Or: How I realized my $30 burrito order is contributing to economic chaos
Let me paint you a picture: It's 9 PM, I'm exhausted from studying, and the last thing I want to do is cook. So I open DoorDash, add a burrito to my cart, and watch in horror as the $12 burrito becomes $30 with fees, tips, and taxes. But I'm tired and lazy, so I hit "order" anyway.
Meanwhile, somewhere across town, a driver is calculating whether this delivery will even cover their gas money. And in a corporate boardroom, executives are celebrating their first profitable quarter while simultaneously wondering how long they can keep this whole thing from falling apart.
This is the gig economy in 2025: a three-way tug-of-war between workers who need livable wages, customers who want affordable convenience, and companies desperately trying to turn a profit. And honestly? I don't think it's sustainable.
The Impossible Triangle: Why Everyone Can't Win
Here's the thing about DoorDash (and pretty much every gig economy company): they're trying to solve an impossible equation. It's like that old engineering saying - "fast, cheap, good: pick two." Except in this case, it's:
- Workers want: Decent pay, benefits, job security
- Customers want: Low fees, fast delivery, convenience
- Companies want: Profits, growth, investor returns
Plot twist: You literally cannot optimize for all three at once. It's mathematically impossible.
When DoorDash raises fees to pay drivers better or boost profits, customers bail. When they cut fees to attract customers, drivers make even less and switch to Uber Eats. When they try to balance both, the company burns through billions (which they did for years).
It's like playing Jenga - eventually, someone's going to pull the wrong block and the whole thing comes crashing down.
Let's Talk About the Drivers (Because Someone Should)
I used to think gig work was this amazing freedom thing. Set your own hours! Be your own boss! Work when you want! Then I actually talked to some drivers and... yikes.
The reality check: Most DoorDash drivers barely make minimum wage after you factor in gas, car maintenance, and the fact that they're paying both sides of payroll taxes as independent contractors. One driver told me he made $7.50 an hour during a slow shift, and that was before expenses.
Think about that for a second. $7.50 an hour. In 2025. To use your own car, pay for your own gas, and have zero benefits.
The flexibility myth: Sure, you can work whenever you want - if "whenever you want" means during the exact hours when the algorithm decides to pay you enough to make it worthwhile. Which is usually during dinner rush in bad weather. So much for flexibility.
And here's the kicker: these drivers have no real power in this relationship. The app controls their pay, their ratings determine if they keep working, and they can be deactivated at any time for pretty much any reason. That's not "being your own boss" - that's being an employee with none of the protections.
The Customer Trap: When Convenience Costs More Than Your Rent
Remember when delivery was cheap? Yeah, me neither, but apparently it used to be a thing.
Now I'm out here playing a game called "How Much Am I Willing to Pay for a Sandwich?" And apparently my limit is embarrassingly high because I keep ordering anyway.
Here's what's actually happening: That $12 burrito gets marked up to $15 on the app (because restaurants have to cover DoorDash's 20-30% commission). Then add:
- Service fee: $3
- Delivery fee: $2.99
- "Regulatory response fee" (whatever that means): $1.50
- Tip: $4 (because I'm not a monster)
- Taxes on all of the above
Suddenly my $12 burrito is $30. And that's for one person. A family ordering dinner is easily looking at $60-80 for what would cost $25 if they picked it up themselves.
The cope mechanisms: And now DoorDash is partnering with Buy Now, Pay Later services. Let that sink in. People are literally financing their food delivery. We've reached the point where you need to take out a micro-loan to get Chipotle delivered. This cannot be normal.
The Company: Burning Money Like It's Going Out of Style
DoorDash's financial story reads like a cautionary tale about Silicon Valley excess. For years - YEARS - they were losing billions of dollars. Their strategy was basically "lose money on every order, but make it up in volume," which is about as sustainable as it sounds.
They finally had their first profitable quarter in late 2024, and everyone acted like they'd discovered fire. But here's the thing: their profit margin was 1.5%. That's basically nothing. One recession, one major operational hiccup, one change in customer behavior, and they're back to burning cash.
How they "achieved" profitability:
- Raised fees on customers
- Cut costs everywhere possible
- Spent $2 billion on marketing (which... seems counterproductive?)
- Probably prayed a lot
And they're still facing massive competition from Uber Eats, Grubhub, and increasingly, restaurants just doing their own delivery. Plus, more people are choosing pickup or just cooking at home because delivery has gotten so expensive.
The VC Money Cheat Code: How to Buy a Market
Here's the part that really gets me: none of this would be possible without venture capitalists basically subsidizing our food delivery for years. And I mean heavily subsidizing it.
The playbook is simple but brutal:
- Raise billions from VCs who want to "disrupt" an industry
- Use that money to sell your service below cost
- Undercut every competitor until they die or get acquired
- Achieve market dominance
- Raise prices once you've eliminated competition
- ???
- Profit (theoretically)
DoorDash raised over $2.5 billion before going public. That money didn't go toward building a sustainable business - it went toward buying market share by offering artificially cheap delivery that nobody could compete with.
The acquisition strategy: Can't beat a competitor? Just buy them. DoorDash acquired Caviar for $410 million. Uber bought Postmates for $2.65 billion. These aren't strategic partnerships - they're eliminating competition with venture capital war chests.
The real kicker: We, the customers, got addicted to prices that were never real. That $5 delivery fee was actually costing the company $15+ per order. The difference? Covered by investors betting that eventually they'd own the market and could charge whatever they wanted.
