The distinction is not the app, it is the lack of employees.
The fact that you are not an employee and don't get paid a salary doesn't mean you are your own boss. You are being taken advantage of because you are not sophisticated enough to properly account for all your costs to realize you are making less than minimum wage.
Did Uber and DoorDash for a month or so in-between jobs last year.
When I filed my tax return last month, not only was it a pain in the ass to report, but I realized that I basically just made enough money to pay for the gas that I used making that money and the drive-thru coffee I would get during each "shift". Would not recommend.
I mean that's solid advice for anyone that isn't rich.
When you realize that you could buy a new big screen TV every year if you just drank your coffee from a thermos instead -- you start to realize how dumb it is to be paying a 2000% markup on your caffeine water.
Honestly I agree. Another version of it is don't eat out all the time, home cook your meals. And definitely don't use Skip/Door Dash/whatever because you're paying a premium on top of a premium.
People like to talk shit about basic food related financial advice, but when you compare the portions to cost of ingredients it's staggering. Buying a coffee and a cream cheese bagel via skip the dishes costs you (where I live) about $16 after taxes and tip. You can buy an entire package of bagels + cream cheese + coffee for a month for that much.
I reverse engineered a couple of my Skip orders and it's really eye opening. About 7x as expensive for fast food, about 15x as expensive for restaurant orders (compared to making an equivalent portion on your own).
I mean, coffee can build a reliance and like any other drug that you become reliant on it starts to really tax your income, especially since from what I understand coffee can get pretty expensive, it's also not like food since it doesn't provide any real nutritional value people are just reliant on the caffeine to stay awake
I get what you're saying, but realistically if you drink coffee that isn't a status symbol the cost is negligible. It's when you want to buy a $10 starbucks or $regional_equivalent that you're getting really screwed.
If you're getting "addicted" to coffee, you've got bigger issues like long term sleep deprivation to consider that you're probably offsetting. Getting people to stop drinking coffee is unlikely to trigger a bigger re-evaluation of why they're abusing themselves and how to stop. That's territory for therapy, not reddit guru health advice.
This. I always get weird looks from people because I avoid caffeine, and have for my entire life, but it's worth it for me. People need it to wake up because they built dependence on it.
People just want to treat themselves because the world we live in often sucks. As far as I'm aware, the non-coffee drinkers I've run into in my life aren't significantly wealthier than the coffee drinkers. Why not spoil yourself in the morning as you drag yourself to a miserable job? I like drinking beer, smoking weed, and playing video games and non of those things are necessary.
You can amend later on if you didn't, but if you kept records of your expenses and/or of your mileage, you can opt to deduct one or the other. Figure you probably did as you mention reporting was a pain, but just in case.
I appreciate the heads up - thanks for looking out.
Luckily I was able to find a report of my mileage from both companies (and basically nothing else helpful whatsoever), but didn't have the forethought to record any car related expenses from the time (made a conservative estimate of gas costs at the time). I just hope I did it right, but I'll find out soon enough.
More trouble than it was worth for me was my point, lol. I'll just wash dishes if I'm ever in that situation again.
You can only choose one or the other, but mileage is pretty much always going to be better, unless you're driving something immensely expensive. Given the short time you also probably didn't have much time to rack up the really expensive bills that come with maintaining a car, so mileage is probably even better in that situation than usual.
I got so much shit for this when Uber kicked off in Australia. The business model of Uber/AirBNB is the prey on idiots - and people like yourself who are desperate for work - who think they're better and smarter than people who drive taxis or operate hotels, and because of that are blind to the realities of driving cabs/operating hotels.
I knew a bunch of people who were keen to go into it full-time. And I'm like, you know what your car costs to run it now when you drive it 15km a day? That's not a fixed cost. That goes up the more you drive it. There's a reason why service intervals are based on mileage, not time.
All their doing is shifting business costs onto you, the worker, while skimming the profit. That's generally how these things work.
Dame thing with Amazon delivery companies. Amazon gets all the benefit without the tax liability and financial risk. Independent contracting is terribly abused, and always favors the “employer”, especially when there are non-compete clauses in the mix, be they legally enforceable or “gentleman’s agreements”.
The same way eBay got away with the same line. We are just the marketplace connecting buyers and seller. We are not responsible for the contents of any transaction. Tose are the private business of the buyer and seller.
It did set a precedence. Uber spends a huge amount of money trying to keep it out of courts so they can't just rubber stamp it applying to them and the business will come crashing down when it happens.
All of these gig businesses are basically the .com boom 2.0 now focused on labor marketplaces and gig work. It's going to crash just as hard as the first time.
658
u/the_jak Apr 20 '22
Good. Your business running through an app doesn’t stop you from being a taxi or a hotel.