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Comment by basisword | Hacker News Reader

Imagine getting paid to deliver something and complaining about actually having to deliver it. I can see the problems they face, but delivering an item...most of the way...isn't the solution.

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They are between a rock and a hard place: I think the game StarCitizen had a perfect visualization of their problem.

When you try to trade resources, you make say 4% income on the trade. So if you trade say 2-million you can win about 200k or 400k, depending on server state. However the risk is your ship blows up, which could be because of a buggy crash or a server crash. The risk was "is the value I get from the work worth it if a single crash can undo days worth of effort".

Same is happening here. They are risking a month of income in order to do a single delivery. However if they leave it by the door "I never got the order" and thus they get penalized. So basically damned if you do, damned if you don't. So they basically said "well if I get penalized ANYWAYS... might as well eat it, because it is equivalent to me"

I see zero ethical issues with what is happening.

Now if the motorbike was provided by the company, and it gets stolen? Cool, the employee doesn't care, and I assure you, the company would change its policy in a day "nope, you come downstairs!"

Edit: The root of the gig economy is that all the risk is shifted to the employee, but none of the benefits. A friend of mine is an HVAC tech, and he gets a company car. If he is about to be late to an appointment because of parking issues... "well, leave the car, we'll pay for the ticket, just get to the job" and he doesn't care. Why? Because the company assumes the risk as they should. He's not a gig worker.

Thanks for writing out the economic model at play here. I needed a better way to communicate this and much of your phrasing works very well.

> So they basically said "well if I get penalized ANYWAYS... might as well eat it, because it is equivalent to me"

> I see zero ethical issues with what is happening.

I think that's an equivalent economic outcome, but not an equivalent ethical outcome.

This is fair, but I think it is a minor difference. However the shock-and-awe is driving things to better behaviors so it works. I am sure the delivery worker tried a a lot of different things first.

The service that the customer paid for, according to the apps and detailed in the article, is street-level delivery only.

So imagine paying for one thing and then extorting an additional service out of the driver because the service gives you more power than the driver.

Seems to me the legislation should be focused on the delivery app companies -- force them to pay workers extra if an order requires the extra time and risk of inside delivery. And maybe even cover the cost of anything stolen while they're workers are on the job. They'd very quickly figure out a solution.

Sounds like the primary worry is having their bike or other gear stolen, which is reasonable I think. If you can't earn without those things, then you won't want to risk them.

The solution seems to be either to get customers to come down, or to eliminate crime. I'd take a guess that having customers come down is a quicker and cheaper solution to implement.

Another solution is having a proper bicycle lock. Yes, they’re heavy but I bike around with Kryptonites largest and thickest U-lock, as well as sometimes with a 25-lb 18mm motorcycle chain for the bicycle.

I do think the food delivery model should only work for customers willing to pay delivery people $25+/hr, especially considering you’re not just paying what should be a living wage for labor but also renting the capital that the delivery person brings to the job (car, bicycle, locks, etc)

No lock can withstand a determined thief.

But there are locks that can withstand a determined thief who has a budget lower than the value of the bike for a few minutes.

Would these locks actually cost less than the bike itself?

I usually spend more on my lock and chains than I do on my bicycle. The bicycle may only cost $100-300 but I don’t have to buy it 4+ times if it’s never stolen.

If you're paid per delivery, then you don't want to faff about wasting time locking and unlocking a bike every single time

And if you're a thief (not all thieves are just random people walking by) you will KNOW that someone who just jumped off a bike and locked it will not be back for a certain time, and tossing the bike into a truck, lock and all, could be a moment's time.

So now you need to lock it to something, causing even more time lost.

That's what I did when I did bicycle deliveries. Yes it was a pain, but I considered it part of the job. But I was working for an individual pizza shop which did a good job making the job worthwhile overall and paid me well enough for my time and this sort of "extra effort".

And you likely had "downtime" when waiting at the shop for an order to deliver; these delivery people are often servicing an almost infinite number of orders and shops, and the next order is just an app click away.

Sort of. I'd help out around the pizza shop if there wasn't a bicycle delivery to be done. I could handle any of the other positions in the shop as well. But yes, there was generally plenty of downtime, other than maybe a 2-4 hour super rush period around lunch or dinner some days.

Much of the current "labor complaints" in general come from the maximization that doesn't "exist on paper" - jobs often involved "downtime" (even if you have slogans like "if you can lean, you can clean") and a few hours each day of absolute panic crunch-time.

Now we're becoming quite capable of optimizing it so that the panic crunch-time is the entire shift (and if it isn't you make less than minimum wage) via these "Silicon Valley gig apps".

Now imagine the pizza shop put you in a race with another delivery driver, and the loser was going to be banned from delivering and making that extra money.

Because that's the reality these delivery apps set up.

Isn't this the plot of Snow Crash?

Yeah, these gig workers need to be paid enough to cover the time for faffing about with locks that are large enough to deter thieves for 10 minutes or so. I doubt they are, which drives these conflicts.

The problem is more than just payment, but the worker competition dynamic the apps are built around. It doesn't matter if you are paid handsomely per order delivered, including ample time and effort to properly lock everything up or truly do anything the customer wants and is willing to tip for, as long as the company pushes more orders to the people delivering faster, it will force a race to the bottom in service quality.

Kryptonites largest and thickest U-lock gives way to a battery powered angle grinder in about 2 minutes.

