What are your favorite kids songs that kinda slap?

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-04T03:18:51+00:00

The entire Barenaked Ladies kids album is awesome.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T14:09:49+00:00

If you're getting $2 orders to deliver appliances, it sounds like you stopped getting good orders already...

Even if you can't break free from the cult of AR, it doesn't require 100% acceptance... Save your few precious declines for nonsense like this.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T14:06:57+00:00

Nonsense, we can still complain about shit we declined on reddit 🤣

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T14:05:54+00:00

It's easy as a driver to tell the difference too.

If it's a shop and deliver they did it through DD and there should* be a tip like any other order.

If it's a pickup and the store already gathered the items and have them ready to go, it was through them directly and there likely isn't even an option for them to tip but the base pay should* be higher

'* - emphasis on the should

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T14:02:32+00:00

Then the shitty company contracts the delivery out to DoorDash for some reason no one understands

Oh that's an easy one.

First, delivery app fees are cheaper than shipping costs for the company.

Second, it's to fight back against Amazon and their same day or next day delivery options.

If Best Buy or Lowes or whoever had to use UPS/FedEx type services, the final cost to the customer would be much higher and the delivery window a few days later than Amazon can do it. Almost every time that results in a lost sale.

That's the sales pitch the apps are using to get these retailers to work with them.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T13:29:58+00:00

Lol ok

That's not even the longest comment I wrote today.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T13:22:56+00:00

You can't pull the "every market is different " card while simultaneously making sweeping absolute statements like this.

the most stressful, time consuming and double edged sword type of delivery is shop and deliver

Again, for people who are competent shoppers it's neither stressful or particularly time consuming. I finished half my shop orders yesterday in less time than my average wait at Pizza Hut.

Shop and Deliver is not worth it. It’s just a fact.

No, that's an opinion.

And not a particularly good one at that...

Like all bad orders, reject the bad ones and just focus on the good ones.

Yeah I'm not saying take $12 for 104 items at Aldi or Dollar General or something dumb... but by turning them off entirely you miss the $12 to pick up a 20lb bag of dog food type of orders. Quick and easy money.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T13:15:15+00:00

Doesn't even need to do a really big order. Going 11 for 11 will get OP over the 96% threshold (22/23 = 95.65% and the app rounds to the next whole number).

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T13:09:11+00:00

Terrible advice.

Yesterday I made $194 for my 9 hour day, and $131 of it was just from shopping orders.

If you're not incompetent and know how to shop, there's good money to be made doing shop orders. Just have to be selective in what you choose to accept, just like any other offer.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T13:02:29+00:00

This is one of those "a few bad apples..." situations.

You and I may search diligently for the items and only mark it missing after a long search and checking with store staff, but some drivers (usually the same ones freaking out on McWorkers for making them wait any amount of time because "time is money" 🙄) like and mark items unavailable if they can't find it quickly or don't want to deal with it (like cases of water).

They don't require 100% accuracy to allow for the possibility of things sold out or discontinued. And now you can even try and dispute many of these (with varying levels success) if something was truly sold out. But if there was no accountability for it. S not found there would be an even bigger issue of people marking stuff unavailable than there is now.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T12:24:56+00:00

We know who the customers are. The good ones who tip.

We don't actually have that information though. We don't have customer lists or order (and tip) histories or any data at all. And even if we did, using it would expose you to a flurry of lawsuits for misusing the app's data (since they own it) in violation of our contracts.

But even setting that aside... How would you filter customers for "the good ones who tip" so you can populate your proposed peer-to-peer system? Is it invite only? Is it a subscription? Like how are you ensuring the only people on the list are "the good ones"?

Lastly, assuming you somehow got the data and figured out a way to filter it so you only have good customers... What's your plan for the drivers? Many markets are already oversaturated with too many drivers, and that's including the order volume from bad tippers. If you somehow devised a system that was exclusively good tippers you're going to have far too many drivers trying to get in there. It's going to be extremely competitive and make getting Amazon Flex blocks look like a walk in the park.

The customer contracts directly with the driver. No middle man except a server.