It's basically economic warfare: Use investor money to operate at massive losses, bankrupt or acquire smaller competitors who can't afford to lose money indefinitely, then gradually raise prices once you've cornered the market.
And now here we are - customers shocked that delivery is expensive, workers making poverty wages, and companies desperately trying to figure out how to actually make money after years of burning through venture capital.
The whole thing was a bait-and-switch funded by Silicon Valley's obsession with "growth at all costs." Except now the costs are coming due, and surprise! There's no sustainable business model underneath all that VC money.
The External Forces Making Everything Worse
Just when you think the situation can't get more complicated, external factors enter the chat:
Inflation: Everything costs more, which means customers have less disposable income for expensive delivery, while drivers need higher pay to cover rising living costs.
Labor laws: Some cities are forcing gig companies to pay minimum wage and provide benefits. Which sounds great for workers, but companies are responding by limiting the number of drivers or leaving certain markets entirely.
Recession fears: If the economy tanks, guess what's the first thing people cut from their budget? $30 burritos.
Why This Feels Personal (And Why It Should to You Too)
Here's why I'm actually worried about this: the gig economy has become essential infrastructure for millions of people. Students working to pay for college, parents supplementing their income, people between jobs - they're all counting on this system.
Meanwhile, customers (like me) have gotten used to the convenience. When you're working 50+ hours a week or dealing with life chaos, being able to get food delivered feels less like luxury and more like survival.
But we've built this essential system on a foundation that's fundamentally unstable. It only works if:
- Workers accept poverty wages
- Customers accept inflated prices
- Companies accept razor-thin margins (or no profits at all)
That's not sustainable. Something has to give.
The Plot Twist Nobody Wants to Admit
The uncomfortable truth is that convenient, fast, affordable delivery might actually be impossible to do profitably while paying workers fair wages.
Maybe the real cost of getting a burrito delivered to your door in 30 minutes is actually $30. Maybe we've been subsidized by venture capital and worker exploitation for so long that we've forgotten what things actually cost.
The reality check: If DoorDash had to pay drivers living wages, provide benefits, and still make a reasonable profit, what would delivery actually cost? Probably way more than most people are willing to pay.
What Happens Next?
I see a few possible futures:
Scenario 1: Prices keep rising until customers revolt and the whole system collapses
Scenario 2: Automation (delivery drones, robot drivers) eliminates the worker cost problem
Scenario 3: Government regulation forces better worker treatment, prices rise, but we accept it as the true cost
Scenario 4: We all just go back to picking up our own food like savages
Honestly? I think we're heading for some combination of all of these.
The Bottom Line That Nobody Wants to Hear
Okay, my real personal opinion though, the gig economy really said "we're going to revolutionize work and give everyone flexibility and freedom" and then delivered us straight into capitalist hunger games where drivers are fighting for scraps while we're out here financing our lunch.
It's giving major "this you?" energy to Silicon Valley rn. They promised us the future of work and instead created this dystopian nightmare where:
- Workers are basically competing in squid games for who can accept the lowest pay
- We're all addicted to prices that were literally fake this whole time (the audacity!)
- Companies are burning investor money like it's monopoly money and then acting shocked when they need to make actual profit
No cap, this whole system is built on lies. And not even good lies - we're talking about lies so obvious that even my financially illiterate ass could see them coming.
Look, I'm not trying to be the "we should return to monke" person here, but maybe... just maybe... the dark ages of checks notes calling restaurants and driving 10 minutes to pick up our own food wasn't actually that bad? I know, I know - revolutionary concept.
But fr fr, we need to have an honest conversation about what we actually want here. Do we want:
- Genuinely fair wages for workers (which means higher prices)
- Actually sustainable businesses (which means realistic pricing)
- Or do we want to keep pretending that magic venture capital money will solve everything forever?
Because bestie, we cannot keep playing economic Jenga with people's livelihoods while pretending everything is fine. Someone's about to pull that one crucial block and this whole thing is going to collapse harder than my motivation to cook after a 12-hour day.
The most millennial/Gen-Z thing ever: We're literally the generation that grew up being told "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and then spent our twenties getting free lunch delivered by underpaid drivers funded by billionaire investors. The irony is not lost on me.
And you know what's really messing with my head? I KNOW all of this. I've literally just written 2,000 words about why this system is broken. And yet... there's a 73% chance I'm still going to order DoorDash this weekend because I'm tired and the alternative is admitting I'm an adult who should probably meal prep.
It's giving "I am very smart" vibes while simultaneously being part of the problem. Peak cognitive dissonance, honestly.
But here's my hot take: Maybe the real gig economy was the economic anxiety we made along the way. Maybe we don't need to "disrupt" every industry - maybe some things were actually fine before Silicon Valley decided they needed to be "optimized."
So yeah, I'm going to try this radical new life hack called "cooking my own food" and "supporting local restaurants by picking up my orders." It's very avant-garde, I know. Very "I'm not like other Gen Z, I'm a cool Gen Z (I'm not)."
Will I succeed? Probably not entirely. Will I at least try to be less complicit in this economic house of cards? We'll see. Character development is a process, not a destination.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go stare at a empty fridge and contemplate whether "costco pizza for dinner" counts as cooking. The journey to ethical consumption starts with a single step... or a single bowl of Lucky Charms.