It’ll be exciting to see who steps in and provides this service to in the void being left… Surly Netflix won’t try and stop somebody coming in and running a boutique service for those still interested in this…
Also I’ve now learned that gamefly both still exists and has a DVD by mail service
Guess who’s about to keep all employee tips… A minimum wage is a great first step, but stricter regulation will be needed to curtail the absurd levels of greed from these megacorps.
The sad thing is that they’re probably just gonna shut down shop there and hurt these workers. Not justifying their low payment at all. Just fuck. Capitalism is fucked up.
Restaurants used to just have their own delivery drivers. Crazy, right? Like Phillip J. Fry.
I delivered pizza and later Chinese food for years, working directly for a restaurant. I get the sense you got a way better level of service from that arrangement, as well, versus the Uber Eats randos you get these days. You sure as shit did from places where I was a driver.
My wife and I have gone back to when we order food, like our pizza night, ordering directly from the place. I know the drivers are getting paid a decent wage and without all the extra fees it’s more reasonably priced. Plus the food actually arrives in a timely fashion and is still hot rather than the driver doing a bunch or other deliveries before us and the food being cold.
Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. He is a role model. This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it – we’re talking trade balances here – once we’ve brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they’re making cars in Bolivia and microwaves in Tadzhikistan and selling them here – once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel – once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani bricklayer would consider to be prosperity – y’know what? There’s only four things we do better than anyone else:
I was blown away the first time. Only had the audio book but sat there, ok he’s describing the internet, vr, and a country ruled by corporate interests… Big Whooop. Wait, published in 1992? There’s some interesting predictions, and ideas surrounding technology but still grounded in reality. A bit of Alt-history.
To those who live there: How does $18/hour in NYC compare to $20/hour in California (for the fast food thing recently passed here)? Is that a living wage there?
Not a resident of either but it’s worth mentioning that this is NYC not NY state and California probably has suburban and rural areas that are much, much cheaper cost of living than NYC.
Household income for me and my wife was around $150k and we got priced out of the city. A lot of Dashers take late night trains deep deep outside of the city, or they live with half a dozen other Dashers on alternating schedules, sharing beds.
I get the legal distinction between 1099 and W-2 worker but it’s pretty crazy that it’s allowed to pay someone below minimum wage because of that distinction.
Like, SOMEONE is doing an hour of labor, and it’s allowed that they get paid less than the minimum wage? Is there actually any reason we as a society should be OK with that, or is it just a legal technicality we can’t get rid of without making a bunch of plumbers making $80/hr fill out paperwork ensuring they make more than the minimum?
Honest question to the lemmy users here, but do people believe the solution to the affordability crisis in the US is to raise the salaries of every single job out there (menial or skilled)?
Looking to have a real conversation and not just a ‘fuck capitalism’ one (and yes, I know it sucks, but I’m looking for a real conversation).
I dont think raising minimum wage will help. It just forces the service to raise the cost of the delivery fee. I don’t know the answer to the affordability crisis, but it ain’t that!
I come in peace, because you wanted an honest answer/real conversation. .
Very good points. I hadn’t thought of the downfall of delivery to be an option, but I can understand that. The inflation stuff is a little over my head but if we constantly target higher inflation, what is the end game? We can’t raise all salaries realistically and have a loaf of bread cost $20 in the end. Is the future meant to have less humans?
aaaand THAT is the real fucking issue here. All these low wages are completely unnecessary but the C-suite needs their bonuses to increase YoY!!!
Yes, it comes out of worker compensation, what’s your point?? If wages go up we will have to raise prices instead of cutting (or even limiting increases) into our poor leadership’s bonuses and compensation /s
Yes @missveeronica, love peace, love discussion! I am curious what other alternatives we have or what people can think of. It’s obviously a very tough problem since the US government can’t seem to (agree to) fix it. Things that pop in my mind:
I understand this is a basic overstatement, but in general, people work so that they can afford a house. I think housing prices have gone bonkers in recent years, partially due to foreign investors and the flipping houses/Airbnb craze. One thing that pops into my mind is to impose a flip tax, where unless the owner personally lives in a house for 4-5 years, they pay a large tax when selling the home. This of course applies to corporations as well but with the added spice of larger tax if the inventory was empty the entire time. If we can make housing affordable again, I think the need for higher salaries is less of an issue.
