Comment by willio58 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by willio58 | Hacker News Reader

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If you can't afford food delivery I wouldn't blame the delivery workers. They make near nothing (this bumps them up to a little more than nothing for NYC).

I hear a lot of complaints about food delivery prices. And I can't help but fight back a little because:

1. Food costs more. If you go to fast food or local restaurants you will see prices have risen. The cause of this is debated but it doesn't change the fact that food costs more.

2. Delivery workers work pretty hard to do what they do. Due to a lack of good American public transportation (especially outside of NYC) most delivery workers have to drive their own cars which is a cost that gets more expensive with time as cars have a limited amount of miles and tend to break down somewhat randomly with age.

3. Maybe most importantly, you don't need food delivered. Unless you're disabled, it's inherently an out-of-touch argument because there's nothing stopping you from making your own food or going to pick up food. It's a luxury, so I believe the prices aren't really that crazy if it means the workers can make livable wages. And if you're disabled, we should have better systems in place for you than saying "use doordash".

- edited to account for disabled people.

Food costs are up overall because (assuming USA) 1. COVID and immigration enforcement severe restricted immigration (legal or otherwise) of farm workers who formed the backbone of farm labor. 2. Oil and gas is critical import for food production. Fertilizer comes from natural gas, farms burn diesel, etc. All of this adds up.

Food delivery always was a luxury especially when it's just for one or two people. Unfortunately, you can't generate exponential growth on wealthy families ordering Friday evening takeout.

> Maybe most importantly, you don't need food delivered. Nobody does.

People with disabilities would beg to differ. There's a reason Meals on Wheels exists.

Yeah, I agree that there should be some sort of government subsidized program or resource rather than a privately funded company that can only exist by exploiting workers, restaurants, and customers to fulfill that need.

In the United States, there are in-home healthcare workers and adjacent support workers that can perform tasks such as grocery shopping and meal preparation, no?

There are, in the same way that there are infinity pools and private planes.

I am not sure I follow. Could you clarify?

> exploiting workers

What would the workers do without those jobs?

As an aside, do you think people should be forced to work for free so long as they have jobs and their work creates value for others?

I'm curious where you're going with this question, because what you're describing is literal slavery.

Yes, I was going to ask the above poster what line he believes is necessary to draw when arguing against unjust work conditions...

Ah...

Sadly, there are people that will never criticize a company for having shitty working conditions. Instead, they'll just say "If they don't like it, get a job somewhere else!", and it doesn't matter what extreme you take it to. They will never question the shitty conditions.

not that poster, but allowing an arbitrarily low wage means those starving or struggling are, to avoid doing so, coerced into working for near-nothing

slavery, you say?

Yeah, I wish the anti-minimum wage morons understood that.

All they think of is the fact that eliminating minimum wage would create jobs, which is technically true, but imagine being one of those poor workers that cleans houses for $1/hr because they can't find anything else.

Paying someone minimum wage is sending the signal of "I would pay you less if I was allowed to". No minimum wage would create a race to the bottom on wages as employers are able to find more and more desperate people who just want to be able to eat.

I don't know where you derived that from.

I did not derive anything with that question, in fact, I was asking you a question to derive something else entirely.

Solid point, edited.

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