These Apps Provide Food and Misery

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Most of the delivery businesses that have sprung up in the last few years make no financial sense. and It could be turning us into monsters.

I’m talking about app-based companies, including Uber, DoorDash, Gopuff, and others around the world. They aim to bring us groceriescooked meals, house cleaner, beer cans or a trip around the city – better, faster and cheaper than we’ve always done.

I tried to keep an open mind about these app companies. They are the next logical step in our consumer culture and create new types of business. It can also be a delivery of anything under the sun Put the power of Amazon in the hands of local businesses and preserve what we love about Main Street with useful 21st-century touches.

But all the optimism I have is fading. These app delivery services are an economic mirage at best and increased misery at worst, making it too easy to ignore their true costs (financial, human and community) for the sake of convenience.

My question for years with companies like Uber has been… how? How did it make sense to take a 20-minute drive through San Francisco for the price of a sandwich? How is it possible for an app to connect me to a courier and a local restaurant and deliver a burger that looks like peanuts?

In most cases the answer was that it didn’t make sense. Uber has been in business since 2009 and until this year he spent so much money to stay afloat that he actually set fire to 14 cents of his cash for every dollar of revenue. That’s not what healthy businesses tend to do, and it was an improvement for Uber. Food delivery companies in the United States are also mostly unprofitable.

My Colleague as Kevin Roose Wrote In June, young app-based companies founded for consumer convenience no longer have the luxury of spending money stupidly. Most of these companies are now buy competitors, raise pricesor squeeze couriers or restaurants for better terms. Or they hope companies’ economies smell less. deliver more types of goods and larger orders. Of course, these tactics can work in some places and some times. Or they may not.

More recently, distribution companies less logical sprouted everywhere. In 2015, Uber rides seemed incredibly cheap, but now companies like Gopuff, Dija, Getir and Jokr – my spellcheck protested these names – are promising to deliver a pint of ice cream and condoms in 10 minutes or less.

These companies run something like little 7-Elevens, except that they cover the cost of both purchasing the product and sending a guy to your home on a scooter. This may make sense if people are paying for the privilege of bypassing the store, but the fees or markups on products are relatively minimal. How?

Two answers: For now, they are subsidized by willing investment firms, as Uber and others have been for years. And like other app-based delivery services, they partially pay for themselves by getting more from the people with the least power in the transaction.

A article series this week from the Rest of the World and a investigation He painted a picture of the impossible demands of delivery workers for multiple app-based services from The Verge and New York Magazine.

Low paying jobs have always been precarious and wealthier people take advantage of it In the form of cheaper products and services. But app delivery couriers are constantly forced to work harder, faster, and for less, or are discredited by the computer programs that assign the best jobs.

Perhaps this work can be developed voluntarily or by force. It is also possible that labor shortages and courier demands will force app companies to improve working conditions.

I’m afraid the key innovation in these apps is to hide the true cost of convenience. We learn to expect everything quickly and easily and Don’t think about the cost to people and our communities.

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Before you go …

• Every word of this scared me: My colleagues Ryan Mac and Sheera Frenkel reported It’s a Facebook initiative that dreams of spreading pro-Facebook information into people’s feeds, distracting Mark Zuckerberg from scandals, and taking further steps to improve the company’s image in the eyes of Facebook users.

• Barcelona is the white hot center of Airbnb rage: Why Paige McClanahan is tracking down so many residents and officials Angry with Airbnb rentals and what the new ban on short-term rentals means for people who offer home stays on the website.

• You’ll come back to that online article, maybe: THERE IS A LOT TO READ AND LOOK AT THE Internet. Protocol writes about new apps – as before – they try to help us find the best stuff on the internet, save it and come back at just the right time.

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