> “These orders don’t pay for our expenses or our time. We actually lose money when we take those orders. If I pick up an order that is 10 miles away and deliver it 6 miles I’m traveling 16 miles for a $3 order — so I have lost money. I’m in the negative when I account for gas, wear and tear, and other expenses. Not to mention my time.”
This begs an obvious question: why are people choosing to do this if it pays $0/hr? It’s voluntary. Can they find something better to do with their time?
"However, if a worker rejects too many jobs too frequently, they may receive fewer job offers as a result."
They take those jobs because they lose all access to the chance of profitable jobs otherwise. The people working for door dash aren't exactly the sort of person with the ability to fully understand probabilities and statistics either. I'd say it's fair to assume their business model works by bullying the same psychological behaviors as videogame loot crates, lottery tickets, and casinos. That one huge order that pays $30 after tips quiets the anxiety of losing money on the previous ten orders even if the actual math places the driver in the red. Most people have a very poor sense for overhead costs like vehicle maintenance. The link between miles driven and the rate of repairs required just isn't there.
I've worked these gigs before, and so have friends of mine with advanced STEM degrees. Sometimes you are stuck between a rock and a hard place (usually you are, if you're low income) and your current dilemma is between not being able to afford your rent tomorrow or food tonight, and working some exploitative app gig like this. So cool the condescension. Poor folks -- even those with really low numeracy -- are generally extremely aware that these gigs are exploitative and not sustainable income sources in the long run and see the scam a mile away. In my experience it's folks who haven't been poor who don't have a good sense for how expensive it is to be poor, for how difficult it is to make long term decisions, and the intractability of problems you have to solve just to get by sometimes
None of all of what you wrote addresses how those folks between a rock and a hard place will be better off not having the option to work for a given service at all.
These businesses are already unprofitable. So you probably couldn't have another DoorDash that pays its workers more. I suppose you could argue that some restaurants might have their own delivery services, or something. But that'd be tiny in scale compared to what these services are doing.
A tiny delivery service based around a local group of restaurants could easily have a fairer distribution of income and time consumed. Since the delivery service operates from about five or ten shops there's no "drive 10 miles to the pickup". Since the service is basically local there's no "take money from the poor and give it to the richer" - even the profits that go to the capitalists is still going to local members of the community who are making some money, but not too much to know what to do with. "Unprofitable" is relative.
Consider: restaurants often consider delivery to be a 'loss leader'. It's not a terribly profitable industry, maybe not at all profitable. A more limited service (unable to average costs over a large number of restaurants and customers) is going to be even less so?
Right, but as I said, the scale of these local delivery services is much smaller. Even if we accept your premise that each local job would be better (which i'm not sure is true, but i'll grant you it), there would be far fewer of them. It's not obvious to me which is better: A lot of bad jobs, or a few good ones?
Not completely. I remember life before Uber and seamless. I'd just stay home and eat ramen (this is in Dallas and I didn't have a car). These businesses did genuinely create businesses and also changed lives for many by the service. That's not an excuse for such exploitative behavior of course.
I remember life before Uber and I'd never heard of Seamless, until your comment. These businesses genuinely just used VC funding and exploitative contracts to undercut perfectly viable existing services.
Before Uber, I'd take public transport, phone for a minicab or walk to their office to get one. (and I still do)
Before Deliveroo, I'd call the local takeaway and get them to deliver, or walk there and collect it myself. (and I still do).
You can argue that they have improved the lives of people who find it hard to use the phone, However, that was already solved for food delivery before these new delivery services came along and I would be surprised if there weren't minicab firms that accepted SMS or web bookings.
Looks like you haven't lived in a city like Dallas. Public transport is a joke (which I did resort to when I finally run out of food; will take me half a day to do groceries and I need to come back home and shower). Cabs will take thirty minutes to come to your home and will charge outrageous amounts (4x what Uber used to charge initially).
