https://seattle.eater.com/2024/2/21/24079162/tony-delivers-seattle-delivery-app-fees-downtown
Tony Illes was working as an Uber Eats delivery person when an ordinance passed last year by the Seattle City Council came into effect in mid-January. The new rule required app companies to pay workers like Illes a minimum wage based on the miles they travel and the minutes they spend on the job. The apps say that this amounts to around $26 an hour, and both Uber Eats and DoorDash responded by adding $5 fees to every order (even when the customer is outside Seattle city limits) while calling for the law to be repealed. According to a recent DoorDash blog post, the ordinance has resulted in an “unprecedented drop in order volume,” a drop that Illes felt personally. He told Geekwire that “demand is dead” and told local TV station KIRO 7, “I didn’t get an order for like six hours and I was done.”
So Illes had an idea: Who needs these apps, anyway? He printed up signs with QR codes directing people to a bare-bones website with his phone number, promising that he would deliver food by bike in Uptown, South Lake Union, Belltown, and a chunk of the downtown core for $5 a pop from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. daily. All you had to do was order the food and send him the screenshot. He called himself “Tony Delivers.”
Damn, $5 sounds too cheap. I can't imagine ride to store, pick up at store during busy times and ride to the delivery to be less than 20m. That's barely minimum wage. Prob better off at $8 or $10. Still undercut rideshare rates. Then drop only if there's competition.
Then also he has to get around. Either he pays for transport, or he has to keep his bike/scooter/whatever in shape.
Yeah, he's biking, assuming he's doing maintenance himself you get a LOT of miles out of a bike for very little upkeep. If he were driving it would be a losing proposition from the start.
Hi, I'm someone who works on bicycles for a living!
Basic maintenance such as
-checking tires for wear and cracks, keeping the bike dry and rinsing with clean water if it gets road salt on it,
-keeping the chain and sprockets lubed and cleaning them of debris if it gets caked on,
-cleaning the bearing races of debris and keeping them lubed (maybe go to a shop for this one if you aren't sure about it)
-and just generally not doing stupid things with it
and you will have a bike that lasts a lifetime.
Maybe less if it's a cheap brand like Schwinn or mongoose. But those steps drastically improve the life of any bicycle.
Worth noting: my main bicycle is a GT hybrid from 2014. It's not much of a step above baseline (at the time, GT fell off in quality) but spending a little time doing some online "research" into the parts on the bike will go a long way. You'd be surprised what both cheap AND expensive brands put on their frames. Cheap brands using mid-tier gear (instead of cheapest) , and top brands using the cheapest tourney derailleur you can find in a clearance bin...
I kind of got off topic a bit but yeah.
BASIC PREVENTATIVE BICYCLE MAINTENANCE WILL KEEP CYCLING CHEAP AF
For a decade i didn't own a car and biked everywhere. It really is dirt cheap compared to other methods of transportation.
And yeah more off topic but checking your chain for wear and replacing it becomes the most important/frequent replacement item. A worn chain wears out the rest of the drivetrain more quickly-- it is much cheaper to stay on top of replacing the chain than have to replace your cassette and chainrings sooner than normal.
I do the basic maintenance stuff myself and then pay a shop to tune up the bike each spring. When you use a bike to commute suddenly $150 a year doesn't seem like much to spend on it. That's less than one month of parking at my last job.
Holy crap. I have a gearless road bike to just pedal around the neighborhood with (if I wanted to go anywhere legitimate, I'd have to go down a 4-lane highway which I sure as hell am not doing. Hooray America being designed for cars) so I just maintain it myself...
But back when I had a decent 10-speed, which, admittedly, was like 15-18 years ago, a tune-up was like $50. In L.A.
Crazy how expensive things have gotten.
That poster must be adding on stuff like replacement parts and additional maintenance supplies throughout the year. A tune up here in OR is like $75.
I hope so, because $150 is ridiculous for a bicycle tune-up that probably takes less than an hour.
Caloric load is rarely an issue in the west. The quality and variety of a diet for the poor in the west is a serious issue.
This is Seattle so unless he’s only delivering on the 1 light rail line they have, it’s gonna almost definitely be by car.
The blurb literally says it's by bicycle. You don't even have to read the article.
Ah fair enough did not catch that. As someone who bike commuted in Seattle for years, they're insane.
It's not like he's delivering to the whole city. For the map in the picture, worst case (corner to corner) is like 1.5 miles.
He's undoubtedly counting on tips.
He might do like 2-5 deliveries per trip if they align.