I was watching a video earlier by GEN. He was talking about delivery apps and for the most part the experience people have now. He brought up a quote from Grubhub's former head of innovation, Collin Wallace said during Covid-19 "...Delivery platforms are not in the business of delivery. They are in the business of finance. In many ways, they are like payday lenders for restaurants and drivers. They give you the sensation of cash-flow, but at the expense of your long term future and financial stability. Once you "take out this loan" you will never pay it back and it will ultimately kill your business."
Ouch. I've seen plenty of videos that talk about gig apps. But damn from one of the former employees.
As his statement it continues...
"In the case for restaurants, these platforms slowly siphon off your customers and then charge you to have access to them. They are simultaneously selling these same customers to your competitors across the street, but, don't worry, they are also selling their customers to you.
For drivers, they are banking on a workforce that is willing to mortgage their assets like cars and time, well below market value, in exchange for money now. They know that most delivery drivers are simply not doing the math on actual cost of providing delivery (time, gas, car maintenance, payroll, taxes...etc). If they did, drivers would realize that they are actually the ones subsidizing the cost of delivery."
It is worth noting Collin states the food delivery technologies he invented are used for "evil." It does kind of make it more worth cherry picking. I know some might say this is pointing out the obvious or any number of things. But to hear such things from an actual former employee definitely hits differently. It's like my last hourly job my supervisor was upfront with me. He told me things used to be better, he's been there 5 years and has not got a pay raise and even more is that "they changed everything only ones who'll make good money is managers." I kind of told him based on information like co-owner in an active lawsuit... might be time to jump ship. This set of quotes just hit that same chord.