When I say I'd just sit at home I wasn't joking. I and many friends (mostly women) would just not do shit most of the time and just watch TV instead. Hell I'd go years without visiting my cousin in Plano (a suburb) because commuting there is a multi day ordeal (I need to start from their home at 5 pm if I needed to use public transport).
Did I and others just exploit Ubers unreasonably cheap prices? Yes. Did it improbe our lives measurably? Also yes. If you were lucky enough to live in New York or some city like that power to you but not every place was blessed.
That's true. I have only lived in walkable areas. This is because I have not owned a car until recently.
I understand that public transport and minicabs are poor in tiny villages where the only amenities are a pub and a church, but I assume that when something is a city, it is a large built-up area with all the normal amenities that I expect of a city (shops, offices, entertainment, bus routes, possibly a light railway etc.). Is Dallas really not like that? What is it? Just miles and miles of big houses?
Out of curiosity, what caused you to live in a car-dependent area without a car?
In Vietnam Grab drivers actually make a decent amount of money because a lot of their customers are middle class (relative to Vietnam). I don't think they're missing out on that much business by not having lower prices because you still see them everywhere (17 at a red light is the most I've ever seen) and people who can't afford Grab will use public transportation or their own motorbikes (student jobs may pay 20k-50k/hr, a bus ticket is 6k and a 10km GrabBike ride can be 70k, 4-5km is like 35k). A college graduate after some time may make 100k-200k/hr, and yet you'll still find a large class of people buying the latest iPhones (which would cost around 25 million).
I guess the US is a different environment where there's not enough customers who could afford realistic prices for Uber, and there's not enough alternatives for those who can't afford a personal vehicle.
That has a lot more to do with the tech and distribution model they unlocked than financial viability. In Europe Uber drivers are private (company) drivers, not contractors, and it still works. There is a ton of money in transport, Uber is not even cheap if you’re not in tech / top earners.
Just because a service exists doesn't mean the same service can exist and be financially viable for every employee. There are many businesses that are inherently unprofitable. It can be argued that such businesses should be subsidized because their existence is beneficial to society (e.g. Ubers in the neighborhoods that taxis wouldn't serve).
These people often have reasons why they are not already working a more classic job and are unlikely be hired or in some cases want to work under whatever new standards and time commitments required for full time employees of these apps.
I'm not saying that they would be -- correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that has been a point of discussion.
A job/app gig can both exploit someone and also give them the ability to survive where they might have few options otherwise. See sweatshops and the agricultural industry for example
I could probably have fuel in my car for two weeks, but be hungry and without food today, Maybe I am looking forward to getting another jon in 2 days so this might help me now.
I would also add that people take the jobs because of initial sign-up bonuses (although those have greatly diminished over the years) and because the sales pitch is often compelling. It isn’t until the person signs up that they realize it’s harder to get jobs and that the average pay isn’t worth the hassle. At that point, people quit. It’s why turnover is so high for the food delivery apps (I’m excluding Seamless/Grubhub, who I believe offer a different model. Or at least it did — Seamless used to rely on a restaurants own delivery staff). Turnover is still high for car services, but there are stricter requirements to get approved there and in a busy area, the average pay is going to be better than for DoorDash or Postmates or whatever.
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
Not all orders are like that, but a lot can be, and it depends on the region.
I worked GrubHub back in 2018 when I was between jobs(took some time off to do side projects and did deliveries to make ends meet). These apps play this psychological game on you where you have to accept something like 95% of orders in order to get more quantity and quality(supposedly), so some people are desperate to take all the shitty no-tip orders just so they have a shot at getting better ones.
The funny thing was the lowest acceptance rate I had was 3%, and that's because I hung around a rich area of town and waited for those sweet $20-$50 orders that were only a few miles distance. Always felt like I got the golden ticket. I never got fired for having that low of an acceptance rate.
