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Comment by dbetteridge | Hacker News Reader

irrelevant, if the business is unsustainable following the laws and practices of Australia then it should not exist.

We have a social safety net and a hot job market, there will be other better employers available.

Doesn’t a hot job market and social safety net equally provide workers freedom to choose an alternative to the supposedly exploitative gig without regulation?

Generally, if a job market is hot, it means employers are incentivized to not be jerks and try to lure workers to them with perks, thereby giving plenty of alternatives to those who feel exploited.

And given a social safety net, wouldn’t one not feel “stuck” in said job as a necessity to live?

If someone still chooses something “exploitative”, then perhaps there is a benefit to that job that makes it worth while in a way that regulators (and others privileged enough not work said job) don’t see themselves.

Perhaps in theory but in reality companies align on the lowest common denominator. so whilst directly not conspiring they begin to provide the same pay mechanisms, benefits & security (or lack of). Many of these companies also entice workers with unrealistic projections, or have changed their pay structure due to a funding squeeze. Most social safety nets don't pay you unemployment if you quit a job, so unless the job market is really good (and it's not as we're all heading for recessions or downturns) it is not easy to change jobs.

I actually just don't think there's a market for this to exist as a decentralized company that treats both sides as a customer. I think it could work in Australia if business had more of a share of the delivery pie, then I think it could be profitable. Kind of if KFC and Mcdonalds and a few others pooled costs on a integrated delivery solution. I would bet that deliveroo mined the restaurants for too much money, and when demand dropped they then that spiraled out to effect customer costs. And now they don't exist!

Yeah I would have to agree, by their nature most of these outfits rely on VC funding + underpaid workers or tipping.

Some kind of Co-op arrangement where delivery drivers band together and offer a platform that companies can subscribe too could also work (assuming a simple enough backend system).

I would structure it so it's a separate company that offer's delivery. So workers are employed under one entity, and restaurants integrate. But this is a very local style solution. The Tech company part of this could probably be providing the enabling platform. But the VC money would never support essentially a coop style model because it would never return big enough.

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