https://seattle.eater.com/2024/2/21/24079162/tony-delivers-seattle-delivery-app-fees-downtown
Tony Illes was working as an Uber Eats delivery person when an ordinance passed last year by the Seattle City Council came into effect in mid-January. The new rule required app companies to pay workers like Illes a minimum wage based on the miles they travel and the minutes they spend on the job. The apps say that this amounts to around $26 an hour, and both Uber Eats and DoorDash responded by adding $5 fees to every order (even when the customer is outside Seattle city limits) while calling for the law to be repealed. According to a recent DoorDash blog post, the ordinance has resulted in an “unprecedented drop in order volume,” a drop that Illes felt personally. He told Geekwire that “demand is dead” and told local TV station KIRO 7, “I didn’t get an order for like six hours and I was done.”
So Illes had an idea: Who needs these apps, anyway? He printed up signs with QR codes directing people to a bare-bones website with his phone number, promising that he would deliver food by bike in Uptown, South Lake Union, Belltown, and a chunk of the downtown core for $5 a pop from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. daily. All you had to do was order the food and send him the screenshot. He called himself “Tony Delivers.”
This is a good side? Because Tony most likely can't afford health insurance and probably isn't going to be able to save much for retirement.
This sounds like the desperate side of the non-corporate people involved in the so-called free market to me.
He knows what is worth his own time to him. He can take routes only when they make sense to him. I looked at the map and it's an 8 Minute bike ride from middle to corner. That's $20 an hour worst case and $50 an hour on average.
He's making more by cutting out the middleman of Doordash who was profiting off his work.
That doesn't address anything I said.
If Tony gets hit by a car while making deliveries, how is he going to afford the hospital bills in a for-profit healthcare system?
If Tony dies and has a family, how are they going to survive until they adjust to the loss of income when he doesn't have life insurance?
Will Tony ever be able to retire or will he have to be riding a bike, making deliveries when he's 80?
That's why this is not a good side of the so-called free market.
There is no good side.
We need universal healthcare but Doordash doesn't provide healthcare for drivers so he hasn't lost anything. Companies pay for healthcare from your paycheck. The executives aren't taking lower salaries to pay for everyone's healthcare.
Doordash doesn't provide life insurance for drivers nor do companies do it for free. Again it comes out of your paycheck even if it isn't listed as a line item.
Doordash doesn't have a retirement plan. Nor do most companies. You put a part of your paycheck in a 401k. The only guaranteed retirement is working for the government. You cannot depend on private companies lasting long enough for your retirement.
Yes, I know Doordash doesn't have any of those things either, that was my point.
Tony is not beating the so-called Free Market system. He's still getting fucked by the system. He's just not getting fucked by Doordash as well.
Sounds like a good argument for a government pension plan.