Why Uber Eats Is About To Get Even More Expensive

Australia just gave gig delivery workers a legal minimum wage. It's a big win for workers - and it means your Uber Eats order is about to get even more expensive. Here's how UberEats built an empire on the bait... and made billions on the switch. 0:00 Intro 6:00 Two truths and a lie 8:13 The guy who couldn't get a car 20:42 The deal 26:59 How they get you 34:50 The business in the middle of it 38:17 Last one standing 40:08 A tricky business to actually run 41:40 Solving the pay problem 48:10 Two truths and a lie

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I really don't like food delivery apps. I'm coming out swinging on this episode. I think food delivery apps make nobody happy. And when I say nobody, this is what I mean. You've got customers, they're not happy because they're paying way more for the convenience than they probably think they are. Restaurants, they're really not happy because they're handing over upwards of a third of their revenue. If they don't do it, they're invisible. Delivery people, they're not happy because they're doing dangerous work for not much money or benefits. They're not really even employees. And until fairly recently, shareholders weren't even getting a good return. So what the **** going on here? Why is food delivery growing so much? Sorry for swearing.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  This episode of How We Got Here is about Uber Eats and how we ended up with this really strange and expensive pocket of the economy. For the chat and to make it sound good and make sure the video is info, because I'm joined as always by my excellent producer, Rob. Rob, good day.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Good to be back.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Rob, no judgment. Do you order Uber Eats very much?

• 1:08Speaker 01

  I used to do it a lot more. And I think that coincided with me drinking more, partying more, being hungover more and just being a little bit lazier. But I've definitely spent a fair bit, few dollars.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  Few bucks. I think that's certainly the hungover thing will resonate, I'm sure.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  Because the last thing you want to do is get up when you're not feeling so good.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'd like to declare a bit of an amnesty for this episode, that we will not judge anyone for their delivery habits. I'm going to share some stories of myself and also some friends.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  And I'd like to encourage you to share your stories of how lazy you've been and the guiltiest time you've ordered delivery.

• 1:50Speaker 00

  Me personally or in the comments?

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Anyone. Yourself, people in the comments. I want to hear them.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  An amnesty, I like that.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  This is an amnesty, alright?

• 1:57Speaker 00

  That's a good way to do this because there is a bit of guilt goes along with this because we're talking about convenience that no one else can see and you can just do it.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, but no guilt. This is guilt free. We're talking about how we got here.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  And we're all in this now.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Well, it's good to be chatting with you because this to me is, is one of those topics that I talk about heaps, actually. Wrote about in the book, I talk about it all the time. Because when you zoom out, what we're really talking about today, more or less, is the the greatest business strategy there is. You introduce a great product that people like. It's cheap, it fills the gap in the market, it's user friendly and it's well marketed. Then you get market share, losing heaps of money if need be. Then you unload the fees, buy the truckload and set about achieving the profitability that you once wanted by making the product worse and more expensive.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  People call it shitification or in shitification. But really, this is what dominant businesses have pretty much always done. What makes Uber Eats so impressive and frustrating? Is that it's managed to do this so well that it now charges lots of money for something that we just don't need in a pretty rough economy where people's budgets are stretched. It is objectively, with a few exceptions, important to say, unnecessary money to spend. And part of the genius is the way the app works. Lots of consumer psychology going on in there, which we'll get into.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  And it's changing fast. This is a world that's testing the boundaries of worker rights, of market power and of ethics when it comes to things like whether it's okay to offer buy now, pay later for a pad tie that you had six weeks ago. All of that is now, but before we get into the now, you need a backstory. And before we get into the backstory, we need to do our favorite segment, Rob, which is two truths and a lie.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Drum roll, drum roll plays.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  I always look forward to two truths and a lie now.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  It's good fun. It's good fun.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  It's fun.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Maybe it speaks to us and how much fun we have outside of this sort of thing, but I think it's good.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm cool.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Cool. We're going to get right into that after a quick message from our partners here on How We Got Here.

