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Comment by searchableguy | Hacker News Reader

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searchableguy

> 12k rupees/month

> good wage

That's unlivable wage.

Also, those companies you have listed pay more.

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For unskilled labour in India, that’s very good money. The average wage in India is around 350-400 INR per day worked

But Swiggy etc pay 25-50k

https://www.livemint.com/Companies/cYbdfsYk93HFhMuC0XgaNN/Sw...

I am curious, is there any reason why dabba people don't switch to Swiggy for job? If they'll make more there.

"The dabbawalas have deeper reasons for doing it. Serving their customers is like serving their god.”

It could be because they see their purpose as delivering food to people on time and it doesn't seem like the nascent services have figured out how to do that well at scale - thus they may make more over there but are less fulfilled in their life mission?

Swiggy and other delivery startups are more demanding in work hours (to make good money you need to do late nights weekends etc) and also needs you be able to drive a scooter . Also these startups need you to be able use their mobile app, maps and gps and find the customer these require literacy and few other skills Dabbawalas may not have readily.

Dabbawalas are more involved with transporting home cooked food to the worker. The worker leaves early in the morning and some time later the spouse will have a hot meal packed up. The dabbawala will come pick it up and aggregate orders going to common destinations, move it by train, etc. I presume Swiggy is only for restaurant cooked food.

Secondly the dabbawala jobs are more like a stable union job. You don't get the top money but everyone looks after each other. Of course with time customer preferences may change towards restaurant food. Or maybe workers start using plastic containers and microwaves.

For Mumbai?

Will need citation for that but regardless, my point is that it is still not a livable wage regardless of whether it is average or above average.

Secondly, the parent compared food delivery startups and companies - both of which pay more than 12k monthly assuming you work 8 hours per day.

They don't live in Mumbai usually and if they do in the slums. They live on the outskirts and commute by Mumbai Local.

In main areas of Mumbai that amount may not even fetch a small sized windowless room (no kitchen, or living space - just a room and a common washroom outside) and I am not even talking about "posh" Mumbai.

I took the fact that it appears to be a good wage from the article; I am not familiar with the local market so I couldn't double-check that myself. However, they do appear to be thriving and providing a good service despite the local companies supposedly paying more so something doesn't add up. If the companies truly paid more then the whole system would breakdown as all their couriers would jump ship to the delivery startups.

Things don't change overnight. Your legacy code doesn't get rewritten in rust overnight even if rust provides actual significant benefit for you.

I will give it a few more years. People who work those jobs are also majorly illiterate and may not be willing to change as implied in the article.

Not OP, but just adding source

https://www.livemint.com/Companies/cYbdfsYk93HFhMuC0XgaNN/Sw...

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