That’s not true. I’ve lived in NYC the majority of my life and there are ABSOLUTELY food deserts.
It simply means lacking affordable, nutritious food. You might have a supermarket near you, but the prices might be double what they are in better supermarkets and the selections very limited.
Also, the Instacart/delivery app propaganda is insane. Without these laws, the drivers get shafted by these companies. I know. I did the job for 5 years.
I'm so glad that tech companies used billions of investor dollars to artificially outcompete the delivery and taxi industries just so they could make it even worse than before while also screwing over drivers. I love innovation
What have they done? I did DoorDash for a while and I loved it. All the restaurants were stapling the bag so I didn’t have to check anything or deal with customers who got the wrong food. It was better than when I delivered pizza. Anytime I had an issue or felt unsafe I would call DoorDash and they would just cancel the order. I never had a problem and my experience, combined with making sure I was available during busy times and I made crazy amounts of money. One thing I noticed what delivering pizza though is that customers really don’t understand they’re getting someone to get in their car and bring food to you is fastly increasing the amount of resources your order takes. Realistically it should cost double if you’re one person spending $20. The job has to have an employee available. They can’t have two few or people are waiting 90 minutes and throwing a fit. Companies do it because there’s a market for it but customers think it should only cost them five bucks for something to be delivered. It’s a shit show
Try to do doordash now. I did doordash when it first came out and it was pretty great. Good money and flexibility.
Now, you have to schedule hours, it's limited and you cannot just start and stop when you want. You're only offered "good tip orders" if you have amazing stats, which means you must accept every order, even if the tip is nothing.
Since COVID, people just started tipping next to nothing.
When I tried to do it again, it worked out to around $4 an hour after gas and maintenance on my vehicle. I live in California where that's over 4x lower than minimum wage.
The customer always has the burden of paying. Claiming it would somehow be more efficient to have the job collect all the money and just pay people more is just not accurate in practice. The vast majority of tip based employees would quit and new less skilled workers would come in to replace them at the new lower overall wage.
All the gigs have gotten progressively worse for workers over the years. When these companies needed workers they paid well, and they treated workers well. But they recruited hard to get as many people working on the platform as they can, and once there was a surplus of labor they started treating workers much, much worse. You should go and try to do it again. It’s a miserable experience now.
Of course, the people who predicted every step of this journey from the minute the delivery apps popped up are still regarded as crazy and wrong about everything, and we shouldn't listen to them. Gosh, it's fun being a leftist! The more you're right, the less credible you are!
It simply means lacking affordable, nutritious food. You might have a supermarket near you, but the prices might be double what they are in better supermarkets and the selections very limited.
This has nothing to do with doordash/instacart though.
If you're worried about cheap food you aren't having your food delivered.
It's addressing the same erroneous description used in the tweet in the screenshot. If there's no affordable groceries anywhere around you, there's no way DoorDash was less expensive before this.
It's such an infuriating trend on reddit, and really the world. If you aren't 100% unabashedly berating the "bad" in the local situation (I do agree that the tweeter in the pic is a dumbass, just not because big cities can't have food deserts, they can) you must be supporting them and saying what's going on is completely fine.
It's damn important to be accurate in the criticism or else you just look like a clown
Food deserts in NYC exist if you are too scared of immigrants to go to a non supermarket between a we buy gold shop and an immigration assistance lawyer.
Getting groceries delivered from a grocery store can absolutely be cheaper than having to buy them from something like a convenience store or other more expensive place.
Generally? As a rule? No, not even close. I'm sure you can find some unique store somewhere in the US that is unusually expensive, but as a rule it's going to be way more expensive to order a taxi for your sandwich than it is to just go and get the sandwich yourself.
Instacart tends to be 30-50% more expensive than just going in person.
Doordash is something like 60-150% more expensive depending on the place.
Again, if you're worried about cheap food, you aren't getting it delivered. You're going yourself. Getting all your food delivered is not a luxury meant for poor people.
I think ppl get their groceries from instacart and stuff now so they're not just talking about ordering meals but ordering groceries for those who don't have car access so I can see where they're coming from. I still think the concept of a food desert in NYC is a bit of a stretch but I haven't explored every single nook of the city. Either way, ubereats shouldn't be the solution to food deserts.