• 4:29Speaker 00

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• 6:01Speaker 00

  Okay, let's do two truths and a lie. Now, this, the way this works for any newcomers is that I say three facts. Well, two of them are true, one of them is a lie, and you try to guess which one you think is the lie now. And then you see if your mind changes throughout this story. And we'll obviously come back to it at the end and we'll confirm or deny which one is the fact. Fact one or lie one. Australia got Uber Eats before England did.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  Rob.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 6:32Speaker 00

  Hmm. I'll let that percolate while we get on to number two.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Number two is, starting in August this year, which is 2026, Australia will have the world's first legal minimum wage specifically for gig delivery workers and riders will earn at least $31.30 an hour.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  It's a good gig.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  It's not bad.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  It's pretty good.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Alley rate, not too bad. Okay, so that's fact or lie number two. Number three, if you order your food through Uber Eats, it can be as much as 30% more expensive than if you order it through the restaurant and go pick it up yourself.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Rob?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  I mean, one, and I, I don't know when England got Uber Eats. There's obviously a plethora of delivery apps around there. So maybe there was another dominant one at the time and Uber Eats didn't go there. I mean, number two sounds a bit too good to be true, to be honest.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  And knowing the way that these stories go and the markets work, we're not going to pay people a good wage. So I'm going to say that's the lie.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  Okay, you're saying that one? I like it. I like the way you, like, like we're on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? You work through it. I like that. I think that that's a good sort of system. You don't just sort of go, I reckon it's this and then.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  Move on.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've never been on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

• 7:46Speaker 00

  Maybe there's still, oh, there's not still time.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Well, if they reboot it, I'll come back. If they reboot it, I'm sure that it'll be back at some point.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, there's surely some back alley Who Wants to be a Millionaire available on YouTube.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:55Speaker 00

  Something.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  I'll get in there. I'll get in there.

• 7:58Speaker 00

  Okay, great. Registered then. Number two, you're going with number two. Say in the comments, actually, which one that you reckon it was at the beginning and see if you were right at the end. We will come back to it because what we need to do now is go back. We need to know where this whole thing came from. Because before there was Uber Eats, there was just Uber. Most people know that. Has to be one of those classic Silicon Valley origin stories, one of the best really. It was in Paris where it started, really, if you're talking about the seed of the idea in 2008. And two engineers named Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, they're at a tech conference and they just can't hail a cab.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  It's middle of the night in Paris, it's cold, they can't get a taxi and they're getting frustrated. And they start kicking around this idea of a high end car service for professionals based from an app. And then after a while, they end up landing on something simpler, which is an app that just finds you a ride in normal people's cars. Uber launches in 2009 and for its first five years, it has nothing whatsoever to do with food. Rob, do you remember when Uber first turned up? It didn't make it to Australia until 2012, but it was a big moment, wasn't it?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have memories of like discussions with people being like, isn't it weird that you're gonna get in a stranger's car? I'm like, well, like, I don't know the taxi driver, you know? But I guess when there is the branding and they had a uniform and stuff, there seemed to be a little bit of professionalism about it. But then people were like, hey, they give you mints and you get bottles of water and you're like, oh, isn't this fancy?

• 9:41Speaker 00

  It was, it felt high end, didn't it?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I actually don't think the first Uber I actually ever used was overseas.

• 9:46Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  In like probably 2014, so I didn't use it for a few years because I was like, oh, taxis are fine.

• 9:52Speaker 00

  I remember, I really loved it when it first landed because, I mean, for the most part, I kind of hated taxis.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  And I thought it solved the problems of trackability and payment ratings, you know, no trip too small, all these things.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Amnesty time, Uber rating, 4.68 is mine.

• 10:13Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Now, I like, I like to believe that I'm a model passenger, but I know from experiences that I've taken Ubers where I've paid for them and in the car, I've brought two or three delinquent friends who may, may not have been drinking or causing a ruckus in the Uber. So I believe that is why my Uber rating is 4.68. Cause like, I don't really say much. I usually get in and go, g'day, how you going? And then I sit there quietly and then I get out.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  So you've been, you reckon you've been hit hard by a couple of one star reviews that weren't your fault?

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, I mean, I won't name that friend, but I know I reckon who it was.