Revamp the food stamp system and make it universal to everyone. This ties into universal basic income, but I think if everyone was part of a food stamp program, it would make it less stigmatized and there would be a wider offering of choices available. This could be very cool.
Aside from the usual tax billionaires/term limits/socialize healthcare ideas, it seems that we have an issue where things can get out of hand from people who are greedy. I don’t know how to solve this problem, but I feel like if there was some website that showed what companies are owned by who, we could vote with our dollars and level the playing field. I hate that I found out after years the gym I belong to is owned by some nutjob and I’ve been patronizing him. If there was some visibility into where my money was going, it might educate people where their money is going.
No, the optimal solution is to have a society where all the blood and sweat equity that has been put into the system by workers is finally repaid, and the capitalist leeches of the world are knocked off their thrones. Workers created the abundance that allowed the billionaires of the world to get fat while they let others starve, and only once that misappropriation of resources is ended can we fix the issues that the oligarchs have created.
I agree. I’m having a hard time understanding how raising the salary of delivery workers to what an entry level doctor, engineers or lawyer is going to solve the problem. There are two things that might happen, either all the other salaries in the world will then also increase (and thus services too), keeping the wealth disparity the same, or, since these delivery companies already operate on such thin margins (GrubHub net profit for past years have been negative $millions), they are going to pass the cost to the consumer. It creates an interesting problem where then it’s too expensive to get delivery so you don’t order food, which means less delivery jobs are needed so people are laid off, preventing people from making money. Also, from what I’ve seen, most of the workers seems to be immigrants. While I’m not saying we take advantage of immigrants, but these low barrier to entry jobs have always been helpful for those who have complicated statuses.
I’m not bashing any delivery worker (I used to work at a wings shop in my youth), but the amount of interaction you spend with a delivery worker is usually minimal. It doesn’t require any formal training and neither being a bad one is going to affect whether you are in the mood for Thai food.
The federal minimal wage is still the same. $18 an hour is still low in New York. If anything, the law just gets rid of jobs people should not have been going for in the first place.
I don’t think it’s the wrong question. Profits exists in every society and many countries are capitalist or have their own flavor of capitalism. If the idea is to create a system where those who excel are rewarded, then profits need and should exist. In a capitalist economy, this drives better products, better services, etc. Additionally, the opposite of profit (loss), serves as a great metric to determine whether something is worth doing. If the customer wants a pure gold toilet, but only has $50 to spend, your going to offer them spray paint instead of the real thing.
There are some bad apples that abuse profits, and disproportionately hoard all the value, but I’m looking to discuss my original question.
I’d argue a meritocracy is impossible. how does one determine the best person at writing marketing copy, or mowing lawns, or cleaning gutters? You end up creating a race to the bottom of speed, price and lack of safety or security. Only the most ruthless, manipulative, careless end up winning.
Profit is excess — so it’s not a natural byproduct. No one ever lowers prices, but you can, no one ever splits out excess wealth to workers but you can. It’s not impossible.
I’d ask you does captialism create a better product? We’re here on Lemmy, so its especially pertinent to ask whether reddit was better as a free product for the benefit of everyone, or is it better as a for-profit model with ads, gold, awards, data vending, paid tiers etc?
Same for privatization of railroads, water, power. When is an example of (long term) improvement of private ownership?
Same for Healthcare, why is it better to have more expensive service, less access, more barriers but a better paid middleman?
