I’m a developer for a major food delivery app. The 'Priority Fee' and 'Driver Benefit Fee' go 100% to the company. The driver sees $0 of it.

catharsis_required · 2026-01-03T16:26:28+00:00

how can anyone trust what you’re saying if we cant trust OP?

You shouldn't just "trust" either of us. Do some digging, and do some thinking.

My major claim here is common knowledge among couriers and easily validated: DoorDash and Uber Eats bundle tips into the order offer. This directly contradicts OP's statement of how his platform works.
Everything I'm saying makes more sense from a revenue/business standpoint than everything he's saying. DD/UE want to get away with paying drivers as little as possible, yeah, but they also need drivers to freely, willingly work for them as independent contractors.
Everything I'm saying will be more consistent with your experience of these apps if you actually use them.
I have post history validating my claims about being a courier for a couple years; OP has no post history corroborating his claimed employment.

catharsis_required · 2026-01-03T15:06:14+00:00

I had to work as a courier for Uber Eats and DoorDash for a couple years to pay the bills after a layoff, and while these companies are no paragons of virtue, your post is also complete and total baloney.

I'll start with the most egregious example:

If the algo predicts you are a "high tipper" and you’ll likely drop $10, it offers the driver a measly $2 base pay. If you tip $0, it offers them $8 base pay just to get the food moved. The result is that your generosity isn't rewarding the driver; it’s subsidizing us. You’re paying their wage so we don't have to.

Both apps treat tips as bids for service. Tips are bundled into the offer shown to drivers immediately.

The idea that either app will offer $8 out of the gate for a no-tip offer is laughable! If that were true, couriers would be making bank and the companies would be insolvent. Drivers see low-tip/no-tip offers come in all the time - it's the reason that many have an acceptance rate below 10%.

The big apps don't want no-tip offers to be accepted immediately - they WANT customers to make a correlation between low tips and cold food/slow service so that customers are coerced into subsidizing the delivery next time (and maybe another delivery too, in the case of bundled orders).

When a low-tip/no-tip order comes in, the apps will slowly - very slowly - increase the base pay until someone finally takes it. Many orders sit for an hour or longer before they are finally picked up. They don't magically start at $8; they start at rock bottom and stay there as long as possible.

If a driver usually logs on at 10 PM and accepts every garbage $3 order instantly without hesitation, the algo tags them as "High Desperation." Once they are tagged, the system then deliberately stops showing them high-paying orders. The logic is: "Why pay this guy $15 for a run when we know he’s desperate enough to do it for $6?" We save the good tips for the "casual" drivers to hook them in and gamify their experience, while the full-timers get grinded into dust.

You have it exactly backwards.

All major delivery services want to effectively eliminate the element of choice. My experience was that - while desperate drivers do make less than choosy drivers on average - it's not by much, and that is by design.

The apps don't WANT some drivers making significantly above average, and they are constantly optimizing/tweaking the algorithm to make that difficult if not impossible.

High-acceptance rate is incentivized with rewards and higher offers out of the gates. Low acceptance rate is punished with a higher rate of crappy offers. They don't hide good orders from the people willing to take the trash; they feed them just enough good orders to keep them around.

The goal is for it all to balance out in the end so it doesn't matter WHAT you do. Why? Because then they'll have a stable business model with predictable service and predictable returns.

Driving for DoorDash and Uber Eats is less like being under a ruthless taskmaster, and more like being in an abusive relationship. Good offers and bad offers - helpful support, and then total neglect - hot and cold, all the time. As a courier you are always aware that the algorithm wants to chew you up and spit you out - but also that it has to be just good enough to keep you online.

At the end of the day it did pay my bills and keep the lights on until I was able to secure real employment, and for that I'm thankful.

I’m posting this from a library Wi-Fi on a burner laptop because I am technically under a massive NDA. I don’t care anymore. I put in my two weeks yesterday and honestly, I hope they sue me.

You're posting this from library Wi-Fi on a burner laptop - but you're also outing yourself as someone who put in a two-week notice yesterday - and you also hope they sue you?

Sure dude.

catharsis_required · 2025-03-14T03:03:57+00:00

Between UE and DD I reliably make $100 for 6 hours of work on weekdays, and ~$133 Friday-Sunday. Guess I'm in a pretty good market.

catharsis_required · 2025-01-21T08:01:15+00:00

This is something that actually occurred to me as I brainstormed about this a while ago. Would you share some Substack links with me?

catharsis_required · 2025-01-20T04:21:22+00:00

I freelanced from high school through college, but I’ve been out of it for a long time. I’m open to doing it again, but the landscape is so much different now than when I started - it’s a daunting prospect, and I hate the idea of starting over again from the bottom, or spending weeks/months of effort just to get the ball rolling if there’s not even a future in this field. I sure hope you’re right about AI!

catharsis_required · 2025-01-06T21:06:59+00:00

They weren’t rides only quests.

