> Their $8 McDonalds order with a $14 delivery fee.
It seems everyone is dancing around the obvious central fact: the drivers get an embarrassingly small amount of that $14 fee. The customer pays a premium, the driver is paid a pittance, it’s hardly surprising there’s an expectations mismatch around customer service.
If the delivery apps charged a fee that accurately represented their role in the transaction (running automated software matching driver with customer) it might be a better experience for both customers and drivers. But the companies have sky high valuations they now need to deliver on, so they can’t.
> Delivery has figured out how to get to hallway doors for 50-100 years. This is a solved problem.
Right. Pre delivery apps I’d order in NYC and have no problems with doorstep delivery. So apply simple logic: what’s changed? The customers haven’t. The drivers haven’t. But there’s a new middleman.
It seems everyone is dancing around the obvious central fact: the drivers get an embarrassingly small amount of that $14 fee. The customer pays a premium, the driver is paid a pittance, it’s hardly surprising there’s an expectations mismatch around customer service.
If the delivery apps charged a fee that accurately represented their role in the transaction (running automated software matching driver with customer) it might be a better experience for both customers and drivers. But the companies have sky high valuations they now need to deliver on, so they can’t.
> Delivery has figured out how to get to hallway doors for 50-100 years. This is a solved problem.
Right. Pre delivery apps I’d order in NYC and have no problems with doorstep delivery. So apply simple logic: what’s changed? The customers haven’t. The drivers haven’t. But there’s a new middleman.