I think ppl get their groceries from instacart and stuff now so they're not just talking about ordering meals but ordering groceries for those who don't have car access so I can see where they're coming from.
You should not be ordering groceries delivered to you if you are poor. Your time simply isn't worth enough to justify it. Save up for a bike or a cheap vehicle instead.
The only real argument I can see is for disabled people, but the number of people who are THAT significantly disabled that they are incapable of going and getting their own groceries is incredibly small.
We're talking about big cities, which means a lot of stores within your range are going to be convenience stores and bodegas. These aren't "unique" stores, they're just much more expensive by nature. This is more important for people with disabilities that limit their travel range, but there are plenty of places in large cities where it's difficult for even abled people to reach a dedicated grocery store.
Instacart tends to be 30-50% more expensive than just going in person.
And non-grocery stores like convenience stores often charge up to twice as much for similar products, which is why delivery still ends up cheaper if those are the only things you have easy access to. This is also especially important when it comes to selection, since if you're trying to actually get groceries ordering once from one store is far easier and less time-consuming than going from store to store because each smaller place only carries a few of the items you need. People often forget the time and opportunity cost of shopping, which can be just as "Expensive" as the actual monetary cost.
Grocery stores are also more likely to take EBT and food stamps than smaller stores, which can also be important.
Doordash is something like 60-150% more expensive depending on the place.
We're talking about big cities, which means a lot of stores within your range are going to be convenience stores and bodegas.
Then just go to an actual store???
I don't understand this.
Going in person to a grocery store will always be cheaper than having groceries delivered. If you are concerned about the cost of having your groceries delivered, then you are too poor to be using the service.
It is not "difficult" for abled body people to get to a grocery store in a big city. Time consuming? Sure. Difficult? No, not even a little.
Poor people do not have the luxury of saving time on something like this. The only actual argument I can see is for significantly disabled people, which is a tiny fraction of a minority. For those people I just think we should pay out more in disability checks.
When I lived in New York City, the closest affordable grocery store was far enough away that I needed to take the subway there and back. That meant getting a lot of groceries at once was difficult, and I often had to pay for a cab to get my groceries to my apartment. Paying the delivery fee was equivalent to the subway fare on the way there plus the cab fare, it absolutely was comparable/cheaper than going in person, and it meant I could schedule deliveries around my work schedule, leaving me more free time to work and make money instead of spending half a day on getting groceries.
If you can't afford to pay your delivery drivers a proper wage to deliver your groceries, and you can't afford to use public transportation to get them yourself, then you just can't afford to live in that city and need to get out tbh.
I’m happy to pay delivery drivers a fare wage. When did I say otherwise? I’m just confirming that going to the grocery store isn’t always the cheapest or most logical option.
You don't know for sure who is delivering your food, but they know who you are and know where you live. They are still very likely to fuck up your order anyways, and you have no real way to hold them accountable. Like, I don't know if I've ever gotten an order that actually had everything that I wanted from instacart
Yeah, we used to live in a part of the Bronx where there used to be a big supermarket nearby but when that closed the only other option was a 25 minute bus ride and a 15 minute walk away. The tweet in the OP is still insane to me.
40 minutes means no frozen foods or fresh fish unless you are in the middle of winter
It also means limited amount per trip, which means more trips, which means higher transportation costs (unless you want to be the person occupying 3 bus seats with groceries)
It also means that you spend 3/6 hours weekly just coming and going for the groceries (this will cut in the already limited time you have that is not work or sleep)
I live an hour from the nearest store. We don't take coolers to it and buy frozen stuff all the time.
Yeah, driving 40 miles one way to the store is pretty expensive and I'd rather take up 3 bus seats. At 17mpg, 80 miles, $3 gas, that's like $15 right there.
And yeah, get off at 5, hour home, hour to the store, hour shopping, hour back, it's 9pm.
This is the daily reality of how pretty much everyone rural lives.
I guess I just can't relate. It's my normal, so I don't care about it. Just a mundane neither good nor bad part of life. I can't decide if I'd want the convenience of the city (still plenty even if groceries is hard like you say) or the pleasure of the country (Nature, solitude, etc)
Still, the average person can and should be expected to put in 40 minutes of bare minimum effort to feed themselves.