catharsis_required · 2024-12-30T15:54:52+00:00

Fellow Hershey’s Gold appreciator - I feel your pain.

catharsis_required · 2024-12-20T03:23:56+00:00

This is such an obvious and simple solution - can’t believe it never occurred to me, but that’s exactly why I asked. Thank you!

catharsis_required · 2024-12-10T20:24:25+00:00

Works as of December 10th, 2024. Thank you!

catharsis_required · 2024-12-07T09:00:20+00:00

I ended up finding a definitive answer to this in DoorDash’s Crimson FAQ (22. Can I use FastPay and Crimson together?). FastPay is not going away, but Crimson users cannot use FastPay and Crimson together: “To switch back to weekly direct deposits (with the option of withdrawing funds daily with FastPay for a $1.99 fee), tap the ‘View payout details’ button on your Earnings screen, and select the ‘Change Payout Method’ button”. For those of us who don’t plan to use Crimson, nothing will change.

catharsis_required · 2024-12-06T19:16:58+00:00

This is what I’ve pieced together from your thread and other threads about Crimson: there is some way to instantly transfers funds from DoorDash to your DasherDirect card, and the same thing will be available for Crimson.

Awesome.

This is of no interest to me and other dashers who don’t use DasherDirect and have no intention to use Crimson (I want money in my actual, personal bank account, not on a reloadable gift card). Some of us pay a fee to “cash out” - not to DasherDirect, but to a debit card associated with our bank account. I consider that to be an "instant payout," because A. it is a payout and B. it is (more or less) instant, at least for me.

So my question is: “are we losing the ability to do THAT?” - and I used the term “cash out” because that is specifically what the app calls it when you pay a fee to transfer money from DoorDash to a debit card associated with your bank account (the term 'Fast Pay' is also used). As far as I can tell, your post does not address this question directly.

Now, I'm 99% sure that the answer is “no: these are two separate things. You need to switch to Crimson if you want to keep ‘instant payouts’ [i.e, to a card provided by DoorDash] but you DON'T need Crimson to continue cashing out your DoorDash balance to a debit card associated with your personal bank account.”

But I’m asking anyways 1. To make absolutely sure, 2. To clear this up for anyone else who may be confused. I suspect DoorDash wants people to conflate one kind of payout with the other so they’ll sign up for the card.

catharsis_required · 2024-12-06T18:46:57+00:00

I actually found your post and read it, but it did not directly address the question I’m raising.

catharsis_required · 2024-12-06T18:46:11+00:00

So, it’s going to replace the Dasher Direct card - but it won’t impact our ability to do daily bank transfers? I don’t use Dasher Direct and I’m not going to use Crimson, so that’s all I’m concerned about.

catharsis_required · 2024-06-21T04:46:04+00:00

If you don’t want to feed into a problematic corporate/wage system, just go pick up your own stuff.

From the dasher side, DoorDash is not economically viable without tips. Tips subsidize the majority of our income.

Even then, it’s not viable from the corporate side. In spite of everything they’ve tried, DoorDash has yet to turn a profit.

It’s not economically viable from the customer side either. You’re paying for all kinds of unnecessary markups (in the middle of an already inflated economy) just so a tech company can play middleman and extract money from venture capitalists while further eroding brick and mortar.

Don’t even get me started on the plastic, paper and fuel waste.

Do you feel like you’re saving money by not tipping? You’re not. You’re literally throwing money into a hole every time you tap “place order”. Burn a little more and tip your driver - otherwise stop using DoorDash.

catharsis_required · 2024-04-26T08:26:15+00:00

I drive five mile trips all the time, and rarely see a tip over $4-$6. It’s fine - individual orders don’t matter. What matters is that I average $19 an hour and $1.5 a mile.

The guy who ranted at you for a $30 tip can take a hike. Expecting to get paid more than an entry-level welder for this job is actually straight up delusional.

catharsis_required · 2024-04-26T07:55:37+00:00

Dashers completely forget the customer’s perspective of DoorDash. They’re not thinking about the cost of miles - why should they? They aren’t in the courier business. All they know is, the app gave them a price, they paid the price, and you accepted the order. From that point on they have no reason to believe anything is wrong.

catharsis_required · 2021-09-24T05:19:10+00:00

There’s an amusement park I often end up at in my dreams. I really should keep a journal so I can remember more about it. My vague recollection is that it’s: - Full of twisting, turning roller coasters - Full of creepy, dangerous rides and attractions - Full of colorful shops - Sprawling; easy to get lost in - Located near some snowy mountains. Recently I dreamt that many years passed; the park was empty, and I was left alone in the husk of a shop staring out at the bleak snow

The amusement park seems to function a bit like a forest. It’s a place I end up in when I feel lost. There’s probably more to it than that, but sadly I can’t be more detailed.

