Last night, the New York City area was hit with tornados and floods, killing at least 17 — including a two-year old — shutting down the subway system, and causing possibly billions of dollars in damage.
And still, through it all, people ordered takeout.
Last night, after I hauled a hundred or so buckets of rainwater from my apartment building, I saw what is surely one of the defining videos of 2021: A delivery man carrying a plastic bag full of food while walking his e-bike through streets flooded knee-high with rainwater. Floodwater, remember, is not even close to potable, as it mixes with everything on the street, sidewalks, and sewers. It speaks directly to this moment in time, when climate change and freak storms can’t pry us away from our conveniences.
The delivery man wasn’t the only one, either.
The clip was met with swift outrage. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted out: “If it’s too dangerous for you, it’s too dangerous for them. Raid your cabinets or ask a neighbor for help.”
The tweet that went viral blames Grubhub for this, but it’s unclear which third-party delivery company facilitated the order. For what it’s worth, Grubhub spokesman Grant Klinzman said the company “paused locations as needed based on local conditions,” but declined to give specifics.
Doordash was quick to tell me that its “thoughts are with those impacted” — and they could have prevented orders from going through. “We actively evaluate our service areas when impacted by the weather and other events and may pause operations and communicate these actions with our merchant partners and Dashers,” Doordash spokeswoman Campbell Millum told me.
Sure, they can pause — but did they?
When I asked, Millum said deliveries were “turned off in parts of the city.”
Again, no specifics given. Given the video evidence, it’s clear the response by at least one company wasn’t broad enough.
This brings out the central issue: why is it, when tornado and flash flood warnings are issued, do food delivery companies continue to process orders?
It doesn’t feel like a crazy idea to stop that. Uber had previously come under fire for its response to hurricanes and other natural disasters. Facebook has guardrails—albeit full of holes—on harmful content, using tens of thousands of moderators to weed out the worst of humanity. The fact is, we expect these giants to have protections.
Remember, these are real people who deliver this food. This job is extremely difficult, low-paying, and dangerous under normal circumstances, with thefts, accidents, and deaths being common hazards. Many workers are undocumented.
It’s tempting to focus outrage on food delivery customers who can’t bother to cook up some pasta at home, or justify it by throwing a few more bucks at a driver. A friend of mine who works at a restaurant told me that $300 sushi orders were coming in deep during the storm.
Yes, these are selfish actions. But companies that rake in billions in revenue don’t need to indulge every whim of their worst customers. It’s okay for companies to draw a line on when they will or won’t take business. It’s fine to debate what that line should be, and how much business should be impacted. A natural disaster that shuts down America’s largest city is a pretty easy starting point. To do otherwise is just greed.
NEWSWORTHY
App store workaround. Apple is letting customers pay for companies like Netflix through their website, rather than exclusively on the app store, effectively bypassing the computer giant's 30% commission. The switch is the most recent weakening of Apple's grip on its app store, after South Korea's legislature recently passed a law allowing for greater competition.
Privacy fine. Ireland fined Facebook's WhatsApp the equivalent of $267 million for breaking Europe's privacy laws for improperly sharing user information. The fine is one of the biggest in the EU over such a breach. WhatsApp says it plans to appeal.
When the moon hits your eye. Virgin Galactic will fly three members of the Italian Air Force on a mission that will bring them to the lowest bounds of space, similar to the July flight taken by billionaire founder Richard Branson. The mission will study the effects of zero-gravity on the human body and test some flight technology.
China FinTech crackdown. TikTok owner ByteDance said it's going to sell its stock brokering operations and generally move away from the FinTech sector as China continues to tighten its grip on technology companies. ByteDance owns two FinTech companies, but said growing in the sector wasn't a priority. The move comes after China clamped down on Alibaba's Ant Group earlier this year.
Hiring spree. Amazon plans to hire an additional 55,000 people for corporate and technology jobs, adding to its roughly 950,000 employees. Most of the positions are in the US, and will be for Amazon Web Services, and its studio and broadband divisions. The openings come as the e-retail giant nearly doubled its workforce since the start of the pandemic.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Hardware problems. OK, maybe I am taking the header of this section too literally, but this, from the Wall Street Journal, is a hilarious story. McDonald's McFlurry ice cream machines break down so often that the Federal Trade Commission is wondering what's up. It turns out the machines are pretty complicated. I could extrapolate something here about beauty of simplicity, that elegant machines make for better outcomes and happier customers, but come on. Honestly, this is a great problem for the FTC to worry about. Perhaps I am just a jaded millennial, but things are so generally broken that we just kind of expect nothing to work at this point, and it's nice to know that Big Brother wants to make sure I can get ice cream every once in a while.
From the article:
Owners of McDonald’s outlets have long complained the devices are overly complicated and their breakdowns hard to fix. The machines require a nightly automated heat-cleaning cycle that can last up to four hours to destroy bacteria. The cleaning cycle can fail, making the machines unusable until a repair technician can get them going again, owners say.
McDonald’s said it understands the frustrations and has a team to working on it. The company said it is introducing a variety of solutions including new training for crew members and regular maintenance checkups.
It also has tried to add levity to the situation. “We have a joke about our soft serve machine but are worried it won’t work," McDonald’s tweeted last year.
The National Owners Association, a group of franchisees, doesn’t find it funny. “We are tired of being the butt of late night jokes. So are our customers and crews,” the group grumped in a May message to owners.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Musk aims to roll out full self-driving to Tesla owners this month, ignoring U.S. probe by Christaan Hetzner
Beijing’s new algorithm laws are a global first, but they might not work by Eamon Barrett
Twitter is testing new privacy features that would allow users to tweet more by Kurt Wagner and Bloomberg
Flight delays abound as Labor Day weekend traffic picks up by Chris Morris
What to expect in the 2022 housing market by Anne Sraders
In boost for net neutrality, top EU court plunges dagger into controversial ‘zero rating’ practice by David Meyer
The cost of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could be trillions more than people think by Vivenne Walt
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BEFORE YOU GO
Chip problems. A few years ago, my oven stopped working all of a sudden. I called a guy to come fix it and he told me that the problem was with the motherboard. This blew my mind — especially since the appliance was never any good at keeping a steady temperature anyway. Of course, silicon chips have long taken over machines that worked fine without them, especially cars, creating a crucial chokepoint in the global economy. Now, General Motors is idling six of its North American plants as a result of the chip shortage as the pandemic stretches toward the 18-month mark. Maybe this won't be that much of a disruption, but these are the kinds of stoppages that can have major economic implications, and it's something to watch as the US continues to move past last year's recession.