There were some fellow drivers I talked to on Reddit that got kind of a bad deal. They would drive for GrubHub or DoorDash at a town in Podunk, Nowhere with low demand and would often get sent those kind of orders that were 10+ miles away for $3. If that happens to be the demand, then you're either screwed taking bad orders or you're screwed if you reject too many of them and you get fired.
I think the reason I never got fired is because the LA area, at least while I was doing it, was hot(figuratively) and GrubHub just wanted to fill up the market with as many drivers as possible. In areas where they've fully met the demand, then your arse can be on the line if you reject too many orders.
Overall, it was a fun job to have for a while. But it would suck big-time if I had to actually do it for a living. Thank god I'm good enough at software engineering.
EDIT: Saw lots of hilarious things happen while I was on the job. It's amazing how many women order food while they're taking a bath and then either forget to answer their phone or they come to the door wrapped in towels. WTF! I once delivered a 2 dozen donuts to this one guy at ~10:30pm who was super high accidentally walked into the door before opening it. Also had some sad moments, like those times I delivered to an elder hospice. This one sick old lady wanted to give me a handsome tip, but I didn't want to accept it because I just felt like she deserved that ice cream in her condition and was just happy I brought it to her. But she insisted because she said it might be her last ice cream. :(
> the shitty no-tip orders just so they have a shot at getting better ones.
Wait a second... Are people not giving a cash tip in these cases? I do no-tip and give cash instead (which I thought was preferred). Is that a bad strategy?
Most no-tip orders don't result in a cash tip, but some do. I'd say 1 in 5 no-tippers end up tipping in cash. People who use these apps aren't exactly the greatest customers in the world.
It's only a bad strategy if most or all drivers pass on your orders. Some drivers take these offers in hope for cash. I chose to stop taking those offers because I found most people don't end up tipping me in cash. It was more profitable to drive 20 - 30 minutes to a hot spot or a rich neighborhood where I knew I would get worthwhile offers. (and also not end up in the hood!)
As a user there is a strong pull not to tip after paying the premium for the initial service. For example an order for a $10 burger costs $20 and is delivered cold, I don't really want to tip for that. But then the driver shows up and its some down on his luck father lugging his son around because he can't afford child care, of course I'm going to tip every driver I see from then on (and feel ashamed for using the service in the first place).
Either consumer tolerance for convenience spending is going to break, or the prices will just keep going up astronomically as a perverse form of inflation (indirectly suppressing all jobs who's compensation isn't similarly skyrocketing).
If i read the article correctly, that may be the optimal strategy. Trouble is, if these drivers see what they are making up front, they may be more inclined to turn you down.
There is (or was) a movement on Instacart where you'd tip $0.22 to show that you intended to either tip cash or increase the tip amount after delivery (which somehow benefits the shopper).
As a pizza delivery driver, your pizza shop is your base and you only go out when there's an order that needs to be delivered. My friend used to work at Pizza Hut and he was getting reimbursed for gas (per mile but it was slightly more than his gas mileage so i suppose it covers for wear and tear?).
As far as i know, you're not getting reimbursed for delivering DoorDash and the pickup location could be on the other side of the town.
I don't think DoorDash has to be less efficient for traveling than pizza delivery.
With pizza delivery, you have to drive to the person's house then back. So you cover the same road twice for a single delivery.
But with DoorDash, theoretically, then could see there's an order from A to B, find a driver near A, have the driver deliver to B, then match that driver up with an order from near B to near A. So the driver could do 2 deliveries in a single out and back trip.
In an ideal world, maybe - but most delivery drivers employed by the restaurant (like pizza delivery drivers) take multiple orders at a time to deliver. You're going to have to get very lucky to beat this on average with DoorDash or similar services.
Ha, same here. I thought my catering side job was pretty sweet (7€ an hour!) until I once scratched someones car on the way to work and it cost me 350€, which was more than I had earned in that job.
