I don’t use delivery services because I hate everything about them: the higher costs to consumers, the way they underpay the restaurants and take a bigger cut for themselves, the way they underpay their delivery people, the way the delivery people behave in regards to parking. Every aspect of it just seems so predatory and makes me feel shitty.
Yup, its insane that capitalizing on people's laziness became a big industry. Its outrageous the price people pay, my friends will order food that is a 5-10 min drive away for essentially double just to avoid leaving the house
Not just a Boston thing. Plenty of people live in Manhattan with literally dozens of places to eat within a 5 minute walk and yet there are hundreds of delivery workers delivering at any given moment.
A 10 minute drive away can be 25 minutes worth of time and other opportunity costs. Getting dressed, walking out to the car, driving, finding parking, running in and getting food, driving home, finding parking again (if it's street parking), getting boots & jacket off and stuff. Extra annoying in the winter. And also extra annoying for folks that aren't super comfortable with night-driving.
I'm often exhausted after a long day of work. It's more important I spend that 25 minutes decompressing than rushing out of the house again. Sometimes there's just other shit I need to do and picking up or preparing food will cut into that. That's worth the upcharge, and it's not capitalizing on 'laziness'. It's capitalizing on people's busyness.
Granted, if I'm ordering delivery - I'm going to order something that isn't readily available in my neighborhood. Might as well, otherwise it feels like a waste.
Nah man you dont get what im saying, im referring to people like my friends and our age group (mid-late 20s) who work from home, use ubereats/dd every day and havent seen the inside of a grocery store in months. That is laziness, which is probably a majority of ubereats/ddash's sales. So yes I would say it is capitalizing on laziness
Dont get me wrong I use these services every now and again too on weekends, theyre great
They also normalized "surge pricing," which is essentially just passing off the cost of providing proper staffing to the customer. Surge pricing with these apps is an anti-consumer scam - the only reason there's not enough drivers on the road when needed is because Uber/Lyft/et. al make it unprofitable for their drivers to be on the road unless there's a surge.
Now you've got demand pricing seeping into everything, from highway tolling to fucking Wendy's.
Same, I am not going to claim I’ve never used them but 99% of the time if I am ordering take out I am ordering from the restaurant directly and picking up!
I don't see why double-parking &c should be _inherent_ to food delivery apps. Drivers should be given extra leeway so that they can find a legal parking space, and we should encourage them to do so by aggressively ticketing double-parking.
There’s a sandwich shop across the street from my best friends apartment and he usually gets it delivered. He’s not disabled or anything, and yes he can physically see the delivery man exit the store and cross the street to ring his buzzer lol
Uber Eats is the worst hands down. Completely unreliable every single time. Instacart is convenient when I’m in a pinch and can’t get to the grocery store (I have a newborn), but their fees are absurd. I only use it when absolutely necessary. Door Dash is my go-to but I always pay the extra few dollars for express direct delivery. Again, the fees deter me from using any of these services unless needed. Like sometimes I NEED Tasty Burger. Lol
I don’t see an issue with their parking.
Conversely, I love delivering on Uber Eats and hate DoorDash. DoorDash is much more restrictive while Uber Eats is a more liberal, at least in terms of how you cancel orders (as a driver).
Yeah with DoorDash you cannot deliver any time you want. You have to get Top Dasher for that. And then when you do get to deliver, you need to maintain a low cancellation rate or else you could get booted. It's much more restrictive and since Boston is a pretty big market, I get orders from Uber Eats non-stop so I typically prefer to deliver on there instead.
My mainstays in terms of gig work are Uber Eats and Instacart. Sometimes the occasional GrubHub or DoorDash order if things are slow. But if things are slow, everything is slow and I just go home.
I do UberEATS on a walker account downtown.
Lots of orders in the Seaport stay in the Seaport radius. Ocean Prime delivery can go just across the street! But some aren't lazy, just can't leave for pickup, like doormen, nurses and doctors, disabled, sick people.
And only about 6 pm to 8 or so is worth it. Sundays maybe until 9 pm. I sense that lunch hours could be busy at times, but still not as worth it as much as dinner and its possibility of better tips.
I hate paying for delivery. I pick up my own take out almost always - typically on foot because I am too lazy to drive. The only time I allow myself to order delivery is if I am genuinely sick and cannot go out.