The current way we determine those things are clickthroughs for marketing copy, ratings or repeat clients for landscapers and gutter cleaners. I’ve definitely hired someone before and said, damn they did a good job, I’d have paid more for that.
I’d disagree profit is excess. At most companies, if a product or job is profitable, the extra money is used for R&D, taking risk on new things and giving bonuses to people who really stood out. Profit is required for products in services so then you can reinvest and provide more value to users.
I think that capitalism generally does create the best product. In the US we are leaders in technology, research, aerospace and infrastructure. I’m not saying we are #1 in everything, but the process does work and time and time again companies and countries use products developed from the US.
The most talented people in their fields come here because they have the ability to earn money for their talents. While it’s not a perfect meritocracy, generally the best in their field stand out.
Regarding healthcare, railroads or other private services. The best thing is that they are private, and if something comes to disrupt the status quo you are free to take your dollars elsewhere. Same thing with lemmy; while I’d argue reddit (at the moment) has a lot more engaging and varied content because of it’s user base, I chose to stick with lemmy because I like it’s value propositions.
Privatisation isn’t terrible, look at what SpaceX has done, completely turned the space industry sideways. For healthcare you have new companies like Oscar, which have given people immediate access to telemedicine. In Japan, the Japan Railways (JR) is a massive private railway organization that provides bullet trains and local trains across the country: it can be done.
This part I haven’t figured out. Seems chicken and egg to me. If we keep raising wages to match inflation, the costs of good measured to match inflation will also go up and we end up with higher inflation right?
are you really questioning if people deserve a competitive wage in which they can actually live on?
Do you believe the solution is instead to limit which jobs get paid a wage you can survive on? I’m not saying all jobs, but you better believe higher wages to the workers and less to the C-suite is 1000000000000% a better solution.
Do you have ANY idea how much wealth has been transferred from the workers to the elite since just 2020?? Open your fucking eyes
According to Forbes, the 10 richest people, as of 30 November 2021, have seen their fortunes grow by $821 billion dollars since March 2020.
The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men has doubled since the pandemic began. The incomes of 99% of humanity are worse off because of (and following) COVID-19. Widening economic, gender, and racial inequalities—as well as the inequality that exists between countries—are tearing our world apart. This is not by chance, but choice: “economic violence” is perpetrated when structural policy choices are made for the richest and most powerful people. This causes direct harm to us all, and to the poorest people, women and girls, and racialized groups most.
I am not saying people don’t deserve a living wage. Raising the minimum wage helps solve short term problems, but from what I see, doesn’t help fix the high cost of living. The cost of living needs to be lowered somehow, and I was curious what people thought on this. I don’t think the money to subsidize the workers are going to come from the CEOs salaries…
How does this work with the way these delivery apps work?
Correct me if I’m wrong since I’ve never worked for one of these outfits, but the way I understood it was anytime you want to work you just log into the app and make yourself available, and you randomly get assigned nearby jobs. If there are no jobs to do (middle of the night or w/e), then you get no pay. With this change, when are you eligible for the minimum wage? If everyone in NYC logs into the app at once, will everyone get minimum wage?
I think we are likely moving in the direction of a surveillance state, but not in the way that the UK or China do it. The State won’t spend billions on an extensive network of cameras and sensors, they will merely write laws that require private companies to hand over any footage deemed relevant.
This is already happening with companies like Ring. It makes sense when I think about it, because it saves billions of dollars and offloads all the infrastructure management onto the private sector while still reaping the benifits.
I hadn’t really thought about it like that until now. It is like a distributed surveillance network with almost zero cost and overhead, scary.
It’s been the strategy for decades. Facebook is also very useful to determine someone’s social graph, whereabouts, interests, etc. You don’t even have to have a Facebook account, if someone uploads a picture of you, they’ll create a ghost profile.
Isn’t it funny how they observe the streets with their cameras 100% continually and everything gets stored on their servers, and at the same time they celebrate their alledged policies of never doing exactly that.
engadget.com
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