Drivers here PAY private companies a weekly amount in order to work for Uber et all (to have that contract). Uber et all work with these companies only, not individuals.
Whenever I see a post on HN that says "In Europe, blah blah blah" it is bullshit 80% of the time. Sometimes the poster is extrapolating laws from his country to the other 43 countries on the continent, but usually it is just completely made up bullshit based on wishful thinking. I've learned to never trust these comments unless they provide a source.
https://wolt.com/pages/en/fin/courier-center-faq-finland#lin...
>Are Courier Partners employees of Wolt?
>No. Courier Partners are not employees of Wolt, they don’t have a boss or predetermined work shifts. Wolt Courier Partners are contractors, Wolt pays for each task a Courier Partner has committed to deliver and has completed.
>Like all entrepreneurs, Courier Partners are in charge of their own: taxes, driving log, insurances, compulsory motor vehicle insurance (if they make deliveries with a car or a scooter), pension security, and financial security during periods of illness and unemployment.
>Like all entrepreneurs/independent contractors, Courier Partners are in charge of their own financial security during periods of illness and unemployment. In practice, this means that Wolt does not provide compensation for sick leave or health services on days when Courier Partners are not able to make deliveries.
>Everyone who has a municipality of residence in Finland is entitled to use public healthcare services. As an entrepreneur, Courier Partners are encouraged to consider arranging occupational health care coverage for themselves. Public medical centers and private hospitals can help Courier Partners with matters regarding occupational health care.
Tried to find source of which exact place made the changes this person suggested, but only found similarly vague "EU commission proposes..."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-to-offer-limited-health-in...
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/09/uber-deliveroo-and-gig-econo...
Meanwhile, maybe they were talking about England, which would be unrelated to any EU commission: https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/uber-to-give-drivers-medic...
It's similar in neighboring Estonia. However the reasons are more than just willingness to work for peanuts. These people are also very willing to break the law.
A lot of the workers are in the country with either tourist or student visas and aren't allowed to work. These delivery companies couldn't even legally hire them. However the way the law works, in the case of contractors, it is the contractor's responsibility to make sure they follow the law. A lot of these people don't even understand that. They just sign up on their phone and get money. What law?
Similar case with taxation. Employers need to pay a lot of taxes per employee. With contractors that requirement is shifted. All the taxes are now the contractor's duty. The delivery contractors, who are not paid a lot in the first place, aren't exactly going out of their way to give away half their earnings. This got to be such a big problem that the government actually had to pass a new law, which came into effect January 2023. At the end of the year, all these delivery companies will need to supply the tax office a full report with how much money they paid each contractor and the contractor's info. Then the tax office can see if the accurate taxes are being paid or not.
And in Spain and France, its the other way. With the new Euparl draft law soon going to make it mandatory.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/02/eu-platform-worker-directi...
Larger voting blocs want it. Finland has a small presence in Euparl. So even if it is not the mandatory law yet, what they said is true - Europe has been incrementally classifying gig workers as employees and it is soon about to make it mandatory.
I don't have a clear sense of how it all nets out, besides loose high-level mostly political assumptions about various social programs that give me a vague sense Europe is going to be better here. Assuming someone was able to take advantage of all the various programs and whatnot in both the US and EU, how does the actual efficiency of delivering these services net out, fully considered. I wouldn't be surprised with a result that showed it is actualy more similar than you'd think, but I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that Europe is doing significantly better on this metric. I just don't know!
Now it's all nice and fun when you're an IT contractor charging 60$+ per hour, when you're a uber driver making on average 18$ an hour (according to google) it's not that bright, and you still have to maintain your car, pay for gas, &c.
> how does the actual efficiency of delivering these services net out
If you're at the bottom, as uber contractors are, you'll have a better time in Europe, if you're in the top tier and can afford private health insurance, private unemployment benefits, &c. you probably have better services in the US, at a cost
I lived in both systems and I'd say the EU one brings an overall peace of mind you can't replicate in the US unless you're quite rich
Food delivery use is declining with the cost of living problems people are facing. Anecdotally I saw it was making people feel bad so it's a habit people have wanted to break - junk food, cold, missing items and paying the price of a week's worth of groceries... ugh... it made people hate themselves but they kept doing it because the convenience was like a drug.
Where I live in the city, everyone has a dozen food outlets within a five minute walk so it was never a rational choice.
I only ever took one Uber in my city - it took a really bad route and cost more than a normal cab for the same destination. If it had taken a sensible route then it might have been a few percent cheaper but not much. The experience was bad enough not to gamble with it again.
Taxi services have licensing requirements and the rates are set by the government (Uber left the market), typical ride is 10-30 EUR. (Eg. airport to city center is 30+, also around 30+ min.)
Food delivery can be done by anyone, no licensing requirements. Around 700 HUF (about 2 EUR).
I would be surprised if all 20+ countries were unanimous on this.
In some states there's a national insurance plan, in some you have a tax-funded healthcare, and in some you have mandatory health insurance (with private insurers, based on your income, 15-30%).