https://seattle.eater.com/2024/2/21/24079162/tony-delivers-seattle-delivery-app-fees-downtown
Tony Illes was working as an Uber Eats delivery person when an ordinance passed last year by the Seattle City Council came into effect in mid-January. The new rule required app companies to pay workers like Illes a minimum wage based on the miles they travel and the minutes they spend on the job. The apps say that this amounts to around $26 an hour, and both Uber Eats and DoorDash responded by adding $5 fees to every order (even when the customer is outside Seattle city limits) while calling for the law to be repealed. According to a recent DoorDash blog post, the ordinance has resulted in an “unprecedented drop in order volume,” a drop that Illes felt personally. He told Geekwire that “demand is dead” and told local TV station KIRO 7, “I didn’t get an order for like six hours and I was done.”
So Illes had an idea: Who needs these apps, anyway? He printed up signs with QR codes directing people to a bare-bones website with his phone number, promising that he would deliver food by bike in Uptown, South Lake Union, Belltown, and a chunk of the downtown core for $5 a pop from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. daily. All you had to do was order the food and send him the screenshot. He called himself “Tony Delivers.”
I see two issues with that:
No liability. Got your food 2 hours late? Better yet: Didn’t get your food at all? Guess you lost that money.
Pricing. If drivers are able to make their own prices, they will probably start undercutting each other, resulting in very low fees for the drivers. Also, it would be very intransparent to userd how much the delivery will cost.
I think this comment is taking out the relationship aspect of what this guy is doing. I’m not in Seattle, but if there was just a regular, reliable dude around here that just delivered food for a flat rate, I’d keep using his service.
This is more about the relationship and trust and building a reliable customer base by providing regular reliable service, than it is for competition. At least at this point.
1° a rating system like the ones exist today however, such platform would have to systems in place to identify shitty dashers like a photo that restaurants could rely on before giving the order to said dasher.
2° a minimum fee could be established, but even so that could be indeed a problem