Taking my e-bike as an undercover food delivery rider

The argument around tipping grates for me.<p>The author is saying that the companies don’t pay him enough so I should tip to compensate.<p>This will actually make things worse, as I will then be artificially propping up a broken market.<p>A better solution would be for <i>nobody</i> to tip. At this point, all the drivers would quit because the pay is too low, so the companies would be forced to raise it to a level where they can attract drivers.

&gt; So please tip your delivery rider. I always did before, but now I tip even better.<p>Better yet, tip partly&#x2F;fully in cash so the app doesn’t know the true value of their earnings (especially with inevitable lawsuits and settlements that may deduct tips when doing minimum wage calculations).<p>Personally, I don’t like tipping in advance of receiving a service.<p>I’m in Canada, so it’s a good way to get rid of my $1 and $2 coins (and some minority of quarters).

&gt; So please tip your delivery rider. I always did before, but now I tip even better.<p>No. Jesus. Stop tipping everywhere, entirely. It’s a broken system that should have been abolished ages ago.<p>Pay employees a living wage or the business should go bust.

Interesting video, but the amount of money he made from food delivery is horrifyingly low. Maybe under minimum age. Least of all if you stay until near the end when he says that almost all of that was from tips.<p>People will hand-wave this away as &quot;this isn&#x27;t meant to be a full time job, just beer money on the side&quot; but for a lot of adults it is in fact their primary source of income.

&gt; limiting my income was that the app just didn’t seem to give me many offers to deliver food.<p>I assume he was using a new account for deliveries and this was day 1 for him. Wouldn&#x27;t the app put a new user in a test phase for the firs number of days and give priority to other established accounts with good ratings

Proposition 22 in California means that app-based limo drivers and delivery workers receive guaranteed minimum earnings for the time and distance they&#x27;re on a job:<p>- 120% of minimum wage, plus<p>- 30 cents per mile<p>This doesn&#x27;t cover the time between jobs, which makes some sense because a worker can be available for multiple services at once.<p>Importantly, tips don&#x27;t count towards the minimum earnings guarantee.

If you like this, Jeroen van Bergeijk has been writing about his doing such jobs undercover for a decade. I don&#x27;t know that he was translated, but a documentary I think was.

I&#x27;d like a way to tell the delivery app that I&#x27;d prefer delivery by bike as opposed to car. Maybe I&#x27;m willing to pay a premium for bike delivery.

If tips don&#x27;t put you above minimum wage, does Doordash need to top you up? Or is that part of the appeal of being a contractor - that you can get paid below minimum wage legally?

every time my food delivery driver is on a moped, I get my food 3x faster than by car, and often half of the estimated delivery time. haven&#x27;t seen an e-bike driver yet.