Other companies I used ranged from "Your order never arrived? Ok, we'll refund you after some time if you jump through enough hoops" (Glovo) to non-existent: "Your order never arrived? Not our problem, talk to the restaurant. Restaurant ignores your email and calls? Well, still not our problem." (pyszne.pl, polish-only).
Where I live we have no cyclist lanes so all food delivery gig workers use motorbikes. I personally see a traffic accident involving these people almost every week.
I think if construction work didn't have strict health and safety regulations we would see/hear about construction accidents every day.
This (new) industry should be regulated in the same way.
It's just that they don't get enough time to do the commute safely, or at least safety is gravely disincentivized with extra pay.
Red light, but the cross street is empty? They'll probably blow through it. And they'll be making these kinds of stupid risk assessments every few seconds, and statistics would say the chances of 100% success are against them...
Wolt has been getting most things right and I hope this acquisition doesn't change that.
I was shocked when I traveled to Germany and used their popular app Lieferando. That app didn't even have a dynamic GPS based map, instead it showed a static map with a constant "ETA 30min". They might as well have just sent me a text with "ETA 30min" as there was no functional difference. Best part was that the courrier never arrived and the app kept showing me "ETA 30min" even two days later. Of course there was no in-app support contact. Only way to contact them was via e-mail and it took them multiple days to respond. The response was very hostile and they claimed that because the courrier couldn't find the address (a giant hotel building) they just didn't make the delivery and that's how it is. Ended up having to do a chargeback.
Contrasting this to Wolt, where I've never had any issues with delivery (and there's a real time map of the courrier's location). When I've had wrong items delivered, the in-app customer support chat has been reasonable and they've just given me credit for a new order.
I'm not sure where DoorDash falls on this spectrum. I've certainly read horror stories about DoorDash here on HN, but hopefully they've improved. Would be a real shame to lose Wolt's premium experience.
Yeah I get it, there's a gap there (uncaring governments and lack of good-enough jobs), and it's not their fault that they can profit from this gap. Although I suppose the moralistic issue is that these rent-seeking companies are paying as low as possible to attract/keep the workers and pocketing the rest (not to mention the other dodgy shit like trying to extract the maximum from restaurants, e.g. by hijacking their ordering system). But hey, as a child of capitalism, I'd do the same too.
Maybe I should change jobs and be a pimp...
I don't know if Glovo as their only real competitor is held onto the same standard, I refuse to use them because they approached the market by throwing money at it, buying competitors and every ad they could in whichever media they could (TV, radio, newspapers, billboards, for months it was the only ad you'd get on YouTube, etc).
What can we do so there is less incentive for entrepreneurs to sell themselves to the US companies? Is the sustainable enterprise model dead today?
Nowadays it's completely different. All the temp drivers got replaced by cheap Indians/Pakistanis doing it as a full time job (but without any insurance or benefits). And most of the restaurants don't even exist, they are literally just some guy cooking in his basement under a fake restaurant name, sometimes multiple names pretending to be competing restaurants - and they keep changing the names and logos all the time so you never even know who you're actually ordering your food from.
Just a shady business with shady "consultants" delivering food from shady places.
Texan here. You just described every good TexMex place I've been to.
From what I've heard about DoorDash, this doesn't bode well, but I guess we'll have to see. Either way, I enjoyed seeing the awful JE get pushed off its pedestal and then scramble to stay relevant. It's like a textbook lesson in what happens if your company dominates a market and then decides to just chill for 10 years.
Now that US big tech has their dirty fingers all over Wolt, I’ll guess all that will be gone in 3 years as the bullshit starts creeping in.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
p.s. in case anyone is worried: yes, we post these moderation comments regardless of country.
And wolt is not exactly sensitive to national security interests or at risk of creating a monopoly
However "having a say" goes even further, because Wolt operates also outside the EU. Any country it operates in will have a clear say. Even countries it doesn't operate in will have a say if they have leverage over any of the countries where Wolt operates in. So in this case, the US will have a say, even though Wolt doesn't even operate in the US.
(Just stating facts here, don't have an opinion myself on this)
[1] https://blog.wolt.com/fin/2021/06/23/taloustutkimus-majority...
This is why this model is very frowned upon by European societies as it inevitably leaves taxpayers to pick up the tab in the form of basic social security.
In my opinion it should be even more than €3 for most deliveries, I think this is subsidized by VC money and unfair conditions to the delivery people.
If people will go get their own food, try to guess how much the delivery guy earn then when the whole business goes down?
From user of the service point-of-view, the salary of a middleman delivery guy is irrelevant. It's only about what service is being given and how much does it cost. If the cost is too high then people will simply not buy the service. Food delivery is not a necessity after all.
Here in China (major cities) delivery is often free and when buying from delivery apps there are additional discount available that you can't get when visiting the restaurant.
So basically it's often cheaper to get food delivered to your home than going to the restaurant itself.
Delivery prices are astronomical here. For something 5min away with car (assuming no traffic) I have to pay around 7.90e. For something 1 minute drive away I pay 1.90e. Then there's ranges inbetween from 3.90 to 5.90.
so by your actions you basically agree that in your case it is worth it, otherwise you'd just take the 10 minute walk.
Did I miss something?