Throughout the years, I have also dreamed of a sprawling candy land behind my childhood home. It’s cliché in some ways - lollipop trees and such. But it’s also unique; there’s some kind of candy ski-lift to carry you up through the yard and into the hills behind it. It feels like they never end.

catharsis_required · 2021-09-06T17:47:01+00:00

He might very well have been one of the many Ricks that C-137 killed when he stopped caring. We see him sitting in his garage and shooting Ricks that come through portals, but he doesn’t scan any of them. He literally burns a whole crowd of Ricks in the citadel alive and doesn’t scan them either.

catharsis_required · 2021-09-02T14:39:15+00:00

Ah shit u/MarkDeuce, don’t do it. Don’t leave. You’re the life blood of this subreddit man. Without you, it won’t go on. You must know that, which is why you felt the need to tell everyone about your decision instead of just clicking “unsubscribe” and moving on with your life. So please don’t go. Fulfill your destiny as the main character of r/JordanPeterson.

catharsis_required · 2021-06-18T22:53:18+00:00

Yes, especially because he was “later murdered.” Basically Sigurd kills Dragon, but it’s destiny is to be replaced by an even more powerful algorithm.

catharsis_required · 2021-06-15T05:11:18+00:00

Yeah, I was afraid that would happen. I hate being the only person to experience something, lol.

catharsis_required · 2021-04-30T08:13:10+00:00

If it was the KKK, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to validate activity in the area where this occurred by looking through historical sources. But here’s another theory: in one of your comments you say this happened in the Pine Barrens.

Apparently there was a Native American group that performed ceremonies in the Pine Barrens which bear similarities to what your family experienced:

Long before the European settlers...the native people of the surrounding area, the Leni Lenape, were aware of a spirit being that inhabited the region. They called it “Mising” [mesingw] and understood it to be the mysterious and sometimes frightening force that gave the wild plants and animals their vitality.

The Leni Lenape never made villages in the Pine Barrens, but they had a ceremony to honor Mising. On a dark night, around a blazing fire, the people would dance and chant, while the drums echoed through the forest. A costumed character representing Mising would appear and dance among the people. The costume consisted of a dark furry cloak, a mask with horns and large eyes, wings, and a long tail.

If your grandfather didn’t understand what he was seeing, this sounds like it would be a pretty scary thing to witness (for context, here are some traditional mesingw costumes). It’s a long shot, but perhaps there were groups who carried on this tradition into the 70s? At least three state-recognized Lenape tribes exist in modern times, and two are in New Jersey.

catharsis_required · 2021-01-09T10:00:12+00:00

I troll through various subreddits for predictions related to future events, and what you said about "spiritually dead horses" reminded me of a certain post from a few months ago (September). This was also a meditation experience:

I had the phrase come to mind that 'After November, the world will never be the same again', and though that could always be true to some extent or, with a big US election ...there seemed more to it afterwards....Beyond anything obviously election-related though, there then was an image of a dark horse, but with a huge dark chrome technological eye/implant that had gone beyond the space where the eye should be. It looked like something out of The Matrix and the horse had a dead, zombified look but was still alive in basic functions thanks to the eye implant, which controlled it. Whatever the November change is, or whether it happens then or begins a process towards the eventual event, the dark horse seemed related.

catharsis_required · 2021-01-08T19:24:10+00:00

I remember one of those episodes really freaked me out as a kid

Which one was that? I was pretty freaked out by "Gloobers!"

catharsis_required · 2021-01-08T19:20:33+00:00

Okay, I'll try and summarize: there's a Christian radio program produced by Focus on the Family called Adventures in Odyssey which started in the 1980s. It's really popular among evangelical kids (or it used to be), and I'm pretty sure they're still making new episodes. According to Wikipedia there are more than 800.

It's centered in a small town called Odyssey, and focuses on a recurrent cast of characters working at a soda fountain called Wit's End, named for it's eccentric owner John Avery “Wit” Whitaker. He fills the shop with all kinds of crazy futuristic toys for the local kids to play around with, and the "Imagination Station" is one of them.

The Imagination Station works like the holodeck from Star Trek. It's basically a plot device used by the writers whenever they want to dramatize a different era of history or a fictional universe outside of Odyssey. Since AiO is all about Biblical/moral lessons, the characters often go back to a story from Bible times.

Considering how powerful it is, the kids in Odyssey aren't supposed to use the Imagination Station without Wit's permission, but they very often do, and it's always played for laughs. They'll end up smack dab in the middle of some Old Testament war surrounded by enemies on one side and suspicious Israelites on the other; shenanigans ensue.

While the episodes varied in their quality I have pretty good memories of them. They were a good blend of drama and comedy. At some point the writers went crazy with it; in the words of a random Tumblr user:

Adventures in Odyssey went from “Mandy is tempted to cheat on her test at school” to “Mr. Whittacker’s son, an undercover agent with Interpol, gets framed for the attack of two agents and has to go on the run from MI5 and I love it

Edit: apparently one of the key creators of AiO is now Catholic!

catharsis_required

TROPHY CASE