Just fyi, like 99% of food delivery via gig workers in nyc is done via e-bike
Even if done in a car in areas where a e-bike isn’t really feasible, they usually take several orders at at time. I think 1 car picking up and delivering 3 orders is probably slightly more efficient than each person driving to the restaurant.
slightly more efficient that each person driving to the restaurant
Of course. But the correct solution here doesn’t require any individuals driving.
Are you implying a solution to delivery? Or that no one should eat (in or out) at restaurants?
Walkable cities
How does that fix food delivery? Are you only supposed to order from the restaurant around the corner?
Probably my personal bias, I have 5 different places I could get food from within 15 minutes walking. Closer to 20 when taking a bike.
When I visited the US I was gobsmacked by literally everything being a 30min walk at least, even in more densely populated areas
I have 5 different places I could get food from within 15 minutes walking.
Right, not exactly a lot of variation. It only really becomes viable once you add the bike back in.
So while a walk-able city is a great idea in general, it does nothing for this particular issue.
It’s quite telling that they didn’t think of walking or cycling
In most places I’ve lived for the past 40 years, I could just walk to the store. I have now four to choose from, all within 10 minutes of walking, and the city center is about an hour away. Ther are also bicycles.
By having groceries, you can make food yourself, at home. You can do this many times, for each time you actually have to get groceries.
As for eating at a restaurant, collective transport ranges from obvious to absolutely necessary, depending on the population density. When my family go out to eat, it’s a lot more convenient to hop on a bus or tram to the city center. It takes half the time, if you consider parking, it’s cheaper, and you can have a drink or two as well. You also get to engage with each other, during transit.
In the less car-retarded world, food delivery is also easier to do with non-car methods.
In any case, and because I know the kind of responses people reply with… Please don’t. I just gave you some examples and a different perspective. Americans are culturally dumb as shit when it comes to considering the obviously better alternatives, in so many different aspects, and I don’t really care all that much.
Thanks for the thought out answer!
You’re welcome. I want to apologize for my snarky tone. More often than not, questions on forums are not asked in good faith. Yours seems to have been.
Cheers man all good. I know a question like that can be charged, but my dumb brain just forgot people live in cities! Of course given the choice, you shouldn’t drive at all.
they usually take several orders at at time
I’d like to see some stats on this. When I see uber eats workers pick up at McDonald’s the orders seem to be singular.
But my anecdotal experience is not usable data.
Sometimes you will get lucky and get a couple of orders from the same restaurant, but it’s usually stop at 2 or 3 different restaurants in the same area, then deliver. Occasionally I would take a single order if the money was good, but usually if I wasn’t taking 3 orders or more at once I wasn’t making enough money for it to be worth it.
It may have changed now, I fortunately got out of doing it a couple of yeas ago. It’s stressful and hard on your vehicle, and the companies you work for are shit. I’m not defending the gig companies as they are now, but in theory having one person deliver to multiple people isn’t a bad idea.
It should be way more efficient considering they could do a pickup from a restaurant near their last delivery. Play the traveling salesman game decently and you’ll easily beat individuals driving themselves many times over. The driver might also do a pickup job from a restaurant they like and decide to get their own food at the same time.
Delivery is good option for people with limited mobility
What’s more ridiculous? 10 people each driving to the fast food joint individually or one delivery driver making a round trip to 10 people?
We pay other people to do the things we can’t or don’t want to do all the time, this isn’t different.
Why are u driving? Walk or bike
Or just make and eat your own food
We pay other people to do the things we can’t or don’t want to do all the time, this isn’t different.
Did I stutter?
Make your own phone. Make your own toothpaste. Grow your own strawberries.
No, you didn’t stutter, your argument was just nonsensical.
Making your own food is a very basic and fundamental skill, which is also much cheaper than any other option, and it has nothing in common with your disingenous examples.
But I guess that is also a very American thing, that homecooked food is seen some sort of exotic fantasy, instead of the default solution.
Nah dude, it’s not exotic. But sometimes the last fucken thing I wanna do after working a 13 hour shift is come home and cook a meal.
Agreed. I wish there were sensible healthy and affordable options. Like what catering provides to companies for lunch.
