Comment on The food delivery bubble is bursting — and maybe that's not a bad thing
calcopiritus@lemmy.world 3 months agoThe purpose of an economy is to decide what to output, given the unlimited human desires but limited resources.
If there was a law which gave 100€ to every millionaire, we would be supporting millionaires? Isn’t that good? No it isn’t, just “supporting someone” isn’t good economic policy, it must support outputs that will most benefit the population.
That’s why for it to be remotely viable it has to be self-sustained. Which means that they would not be able to operate further if there’s not enough demand or the competition from the private sector is more efficient.
If you want to support delivery drivers you make laws regulating their job. If you want to support restaurants you give them subsidies or change the laws surrounding them.
Capitalism is good at making efficient use of resources. However it has many failures. The purpose of governments is to fix those failures (for example the exploitation of workers, and monopolies).
If you just make a government-backed company (that doesn’t need a profit to keep going) compete with private companies that need a profit, it must be because the service benefits the whole population. Examples: healthcare, education, communication, water.
Not that not all necessary services need to be provided by profitless government corporations. For example, food and electricity is also needed by 100% of the population but they are also resource-intensive. Therefore they’re usually ran by private companies with heavy regulations/subsidies.
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 3 months ago
The normal rules of capitalism don’t apply to the internet because data costs nothing to replicate and is infinitely reproducible. Outside of server costs which could be paid by a nominal surcharge, there is no difference between a delivery app that serves 100 people and one that serves 100 million people.
I think it is quite clear that an array of delivery apps, each with their own separate rules and regulations for drivers and each with various subscriptions and fees for users, only adds complication and cost to food delivery. One singular app with one singular pool of delivery drivers is in every way more efficient than what we have now (with the exception of extracting fees from consumers).
calcopiritus@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Food delivery apps are not just apps though. In fact, the ones I’ve used are absolutely crap. Most of the value of these companies are in the service, which would change if there is a shared pool of government workers.
If the complaint are the apps themselves, the government could enforce an API that allows anyone to interact with any app with any service. So if you prefer Uber eat’s service but glovoo’s app, you could order from Uber eats using the glovoo app. Just like the EU wants to enforce multi-app support for messaging systems.
The claim that a shared pool of workers would be more efficient I’m not so sure. It depends on who runs that pool. Which history has shown that monopolies (government-run or otherwise) tend to get less efficient because of the lack of competition.
If drivers can choose what order to take at any moment from any service that would basically mean a shared pool. But I believe (I never worked on delivery) that that’s what already happens.
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I know quite a few food delivery drivers and most work for multiple companies (even if several are subsidiaries of the same parent company). This is by design so labor can be denied the benefits required of a full time job. It’s not only inefficient, it’s exploitive.
Companies that compete do get more efficient, but only at making money. They do not get more efficient at providing service to customers or supporting their laborers. They usually get worse in fact. That is why we have regulations.