The only time I've gotten delivery in the last ~5 years was when I had covid. Felt like a lazy piece of shit too since I got a pizza from about 200 feet down the road
Out of all the things in the world, this is not an issue I'm getting worked up over. I'll walk/bike/drive around the driver and go about my day. Not getting into shouting matches on the Internet. Not going to spend 5 seconds crafting a policy that'll have unintended consequences that makes things worse for everyone. None of that.
I mean, probably would be better to target the cars that are not running services. Gig workers can then park quickly/temporarily and get on a out their business. The rest of us can use the T (assuming it works). Ideally the lower car traffic leads to lower double parking which leads to more efficient bus service.
lol, wut. You want people to stop driving, so doordashers and Ubers get priority? Go onto Newbury in the evening and count how many Ubers stop in the road, even though there's enough empty parking for 10-15 cars.
No, but you can introduce congestion pricing. Invest in transit infrastructure. Exponentially tax large vehicles like these monster truck SUVs that take up too much space. Camera’s that automatically tag cars driving in the bus lanes.
Point is to try and do something at an aggregate scale vs band-aiding the symptoms
I have no problems with them, and instead have a problem with how the city has mishandled the increase in traffic and car usage. The city should force new structures to maintain a minimum parking allotment based on structure size and foot print. Incentivize companies to incentivize their staff to commute using public trans. Create a more functional transit system so people will be more encouraged not to drive. Don't allow companies to give free parking as a benefit for employment unless they have a minimum allotment of parking available. Have price maximums for parking garages, so people don't choose street parking because it is cheaper.
The state shouldn't tax residential garages as living space if it is an attached garage to encourage more off street parking in residential areas.
The city has made it difficult for people to get to work without a car, so we have very little parking during the day downtown, and parking in residential areas is out of hand because all those car owners need places to park at night.
For years we have had issues with delivery drivers, and I'm not talking gig workers. UPS and FedEx have been pulling this stuff for decades, but it wasn't until recently that people are all up in arms about gig workers. They are just trying to get a job done as quickly as possible, and it is the city that hasn't accounted for the increased traffic and parking, and has let a public trans system almost completely fail. Let's put the blame right where it should be...the politicians over the years that allowed traffic and parking, to get out of hand.
I’m gonna disagree with you. The city bulldozed entire neighborhoods in the 50’s/60’s to build highways, parking lots/garages, and auto-centered neighborhoods (the west end.) the highways allowed suburban commuters to easily enter and exit the city. It’s incredible easy to park downtown, there are parking garages all over the place and I haven’t seen a “garage full” sign out front of one since Covid.
> The city should force new structures to maintain a minimum parking allotment based on structure size and foot print.
This is usually called a "parking minimum", and they have been in place for a long time, but more and more cities are abandoning them because they have been kind of a disaster; increasing the costs for both housing and businesses, subsidizing car usage, and decreasing walkability, bikeability, and the viability of public transit. Somerville and Cambridge have both eliminated/reduced them in many cases, although there is still work to be done to get rid of them entirely.
> The state shouldn't tax residential garages as living space if it is an attached garage to encourage more off street parking in residential areas.
Incentives to car storage are not a great idea, because it doesn't get at the real problem; too many cars. It works against some of the other things you have proposed.
> Incentivize companies to incentivize their staff to commute using public trans.
There sort of is in that public transit passes can be given to employees with pre-tax dollars, although we could certainly do more. That same benefit also applies to parking as well, so it doesn't really incentivize public transit any more than it does driving.
One idea would be to let employees cash out any parking benefit.
> Have price maximums for parking garages, so people don't choose street parking because it is cheaper.
A better idea would be to just market price street parking for about 90 % occupancy.
> The city has made it difficult for people to get to work without a car,
This is the problem we should attack. With better pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure and public transit. Not more/continuing subsidies for cars.
I don’t use delivery services because I hate everything about them: the higher costs to consumers, the way they underpay the restaurants and take a bigger cut for themselves, the way they underpay their delivery people, the way the delivery people behave in regards to parking. Every aspect of it just seems so predatory and makes me feel shitty.
