Introducing the On-Demand Power Rankings: Who’s up and who’s down in the new economy
Rising Up
Dunkin’ Donuts
The doughnut juggernaut announced it is tinkering with a delivery app for its sprinkle-encrusted o’s. One food industry research firm exec told the Boston Globe it’s great for those who “are just lazy and don’t want to get up and go.” What will cops do on break now?
Munchery
The food delivery company got a glowing piece on Medium from its venture capitalist, Shervin Pishevar, who described “How Munchery is literally eating the world.” Among his many projections of kitchen domination, this: “At their current rate of growth, we expect Munchery to eclipse Chipotle in the Bay Area sometime in the next year.” Wowza.
Dinner Ingredient Delivery
Blue Apron and its ilk may “change the way we eat,” claims this Fast Company story. Yet there are questions about the amount of waste created by the service, among other concerns. Says Medium’s own Sandra Upson: “omg. Learning that ‘meal kits’ originated in Sweden, it all becomes clear: These companies are the Ikeas of food. Assembly very much required!”
Going Down
Google Express
Matter’s latest piece, “Quit Your Job and Go To Work,” shows how Google Express drivers are falling victim to pernicious “just-in-time scheduling”— while at the same time, other on-demand contractors are learning the jobs aren’t as flexible as advertised.
Uber
After an optimistic five-year anniversary speech last week, a federal judge knocked down a sneaky clause buried in Uber’s partner contract, which made drivers sign away their right to sue the company. Meanwhile, a Philadelphia driver was arrested for fondling himself, and California police are investigating another alleged sexual assault.
ZipCar
Washington Monthly’s Monica Potts wrote a smart and personal piece on how the sharing economy aids and abets downward mobility: letting struggling, debt-ridden young people survive without assets while those at the top profit wildly. “It’s their world, and we’re just renting it.”
The Reporter’s Notebook
This week, Matter journalist Lauren Smiley explored the complexities of on-demand work. Here’s how Smiley got onto the story:
“While I was reporting “The Shut-In Economy” this spring, I stopped a Google Express delivery woman in the lobby of my San Francisco apartment building. When I later called her back, she told me she’d quit because her shifts were getting cut with as little as an hour’s notice, often when she was en route to the job.”
“It was an interesting wrinkle in this whole rabid debate over the ethics of using employees or contractors to power these apps. The company seemed to be doing what so many consider the ‘right thing’ and employing its delivery folks. But it turns out just being an “employee” isn’t the answer. The drivers’ hours are being cut with almost no warning, and they couldn’t plan their lives.”
Did you ever get away from the office while reporting this story?
“I drove out to this hub in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco where all the Google Express vans get loaded up with groceries. Trucks from every imaginable company were parked out there — Flywheel’s taxi lot was nearby, too. If you ever wanted evidence that tech companies are now taking over these old-school delivery industries, seeing Google’s logo out there among the fruit delivery trucks will do it.”
Highlights of the Week
Medium allows logged in users to highlight bits of texts and comment upon them. This week, Shervin Pishevar commented on the opening of his Munchery piece, “Investors tend to avoid food companies.”
And a Google Express worker, in one of our On-Demand Diary, expressed amazement at some of the orders she filled: “I was like really? You can’t go get a bag of chips?”
Here’s what readers had to say about the chip delivery:
Response of the Week
Umair Haque’s critical take on the on-demand economy — “The Servitude Bubble” — called it “a bubble of an especially insidious kind. Of stuff that’s beyond eyewateringly, painfully, mind-numbingly trivial.” The piece kicked off a debate: Sandra Upson argued that on-demand jobs aren’t just a “dead end”, and Jackie Danicki wondered, “Are critics of the on-demand economy actual sociopaths?”
We’ll end with this bit from the Nib:
