So, as far as I can see, the meme “summoning my pizza slaves with a bourgeois app” has achieved legendary status on Hexbear, mostly as a form of satire, to make fun of it. That’s the full version I could find:
“I do self-criticism constantly because I’m trapped in a Maoist cult where comrades (white terrorists) criticize me mercilessly for having a fascist credit card (VISA Silver Signature Rewards). They won’t let me order vegan pizza anymore because the phone is fascist and “summoning my pizza slaves with a bourgeois app” is “bad vibes”
Now, I find myself in a country where these delivery apps have arrived relatively “recently”, sparking a vast social and political uprising. Workers are indeed treated extremely poorly, with NO job security, and they operate in a legal grey area (like, they are de facto employees, but they are treated as auto-entrepreneurs… neoliberal dream to destroy workers’ rights).
Adding to this, the working conditions can be quite perilous. In my city, traffic is notoriously chaotic, and cycling is dangerous. But not potentially dangerous, bodies-on-the-street-every-month dangerous. While we do have a well-established public transportation system, the city’s bike infrastructure is still quite underdeveloped, and cars dominate the roadways.
I’m aware that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism and yadda yadda. However, I find this particular form of consumption especially horrible. This is a highly walkable city with a wide range of food options readily available, making it unnecessary to rely on food delivery apps. And it really does feels like “summoning my pizza slaves with a bourgeois app". Mostly racialized workers, working dangerously in grey areas of law.
Have you normalized food delivery in your lifestyle? How do you deal with it? How do you navigate these ethical concerns?
It might not apply to your country’s conditions but here in mine lots of restaurants run delivery services parallel to the third-party Uber services and the like.
So, for example, most pizza restaurants here will have their own staff who they employ as kitchenhands etc. that also get tasked to do delivery or, when it’s peak hours, they have dedicated delivery staff on shift.
Instead of ordering from an app like Uber, I will intentionally order from restaurants directly because the money goes directly to the business and to paid staff who have better working conditions than what Uber offers.
my shoes were probably made by prison labor, but i need shoes and i can’t afford fancier ones.
i don’t need instant treat delivery, nor can i afford it, but if i could, i still wouldn’t use it.
in the situation you describe, i would not order pizza even if i could afford it, that crosses the line from “no ethical consumption” into “fuck the workers! i want my treats!!” territory
I’ll use it sometimes because a lot of items are actually cheaper than getting takeout because of the commute costs (I have no car and live in a neighborhood with minimal food options)
If you’re gonna use it, tip well and if you live in an apartment, let them drop it off in the lobby instead of making them come up to your door
If you can order from a place that has their own delivery crew instead of through an app, do that.
If you absolutely MUST have something delivered (don’t scream at me, there’s probably cases we could justify) its probably okay to do sometimes.
But I’m gonna say if you’re able to get the things yourself and constantly use an app based delivery service… there’s some self reflection that needs to happen.
I don’t use the food delivery apps. I can’t afford them and I kinda like cooking.
The comrades (white terrorists) are right. I’ve never used any of these apps, but then again I mainly cook for myself anyway. Last year, the biggest food delivery company here was sold to DoorDash and I got to read so much
about what a great success the company was while mostly ignoring the conditions of the workers, sorry, entrepreneurs.I got food delivered to my home for the first time in probably a decade a couple months ago. I got food poisoning and got some groceries delivered.
My parents rarely if ever ordered delivery. My dad would always just drive to wherever we ordered from to pick it up. I think it was partly like his quiet time for the day, and also my parents just not wanting to pay delivery fees or tip a driver.
I have used the apps to get food delivered to the office maybe 20-30 times max over my working life, not counting the times where it was like an office wide link for lunch that they were paying for.
Pizza places, at least in the US, have delivered for a long time, to the point where even 20 years ago it would be weird if they didn’t have employees doing deliveries. It long predates services like Uber Eats and Door dash, although those may have taken over delivery or inserted themselves as middlemen in the ordering process.
That said, from what I’ve heard pizza delivery is a bad job that pays pretty much nothing other than tips, so maybe it’s always been bad.
The scam is that on paper it looks like good money if you don’t count the car expenses.
I’ve heard most places make you pay for gas too
yeah, i figured it was a product of growing up extremely rural and this stuff being new to me - now that i actually live in range of delivery places i’d much rather walk 10 minutes than order anything delivered. its a mix of guilt and social awkwardness. i’m not sure that the guilt part actually makes sense materially, because if i just walk instead, yeah i’m not bothering anyone but surely that also means a worker isn’t getting paid? i’m not sure if my way is better or worse, but as a Fellow Poor i just feel incredibly bad about the idea of economically coercing someone into doing unnessecary shit for me. nice to know its not just me being weird.
although very occasionally places send me offers or free shit thats only accessible through one of these delivery services and i can’t really afford to turn down a free/cheap meal
I’d rather go to the restaurant myself or cook on my own. I don’t really want some random person picking up my food and bringing it to my house.
What makes meet market delivery apps particularly bad is they basicly create a stranglehold on small business and workers and are basicly like the mafia controlled areas that have increased costs for everyone because everyone has to pay for protection to get customers.
Now for the workers, these apps present a regressive form of employment that reclassified workers as contractors. Notice home depot parking lots with McDonald’s you’ll see a bunch of people siting in their cars or in the McDonald’s waiting for work to pop up. A littral open air meet market.
With the rise in the price of money and the cost of cars and the car consumables these apps in the long term will struggle to stick around. The cost of these apps are increasing as they can no long be subsidized on cheap money to get marketshare with the goal of geting monomseney pricing or a goverment contract. That’s how vc capital works.
As I remind people captlism is changing neoliberalism is fading away at this conjecture a new form of capital management is coming right now the need to restore profitability is driving this this is what uber eats and lyft was about but it didn’t work.
As far as navigating it personally, sometimes I use the app it does feed workers, recently its too expensive to justify for most people since the cost of cooking is get close to approximating the cost of take out. Taking an ethical moral stance I think is kinda pointless.
People need healthy food for low cost and this is something any leftist of any stripe can do we can even charge a very modest fee to build more assets for the partys engaged in it. Like we need to create our own network of social reproduction feeding people healthy food in food deserts is a very practical thing most people can engage in. In captlism workers need assets like soup kitchens and job networks and even physical property for the party to be effective. Running a co-op that is allied with the local party for legal reasons and then using that to host events is a tool and to build community services, this is something we have to do to build trust in the community and to get credibility so we can engage in larger projects.
I don’t know if this helps.
It’s not a common action for me, though I know some who use it a lot. When I had the Rona I think I used Ubereats maybe twice. The over-reliance some have on these delivery services can be a bit debaucherous, but the service existing in of itself isn’t evil. Capitalism and contract employee programs on the other hand, is.
I don’t like to order delivery in general, but when I do it’s from places that have dedicated staff for that job.
When I order I try to do it through their own phone line or go and collect it myself. Besides, you often find it is cheaper (by about 10%).
Now and then I use the bourgeois app and it’s usually when I am hungover. I feel bad about it, which dials my hangover up into an exquisite malaise.