Yup, its insane that capitalizing on people's laziness became a big industry. Its outrageous the price people pay, my friends will order food that is a 5-10 min drive away for essentially double just to avoid leaving the house
Never mind a 5-10 minute drive, in neighborhoods where it's a 5-10 minute walk to numerous restaurants it's common to see people get food delivered
Not just a Boston thing. Plenty of people live in Manhattan with literally dozens of places to eat within a 5 minute walk and yet there are hundreds of delivery workers delivering at any given moment.
One time during the pandemic as a delivery driver I picked up a delivery from a restaurant only to walk upstairs to deliver it.
That’s fine, they were probably quarantined
A 10 minute drive away can be 25 minutes worth of time and other opportunity costs. Getting dressed, walking out to the car, driving, finding parking, running in and getting food, driving home, finding parking again (if it's street parking), getting boots & jacket off and stuff. Extra annoying in the winter. And also extra annoying for folks that aren't super comfortable with night-driving. I'm often exhausted after a long day of work. It's more important I spend that 25 minutes decompressing than rushing out of the house again. Sometimes there's just other shit I need to do and picking up or preparing food will cut into that. That's worth the upcharge, and it's not capitalizing on 'laziness'. It's capitalizing on people's busyness. Granted, if I'm ordering delivery - I'm going to order something that isn't readily available in my neighborhood. Might as well, otherwise it feels like a waste.
Nah man you dont get what im saying, im referring to people like my friends and our age group (mid-late 20s) who work from home, use ubereats/dd every day and havent seen the inside of a grocery store in months. That is laziness, which is probably a majority of ubereats/ddash's sales. So yes I would say it is capitalizing on laziness Dont get me wrong I use these services every now and again too on weekends, theyre great
Don't forget the added traffic and parking illegally!
They also normalized "surge pricing," which is essentially just passing off the cost of providing proper staffing to the customer. Surge pricing with these apps is an anti-consumer scam - the only reason there's not enough drivers on the road when needed is because Uber/Lyft/et. al make it unprofitable for their drivers to be on the road unless there's a surge. Now you've got demand pricing seeping into everything, from highway tolling to fucking Wendy's.
Same, I am not going to claim I’ve never used them but 99% of the time if I am ordering take out I am ordering from the restaurant directly and picking up!
They are definitely a great example of enshittification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
I don't see why double-parking &c should be _inherent_ to food delivery apps. Drivers should be given extra leeway so that they can find a legal parking space, and we should encourage them to do so by aggressively ticketing double-parking.
I used to use them occasionally but the fees are just absurd. I prefer ordering directly from the restaurant and picking up myself.
There’s a sandwich shop across the street from my best friends apartment and he usually gets it delivered. He’s not disabled or anything, and yes he can physically see the delivery man exit the store and cross the street to ring his buzzer lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/s/hqEmL4xHeN You just brought this up from another perspective recently. Chill.
Uber Eats is the worst hands down. Completely unreliable every single time. Instacart is convenient when I’m in a pinch and can’t get to the grocery store (I have a newborn), but their fees are absurd. I only use it when absolutely necessary. Door Dash is my go-to but I always pay the extra few dollars for express direct delivery. Again, the fees deter me from using any of these services unless needed. Like sometimes I NEED Tasty Burger. Lol I don’t see an issue with their parking.
Conversely, I love delivering on Uber Eats and hate DoorDash. DoorDash is much more restrictive while Uber Eats is a more liberal, at least in terms of how you cancel orders (as a driver).
Interesting to hear from delivery perspective!
Yeah with DoorDash you cannot deliver any time you want. You have to get Top Dasher for that. And then when you do get to deliver, you need to maintain a low cancellation rate or else you could get booted. It's much more restrictive and since Boston is a pretty big market, I get orders from Uber Eats non-stop so I typically prefer to deliver on there instead. My mainstays in terms of gig work are Uber Eats and Instacart. Sometimes the occasional GrubHub or DoorDash order if things are slow. But if things are slow, everything is slow and I just go home.
I do UberEATS on a walker account downtown. Lots of orders in the Seaport stay in the Seaport radius. Ocean Prime delivery can go just across the street! But some aren't lazy, just can't leave for pickup, like doormen, nurses and doctors, disabled, sick people.
I do Uber Eats on foot too sometimes but I find that it only really works well when it's raining these days.
