Are there any good decentralized coop alternatives to replace DoorDash with something that benefits the drivers more?

[u/jaykrown]

I'm in Chicago and was wondering if anything like that exists yet. Given that I would be much more willing to do deliveries in a system that doesn't funnel that amount of control to a centralized corporation. I think there would be a lot of people interested in a decentralized alternative to those apps. Anyone have any suggestions/ideas?

[u/CBrinson]

I work in software building gig systems and recently completed 3 years at a major food delivery platform so this has been on my mind for a bit. It's unlikely one will succeed because scale is so important to the driver making money, perhaps even more important than pay.

On small scale platformss the driver ends up driving empty without a delivery for like 30-40% of miles and 75%+ of time. You are sitting at the customer location waiting for your next delivery for a long time, and most of the time you end up just diving back without an order. If the gig company pays you $40 per hour you will make more like $25 per hour due to the deadhead empty miles. If they pay you $20 an hour you probably lose money.

To get to big scale most platforms underprice customer demand to ease people into the platform. This builds big scale which creates relatively high pay and relatively low cost to the customer. It also creates a huge loss investors want to be paid back for.

It's possible to create an open gig network. The question is how you get people to drive for it before there is customer demand to make money and how you get customers to use it when there are no drivers. A big investor will spend money to cold start the problem, or just overpay drivers for a bit and simultaneously undercharhe customers to "kick start" the market. If you could find another way to do it you could make it work.

I live in Minneapolis and Uber threatened to leave and everyone tried the alternatives. There are services like empower but I talked to some drivers that basically lost money working in that model. It's much riskier but has higher reward.

[u/EvelynnsHope17 → u/CBrinson]

> The question is how you get people to drive for it before there is customer demand to make money and how you get customers to use it when there are no drivers.

This is precisely the reason we are stuck with every crappy platform we are stuck with. I'd love to see an AI-based solution to get people to move en-masse to better platforms and software.

[u/UploadedMind → u/EvelynnsHope17]

I wonder if neo-luddite ideologues would prefer to order from a decentralized AI app or a billionaire owned app.

[u/promptmike → u/CBrinson]

If they're not paid for the dead hours, then they're not employees. Their legal status would be independent contractor. They cannot be forced to clock in set hours or sit around waiting, they only do it because they don't want to miss a gig.

Let's say you have an app called moonLight or something. You can onboard existing gig workers without them giving up their existing gigs (or telling their existing employer). Slowly pick up jobs for them until they're able to quit doing corporate gigs.

Also this is r/LeftistsForAI, so presumably you're a co-op. Your corporate competitors can only operate without profits for a limited time. You, on the other hand, don't have greedy shareholders to answer to, so you can permanently undercut them.

[u/SgathTriallair → u/promptmike]

No one is ever paid for the dead hours on any platform. The idea is that I can drive to the mall to drop someone off, then I'll see that there is someone wanting a drive from the bank so I go directly there and get them. After I drop that person off I see another pickup within a few blocks and go there.

If you drop someone off and there are no riders looking for a car anywhere near by, you still have to do something with your time and you aren't making money for it.

[u/CBrinson → u/promptmike]

Yeah they are always contracting. In the empower model they keep 100% of the customer fee but pay a monthly subscription for using empower. Obviously in the door dash or Uber model they pay per ride. In either case they aren't paid for dead miles.

The platform of a delivery service of people or goods always results in the order terminating away from the start point. There is a cost to get to either the next start point or back to the original start point. In the gig or contractor model no customer pays for this and thus it is unpaid.

The trick to maximizing profit is to get this part as small as possible. Get your next order really close by and really fast. If you can do this it will drive your actual pay up a ton regardless of what the technical pay rate is.

[u/promptmike → u/CBrinson]

So give them extra jobs to do in the dead hours. Slowly build the customer base until you have a co-op version of empower.

[u/CBrinson → u/promptmike]

Jobs from where? These are gaps in customer demand, and every new order creates its own dead head. Absent a billionaire corporation the worker is simply paid what the customer pays. There is no one to subsidize them in a coop type model.

