Delivery services are becoming sharecropping.
Just now I got a dinner delivery from one of the apps, and my food was dropped off by someone on one of the rentable electric bikes (ya know the green or orange ones). Food wasn't all that warm but I still had to go back and double my tip.
This isn't the first time Ive had someone renting a bike or scooter to deliver an order, that was a teenage girl on a scooter after 10pm in a city.
I was so caught off guard the first time that I thought about it for a while and the more I thought about the more grossed out I got.
Delivery drivers don't make a ton. Before expenses it averages out at anywhere from $15-$30/hr. But then you gotta factor in expenses. For renting a scooter or bike the lowest cost I could find on the apps came out to about $14/hr... Even if they're not using the scooter or bike for 25% of the time between orders that's still $11/hr... Which leaves them making $4-$19/hr.
What has this world come to?
There are people out there so desperate that teenagers are essentially sharecropping scooters and bikes for food delivery companies worth billions. And those are the "good ones", those are the people not committing crimes like selling drugs or stealing catalytic converters, these are the people actively trying to work for a living.
I'm not rich.
I'm barely getting by with just me and a couple furballs. I can't afford to help all of the people I see struggling in my daily life. I do what I can. I'm generous where I can be.
But Jesus Christ I'm tired of feeling like this. Tired of seeing so much awfulness all around us and being entirely incapable of changing it.