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App-based Delivery is Evil

As I'm writing this, there is a snow storm where at least a foot of snowfall is expected. Work and school will be cancelled or made virtual tomorrow. The city tries it's best but realistically it is not equipped at all to handle the amount of snow rapidly enough. Streets will become unsafe, and so businesses will close early and people will stay inside. In the past few days people have flooded to grocery stores panic buying toilet paper and food acting as if these two days of snowfall will lock them into a survival situation. People will spend the night in with their families, or roommates, partners or just by themselves. Maybe they'll watch a movie.

And yet these psychopaths will think "we should order delivery".

If the thought of that didn't cause you to recoil hopefully I can convince you otherwise.

In 2020, a tiny handful of extremely wealthy people sold huge amounts of stock after a closed Senate hearing prior to Government actions regarding the COVID pandemic. This small number of people siphoned around $4.2B out of the US economy into their own pockets. This was by far the biggest and clearest case of Americans being absolutely swindled in the chaos of the pandemic. Zoom, a brand new, buggy and all around horrible video chatting software became so dominant that "zoom" became synonymous with "video call". Literally the conference call disappeaered overnight and now just suggesting a three-way call to someone breaks brains: "that's possible?"

App-based delivery was far more sinister. I remember wanting to order a pizza on a night where I was sick. I've always called this place, given them my address and information, and they've delivered it. That night they got mad at me and told me to use "grubhub". And, no that's not a social media platform for little bugs! It's actually an incredible innovation in delivery technology. Instead of just paying for the food, and tipping the driver when they get to your home. You can instead pay 3-4 additional fees, be advertized to, and get a driver without a stable income. The best part is that much of the money doesn't even go to the business you're ordering from, it goes to venture capital funded software companies run.

Back in the old days your pizza would be made by an employee known as a "cook" or "chef" depending on how fancy the food was. Once that was done it was handed off to another employee known as a "driver". This meant at every step of the process your pizza was being handled by the business and the folks operating that business. It's likely these employees weren't being paid enough. It's likely that in some cases these employees were being paid under the table. This is the reality of many food service workers in this country. Things weren't perfect. But labor law applied and there was a responsible party (the owner). This is not the reality today.

Today you order something online and 45 minutes later it arrives at your doorstep cold and soggy, in an obscene amount of packaging, with several pieces of paper of useless information. There are no humans involved and you get to enjoy your meal cold like your life probably feels. When you had to call someone you had to deal with the fact that there are actual people making your food. You had to actually PAY someone when they arrived at your door and deal with the emotional consequences that tipping 5% has. You also had to deal with how pathetic it is to order a coffee from across the street and have a DRIVER, drive 3x the length to get it to you.

Delivery now involves a paid servant. They are not an employee they are a contractor. You are signing a contract with them without your knowledge where you are hiring them as paid labor. The amazing thing is that you don't set their wage! You've been tricked into thinking that online delivery is too expensive and so you want it as cheap as possible! That's the purpose of these extra fees! Now you don't even consider that there's a human being being paid, it's just "damn $40 for a pizza is pricey!"

Before only the places which could afford a delivery driver actually hired for them. They had to ensure they got a consistent wage no matter how many orders there were. They got overtime, holiday pay, and maybe bonuses for working on crazy days. Now they get worse pay, and that's your fault because you signed the contract. These cabals we call delivery apps claim no responsibility for whatever happens. They're invinvible, they can't be sued. If they run over a family of 5 on their way to deliver your food it's their fault. It doesn't matter that you sent them dozens of threatening text messages because you were monitoring their location on GPS and they didn't take the turn you wanted. If this army of delivery drivers begins to block streets, cause traffic, harrass other food service workers, or cause a huge spike in traffic violence, there is literally NOBODY who can be blamed. To the law that is a mob of INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTORS. The cabal claims no responsibility, the restaurants claim no responsibility.

And this is all happening. People have forgotten that you can leave your house to pick up food. People complain about how terrible moped delivery drivers are, then order a burrito delivery from the place NEXT DOOR. People are ordering Indian food from a wealthy white-majority suburb 3 towns over instead of the one a block away from them because it costed $5 less than the absurdity they're used to. People have forgotten that if you just leave your house, food is no longer nearly as expensive!

So on this night where there's a foot of snow on the ground, and driving is hideously unsafe, you deciding to stay home means you are forcing your (likely Black/Brown) servant to risk their life because you don't want to put on boots. While you wait you scroll on twitter hunched over in your bed, where you've been all day, and like a post making fun of some wealthy person in another country complaining about their "house aid". You think "wow that's so fucked that rich people still have servants in other countries." What's fucked is that you've been tricked into thinking that you DO NOT have a servnat.

That's right, you were TRICKED! This is not your fault! Turns out life is BETTER when you leave your house. Life is better when the place you always order from recognizes your face when you walk in. It feels good to hear "the usual?" when you walk into see your favorite cashier working. It feels good to know they know exactly how you like your food. It feels good when they give you free things because they know you're a consistent customer.

Almost every week I go to a local sub/pizza place by my work. I bring a book because I'm on my break and I want to read. I walk in and I don't need to say what I want. Frankly I don't know what it's called anymore because it's been so long. It's not on the menu and hasn't been for months. To be honest the thing I ordered is probably so far away from what was initially on the menu even if it was, it wouldn't be accurate to call it that anymore. I have a nice, brief conversation with the owner of the place, who always recognizes me and she almost always tells me about an idea she had about the sub that I order. I've had it with cucumbers she grew in her garden. She started ordering fresh mushrooms specifically for my sandwich. And after our brief conversation I READ. I don't bother her while she works! It's not a major social interaction! I'm usually tired! And guess what I'm not feeling worthless because I'm scrolling my phone or pretending to work while I wait for my servant to arrive. I do not feel angry because I like the owner and I'm okay if it takes her a bit longer to make the sandwich. I can see when the place is busy. All the money I spend goes directly to the business. And it's WARM AND DELICIOUS!

I'm begging you all to leave your homes and interact with a person. Stop paying these apps. Calling is a good skill to have, so call the place beforehand if you don't have a ton of time. You will have more money, you'll be less socially awkward, you'll feel better about yourself and the world, you'll lower your screentime, you'll get to experience your neighborhood.

At the end of the day you've been tricked into thinking hiring a servant while you bedrot, and eat an expensive cold meal is convinience. Actually you're making your life worse and you should fix that.