Why are you allowing yourself to be used in such a way? Sounds like you’re proud for working 13 hours in a shift. It’s not everyone else’s fault you don’t see yourself as a slave to your boss
It’s temporary while my wife completes her degree. Neither of us grew up very privileged, so I found something that supports us both. I’m not proud at all to be a wage slave. However, I am proud that I’m able to support both my wife and I on a single income while she’s in school. Sure it fucking sucks that I put in 50-70 hours every week. Either way, I beg fucken pardon if I decide to give myself a lil break every now and again and order delivery
Not an American. Also, able to cook and doing so most days. Am I allowed to have an opinion now? Good.
It’s just not for you to decide which tasks other people should perform themselves or outsource for money as long as somebody is willing to sell that service.
Making your own food is a very basic and fundamental skill, which is also much cheaper than any other option, and it has nothing in common with your disingenous examples.
I happen to think building and repairing computers or fixing my own bathroom sink are very basic, fundamental skills which are also cheaper than other options. Do I go around and gatekeep what people shouldn’t ask other people for help about?
Wow what a great argument, “make your own phone” how about you make your own time instead of wageslaving for 13 hours a day
What is the point of shitting on someone for being working poor? Weird and gross.
You mean shitting on them for letting themselves be abused? No selfrespecting human would work for 13 hour shifts and be proud of it but hey, you do you if you’re so brainwashed to be a serf
U OK, hon? You can take that shitty attitude back to reddit, mate.
Your gatekeeping sounds more like a Reddit attitude than what he said.
Sometimes you just want to eat out without going out.
I guess cooking for many people at once should be more efficient in principle.
Consider you’re running a restaurant that serves warm food from 10am to 2pm. One cook prepares 100 warm dishes of 2 or 3 different categories in advance, by using big kettles and a large amount of ingredients.
It’s more efficient to buy many ingredients at once, then cook them in a big kettle, then serve them in a 100 plates,
instead of every one of these 100 people going grocery shopping, spending 30 - 90 minutes in the kitchen cooking, and then eating alone.
The argument isn’t about walking, biking or driving, it’s about delivery. A lot of take out is also delivered by bike.
Yeah i guess thats fine. Idk im just kinda sick and tired of ppls laziness.
Highly depends on local infrastructure. Unfortunately the most common city planning philosophy in the US (from what I have seen) is pedestrian hostile. And really it’s not great for driving either. It just sucks to go anywhere.
I don’t get delivery, but it’s 15 minutes drive from my house to the nearest area with restaurants / stores. There are no bike lanes, shoulders, or sidewalks between here and there.
That sucks man. But atleast that motivates it a bit, if you would get delivered.
practical if you live in a major city but if you live in a commuter city, the burbs, or BFE walking or biking reallying isn’t an option.
I used to live in a small to medium sized city that was literally cut in half by the high way and it was 100% impossible to get from one part of the city to the other if you weren’t in a car or taking the bus.
Not everyone can walk or bike to the store.
Of all the modern capitalistic irritations (to put it mildly), this one I really detest. And not least because of how ridiculously popular it is, wtf people? I watch folks I know, who can barely afford the food itself in the first place, then inflate the price by like 40%, just to eat the already (very!) mediocre food…cold. Solely so that they don’t have to leave the house. Just completely unhinged from my POV, and honestly produces almost a sense of alienation in me, I find it so bizarre.
Disclaimer though - I will acknowledge both that I happily enjoy various different foolish things myself, so the point about glass houses is worth my keeping in mind, and also there are some great reasons to use it (limited mobility for one, as another user pointed out).
But sheesh folks. Restaurants largely hate it from my understanding, the drivers doing it hate it (cuz the job - oh excuse me, the preferred exploitation-hiding euphemism is “gig” - is utter shit, a literal minor improvement over straight up homelessness), the environment hates it, the wear-and-tear on a likely broke person’s vehicle and the wear-and-tear on already struggling infrastructure…I mean what the fuckity fuck, seriously. How is this so popular, we’re all insane and just conveniencing our way to oblivion. SMgoddamnH.
Aside from the aforementioned reasonable uses (largely edge cases, let’s be honest), there is precisely one group of people who truly benefit in any serious way from this amazingly destructive nonsense - and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the exact same group fucking us in every other way! Weird!
Sorry. This one really gets me.
