NYC primarily does not use cars for food delivery, there’s a 99.8% chance they will deliver it via bicycle.
Americans are too lazy to travel to their lunch. However, for the vast majority of the people, you’re not 15 minutes of walk away from a healthy assortment of food. Even in NYC, depending on where you are, it may not be possible to always go to your food. The idea of your lunch being paid is also not common, and you’re expected to be back to working (not done eating) within 30 minutes or less. In many cases, your lunchtime is timed and unpaid. Nurses and hospital staff? Eat the shit downstairs in the cafeteria or nothing; if you’re late coming back from lunch, it’s almost as bad as being late to work itself.
Of all the modern capitalistic irritations (to put it mildly), this one I really detest. And not least because of how ridiculously popular it is, wtf people? I watch folks I know, who can barely afford the food itself in the first place, then inflate the price by like 40%, just to eat the already (very!) mediocre food…cold. Solely so that they don’t have to leave the house. Just completely unhinged from my POV, and honestly produces almost a sense of alienation in me, I find it so bizarre.
Disclaimer though - I will acknowledge both that I happily enjoy various different foolish things myself, so the point about glass houses is worth my keeping in mind, and also there are some great reasons to use it (limited mobility for one, as another user pointed out).
But sheesh folks. Restaurants largely hate it from my understanding, the drivers doing it hate it (cuz the job - oh excuse me, the preferred exploitation-hiding euphemism is “gig” - is utter shit, a literal minor improvement over straight up homelessness), the environment hates it, the wear-and-tear on a likely broke person’s vehicle and the wear-and-tear on already struggling infrastructure…I mean what the fuckity fuck, seriously. How is this so popular, we’re all insane and just conveniencing our way to oblivion. SMgoddamnH.
Aside from the aforementioned reasonable uses (largely edge cases, let’s be honest), there is precisely one group of people who truly benefit in any serious way from this amazingly destructive nonsense - and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the exact same group fucking us in every other way! Weird!
Sorry. This one really gets me.
Why was the subtotal of the actual food being ordered omitted?
Likely because it would give meaningful context to the amounts of the fees, and the ragebaiting OOP wants to avoid that.
Delivery is good option for people with limited mobility
Do Americans really get their shit delivered by car?over here it’s motorcycles 99% of the time (and bicycles the other 1%)
Seems rather… Sluggish and inefficient for delivery drivers to go by car.
Funny how Chinese and pizza places could do this all day everyday and it cost 5% of the cost of the food. Not double it. Delivery food has been hit with inflation and market ‘innovation’ just like everything else. But let’s pretend working people wanting convenience services is somehow the problem…the avocado toast on wheels argument.
I assume that most deliveries in NYC are by push bike couriers and vesper type scooters. Thats more typical than yank tanks for this sort of thing in most densely populated cities I’ve seen.
I’ve honestly never quite realized up until now how utterly ridiculous it is that people regularly demand that their food be cooked for them.
I’ve honestly never quite realized up until now how utterly ridiculous it is that people regularly demand that their food items be prepared and packaged for them.
I’ve honestly never quite realized up until now how utterly ridiculous it is that people regularly demand that that the animals they eat are slaughtered for them.
I’ve honestly never quite realized up until now how utterly ridiculous it is that people regularly demand that their grain be milled for them.
Society evolves buddy. I don’t churn my own butter, but my grandmas did, and would find it ridiculous I have 247 access to a supermarket selling some. And it’s even being kept at an exact temperature, all the time? Packaged without any sweat on it? Ridiculous!
People really, really need to learn to cook for themselves. Nothing wrong with the odd takeout, or even delivery but I sense a lot of people live on deliveries all the time and waste a fortune
When you build infrastructure that requires you take cars everywhere you minimize people going to get things for themselves
Why does OP think every delivery is made by car? Often times they are made by bike.
Especially in NYC. Bike delivery has been a thing there long before uberdashhub. Hell, it was a fucking plot point in Spiderman 2 back in 2004:
In high density urban settings this is absolutely true. 99% of my orders are delivered by bicycle.
I’ll add in addition to the “not where I live” replies, I live in pretty textbook white suburban america and I believe I have never seen anything delivered to me or a neighbor or relative by a two-wheeled vehicle of any kind, even motorized. Every single time it is a private 4-seat passenger vehicle or larger.
It is different in other areas of course, like when visiting cities and other countries.
But damn are such vast swaths of suburban and rural america designed so specifically around cars. It would take forever to change even with a progressive culture & government. With the culture and government we have now, I will be stunned if I am not driving my own vehicle for the rest of my life, and I will not be surprised at all if it’s mostly ICE vehicles. I drive a well maintained 13 year old Mazda3 that gets 40mpg, so it’s not ideal versus more efficient and environmentally friendly types of transport, but at least it’s a more efficient use of the existing infrastructure than most americans.
The large majority of them are made by cars.
I see you’ve never been to the Midwest. Or the south. Or anywhere that isn’t Boston/new York/San Francisco.
I find it funny that the tip is already there before you get your food. I mean, did the driver make the burrito? He might be late and you get cold food, he might be a dick.
this is some quality ragebait right here
I don’t disagree that it’s stupid but my problem is the stacking - Delivery fee and Service fee? The service is delivery! Why are they two fees? Either the cost of the delivery is being itemized in real time ($1.99 for gas, the rest for the human) or the delivery isn’t $1.99! If the cost to deliver an item is $20 and I make $50/hr working a project, maybe having food delivered makes sense.
But also, I know the delivery guy isn’t making all that and he’s delivering five orders so don’t charge me a service fee when I’m already subsidizing you paying him a shit wage.
Everything is shitty either way.
It’s so they can give “free delivery” and still charge a butt load of fees.
How else can they get people to sign up for a $15/month subscription that gives "free delivery " while charging a fuckton for a delivery service?
The service is delivery!
I read this and thought, “no, the service is that they were able to put pants on and leave their house today, unlike you.”
Please dont take that as a personal attack, I’m just sharing intrusive thoughts when they make me giggle
I use them fairly often because I’m just too fucking busy during the week. I have to get up at 5am to get ready for work, am too busy to take a real lunch break, and get home around 8-9 most nights. And that’s on nights I don’t have meetings (I work in municipal government, and public meetings like Council, P&Z, BOA, etc all meet at nights). We could hire more people, but that would require more income, and that requires council members to vote on raising their own property taxes, not to mention state law regarding tax increases.
Yeah, I could meal prep on the weekend, but that’s essentially allowing work to intrude on my weekends, and fuck that.
I’m essentially buying more time to relax in the very little relaxation time I have available.
Delivery fee and Service fee? The service is delivery!
No, the service fee is either charged by the payment provider (or at least to offset the fee the payment provider charges). Has nothing to do with delivery (you also have to pay it when you pre-pay for takeout online)
Visa and Mastercard processing fee is slightly less than 2% of a total operation. Who takes the rest?
In the US it’s generally 2.5% - 3.5% (plus a bunch of BS fees and charges added on top).
I don’t know what payment service was used here. It is only around 2-3% on my invoices.
edit: Seems in the US a bunch of other stuff (like cost of running a website, insurance) can be included in the service fee.
2-3% is insane. It boggles my mind how it became accepted to pay almost everything with a credit card in america.
I’m not American but I got one with my bank account a few years back and I do use it a lot. It makes online payments super convenient. And with offline shopping it’s the vendors that eat the fee, so also no downside for the consumer (though I tend to use the debit card for that).
Which is the whole point. They chauferring you a burrito, and make you pay for their insurance.
Sure I guess.
But my point was that the delivery is not the service here. In fact the service fee is basically every BUT the delivery.