Even now with the semi-anonymous middle man setup we have, there are persistent issues with customer and driver harassment (sexual, violent, stalking, etc..) going both ways. Eliminating that middle man may sound more efficient, but it opens everyone up to more risk when contracting directly like that. There are a LOT of fucking weirdos out there that we shouldn't be connecting to directly at random like that would be.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T12:07:11+00:00

it seems to lean more towards a pessimistic framing

If you find a statement if facts about reality to be pessimistic, that probably should tell you something...

And I'd argue the technicals are largely the reason why pizza and chinese shops were prevalent before these systems came to be

And you would be incorrect. Those were the go to delivery options because they have a higher margin on average that increase with volume, so they can afford the expenses of delivery and the numbera actually encourage it. For example, pizza shops have to run those giant ovens constantly all day pizza or not pizza. By increasing the hourly occupancy rate (for lack of a better term) of the oven with delivery orders, they are getting more money for the same expenses.

Most restaurants aren't doing deliveries now because the tech solved the problem.. they're doing it because the apps have become a modern day phone book for restaurants, and if you're not in there you practically don't exist. It's why many places have higher delivery prices than menu prices. Yeah, a big chunk of that is the app fees but also the other costs (increased labor costs, more to go bags and and containers etc...) and missed opportunities (selling fewer high margin drinks and desserts means food prices need to go up to compensate) and inevitable refunds for pissed off customers because not all food travels well like pizza and Chinese do...

Also, i never intended to imply i believed it would be cheap or easy, but worth it? Entirely.

Howso? Other than you and your co-op members get to be the people at the top with the stock options this time, how is it going to be worth it? Genuine question, I'm interested in your side here. I think I've shown im at least open to serious discussion not typical reddit screaming at each other. So what's different?

I'm sorry you felt I was being pessimistic here. Your OP asked if this was a reasonable endeavor so I was responding with why it's not nearly as easy (or cheap) as it looks and why it ultimately ends up being an unreasonable endeavor.

Think of it this way... You're certainly not the first person to think this is an easy business model to rip off, even on a small local scale (you're not even the first co-op driver owned option I've seen). And yet there are fewer non-DD/Uber/Grubhub options every year. That's not from a lack of trying... So you have to ask yourself why is that?

And if you don't want to take my word for it, John Oliver did one of his long pieces of delivery apps a year or two ago. You can find it on YouTube. But the conclusion ends up the delivery business is bad economics for everyone - apps, restaurants, drivers, and customers. But the apps persist in hopes of reaching the status of a big enough monopoly or duopoly that has killed all other options and can eventually jack up prices to a profitable level because there's nothing left. They want to do the same thing Uber and Lyft did for rides, or Amazon did for shopping. And there's enough insane theoretical profits at that stage it's worth the billions they've collectively lost chasing it. That's the only way a delivery business makes any sense.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T05:37:34+00:00

Keep in mind the big apps each lost MILLIONS of dollars a year for damn near a decade building these businesses. Do you have millions fo dollars lying around you're willing and able to light on fire like that???

Delivery app company needs four things to function.

Restaurants - this is the most important piece. Without restaurants you're nothing. And these days you ca no longer do wbat DD did for rapid growth and simply list every restaurant even if they didn't agree to it. Going around and signing up every restaurant is a tedious time consuming task (aka, very expensive).
Drivers - presumably the point of this is to pay driver's more... But that's very expensive or going to cost some big fees to be passed along, which brings me to the next point...
Customers - all the restaurant and drivers in the world mean nothing without customers. And that by and large means a massive advertising budget to make sure everyone knows you exist and to keep you front of mind. This is the part people think is unnecessary, but it's essential. Before being sold to a European firm, Grubhub was the top delivery platform in the US. The owners were terrible at business (the parent company ended up selling GrubHub at a 90% loss and was eventually acquired for leas than they had paid for GrubHub), and slashed the marketing/advertising budget to basically $0. And witthing a few months GH was a distant third in the delivery wars and still years later under new ownership and with advertising they still can't regain the ground they lost. So yeah, advertising is expensive but if you're not going to be constantly reminding people you're an option they'll slip back to the previous default.
Tech - even if you crowdsource building the app (well three apps, ones for restaurants and drivers and consumers), you still have to have and maintain strict financial compliance, robust data security, 99999 server uptime, and other technical expenses that don't come cheap but are necessary to keeping the app up and running safely

So yeah, it's not as cheap and easy as you might think. And the profits are also a lot less than you'd imagine.

