The food delivery bubble is bursting — and maybe that's not a bad thing
On-demand food delivery is not working for customers, couriers, restaurants, or even the companies behind the apps
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Call me crazy, but all the various food delivery apps should be consolidated into one and run by the government. Make it part of the post office. It helps businesses, drivers would be paid fairly, and it provides an extremely useful public service.
Unfortunately one of two major US parties and a chunk of the population believes that government fundamentally can't work. And they'll run for office to prove it.
It is a little like saying bridges are unsafe and then taking a sledge hammer to a bridge for years until it falls apart. "See? If you hit it a bunch and don't pay for maintenance or repair anything, eventually it falls apart!"
I feel like making it part of the state is not the right course here. Rather, consolidate it into larger cooperatives (maybe not just one, but one for each area or city or state or something), which are collectively owned by all the restaurants. They all have an interest in having delivery personnel available. It seems like a collectively owned coop fits well for that.
Maybe have the government manage the software/servers that individual co-ops use so that part is uniform. As long as the co-op aren't in direct competition, I see no issue. With competition there is too much immediate pressure to screw over delivery drivers.
And then a guy like Louis DeJoy gets in there....
Any system will fail if it is directly sabotaged.
USPS delivering me Taco Bell would be fantastic
If they add tomatoes when I asked for no tomatoes, do the Post Office police get involved?
Yes
I'm in.
Only if they find a way to make it possible for the courier to go back to the restaurant to fix order issues. If there is no model to make that work, then these services should never exist.
I think with a unified restaurant listing system and order verification by drivers, these could be minimized (no system will ever be error free). As it is now, some delivery companies will list menus without consulting with the restaurant and that is a big source of mistakes.
Exactly! These are valuable services for people who can’t drive.
What happens when the restaurants aren't satisfied with the government service and decide to go with some third party? Or run their own, as many still do?
I don't see the issue with a private/public option
OP wants it made public to go prevent abuse. If you have both we're back to square one
If the public provides a good service and price then the private will have to be at least equally affordable and and good service in order to compete
Unless it's subsidized, it's very unlikely it will be able to compete on price
Same as what happens when people use FedEx instead of the post office. They pay more for premium service.
If they operated under the government at a loss I think it's terrible policy. If it's ran as a for-profit then it'd be fine.
And of course make discounts for people that actually need the service (disabled people and such). But no way I'm paying for lazy 20 year olds that can walk across the street to pick their food themselves, but don't want to because the government service would be cheap.
The government isn’t a business. It’s a public service and I never hear anyone removed about the wasteful spending when it comes to the military. I don’t understand why the post office is being treated like a for profit business.
Don't forget that the post office was profitable until it was purposefully sabotaged to be not be profitable
The government is not a business, but it has limited resources as everyone else.
If those resources are spent on delivery drivers, they're not spent in anything else. I'm not American, but if I were I would much rather those resources be spent on affordable healthcare for everyone than on food delivery for everyone.
Until recently when a bill was passed drastically changing how their retirement accounts had to be funded, the USPS was usually run for profit and was even usually actively profitable year over year. I think they're still dealing with the fallout of that bill meant to hobble them, but I can't imagine they'd operate at a loss purposefully.
The USPS even used to offer banking services which was also reported to be widely profitable until legislation was passed eliminating that service. Wouldn't even be the first time that they had branched out beyond just mail.
Every lazy 20 year old is supporting a restaurant and a delivery driver. You benefit from this via taxes. I think the system could easily be made self-sustaining though while still being cheaper than any private options.
The purpose of an economy is to decide what to output, given the unlimited human desires but limited resources.
If there was a law which gave 100€ to every millionaire, we would be supporting millionaires? Isn't that good? No it isn't, just "supporting someone" isn't good economic policy, it must support outputs that will most benefit the population.
That's why for it to be remotely viable it has to be self-sustained. Which means that they would not be able to operate further if there's not enough demand or the competition from the private sector is more efficient.
If you want to support delivery drivers you make laws regulating their job. If you want to support restaurants you give them subsidies or change the laws surrounding them.
Capitalism is good at making efficient use of resources. However it has many failures. The purpose of governments is to fix those failures (for example the exploitation of workers, and monopolies).
If you just make a government-backed company (that doesn't need a profit to keep going) compete with private companies that need a profit, it must be because the service benefits the whole population. Examples: healthcare, education, communication, water.
Not that not all necessary services need to be provided by profitless government corporations. For example, food and electricity is also needed by 100% of the population but they are also resource-intensive. Therefore they're usually ran by private companies with heavy regulations/subsidies.
The normal rules of capitalism don't apply to the internet because data costs nothing to replicate and is infinitely reproducible. Outside of server costs which could be paid by a nominal surcharge, there is no difference between a delivery app that serves 100 people and one that serves 100 million people.
I think it is quite clear that an array of delivery apps, each with their own separate rules and regulations for drivers and each with various subscriptions and fees for users, only adds complication and cost to food delivery. One singular app with one singular pool of delivery drivers is in every way more efficient than what we have now (with the exception of extracting fees from consumers).
Food delivery apps are not just apps though. In fact, the ones I've used are absolutely crap. Most of the value of these companies are in the service, which would change if there is a shared pool of government workers.
If the complaint are the apps themselves, the government could enforce an API that allows anyone to interact with any app with any service. So if you prefer Uber eat's service but glovoo's app, you could order from Uber eats using the glovoo app. Just like the EU wants to enforce multi-app support for messaging systems.
The claim that a shared pool of workers would be more efficient I'm not so sure. It depends on who runs that pool. Which history has shown that monopolies (government-run or otherwise) tend to get less efficient because of the lack of competition.
If drivers can choose what order to take at any moment from any service that would basically mean a shared pool. But I believe (I never worked on delivery) that that's what already happens.
I know quite a few food delivery drivers and most work for multiple companies (even if several are subsidiaries of the same parent company). This is by design so labor can be denied the benefits required of a full time job. It's not only inefficient, it's exploitive.
Which history has shown that monopolies (government-run or otherwise) tend to get less efficient because of the lack of competition.
Companies that compete do get more efficient, but only at making money. They do not get more efficient at providing service to customers or supporting their laborers. They usually get worse in fact. That is why we have regulations.
I think that's how it works in Dubai. Basically you're asking for a benevolent dictator thingy. Now think hard, do you think your own country government has what it takes to do it properly?
They're asking for a government regulated public service. Where the everloving fuck are you getting the impression of a benevolent dictator
Do you think a regular democracy can even change its own diapers without fucking up? Only a benevolent dictator (sometimes called President, whatever) can do it right.
well i suppose your username should be an indicator of how seriously you should be taken
Yep if you're going into ad hominem get a decent handle yourself first.
The post office delivering things makes it a dictatorship?
Not where I live since everyone thinks it sucks.
Anyways we have a typically useless PM so can't call him dictator since he can't fart without asking approval from tens of politicians.