I don’t disagree that it’s stupid but my problem is the stacking - Delivery fee and Service fee? The service is delivery! Why are they two fees? Either the cost of the delivery is being itemized in real time ($1.99 for gas, the rest for the human) or the delivery isn’t $1.99! If the cost to deliver an item is $20 and I make $50/hr working a project, maybe having food delivered makes sense.
But also, I know the delivery guy isn’t making all that and he’s delivering five orders so don’t charge me a service fee when I’m already subsidizing you paying him a shit wage.
Everything is shitty either way.
It’s so they can give “free delivery” and still charge a butt load of fees.
How else can they get people to sign up for a $15/month subscription that gives "free delivery " while charging a fuckton for a delivery service?
Delivery fee and Service fee? The service is delivery!
No, the service fee is either charged by the payment provider (or at least to offset the fee the payment provider charges). Has nothing to do with delivery (you also have to pay it when you pre-pay for takeout online)
Visa and Mastercard processing fee is slightly less than 2% of a total operation. Who takes the rest?
In the US it’s generally 2.5% - 3.5% (plus a bunch of BS fees and charges added on top).
I don’t know what payment service was used here. It is only around 2-3% on my invoices.
edit: Seems in the US a bunch of other stuff (like cost of running a website, insurance) can be included in the service fee.
2-3% is insane. It boggles my mind how it became accepted to pay almost everything with a credit card in america.
I’m not American but I got one with my bank account a few years back and I do use it a lot. It makes online payments super convenient. And with offline shopping it’s the vendors that eat the fee, so also no downside for the consumer (though I tend to use the debit card for that).
Which is the whole point. They chauferring you a burrito, and make you pay for their insurance.
Sure I guess.
But my point was that the delivery is not the service here. In fact the service fee is basically every BUT the delivery.
The service is delivery!
I read this and thought, “no, the service is that they were able to put pants on and leave their house today, unlike you.”
Please dont take that as a personal attack, I’m just sharing intrusive thoughts when they make me giggle
I use them fairly often because I’m just too fucking busy during the week. I have to get up at 5am to get ready for work, am too busy to take a real lunch break, and get home around 8-9 most nights. And that’s on nights I don’t have meetings (I work in municipal government, and public meetings like Council, P&Z, BOA, etc all meet at nights). We could hire more people, but that would require more income, and that requires council members to vote on raising their own property taxes, not to mention state law regarding tax increases.
Yeah, I could meal prep on the weekend, but that’s essentially allowing work to intrude on my weekends, and fuck that.
I’m essentially buying more time to relax in the very little relaxation time I have available.
Americans are too lazy to travel to their lunch. However, for the vast majority of the people, you’re not 15 minutes of walk away from a healthy assortment of food. Even in NYC, depending on where you are, it may not be possible to always go to your food. The idea of your lunch being paid is also not common, and you’re expected to be back to working (not done eating) within 30 minutes or less. In many cases, your lunchtime is timed and unpaid. Nurses and hospital staff? Eat the shit downstairs in the cafeteria or nothing; if you’re late coming back from lunch, it’s almost as bad as being late to work itself.
…if you think delivery is too expensive, maybe don’t get your food delivered, then? Just a thought.
Can’t I do both though?
Both what?
Can’t I not order delivery but also think its absurdly expensive?
I’m sorry sir, we abhor nuance around here
I wasn’t disagreeing with you, I was just asking what two options you were talking about. It was just a normal question with no motive.
It’s not ridiculous. Time is the most precious resource.
so I assume societies with lots of underpaid gig jobs is a society where people tend to have a lot of free time saved to enjoy life?
For the individual though, it certainly makes sense to just order food online if you have to sit still and complete 3 different projects.
and how are those “individualistic” societies doing?
The implication was that getting food delivered to you in this way makes no sense. I gave an example of why it does make sense.
If you don’t like it, you could get lobbying to get everyone UBI supported by automation, so we don’t have to work.
it’s the situation where it makes sense because we capitalise every aspect of human existence, so it makes sense for an individual to do so.
but not as a society.
Organizing a Lemmy community around this issue is literally on my list of goals…though it was supposed to be Reddit.
Fuck you Reddit!
sorry, my concept was vague, what community you want to make?
Do Americans really get their shit delivered by car?over here it’s motorcycles 99% of the time (and bicycles the other 1%)
Seems rather… Sluggish and inefficient for delivery drivers to go by car.
