wide regulatory signals can.
Key words being "provided by Doordash workers". Meaning at all of this "analysis" is based on the numbers being given by the most disgruntled workers who presumably make the least. This makes all their conclusions highly suspect.
And if these disgruntled employees are aware that they're getting such a raw deal from Doordash, I'm wondering what stops them from going to a different company like Uber or Lyft instead. Those reportedly let people earn about $25 per hour (before expenses I think).
it's not that it's not good, but that they noticed the delivery funnel is growing (and foot-traffic funnel correspondingly shrinking). This means if they don't participate, they risk losing this revenue stream to their competitors (who do participate).
This is what happens when your business becomes a commodity to another business. You have to make sure your business has a value proposition that prevents it from becoming a commodity (or make sure you are very efficient at production and scale up to take advantage of your product becoming a commodity).
Edit: i suspect things like massive, efficient industrial kitchens producing delivered food may become the new norm.
'Commoditize your complements' was mentioned in this 2002 article by Joel Spolsky:
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
Concerning your point, isn't local delivery dishes still kind off diffirentiated becouse it's local and you test most restaurangs in your area sooner or later?
Edit: I never do home delivery so I don't know how important fresh dishes are.
https://www.afr.com/technology/why-restaurants-hate-uber-eat...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-22/uber-eats-criticised-...
These are all dark patterns that try to hide the actual cost.
If doordash was upfront, saying “your total extra charge from doordash for delivering this to you is $25” instead of “$3.99 delivery; $12.57 service charge; $10 tip for driver” you might be more likely to realize how damn expensive the service is and pick up your own food.
Hypothetical increased prices from the restaurant are a whole extra layer!
If you bought food on the cheaper platform, and tried to make a profit by selling it for more on another platform, then you would have 'literally played arbitrage'.
It's the same as when you buy an item from an online retailer, that is shipped directly from the manufacturer (e.g. a large ClosetMaid kit). The price at Amazon and Home Depot might be different, even though the same company is supplying and delivering the item to your home.
It's time for these experiments to crash under the weight of the free market and basic regulation.
This is not the American Dream, quite the opposite.
>> Dont want to be broke AF then dont have 3 kids.
Life is pretty uncertain and dynamic, it's entirely possible to be a parent w/well paying job, until you don't have it anymore. Victim blaming is BS.
It’s definitely predatory practices of people who don’t understand that, after a day of work, you should have more money than what you spent.
> it’s definitely predatory practices of people who don’t understand that
I find it hard to believe that after so many gig economy apps have been scrutinized over this, they simply don’t understand. Some of them have to understand, and just don’t care, because they’re trying to cash in on their equity.
Not sure what a company like doordash can do in that case, are all doordash drivers driving fuel efficient cars?
Also, what factors in is that many people cannot afford cars that are in good shape.
Tips aspect is inexcusable, however.
This is the kind of job for motorcycles and bycicles (in denser cities)
The real controversy is why, in 2020 and only in the USA, do we have a business model that offloads the employee compensation responsibility onto customers?
Moscow is now full of delivery guys on bikes, sometimes electric, at ~0°C. I wonder if delivery services advertise it as work benefits.
There are different costs to insure a vehicle based on whether it is "personal" use or "business" use. The IRS rate does not distinguish these. Is there any documentation on which scenario IRS is assuming this applies to?
- insurance cost of second car (liability only) - depreciation - gas - maintenance and estimated repairs
This was for my car, which was ~5 years old when I got it and is very fuel efficient. I found that depreciation makes up more than half of the total cost, so a newer car would likely have more depreciation than an older car. I got mine for $10k, and in 5 years, it's worth $5k. I think that's pretty common, regardless of the age of the car, so a ~$20k car would depreciate to ~$10k in 5 years. Also, newer cars are more expensive to insure, and taking a car to a shop is more expensive than doing it yourself.
So $0.50 sounds reasonable for the average, relatively new car that is taken to the shop for maintenance and repairs.
- insurance cost of second car (liability only) - depreciation - gas - maintenance and estimated repairs
This was for my car, which was ~5 years old when I got it and is very fuel efficient. I found that depreciation makes up more than half of the total cost, so a newer car would likely have more depreciation than an older car. I got mine for $10k, and in 5 years, it's worth $5k. I think that's pretty common, regardless of the age of the car, so a ~$20k car would depreciate to ~$10k in 5 years. Also, newer cars are more expensive to insure, and taking a car to a shop is more expensive than doing it yourself.
So $0.50/mile sounds reasonable for the average, relatively new car that is taken to the shop for maintenance and repairs. Insurance was a pretty small item in my calculations, so I doubt the difference between corporate and personal insurance would change the figure that much.
I've seen a couple of these around in LA ( https://thespoon.tech/postmates-serve-robot-spotted-and-film... ) and can only hope they become mainstream in the very near future.
I don’t think it is possible to make money in the gig economy driving a vehicle. These articles talk about direct car expenses but never talk about indirect. If you factor in vehicle depreciation I am convinced that the net wage for driving is below $0.
The article closes with a statement that they want $15/hour plus expenses for drivers. The obvious problem is that I can’t see customers paying that much for delivery - ie. at those wages Door Dash can’t exist.
The fact that people choose to do the work makes me think there are people who find it worthwhile, and I can explain a few scenarios that make a lot more sense than the ones in the article:
I live in SF, which is only about 7mi by 7mi square, so if you do door dash here it’s very unlikely for a delivery to require more than 2-3 mi of travel. Further I see a lot of deliveries made on bikes, skateboards, scooters, etc. so the cost is much lower than the suburban deliveries made by car.
I see a lot of young delivery people, who I imagine may be high school or college students who just want a few bucks spending money without any kind of time commitment, and maybe this works nicely for them.