I've since realised that cars are very expensive and you should probably not take a job that requires a lot of driving around in your own car if you don't get reimbursed for it.
No doubt. I had an IT job that required me to drive around to schools in the city. Well, I didn't have some special parking pass or anything. If I got a ticket, or hit a red light camera, I'd make negative money for the day potentially. I ended up biking everywhere. The traffic in the city was so bad such that there was no time difference anyhow.
Those repairs are the deeply-embedded, systemic problems that creep up and ambush you one day before work, forcing you to decide between a $1k car repair -- often the barest minimum-cost repair you can find and negotiate -- or forking over a few times that much for an entirely different car to drive.
I can usually get a rental for ~$20/day, which buys time to find a better vehicle. A teenager can't get a rental, but they can probably borrow a car from their parents for a few days/weeks until a decent opportunity comes up.
$2000 will get you a pretty decent vehicle and is probably a better investment than a $1000 repair.
Really simplistic view: Before the hour of work I had $10003 of vehicle, $0 in my pocket, and an hour of time. After the hour of work I had $10000 of vehicle, and $3 in my pocket.
With the assumption that you are going to eventually pay that $3 back into your vehicle, by paying for repairs or buying a new one, you basically just "borrowed" money from your vehicle.
> you basically just "borrowed" money from your vehicle.
so wouldn't it then make more sense to just sell the vehicle for $10003, then place that money in an interest earning asset like a bond, rather than "borrow" from the value of the vehicle?
Most Americans can't manage daily necessities (groceries, childcare, doctor's visits, etc.) without a car.
Then maybe you ask why they don't have a cheaper car.
Generally, a cheaper car costs far more to maintain. The total annual cost of ownership of a 2-year-old Camry is far lower than a 10-year-old Camry. But to get that lower cost, you have to temporarily convert more of your money into that car asset.
End result: your cash is stuck in your car, and DoorDash/Uber/whatever lets you liquidate it without selling your car.
> Generally, a cheaper car costs far more to maintain. The total annual cost of ownership of a 2-year-old Camry is far lower than a 10-year-old Camry. But to get that lower cost, you have to temporarily convert more of your money into that car asset.
That’s a poor example, since a Camry is notoriously reliable and needs minimal maintenance. And ten years really isn’t that old. The depreciation on the two year old car would outweigh the maintenance on the ten year old car. I believe that 5-10 years old is the sweet spot for TCO.
I think it's more that dealerships usually carry newer cars, and it's a lot easier to get qualified for a loan at a dealership than for a private car sale (or at least it's perceived that way). The types of people doing Uber or Doordash aren't the type that can pay cash for a car (Uber even restricts you to newer cars last I checked).
A lot of people see car payments as being "normal" and a necessary expense. I have never had a car payment, so adding $200+/month is not something I'm going to consider. However, many people don't have any real cash in savings[1] 40% would struggle with an unexpected $400 expense, 20% don't have $400 in the bank. Personally, I keep at least $500 in cash at home, and I keep enough to cover my single largest "expected" sudden expense (e.g. replace my car), or last at least 3 months without pay (6 months right now since I'm a contractor), whichever is bigger.
The culture around debt is truly alarming. People pay $20k+ at 4+% to drive a car that may be more "reliable", when they could pay ~$10k at 0% (or enter your opportunity cost here for keeping cash) for a car that's approximately as reliable over ~5 years. If both follow the same depreciation curve, buying an older car with cash is way better than buying a newer car on credit. My advice is: buy a cheaper car, pay yourself whatever the car payment would've been on the more expensive car, and use that fund to replace/repair your cheaper car (never pay more than 50% of the value of your car for a repair). I would be very surprised if the majority weren't better off buying older cars with cash than newer cars with credit.
Definitely agreed. A cheaper car can be a better deal, however anyone who's poor isn't necessarily going to have the resources (time, secondary transportation, and $650 for a water pump repair) to manage it safely.