This cuts both ways actually. you can have 10 guys going through a drive thru or one 1 making 10 stops. The one guy making ten stops results in less traffic and fewer emissions.
When you build infrastructure that requires you take cars everywhere you minimize people going to get things for themselves
It’s kind of wild how the standard fare of pizza and chinese food delivery was absorbed by gig work. They used to be employees of the restaurant.
Technology should have made restaurant deliverer’s lives easier and increased their efficiency. They should have made more money and worked less.
Instead we got gig workers who are basically impoverished wage slaves. They get no rights and no benefits. What is worse is whatever temporary profits they made have been sucked up by corporations by now.
This is a great case study for how to not use technology and how Tech Bros are not disrupters, they are destructors who profiteer, choke out, and then destroy markets.
that’s what capitalism does to technology.
it isn’t there to improve lives, it’s there to funnel as much capital to shareholders as possible
Not sure about other places but here when you order pizza, it is MUCH cheaper to call the restaurant directly and have them deliver it. It’s usually faster too.
Same, local Chinese places near me still deliver as far as I know.
One chinese restaurant out here still does it I since they had a fleet of cars. But the local pizza joints and all the chains just contract through a delivery service app. It isn’t usually doordash or ubereats, but the driver almost always is anyway.
So these days even the delivery apps are middlemen between the restaurant and the drivers. (They provide the menus and the transaction service and coordinate with all available driver delivery apps.)
I find it funny that the tip is already there before you get your food. I mean, did the driver make the burrito? He might be late and you get cold food, he might be a dick.
I don’t get it either. That shit is so much more expensive. Not only are they charging you delivery fees and “convenience” fees, the base prices of what you’re ordering at are also inflated through apps like Doordash and Uber Eats. Something that is only $5 if you went and got it yourself is now $8, plus a delivery fee, plus other fees. And then there is also a chance that the person delivering it is a piece of shit who just steals your food.
Sometimes you need the convenience.
If I have to work late and don’t have time to cook, and my kids need to be in bed in an hour and a half, then I’m going to pay a little extra, and that’s fine.
Not everyone has a wide open schedule every night.
Price is inflated because the platform is charging those fees to the restaurant, so the restaurant just pass these fees off to the customer by setting their prices higher for the apps.
And even if your food does show up … it’s cold. Do people just not know that food tastes worse the longer it’s been out of the oven?
Agreed 100%. It takes longer, costs more, and it’s worse. My credit card gives me a premium membership and monthly vouchers and I still don’t order that shit because it still costs more and stuff from the freezer tastes better.
Wife and I can also make better food, which may contribute to my distaste for delivery apps.
I only demand the raw ingredients to be grown halfway around the world, shipped by climate-controlled container in giant cargo boats, trucked from the port to the backstore, kept in refrigerated display cases, and sold in disposable containers.
But it’s the last mile that’s going to change the world, you see.
It actually is the last mile that matters. When shipped half way around the world it’s in bulk. The amount of fuel per unit of food is surprisingly low.
For the last mile you’re not getting 100 meals delivered even though they would fit in the car. The fuel to food ratio is insane for 1 meal.
Of course buying local is better when you have the option, but it doesn’t make nearly as much of a difference as last mile delivery.
Not only fuel to food ratio, but also the amount of labor. If it takes someone 20 minutes to deliver your food, including their return trip), that is 1/3 of an hour of labor.
I know this sub is focused on the vehicle use and ridiculous inefficiency of this in terms of fuel, but the labor to have someone do this is what really runs up the bill. I suppose that’s a good thing, because it limits demand.
Gig delivery method is also the most inefficient way to do this. Some people cite medical reasons why they can’t leave the house, but many grocery stores manage their own deliveries. When the store handles it, the delivery goes from Store to Point A to Point B… Gig goes from Home to Store to Point A to Store to Point B…
Are you trying to say food delivery could be efficient? I’m not sure if I’m reading this correctly, because even as someone who isn’t involved in shipping logistics but is involved in some conceptually adjacent logistics, it’s absolutely clear to me why the last mile is harder/more expensive than the “other miles”. Especially in takeout food delivery because of the additional constraints.
Or is this sort of like, pro super-independence and we should avoid shipping in general and prefer local resources?