• 10:46Speaker 00

  No, it wasn't me, it was me by association.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  It was the company that I keep.

• 10:52Speaker 00

  I believe you, Rob.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Amnesty?

• 10:54Speaker 00

  I believe you.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Okay. You believe me, sure.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Thousands wouldn't.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  But I believe.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Listeners don't, they don't believe me. All right, come on.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Okay, mine is 4.82.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Oh, look at you, the model professional.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Goody two shoes. And my profile picture is something from definitely 2012.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, mine is me in LA, cause I think that was when I downloaded the app for the first time, cause I was there in 2014. And a guy I was with, an American guy was like, hey, we should get an Uber. And I was like, I've never done that before. And then we downloaded the app and the photo was me like just standing in Hollywood somewhere.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, you just took a selfie then and there.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, cool, great, let's do it.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  And it's still there.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  And it's still there.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  What's really important to us when we're talking about the Uber original is that while it was busy being a taxi app, it was also building what a food delivery business would want. GPS tracking, driver dispatch, cashless payment systems. None of that was really built with food in mind, which is kind of not bad considering that food delivery now makes up about a third of Uber's total revenue. Company didn't even think about it until it had basically all of those systems in place. It took someone to see it sitting there, waiting for that other use. And that guy's name was Jason Droge.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  He was hired in 2014 to lead new ventures, basically. It started as Uber Fresh, this idea that he had. And at first, it was just a tiny, tiny test project. Just one neighborhood, Santa Monica, and it was lunch only hours, this Uber Fresh thing. Only for a few restaurants and you didn't even get a full menu. It was just a short list of set meals and it was listed as like a ride option inside the normal Uber app. So I can't stress this enough. When it first was being tested, they put no time, energy or building really into this thing.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  It was just a, you know, if you want to have a crack, have a little crack, we'll let you. But of course, it went really well. It went well enough for them to extend the full launch across LA for two weeks. And people started talking, there's enough buzz all of a sudden for Uber to actually develop this thing into a standalone part of their business, which they did. And in 2015, it was renamed Uber Eats and it became a standalone app that went next to Uber. The first place it is fully launched is Toronto, then it goes to LA, then in 2016, Melbourne.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Hey.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  Early, really early, Rob.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  Melbourne, this is where we're of course, sitting right now.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  You never, you never get to Melbourne shout out in these things.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  No, maybe they saw all of my rides where I was taking the Uber through drive-through and they're like, why don't we just like, get the delivery? So this guy doesn't have to do drive-through all the time.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, cause I remember, I remember having discussions with people, you know, on a night out and I'd be ordering an Uber and I'm like, oh gee, I could go for this. I'm like, wouldn't it be good if I could call the restaurant, order it and then, or like get the guy to pick it up for me on the way? I get in the car, my pizza's in the car and I eat it in the car on the way home.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Partial credit to you. You basically came up with it then.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Where are my shares, Uber?

• 14:11Speaker 00

  I mean.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Where are my shares?

• 14:12Speaker 00

  That's genius.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  You should have your name on that somewhere.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  I know.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  C'est la vie.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Oh, well.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  Point is, it did land in Melbourne before London.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Dun dun.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  Absolute giveaway.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Dun dun.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  So you can scrap that. Interestingly though, they tweak the offering for different cities straight away in kind of how they're marketing this and talking to people about it. In Melbourne, it's introduced with a free for a limited time offer, which I remember.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  As do I. So first amnesty, first amnesty story here. So this, this isn't one of my personal stories, but this is a good friend of mine.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Where it was, I mean, it was just when the free period ended and like a few of us were messaging, saying how disappointed we were. And this friend, Sam, explained to me how one morning, probably after, you know, a few wines the night before, was so thirsty that he Uber Eats one can of Sprite with free delivery. And that was it. And he said, the face of the guy delivering it was a rather disappointed idiot.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, that's sheepish.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Going to the door and getting that. I, I have a similar friend of amnesty and this is, I feel like a bit of a cheat because I didn't do it, but someone I know very well did something almost identical, but it was a can of Coke.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 00