A financially well-off family may have multiple cars, a garage, and some spare time. They can incur the risk of an old cheap car much more easily.
> The total annual cost of ownership of a 2-year-old Camry is far lower than a 10-year-old Camry.
Really? Maybe 10 years ago but cars have become remarkably good recently. I wouldn’t expect a 10 year old car to give you many problems beyond maybe the difficulty of sourcing parts.
A lot of the push towards fuel efficiency led to tech that was in some ways or another half baked.
Examples:
- Direct Injection : Good for Emissions and Fuel economy, but many first generation systems have carbon build-up issues (Toyota D4S and -newer- Ford Ecoboosts don't have this problem because they have 2 sets of injectors)
- All the transmissions: Ford's DCT is notorious at this point for reliability issues, Hyundai's DCT is not looking so hot so far, Nissan's CVT is a joke, Subaru's CVT is a bit of a diceroll as to whether it blows up at 100k or not, the ZF 9 speed that many manufacturers uses has issues...
I'll note that SOME of these are newer problems, but most of them started happening around 10 years ago and are only finally getting smoothed out.
As a counterpoint, however, the costs of all of these newer safety systems is driving up repair costs in accidents, as well as the insurance premiums for newer cars.
Re the direct injection comment.. one small trick can save you $300 on engine flushes from carbon buildup: you can get an oil catch can installed for under $100 that solves this problem.
But you can’t argue direct injection is worse than older fuel injection. You save more gas, get better performance (even though you don’t get as many valves), and have a cooler running engine with direct injection. That’s a net positive for the environment and your wallet over the life of your car
And this is why working under this scenario, the vehicle is a money losing asset (where every dollar you earned driving costs a dollar in vehicle depreciation, even with a tax deduction, it's still a money losing asset).
The deliverer has to be able to earn $1.15 (at least) per dollar depreciated from the vehicle for the work to be "worth it".
The other issue is uncertainty - you have no idea how much you will earn on a given day or if this will be the day your car finally hits one pothole too many and dies.
But you can estimate it. Record your earnings every day, any compare it by the hour, day, week, and month, as well as miles driven each day. Estimate the total cost of driving (IRS estimate of ~$0.50/mile is a good place to start). Use this simple formula:
(Income - expenses) / hours worked = hourly wage
Is your hourly wage reasonable? If so, it may make sense to optimize away your expenses and generally stay the course. If it's not, would changing your work hours or location make it reasonable?
Unfortunately, I get your feeling that people only look at the income and ignore the rest of the equation (hey, I got $50 tonight! I had to drive 100 miles though...). If you're making $3/trip, you had better drive less than 6 miles or you just lose.
The problem is how to turn car-value into cash. You have a car worth $10003 and your current needs can be filled by converting $3 per hour.
chii is suggesting you sell the car. That converts the entire car at once. Then you don't have to spend any hours! As an optimization on top of that, they suggest you store the value in a bond, and pull $3 per hour out of the bond instead.
The real problem with this idea is that selling the car leaves you with no car.
Your objection that "you need the cash now" is based on a misunderstanding of chii's idea. chii's idea does get you all the cash now. It gets you the cash far far faster than $3 per hour. It gets you the cash so fast that you could actually invest almost all of it and pull out $3 per hour and do things you actually want to do during those hours.
It's not "buy a bond, have no money today, have more money tomorrow".
It's "buy a bond, drain the bond for $3 an hour today, have more money tomorrow".
Compared to having 10k under your mattress, the bond has no downside.
What do you need a car for? If it's just to go shopping, consider paying for delivery services instead of being the delivery service. If it's to get to a day job, compare car ownership to mass transit or bike committing. All of these cases can be estimated fairly easily (IRS allows deducting ~$0.50/mile, which is a good first estimate for total cost of ownership per mile).
