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I have to say that it does upset me a bit. Even more so the groceries delivery stuff. I just think of all those extra car/bike journeys.
I appreciate that for many people it is a god send as they may have difficulty leaving the house or whatever, and it's great that the service exists for them, but on principle I would never use Uber eats to deliver me a pack of crisps or whatever other frivolous shit I see packed up on the counters of my local Sainsbury's.
Am I just hugely out of touch here? Roast me if I'm wrong.
I feel like getting a weeks worth of groceries delivered is a lot more reasonable than like a single cup of coffee or a small fry from McDonalds.
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hard agree, it would be a lot more efficient than people going to the grocery store + limited by their personal budget (but we let all this food spoil anyway because it wasn't sold)
Yeah, I really don't have issues with those services (apart from the way their drivers and warehouse staff are treated).
That's more efficient. Less waste, more efficient packing, less vehicle miles, less space used for huge great supermarkets. Uber eats and the like represent the exact opposite of that principle. Parceling things into ever smaller units of "convenience" to extract the maximum amount of rent from a customer. More journeys, more packaging, more waste.
I don't even know how those apps got popular. They practically double the price of your order and there's no guarantee it will be hot or complete. I'm disabled and I'll still make my way going to whatever place versus going through an app. The only reason I can think of is time saving (like getting it delivered to you at work so you don't waste your break).
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I used them during covid, not specifically to avoid the virus (because I know it just passes the risk along), but because I was in the beginning of my transition in an unfriendly state so did not want to undo all of my work to boymode and at the time I was more financially stable so I could afford it. Always tipped well too.
For the average situation it doesn't make alot of sense.
I just think of all those extra car/bike journeys.
if the worker ever combine any trips it's better than those people driving themselves. multi-stops are marginally more likely than you might expect because people usually work multiple gig apps, but nobody knows the actual data and it's definitely worse than a socialist version of the same service.
I appreciate that the is some pooling. But I wonder at how many additional journeys there are now because of these apps.
I think there's probably more than there used to be because there's more variety but everyone in this thread should remember that food delivery isn't anything new. The difference now is it's been decoupled from the restaurants. I don't know if the pay is any better or worse than it used to be for food delivery people. I imagine it's always sucked.
Anyway the trend I've seen around is e-bikes, so I don't know that more journeys means much if they aren't using ICE vehicles.
Sadly in the UK we don't have a huge amount of e bike adoption. Most landlords won't allow tenants to charge them at home due to the percieved fire risk. So every delivery driver is riding a petrol scooter.
In China basically every bike except a hog or a superbike is electric.
yeah idk i figure people would've been going themselves or ordering regular delivery like pizza or chinese. pretty hard to work out net (excess?) trips without doing actual surveys
I fucking hate it, but there are items which I used to buy at the local grocery before the pandemic which are no longer available anywhere except.. Amazon Fresh. So, if I want to have the food that I want to eat, I have to buy it from Amazon and have it delivered (either to my house, or to a Whole Foods which then requires driving to pick it up and spending the extra fuel anyway, so might as well get it delivered all the way without the extra stop). I can't even find a way to buy and ship directly from the manufacturers, I've tried and they generally don't sell to individuals.
The grocery situation in the US was already depressing as fuck before Amazon monopolized a bunch of products; every grocery chain is owned by one of like 5 giant corporations, and they just rename the stores in different regions so people don't notice and think they are able to "shop around".
If you don't want things delivered, you could always try one of their dystopian hyper surveiled brick and mortar Amazon Fresh stores.
You're right.
I agree, then again I live practically next door to a grocery store, so I'd never even consider getting them delivered
I also do look down on the people who use these services to order meals like every day, it just seems like a massive waste of both money and packaging materials, plus the
employeesoops, I mean contractors are being paid and treated like garbage.remember when the government just told people at risk to stay at home while immunity builds but it turned out humans can't build durable immunity
You’re right, I am one of those people that sometimes has problems leaving the house. Mostly anxiety, but also sometimes laziness. I’m fortunate that I can afford the convenience, and I tip well to make it worth it for the people working the gig economy jobs that would be out there anyway. I try to limit the stupid orders, but love getting groceries delivered, I really have trouble in the food stores.
I sometimes have problems leaving the house.
I also could never justify spending that kind of money on having something delivered less than 2 miles.
In China delivery is done by electric scooter mostly, and the prices can be even cheaper than going yourself.
I know. I'm here right now in Guilin. That said, walking down the street and eating street food is a joy.
Oh man the street food scene is awesome there! I went to this like, Korea town when I was there, and had so many delicious snacks, and it felt so nice just sitting on a stool right on a beautiful road eating delicious food and watching the world pass me by.