Malki argues that exploitation is fundamental to delivery systems
Analyzing the article
The Guardian
Our Analysis: 1 Fallacy
Delivery services have changed the way we live, but they are only viable if someone is underpaid. ...
"Be your own boss" is how these gig economy roles are advertised. But treating such jobs as if they benefit from the freedom and autonomy of freelance work is a category error. Their circumstances and pay make a mockery of all the touted virtues of self-employment, flexible working hours and being "your own boss". The hours are only as flexible as your pay is adequate... You are self-employed but you cannot set aside money to finance all the privileges that you have lost in exchange for flexibility - a pension, sick pay, holiday pay, parental leave. The outcome, and indeed purpose, of such a system is to transfer wealth. It is to cut rights close to the bone and convert those savings into profit margins...
How is it possible, for a small delivery fee, and other times a subscription fee (in the case of Deliveroo, one bundled up with Amazon Prime), to now receive, if you wish, anything from a coffee and breakfast to a large order of groceries in less than an hour? 1 The answer is that the rider is paying for it.
- In this largely well-reasoned essay, the author makes a strong case that delivery apps exploit riders through low pay and lack of benefits to keep costs down and profits up. However, she commits a causal oversimplification in claiming exploitative rider pay is the sole driver of cheap delivery fees rather than acknowledging other contributing factors.
- Causal oversimplification While the author is trying to make the case that underpayment of riders enables the low delivery fees, there are likely multiple factors that allow companies to offer speedy and affordable delivery, not just low rider pay alone. A few additional factors the author could have acknowledged are: technology infrastructure and routing algorithms that optimize delivery logistics and reduce operational costs outside of labor; network effects whereby more users leads to more density of orders and greater efficiency; vertically integrated businesses like Amazon that can leverage retail operations to cross-subsidize delivery; and willingness of customers to pay premium fees for convenience. Attributing cheap delivery costs solely to exploitative rider pay oversimplifies the causal factors at play. The low pay may enable part of the low-cost model, but it's not the only factor nor necessarily the dominant one. Hand-in-hand with this, the author likewise oversimplifies the purpose of the delivery business systems, claiming their singular intent is to transfer wealth, thereby overlooking other likely purposes like providing convenient services, leveraging logistical competencies, or expanding e-commerce ecosystems.
References
- Nesrine Malik (2024, Feb 18). When your food comes via a delivery app, the exploitation is baked right in.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/19/food-delivery-apps-exploitation-worker-rights
Disclaimer
Note that there being one or more apparent fallacies in the arguments presented in this article does not mean that every argument the arguer made was fallacious, nor does it mean there are not other arguments in existence for the same or similar position that are logically valid. Also note that checking for fallacies is not the same as verification of the premises the arguer starts from, such as facts that the arguer asserts or principles that the arguer assumes as the foundation for constructing arguments. For more about this, see our 'What is Fallacy Checking?'
NO AI TRAINING
Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
Comments