Unless a car is a certain model, it's a liability instead of an asset, so it should be treated like any other expense. If you only use the car for local trips and commuting and taking the bus/biking is doable (perhaps less convenient), then buying a cheap car, keeping a few weeks of food on hand, and taking the bus to work whenever the car breaks down is likely way cheaper than buying a newer, more reliable car.
I used to have two cars (married with kids, so one car for each parent), and then decided to start biking to work to improve my health. I noticed that I can bike most days, and the insurance alone was enough to convince me to deal with the occasional inconveniences (e.g. when it snows, I bike to the bus stop).
The problem is that most people don't actually do the math and just assume that owning a car is better, when it's not most of the time.
He's saying: Sure it costs me money to maintain the vehicle, but that's tomorrow's me problem. Today I get cash. It's like you took a loan from yourself with your vehicle's health as the collateral.
"The only reason I do it at all is because the few orders where customers tip high enough to make it worth it keep me going on some of them." - Lee, DoorDash worker in Hendersonville, TN
Also of course they may have not done the math yet, or they may be doing this to try and fill in the gaps between their other two shitty minimum-wage jobs that never give them enough hours to be an actual full-time employee with benefits.
It feels more like gambling than "filling in the gaps". Casinos, video game loot boxes, mobile games, etc are all based on the idea that an occasional dopamine hit will keep people interested. A good tip now and then seems like the same thing.
It's quite likely that someone working multiple jobs will be worse off doing something like Uber and Doordash part time, but they feel like they're better off because they occasionally get that dopamine hit.
I think everyone should record everything about these types of side hustles. It's quite likely that the extra miles on your car completely erodes the money you make. The IRS allows deducting $0.50/mile, which is a pretty reasonable estimate for vehicle costs. I drive an older hybrid, which I paid cash for, and my cost is still ~$0.25/mile for repairs, insurance, depreciation, and gas (gas is <$0.10/mile if you get better than 26mpg, so it's very misleading).
I don't know about that. I've never seen the same driver twice...not from Doordash and not from any other delivery service except the two that have the drivers as actual employees.
I'm sure the churn is huge because the pay isn't there.
I am curious about how they selected workers to sample. If the advertisement was, "Pissed about your DoorDash wages? Share them with us!" or anything similar, I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn from the analysis.
Though it's not likely too distorted, because the average hourly gross pay was similar to what DoorDash cites [we can't tell how close because DD doesn't explain their exact methodology]; just the net pay is very low.
I reread the article. What's super distorted is how they're calculating expenses. Sure the IRS will let you deduct 58c per mile, but that doesn't mean that's what it actually costs. Unless you're stupid, you use an intelligent car like a used Corolla or Fit for a job like this. Maybe a nicely used Prius. A sensible driver would incur expenses of about 20c per mile.
So that means their estimate of expenses is about 200% higher than what it should be. Since they don't really provide sufficient data to recalculate their estimates, it's hard to say exactly what effect this might have on their conclusions, but it probably changes them significantly.
I estimated about $0.25/mile, which includes insurance, repairs, and depreciation. Gas is<$0.10/mile if you get better than 26mpg (assuming $2.60/gallon, which is approximately the average). My estimates:
- insurance - $100/6 months for a second car (from when I was debating selling my second car)
- repairs - $400/year (I do most of the routine work myself)
- depreciation - $1000/year
- misc fees - $150 (registration, parking, occasional tickets, etc)
My second car costs >$1500/year. I bought it used (~7 years old) for $10k, and I've had it for 5 years and it's currently worth ~$5k, so my depreciation estimate seems reasonable, perhaps conservative.
If I drive 10k miles/year (I drive less), that's >$0.15/mile + $0.07/mile (~40mpg Prius), so $0.25/mile seems like a decent low end estimate. If you drive more, depreciation will be higher.
When you have no money net income is pretty damn obvious. I'd argue instead that they're actually pretty rational.
The job requires no training and is untaxing both physically and mentally. Despite driver complaints, it's much more flexible than the vast majority of unskilled jobs. I'm sure for most long term drivers, the job basically sucks -- but it's still better than their next best alternative.