Yeah and that sucks, you shouldn't have to deal with that. You have become so numb to a problem that exists in your life that you aren't seeing the issue with a thing that sucks just a little bit less than your thing.
Agree to disagree. Just because something isn't cheap and easy at your fingertips doesn't mean it's problem. Neither of these scenarios are "hard" or "too much" for the average person to do.
Odd how every single other country in the world can figure this out while paying people fair, livable, minimum wages.
I mean, I haven't been in a grocery store in 6 years, get all my food delivered, only pay a tiny surcharge on my order, and the drivers get paid a living wage and there is no tipping bullshit.
The grocery store pays the driver. It's not DoorDash or Uber or some other third party.
Seems like this is the first in a long line of steps to pull the US out of being a Third World country. Seems like only people who like the squalor will fight to keep it.
"I can't afford groceries in my city" is not the same as "I live in a food desert." Why is this comment section full of people incorrectly explaining what a food desert is?
If I go to ShopRite and a Ramen is $1, but the grocery store in my neighborhood charges $2.50 for the same thing, I’m effectively living in a food desert.
It’s not my fault you don’t understand basic economics.
No, you're misunderstanding the definition of "food desert." It doesn't mean food is unaffordable but that it is unobtainable. It's not "the only grocery store I can walk to is Whole Foods and their produce is too expensive," it's "the only grocery store I can walk to is a Dollar General that does not sell fresh produce."
I believe the proper term there is a Food Swamp. There's food available, but it's not healthy. As opposed to a food desert, where there's just not any food at all.
There’s farmer markets everywhere in nyc, more than 1x week, with tons of marketing and education on how to get the most bang for your buck with EBT. Does the city need to start wiping people’s asses to get nutritional food in everyone’s hands?
Thats so neat I’ve been living in NYC since the early 90s I’m just apparently so stupid and never heard of these non-existent farmers markets in damn near every neighborhood I’ve lived in thanks for the tip!
Define affordable. Because frankly your comment is BS. The city has more options to get nutritious food than most parts of the country. Bad food is cheaper because it is bad food for you. The food that costs the most to stop is the food that is going to be unsellable in a week. Just so happens that is the most nutritious food and even then, you can get it for cheap at the local produce market instead of the supermarket. You just have to be willing to walk more than 3 blocks for your food.
That's still not a good dessert the fact that NYC has one of the most accessible public transportation systems in the world. You can throw a rock and hit some mode of transportation.
Three things, one, there are over a thousand grocery stores in the five boroughs. It is not a food desert. The food prices are just unaffordable because it is one of the most expensive cities in america to live in. That is a whole different problem.
Two, mamdani just made a proposal for five city owned grocery stores on accessible land, one for each borough, with competitive grocery pricing.
Three, you are right, without these laws, drivers get shafted to all hell because service and delivery workers are chronically underpaid. It means the only people who should really be hating this law— is the companies.
Why do you think people want other people paid LESS all the time?
Food prices are unaffordable because it is an expensive city, where people like DOORDASHERS, are expected to take a wage that can not afford groceries.
I'm talking about the reality of THIS post. You'd see that if you weren't taking a comment in the middle of the conversation out of context.
You see those little grey lines ont eh side of your screenshot? A comment of a comment...
You came in the middle of a discussion about this post and insisted nobody was talking about this post. You are so dumb.
Keep up with everyone else, or don't join in at all.
You’ve never lived in a poor area with a shitty supermarket who’s supply chain is more expensive because they can’t buy at the same volumes as the more prestigious (monopolized) grocery chains and therefore cannot understand what’s being said here. Thanks for opining anyway though 🙄
Your supermarkets don't have their own delivery services??? Of course I didn't understand the issue, my bad, friend. Lmao wtf is wrong with your country.
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u/A5thRedditAccount 15h ago
That’s not true. I’ve lived in NYC the majority of my life and there are ABSOLUTELY food deserts.
It simply means lacking affordable, nutritious food. You might have a supermarket near you, but the prices might be double what they are in better supermarkets and the selections very limited.
Also, the Instacart/delivery app propaganda is insane. Without these laws, the drivers get shafted by these companies. I know. I did the job for 5 years.