And only about 6 pm to 8 or so is worth it. Sundays maybe until 9 pm. I sense that lunch hours could be busy at times, but still not as worth it as much as dinner and its possibility of better tips.
I hate paying for delivery. I pick up my own take out almost always - typically on foot because I am too lazy to drive. The only time I allow myself to order delivery is if I am genuinely sick and cannot go out.
Ban them!
The only time I've gotten delivery in the last ~5 years was when I had covid. Felt like a lazy piece of shit too since I got a pizza from about 200 feet down the road
Out of all the things in the world, this is not an issue I'm getting worked up over. I'll walk/bike/drive around the driver and go about my day. Not getting into shouting matches on the Internet. Not going to spend 5 seconds crafting a policy that'll have unintended consequences that makes things worse for everyone. None of that.
They've ruined picking up online orders at almost every place.
They completely suck.
I mean, probably would be better to target the cars that are not running services. Gig workers can then park quickly/temporarily and get on a out their business. The rest of us can use the T (assuming it works). Ideally the lower car traffic leads to lower double parking which leads to more efficient bus service.
lol, wut. You want people to stop driving, so doordashers and Ubers get priority? Go onto Newbury in the evening and count how many Ubers stop in the road, even though there's enough empty parking for 10-15 cars.
No, but you can introduce congestion pricing. Invest in transit infrastructure. Exponentially tax large vehicles like these monster truck SUVs that take up too much space. Camera’s that automatically tag cars driving in the bus lanes. Point is to try and do something at an aggregate scale vs band-aiding the symptoms
Negative externalities?
I have no problems with them, and instead have a problem with how the city has mishandled the increase in traffic and car usage. The city should force new structures to maintain a minimum parking allotment based on structure size and foot print. Incentivize companies to incentivize their staff to commute using public trans. Create a more functional transit system so people will be more encouraged not to drive. Don't allow companies to give free parking as a benefit for employment unless they have a minimum allotment of parking available. Have price maximums for parking garages, so people don't choose street parking because it is cheaper. The state shouldn't tax residential garages as living space if it is an attached garage to encourage more off street parking in residential areas. The city has made it difficult for people to get to work without a car, so we have very little parking during the day downtown, and parking in residential areas is out of hand because all those car owners need places to park at night. For years we have had issues with delivery drivers, and I'm not talking gig workers. UPS and FedEx have been pulling this stuff for decades, but it wasn't until recently that people are all up in arms about gig workers. They are just trying to get a job done as quickly as possible, and it is the city that hasn't accounted for the increased traffic and parking, and has let a public trans system almost completely fail. Let's put the blame right where it should be...the politicians over the years that allowed traffic and parking, to get out of hand.
I’m gonna disagree with you. The city bulldozed entire neighborhoods in the 50’s/60’s to build highways, parking lots/garages, and auto-centered neighborhoods (the west end.) the highways allowed suburban commuters to easily enter and exit the city. It’s incredible easy to park downtown, there are parking garages all over the place and I haven’t seen a “garage full” sign out front of one since Covid.
> The city should force new structures to maintain a minimum parking allotment based on structure size and foot print. This is usually called a "parking minimum", and they have been in place for a long time, but more and more cities are abandoning them because they have been kind of a disaster; increasing the costs for both housing and businesses, subsidizing car usage, and decreasing walkability, bikeability, and the viability of public transit. Somerville and Cambridge have both eliminated/reduced them in many cases, although there is still work to be done to get rid of them entirely. > The state shouldn't tax residential garages as living space if it is an attached garage to encourage more off street parking in residential areas. Incentives to car storage are not a great idea, because it doesn't get at the real problem; too many cars. It works against some of the other things you have proposed. > Incentivize companies to incentivize their staff to commute using public trans. There sort of is in that public transit passes can be given to employees with pre-tax dollars, although we could certainly do more. That same benefit also applies to parking as well, so it doesn't really incentivize public transit any more than it does driving. One idea would be to let employees cash out any parking benefit. > Have price maximums for parking garages, so people don't choose street parking because it is cheaper. A better idea would be to just market price street parking for about 90 % occupancy. > The city has made it difficult for people to get to work without a car, This is the problem we should attack. With better pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure and public transit. Not more/continuing subsidies for cars.