It's certainly better than getting a payday loan or something, but there's a good chance many workers are operating at a net loss, especially if they don't do their taxes right (e.g. claim a deduction for car expenses).
Couple this with the general lack of financial education among the populace (40% would have trouble with an unexpected $400 expense, 20% don't have $400 in their bank account) and we have a real problem.
As a society, we need to do a better job of teaching people how to evaluate opportunities. Driving 10 miles for a $3 delivery is probably a net loss, unless you can work out a clever tax arbitrage system (e.g. it costs you $0.25/mile to drive, but you deduct $0.50/mile on taxes).
Even the most clueless and innumerate person is going to notice when they've been working and getting paid for a month, haven't paid any bills yet or bought anything but food and gas, and still have $0.
The problem is that gas is a small part of the equation. You also need to account for depreciation, increased repairs, and opportunity costs (e.g. Uber may require a newer car than you'd otherwise get). It may look like you're making money because you make more than you pay in gas, but I'm guessing people aren't noticing that their day job is subsidizing their side hustle for infrequent expenses.
I use the IRS figure of ~$0.50/mile to ball park an opportunity. When I calculated it for my car, I got closer to $0.25/mile, but that's because I got a good deal on a reliable, used, efficient car (~$10k for a 60k mile Prius) and I do most of my own maintenance. The average driver (having a shop do repairs, worse mileage, buy from dealer with loan) will likely be closer to the IRS figure.
It does not pay $0/hr. Even the TFA states this. Only if you first disregard 88% of the total pay (the tips) and then subtract an overstated expense line-item do you end up with a number close to $0.
The actual number is that Average Gross Earnings are $18.54 per hour. Obviously there are also some expenses, but average expense is not actually $0.54/mile. $0.54/mile is what you get to deduct from your income on your tax return. (So there's actually a tax advantage here too.)
In other words, the guaranteed amount covers more than your expenses, your earnings come from tips, sometimes in the form of cash, and you get a preferential tax deduction on top. It's actually a great deal.
The simple answer to your question is that DoorDash has so many drivers because the job is easy to do and pays well. But for ideological reasons, some people think this kind of employment arrangement should be illegal.
After bike commuting for 10 years and now working from home, I ask that question all the time.
My only guess after asking around is people think they "have to". People put their head down and forget to think about the bigger picture. Maybe working for DoorDash is the same type of thing?
A bike commute for me would be a minimum of 2 hours (twice a day) and I'm almost at the years of experience the vast majority of remote jobs start at (which isn't a small number like 2), so you could say I "have to".
Yep, it's totally someone's choice to live in a neighborhood with affordable housing as opposed to a mansion across the street from their place of employment. Gee, looks like we both know how to make irrational overgeneralizations.
This is classic Stockholm syndrome with commutes that I see all too often.
What's wrong with the commute? The fact that, if you didn't have the commute, you could do all those same things and also anything else you can think of. The opportunity cost is enormous.
You can't have your PhD advisor at home, but consider how many people commute to jobs that could be done just as effectively from home/remotely. How many man-hours are lost to that.
Also, it seems like you're using public transport. You're lucky that that is a) a viable option and b) pleasant enough that you don't want to murder people after a few weeks of doing it. The majority of commuters around the world are using personal transport, which has a huge carbon cost and does not allow for doing other things while commuting.
Personally, I wouldn't mind a 40 minute train trip and a 5 minute walk either side, but a 40 minute drive is awful. I've gone from a 40 minute drive to a 10 minute drive, and I feel "free-er" because of it.
Must be a place with good public transit? I know someone that drives an hour and a half one way just to work in a call center and drive back. So around 3 hours wasted. I guess only music, or maybe a audio book or podcast then in that case but I've seen people text and drive, read books and do makeup before though too even if you aren't supposed to. So many parts of the US lacks public transport, so if you don't have a car you are limited so much. However in the bigger cities there's more options.
