Delivery is good option for people with limited mobility

Americans are too lazy to travel to their lunch. However, for the vast majority of the people, you’re not 15 minutes of walk away from a healthy assortment of food. Even in NYC, depending on where you are, it may not be possible to always go to your food. The idea of your lunch being paid is also not common, and you’re expected to be back to working (not done eating) within 30 minutes or less. In many cases, your lunchtime is timed and unpaid. Nurses and hospital staff? Eat the shit downstairs in the cafeteria or nothing; if you’re late coming back from lunch, it’s almost as bad as being late to work itself.

Of all the modern capitalistic irritations (to put it mildly), this one I really detest. And not least because of how ridiculously popular it is, wtf people? I watch folks I know, who can barely afford the food itself in the first place, then inflate the price by like 40%, just to eat the already (very!) mediocre food...cold. Solely so that they don't have to leave the house. Just completely unhinged from my POV, and honestly produces almost a sense of alienation in me, I find it so bizarre.

Disclaimer though - I will acknowledge both that I happily enjoy various different foolish things myself, so the point about glass houses is worth my keeping in mind, and also there are some great reasons to use it (limited mobility for one, as another user pointed out).

But sheesh folks. Restaurants largely hate it from my understanding, the drivers doing it hate it (cuz the job - oh excuse me, the preferred exploitation-hiding euphemism is "gig" - is utter shit, a literal minor improvement over straight up homelessness), the environment hates it, the wear-and-tear on a likely broke person's vehicle and the wear-and-tear on already struggling infrastructure...I mean what the fuckity fuck, seriously. How is this so popular, we're all insane and just conveniencing our way to oblivion. SMgoddamnH.

Aside from the aforementioned reasonable uses (largely edge cases, let's be honest), there is precisely one group of people who truly benefit in any serious way from this amazingly destructive nonsense - and wouldn't you know it, it's the exact same group fucking us in every other way! Weird!

Sorry. This one really gets me.

NYC primarily does not use cars for food delivery, there's a 99.8% chance they will deliver it via bicycle.

Just fyi, like 99% of food delivery via gig workers in nyc is done via e-bike

Why does OP think every delivery is made by car? Often times they are made by bike.

I assume that most deliveries in NYC are by push bike couriers and vesper type scooters. Thats more typical than yank tanks for this sort of thing in most densely populated cities I've seen.

I don't disagree that it's stupid but my problem is the stacking - Delivery fee and Service fee? The service is delivery! Why are they two fees? Either the cost of the delivery is being itemized in real time ($1.99 for gas, the rest for the human) or the delivery isn't $1.99! If the cost to deliver an item is $20 and I make $50/hr working a project, maybe having food delivered makes sense.

But also, I know the delivery guy isn't making all that and he's delivering five orders so don't charge me a service fee when I'm already subsidizing you paying him a shit wage.

Everything is shitty either way.

What's more ridiculous? 10 people each driving to the fast food joint individually or one delivery driver making a round trip to 10 people?

We pay other people to do the things we can't or don't want to do all the time, this isn't different.

Do Americans really get their shit delivered by car?over here it's motorcycles 99% of the time (and bicycles the other 1%)

Seems rather.... Sluggish and inefficient for delivery drivers to go by car.

A lot of these are delivered by bike nowadays, no?

Edit: since people keep asking without reading below, I mean specifically in NYC.

When you build infrastructure that requires you take cars everywhere you minimize people going to get things for themselves

I find it funny that the tip is already there before you get your food. I mean, did the driver make the burrito? He might be late and you get cold food, he might be a dick.

This cuts both ways actually. you can have 10 guys going through a drive thru or one 1 making 10 stops. The one guy making ten stops results in less traffic and fewer emissions.

Why was the subtotal of the actual food being ordered omitted?

Likely because it would give meaningful context to the amounts of the fees, and the ragebaiting OOP wants to avoid that.

this is some quality ragebait right here

Funny how Chinese and pizza places could do this all day everyday and it cost 5% of the cost of the food. Not double it. Delivery food has been hit with inflation and market 'innovation' just like everything else. But let's pretend working people wanting convenience services is somehow the problem...the avocado toast on wheels argument.

...if you think delivery is too expensive, maybe don't get your food delivered, then? Just a thought.

It's not ridiculous. Time is the most precious resource.

More people need to learn about and think about externalized costs.

"This plastic cup is free! ... if I ignore the fact that it's going into a landfill or worse"

"This delivery is free! ... if I ignore the fact that the delivery guy is getting fucked by capital"

It's kind of wild how the standard fare of pizza and chinese food delivery was absorbed by gig work. They used to be employees of the restaurant.

I've lived several places. In some, I could walk to get food, and I gladly did so. In others, I could not.

Should I have starved?

If your argument is "you should have driven," then you are depending on cars. Whether it's the buyer or an employee doing the driving has little effect on how much a car is being used. The environment doesn't care who's burning the gas.

Well, sometimes youve had a few beers, then really want some Taco Bell. Better to door dash it than to go driving while tipsy. The service charge is really a 'failed to plan ahead' charge.

other countries deliver most things using motorbikes, it always sounded ridiculous to me to use a car to deliver food

The delivery services are a boon and a bane for everyone. For the restaurant, you no longer need to pay wages or insurance for dedicated delivery workers, but now have service fees that cut into profits. The customer has to cover many of these costs in all these extras fees and service charges, but get did delivered to them. And the driver has to pay for gas and insurance out of the pitiful payments and tips they get. If you are in a rural area, forget about getting enough local orders to cover anything.

None of us need to purchase this goofy ass delivery powered by virtual slave labor. Spend no money, cause no harm. Let those capitalists seethe we no longer need to endlessly consume to be happy.

People really, really need to learn to cook for themselves. Nothing wrong with the odd takeout, or even delivery but I sense a lot of people live on deliveries all the time and waste a fortune