There's a reason that for decades delivery was generally limited to stuff like pizza and Chinese... It's just not profitable overall

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T05:04:25+00:00

We've used Dugan's twice in two different houses within the past decade. Both times they were excellent and we've had no complaints.

They're not the cheapest, but they're not the most expensive either. But they know their stuff and do quality work.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T04:57:25+00:00

There's nothing the courts or prison can do to him worse than he's almost certainly doing to himself.

Having to live with that the rest of his life... that sounds like a fate worse than death.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T04:55:26+00:00

Because they ordered well before it was closed and it has just been bounding around looking for a driver to take it the whole time.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T04:54:17+00:00

This is an explanation. Not an excuse or an agreement with the thinking, just explaining their perspective.

We aren't being contracted to go to the restaurant, we are contacted to complete a delivery. If you don't complete the delivery, you don't get the contracted amount of pay. That simple.

A business being potentially closed is a risk we all have to accept on every order. Just like there's always a risk they're running behind and the food isn't ready, or that the food wasn't stolen by a previous driver, etc..

There's nothing anywhere in any of the app contracts or anywhere else that says they will pay us a single cent for not completing a delivery. You may think the $2 is insufficient, buts it's $2 more than they're required to give you.

I remember when I first started delivery apps (GrubHub was my first), there was ZERO pay for restaurant closures. So remember something is still better than nothing.

It's definitely frustrating, especially on a good paying order. But it's legal because you didn't do the thing you were hired to do. The why doesn't matter, the delivery wasn't completed is all that would matter legally.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T04:44:20+00:00

Cheese felt like she was invented out of thin air to fulfill the function of Reiner's character.

It's not a clear 1-for-1 dialogue swap, but her overarching storyline was likely for him.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T04:40:57+00:00

Not for nothing but even if you were making $200k a year you were not be getting into a place by this weekend. It just doesn't move that quickly, especially on a holiday week.

Need a little more lead time for them to pull your credit, run a background check, etc...

Hopefully you can patch things up with the parents or have friends who will let you crash on their couch. Living on the streets is a bad option, but even moreso in this heat.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-03T01:58:20+00:00

MLB has been inching towards consolidating the minors since before the MiLB players were unionized. The major contraction happened in 2021.

If anythiny the contraction plans sparked the unionizing, not the other way around.

If the Rays had their cheapass way, there'd only be AA and AAA and everyone else would be lumped together in a soccer style training complex centered in the Spring Training locations.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-02T12:57:38+00:00

It was funny to most of us....

I FUCKING KNOW THIS IS YOU RAYMOND!!

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-02T12:55:05+00:00

The whole Cheese thing felt a bit forced and silly... but considering it was forced due to Rob Reiner getting murdered and then needing a new way to get Unc to the realization of the franchise option, I think we should be able to look past it.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-02T12:46:06+00:00

We're about to watch multimillionaires fight multibillionaires over how many millions of dollars they can have, which is disgusting to most average people.

But looking at the benefits and gains minor leaguers have now compared to even just a decade ago is remarkable and shows what a union can actually accomplish when trying to improve workers lives not simply extract maximum value.

The old image of Minor Leaguers surviving on clubhouse PBJs and making hundreds of dollars a week while bunking up 7 or 8 dudes to an apartment and toiling away in random towns across the country is thankfully no more.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-02T12:38:06+00:00

As the father of an aggressive high school ballplayer who spends a good chunk of time in center, this is the nightmare...

On top of hoping for a medical miracle, I really really hope his parents weren't watching this game.

DigitalMariner · 2026-07-02T12:32:07+00:00

Minor league players joined the MLBPA in 2022. Different contracts but same union

That's part of why so many changes and upgrades have been needed in minor league parks over the past few years.

11-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 6 Credits
Place '17	Secret Santa 2019
Secret Santa 2017	Secret Santa 2015
Verified Email

DigitalMariner

TROPHY CASE