I didn’t realize that. Thought it was 5-10 minutes. Thanks. Sounds like the bicycle delivery system is fundamentally broken then.

True but, angle grinders make a lot if noise and very conspicuous sparks. Of course thieves will still do it if they can get away with it, but it’s not a very quick or stealthy method.

Picking the lock, in the other hand, is pretty fast and won’t attract much attention. Thief just needs to be sophisticated enough to have the correct picking tool and practice with it a bit.

> I bike around with Kryptonites largest and thickest U-lock

Oh you might want to visit the Lock Picking Lawyer’s YouTube channel today… he’s tested all the U-locks and picks them open in 30-60 seconds.

https://youtu.be/fckVKa4K4Ps?si=Rwujt_k-QF-QYs4w

https://youtu.be/jZtNEC1uGg4?si=KMZJnogntWmMB_fA

I do follow LPL, love the channel. I’ve never been worried about bike thieves picking locks, I’ve never seen or heard of them doing that. I’ve only seen/heard of them them using destructive methods, typically bolt cutters.

If the average bike thief gets as good at picking locks at LPL, we’re very screwed!

I haven't heard of this being common (sorta surprisingly), but you can get a battery angle grinder for $40 these days and it'll go through literally any bike lock that exists in seconds.

Maybe it's not common because it is VERY loud and sparkly.

I feel like it would be pretty tricky on an 18-22mm thick chain without clamping them in some kind of vice. These are nearly impractically heavy (30-40 lbs for a 6' chain), but I have carried them around on my bike sometimes, and will often keep one at the rack at work and one on the rack at home, and haven't seen anyone try to get into them.

I think if a chain that thick wobbles it would just break the angle grinder blade?

They already have to deal with crime at the other end - it's not uncommon, where I live, to see videos of people stealing scooters and bikes as the rider steps into a restaurant.

The least customers could do is to take care of their end.

The article says the deal is delivery to the street entrance. They are doing their job.

What are customers going to do? Go get it themselves? Clearly not. The potential loss of someone's property they use to deliver isn't worth it, as the article mentions. It also mentions laws enacted to support the delivery workers.

> Two Brazilian cities and one state are discussing bills to allow drivers to refuse deliveries at the door — three cities have already approved them.

Kick out delivery apps who don't adhere to the law, simple as that. Important to remember that these workers are humans; remember the human.

If the payment for the service doesn't cover the costs of the service (insurance for a bike and for the loss of work before a new one is found), then what is so surprising? The market is adjusting: if the cost is fixed, then the offer (quality of service) gets reduced.

Imagine being in a world where you can wave your finger over some little glass shard, and a hot meal of your choosing is delivered to you.

Then imagine complaining that you had to go outside your house to get it. I think the act of getting off the couch and going downstairs before consuming your food is probably a good thing for your health; and the primary reason for all of this is the delivery driver, who is likely living a harder life than you, doesn’t want to lose their livelihood.

The same logic extends however far you feel like making it extend, though.

Imagine being in a world where you can wave your finger over some little glass shard, and a hot meal of your choosing is prepared for you, and all you have to do is go get it. Obviously it's absurd to imagine that anyone would ever want it to also be brought to them.

Yes, you can extend the logic forever, however that ignores the obvious and enormous power differential between the two parties.

The first has to go down and get their food, a minor inconvienience.

The other has to risk losing their delivery vehicle / property when it gets stolen while they are in the building (an enormous, possibly income-destroying inconvienience)

I'm saying that the person in the building should maybe have a little gratitude for their position and empathy for the delivery driver

Not everything can be bought. The situation delivery workers are in is not one of choice, of decision over their own conditions of living and working, regarding the number of working hours, the independence, the wages, etc...

To blindly expect those people to do whatever you want because you have the money makes you look closer to a Disney Villain than a human being who wants to build a society with these people.

> because you have the money

I think the issue is that maybe the customer doesn’t have the money to make the laborer do what they want. At a much higher wage, the delivery person would be happy to risk their bicycle / other capital.

Maybe the money doesn't have to come from the customer but from the capital then

By “their bicycle / other capital” I meant like a car or tools/bags/accessories.

But I think I maybe understand what you’re saying?

Imagine paying the lowest bidder to deliver something and then complaining when it's late or in the wrong place. I can see the problems they face, but not hiring a professional to do the job .... isn't the solution.

Imagine a world in which doing the job right (and taking pride in doing so, regardless of how trivial a job it is) is actually the norm.

In some parts of some countries, it still is.

Imagine thinking everything is so black and white.

Imagine someone thinking you can spend pride somewhere. This, in my experience, is a dog whistle for "do the shit job regardless of negative costs inflicted on the worker for someone else's benefit." People became accustom to the consumer excess from the abuse gig workers take, and now that workers have some leverage, consumers are clutching their pearls over the loss.

Perhaps the problem is America is economically biased. If your pride in your trivial job brings you respect in your community, then maybe it's worth it, even if you're struggling to make ends meet. If your pride buys you not a modicum of social standing, and barely let's you provide basic essentials for yourself, and you're treated with contempt or as an invisible person by your community, why put pride into the job?

> Perhaps the problem is America is economically biased.

I think in this situation the problem is not reading the article.

I did read the article. I was responding to a point someone made, which I took to be about America(rightly or wrongly), not to the article itself. I suspect OP doesn't actually know much about Brazil.

While we're talking about missed reading, perhaps you should check out the commenting guidelines.

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