Regulating the wages to try and turn door dash into a “family feeding” job seems like it would do nothing but kill the business (and all the gig businesses), depriving people who want that kind of ultimate flexibility of the freedom and also depriving customers of a really convenient service.
But I do think regulation could be very beneficial in creating transparency around payment to both the customer and the gig worker. I can see no reason the companies should be allowed to obscure what they pay their workers, where tips for, how many miles the worker traveled on a job etc. That kind of information is fair and reasonable to provide, and would help avoid gig companies exploiting people who unfortunately may not understand how to properly value their expenses.
The final thing I would argue is that it’s reasonable to prohibit blind auctions, as door dash does.
Instead of randomly pairing a person to a job, giving them only seconds to respond, and penalizing them (by not offering more) if they fail to respond, it would be much more fair to have a real-time auction map showing all deliveries that need to be picked up in a certain area, where they need to go, how much the pay is, and then letting them “sit on the map” and slowly tick up in price until a worker picks one. That’s a half-baked brainstorm so maybe that’s not the right implementation, but my point is simply:
1. I think regulating gig wages is a blunt instrument that would mostly end the gig companies and possibly entrench one or two mega corps as survivors that are still exploitive toward workers - whereas providing information transparency could potentially preserve the good things about gig jobs while eliminating the majority of bad outcomes for workers.
2. The real problem seems to be that there are so many people in need of “family feeding” jobs who are working for Door Dash etc. instead. When we talk about a “historically low unemployment rate,” things like this make it ring hollow to me. Clearly there are a lot of people unable to get better work, who as a result are really hurting economically, and we need to do a better job measuring and understanding that problem so we can respond more effectively to it.
I am 100% ok with DoorDash and that entire market not existing. We somehow managed without it just 3-4 years ago and it's not like Americans need another ridiculously unhealthy eating option provided with even greater convenience.
Recently Safeway has also made a move to use Doordash. My parents have used Safeway's delivery for years and the change is terrible there for a different reason: an order from a grocery store is likely to be 10-20x bigger and more expensive than an equivalent restaurant order. The scale turns it into a fundamentally different job - how much you're lifting, the best type of vehicle, the value of the cargo, the emphasis of the throughput/latency equation. Each time since, when they get an order, it's by someone in a hatchback who is unused to the work. Safeway drivers previously did not accept tips, and so one of the big draws of Doordash is missing. Since the stores have handed off the customers to Doordash, updates on delivery status have become more difficult to get.
Identity is a pretty critical element to this, it turns out. If the restaurant knew their regular deliveryperson and could coordinate that info, they wouldn't send out wrong orders. If Safeway could specify drivers from a pool of truck drivers with freezer units and connect the customer to them directly, as they had before the change, there would be less of an unknown in ordering from them.
On the other hand, it's a case of "it can probably only go up from here" since competing on quality is likely to become the case if the economy stays fully employed and regulation starts creeping in.
All jobs are basically a means for feeding your family, even if that family is just you. Few people work primarily for the fun of it.
The people taking the gig jobs to feed their families are often desperate, with few other options. They aren't taking the gig jobs by mistake. And cynically, this is the objective that our current socio economic system has been optimized for.
Many high schoolers take jobs that fall into this category: they have parental support and don’t _need_ money, but they want to have some cash for their own entertainment.
These days I know a lot of married couples where one of the two earns a comfortable income such that the other doesn’t _need_ to work. The other person in that case often takes on volunteer work, but also often takes on “gigs” that come with very low pay but perhaps “gas money” or something like that.
I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with that kind of “token payment” work, because it doesn’t hurt anyone.
My closing point was, to me Doordash and other gig jobs seem to basically be suitable only as “spending money” or perhaps even “token payment” jobs, and yet some people (perhaps many?) are taking them as “family feeding,” work.
So (1) it really concerns me that this is happening, because it is strong evidence that we don’t have enough “family feeding” work available and there are a lot of people really hurting as a result. To me this is the main problem we should be talking about.
And (2) I don’t really understand the outrage at gig jobs for not being “family feeding” jobs. If the work is lousy, don’t do it! That’s not something the government needs to punish - there are plenty of these sub jobs out there that aren’t hurting anyone.
Except then we’re back to (1) - lots of people are so desperate they’re taking a gig and depending on it... which is scary. So how can we create more good quality work for people so they just give door dash the finger and move on, rather than feeling trapped in that as the best work they can get.
I hope that makes sense. It’s a tough topic.
I agree those jobs exist. I had them too. The question is whether we should be setting the rules for the economy and jobs to match that use case or the "family feeding" use case.
> So how can we create more good quality work for people so they just give door dash the finger and move on, rather than feeling trapped in that as the best work they can get.
A federal jobs guarantee, universal healthcare, better and more equal public education; those things will increase the leverage that workers have to give gig employers the finger.
Many of those would let even higher paid tech workers give their employers the finger.
The best way to help people in her situation is to encourage family planning, marriage, and cheap electric vehicles.
This is exactly the same out cry every restaurant server makes: "without tips I couldn't live! so you are responsible to tip if you eat out". When in reality they have to make enough to keep working, so that is just social pressure from them to bleed out money from rest of us.
In no other job would we tolerate this kind of behavior. Why should we feel bad for these people?
I live in a country with extremely strong labor laws, and for the past 3-4 years we've seen more and more of these gigging companies / startups try, and surprise surprise, they're fighting tooth and nail to get around labor laws - because that's where their edge and profitability lies.
This is gonna sound harsh, but If you live in a country with abysmal labor laws, and you're getting exploited by companies like that...well, I don't particularly care. You need to get your laws and rights fixed, that's all I can say.
But to bring this garbage here, that's where I personally draw a line.