My brother works for Uber Eats while between gigs in LA TV; he's actively working towards a full-time job.
In certain cities, I'd be willing to bet much of the demographic who takes this kind of job are in similar positions. That is, they're looking for full-time work while wanting to make a little income on the side. In my brother's case, he makes minimum wage or better.
This is a fairly simple problem to manage though. The computer shouldn't say "no", it should say "This trip isn't fair on our drivers because the standard fee doesn't cover the costs. Would you like to pay the extended distance fee or cancel this job?" It'd still put some people off, but fewer than you'd think. A lot of people want to be ethical when they're buying things.
An extended distance fee being proposed when I live the same distance from the restaurant as the last time I ordered and didn't get charged the fee feels like you're not doing your job in "handling things" for me.
People outsource tasks in part because they don't want to think about the details. Where do UPS trucks get their fuel? Do they use diesel or gas? How long between oil changes? Do the drivers get cold in the truck? Where do Door Dash drivers use the bathroom while they're working? Is the grocery store losing money on those end cap bargains? How does the electrician figure out how to not get shocked? How does the plumber solder pipes without burning my house down? How do roofers stay safe while installing their safety anchors? How long do painters' paint brushes last?
I don't want to think about any of that; I just want to have a reliable service provided with the details handled for me. Every bit of friction you put into the system with fuel surcharges, baggage fees, resort fees, blackout dates, surge pricing, weekend surcharges, and the like represents both financial and attention loss to me in terms of the value you are providing. (At least surge pricing, weekend call-out surcharges, and blackout dates I can understand as maybe essential to giving an attractive overall proposition.)
I was surprised to learn recently - and it may just be one of the rideshare companies in one country, or it may be more widespread - that the driver may not be told the final destination until they have accepted and started the ride.
So you might keep doing loops back to the airport (or a good restaurant precinct) because most of the jobs are OK; but it’s only when I hop in the car for a $10 ride to the next suburb that you discover you’ll lose money on this ride.
Actually, the rideshare folks usually (depending of course on location and personal preference) are after the airport drives. It's the onesie-twosie "bar-hopping" short trips that they don't like.
That’s what I’m getting at. Airport drives are usually the best, but if you aren’t told the passenger’s destination you could be forced to go all the way out to the airport to accept a tiny fare.
Great for me as a consumer; lousy for the driver’s income; and a reason why (to answer the question asked) some drivers / riders accept loss-making fares: they don’t get told in advance how much the trip is worth.
> This begs an obvious question: why are people choosing to do this if it pays $0/hr? It’s voluntary. Can they find something better to do with their time?
Maybe because they want to do something purposeful with their life, even if it doesn't earn them any net cash? Maybe a "Thank you" and a smile from a delivery customer makes for a better day then just being "lazy" and watching TV/consuming social media?
I find it hard to believe someone who wanted to work for free on something meaningful would choose to volunteer for DoorDash in preference to a normal charity?
I don't think most of them were in a situation to say "I want to work for free" and then chose DoorDash (per definition a for-profit job) over volunteering for charity (per definition a non-profit job). I could imagine they found the job, it generated some cash flow and only they later realized that the math doesn't work out.
"However, if a worker rejects too many jobs too frequently, they may receive fewer job offers as a result."
They take those jobs because they lose all access to the chance of profitable jobs otherwise. The people working for door dash aren't exactly the sort of person with the ability to fully understand probabilities and statistics either. I'd say it's fair to assume their business model works by bullying the same psychological behaviors as videogame loot crates, lottery tickets, and casinos. That one huge order that pays $30 after tips quiets the anxiety of losing money on the previous ten orders even if the actual math places the driver in the red.
This begs an obvious question: why are people choosing to do this if it pays $0/hr? It’s voluntary. Can they find something better to do with their time?