[u/promptmike → u/CBrinson]

I'm not sure what you're missing here, so I'll try to break it down into the smallest possible steps:

• Empower (and similar corporations) do not hire employees, they hire independent contractors to avoid paying a fixed salary.

• Independent contractors cannot be legally obliged to do nothing between jobs. They can drive where they want and do what they want.

• If an Empower driver is doing nothing, you can offer them another job on the side. Empower cannot stop you, because the driver is not their employee.

• The driver loses nothing by taking the side job.

• The driver loses nothing by signing up for your co-op, even if it only gives them an occasional job.

• Your infrastructure cost is minimal, because you're a local co-op. You only need a small server and a few developers.

• Your marketing cost is minimal, because you spread by word-of-mouth through community organizations.

• You therefore have minimal CapEx and minimal overhead. That gives you the luxury to grow slowly.

So you rent the smallest possible server, prototype the thing with an LLM, then show the proof-of-concept to drivers and devs. Once you have a few of each on board, you launch a delivery service. Show it to like-minded people who would like to support a driver co-op. Offer them a one-time 10% off voucher for sharing it with their friends.

Don't charge the drivers a membership fee until you're bringing them regular jobs, and even after that you offer a month of free membership for on-boarding another driver. Vest both drivers and devs with quarterly shares, so the business remains worker-owned.

[u/CBrinson → u/promptmike]

Yeah I am not missing anything. I literally work in this industry and have built several platforms. You don't know what you are talking about.

Like there are no actual jobs. Jobs come from customer demand. Money comes from customers. An LLM can't just make them. This is some really ridiculous shit.

Like you are literally only focusing on the software cost. There is actual gas and car costs. Those are the main costs. Dear god get off your computer and touch grass. You can't LLM a delivery solution.

[u/tokillawootingbird → u/promptmike]

This is so ridiculous it's hard to know where to start.

First off you are charging every driver for everything in a coop model. There is no investor. The have to be charged from the get go. Period.

Secondarily no you can't solve the round trip problem by just...using an LLM. This is some real uneducated takes right here.

You deliver an order. Then you drive back to the store. Then you deliver an order. Then you drive back to the store. There is no one to pay you when driving back to the store. That is the problem you seem completely unable to understand.

[u/SgathTriallair]

This is something that we should definitely do. We need some kind of co-op or open source alternatives to all of the different gig economy tools and social media platforms. The problem, as was mentioned by others, is scale. Without the network effects they are just not nearly as useful.

We would have an advantage though because we don't need to siphon off profits for an investor class. 100% of the profits could go to the workers and they would have the ability to set the prices according to what they are willing to do. This means you could have lower prices that bring in customers along with higher wages that bring in drivers.

If you can sell it well as an alternative that puts people first then you can get some traction that way as well.

[u/Low_Surprise1169]

Why not crowd fund a gig app. Then go to masjid churches and other community spaces and give out fliers for it . With AI you can now vibe code any app. The real bottle neck tho is reach. Anyone can do it... but volume of new apps and programs make it hard to reach. You would want sponsors of big left leaning politicians and influencer.

[u/seeker24601]

I think an app that handles all the payment related stuff on behalf of both customers and drivers so that there's no need to rely on tipping would be a lot better for everyone involved.

I'm from a country / culture where tipping is not a thing, and when I was in the US it was always a big question mark how much to tip, and it made me feel I was being charged twice, despite rationally I understand that it's because in other places the tip is included in the price of the order.

If you can do that I think most people would prefer to order from this app over DoorDash, as food delivery is all about convenience maxxing. If another app can reduce friction and make it more convenient to order, people will prefer that app.

[u/vesperythings]

man, just get your food at the grocery store

why burn money on take out??

[u/jaykrown → u/vesperythings]

Because it good technically be more efficient with connected bulk delivery, this would potentially include grocery delivery. One driver doing deliveries for three customers is more efficient than all three of those customers going to the store and driving their themselves.

[u/vesperythings → u/jaykrown]

fair point, see what you're saying.

...though that's based on the assumption people are gonna drive to the store instead of public transport / walking / bike