Pictured Above: NoUberNovember may leave participants longing for a late night McDonald’s delivery.
Sophie Ojdanic | The Crow’s Nest
By Molly Ryan
This month, I am partaking in #NoUberNovember.
Never heard of it? That’s because I made it up.
I had a much more optimistic outlook on how my college diet would be and was determined to escape the trap of the “freshman 15” – but a combination of dining hall disenchantment and a fear of the kitchen made that horizon bleak.
As a vegetarian, finding a happy medium between nutrition and tastiness is often hard: and it’s much easier sometimes to prioritize the taste factor over my health. So naturally, I took to Uber Eats for refuge.
It seemed so simple at the time. Why wouldn’t I spend a few extra dollars for something that would take less time than my own cooking with higher quality than dining hall food?
But as the dollars drained, the pounds gained.
I had to do something about this; it had gotten to the point where I was ordering it almost every day.
Ah, yes, why not just make up a fake month-long event to prolong my dependency? I should get used to living without Uber Eats eventually, right?
While it’s still relatively early in the month, it’s too close to call if stopping the deliveries has made any difference for my health – but I can tell you for sure that my wallet is no longer suffering like it used to.
But as I’ve done more research, it’s become far more than money and calories: it’s now a matter of ethics.
“Uber (Eats) lowered the minimum amount of money a driver could make on a single run from 3 dollars to 2.50,” Alec Bridges, a 23-year-old Uber Eats driver and local musician, said. “There was no warning or prior knowledge sent to the drivers from (Uber) corporate, I just happened to notice.”
With a tip, a delivery fee and a commission taken from the restaurant of choice, just a single Chipotle order can be up to 20 dollars.
Amid the height of the COVID-19 “stay at home” orders, food delivery services became one of the safer options for restaurant eating.
In an article by The Verge published in August, it says, “…gross bookings in its Uber Eats delivery business grew 113 percent year over year, thanks to increased demand for food deliveries.”
I have discovered now that despite pay cuts to workers and price hikes to customers, Uber Eats will still be able to majorly profit off of the convenience of the app and the service it provides.
“Knowing that Uber (Eats) has made more money from COVID but deducted pay from their workers, for me, just shows they don’t care. A 50-cent deduction doesn’t seem like much, but it adds up,” Bridges said. “And all of the fees for customers just goes to show how far people are willing to go.”
Cue someone saying, “that’s show biz, baby!” But I just don’t feel the need to support a business that is making money the way Uber Eats is.
Although it will be hard to overlook the expediency of its delivery service, #NoUberNovember has taught me the merit in taking responsibility for my own food and knowing the morality behind the method in which I get it.
If you or a loved one suffer from excessive Uber Eat-ing, consider partaking in #NoUberDecember.
Because you feel that you are not going to use ubereats in November, you are basically telling people to not support drivers, we are getting lower pay and you are even taking that away from us…thank you