  I think it was also just to test it, just to see how this thing works. And then about an hour later, he was like, oh, that worked great.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  And he did it for a donut.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:45Speaker 00

  I can't confirm, but I think it might've been the same delivery guy, just be like, come on, man.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Come on, man.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  This is taking the piss.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Yes, it's free and it's easy, but don't do this.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, when the delivery guy starts to recognize you and then it's like, you open the door and like give you a look and you're like, oh, sorry, sorry, mate, thanks.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Cause this, cause there was a, cause nowadays you can obviously choose to like, leave it at the door or leave it in the letterbox. But I'm pretty sure early on, it was like, knock on the door, look at you, hand it to you. That's how it began. So you had to have that humorous interaction. So you had to feel the shame when you got your Sprite at eight o'clock in the morning in your underpants.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  So speaking of amnesty, and I know we were gonna sprinkle these throughout, but here's another one.

• 16:29Speaker 00

  Our across the road neighbor lives in a townhouse and he is a young tradie who gets on the piss every weekend. And I respect him for that. He doesn't do it in a loud way. He just, I see him.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Good on him.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Hungover in the mornings. And when he, so what he's done is he's got this bucket, he's got a bucket with a rope attached to it that goes up to his room.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Oh my.

• 16:53Speaker 00

  See where this is going?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  This is legendary.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  It's actually legendary and he is really buff and he's covered in tattoos, but every Saturday and Sunday morning, I see KFC dude rock up. Put it in the, in the, in the bucket.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Put the bucket in the bucket.

• 17:06Speaker 00

  Take a photo that it's been delivered and then he kind of comes out staggering onto his balcony and then hoists it up, which is unreal.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Phenomenal.

• 17:15Speaker 00

  Phenomenal.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Phenomenal.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  I wouldn't believe it if you told me, but I've seen it happen that many times.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  I love it. That's so good.

• 17:20Speaker 00

  It's not bad.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Innovation.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Innovation. That's all we're about here.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  Productivity.

• 17:27Speaker 00

  So that's a fast forward. We're still doing the early days here when it is free for a limited time. As I said, they were tweaking their offerings in the different cities that they were launching in. And in London, the offer was free delivery for a month and £20 off your next order if the food is late. And late depending on where it is. So it's sort of geo tracked. You can't just be like, oh, it's gonna be there in 10 minutes. The important and obvious thing to say is that none of this is sustainable at all. It is a planned cash burn so that people will get excited and sign up and like the product straight away, which works.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  I mean, ordering a can of Sprite or Coke and a donut, I mean, and it didn't cost me anything. How awesome is this?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  How good.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  First impressions, Rob, last.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  They do.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  They're important.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  They do. We talk about first impressions in romance, but they are equally as important in business.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  So important in business. And I suppose if somebody's coming in and out of this episode for 10 seconds only, that's the thing.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  That's what we're talking about here.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  First impressions are everything because you can change everything and still have a good first impression.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  So that's basically what we're talking about because they're burning cash to give you that good feeling. And they had the money to burn because between 2014 and mid 2016, Uber went on a capital raising spree that brought in about $11.25 billion through eight separate transactions. So it was all planned. Okay, we've got to get this massive war chest and then we've got to dump it into the market so that everybody likes us. People with MBAs and in MBA classes, they call this blitz scaling, which is a term that was first used by Reid Hoffman, who's the guy behind LinkedIn.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  And it basically means grow first, worry about profit later and try to become the default before anyone else can catch up to you. And if you have the money to do it, oh my God, it can just work so incredibly well. Because behavioural scientists describe habits forming in a loop. Basically, there's a cue, a craving, a response and a reward. You get hungry, that's the cue. You want food, that's the craving. You open the app, that's the response. The food turns up, that's the reward. So there's your whole loop.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  And if you can get people to do that enough times when it's cheap or free and fast, then the app becomes the automatic place that your thumb takes you on your phone when you're hungry. And that's kind of the origin story, really. It's a go-to from the Silicon Valley playbook, but Uber Eats might have just done it best. They used billions of dollars in capital to build the trust and appreciation that they needed from millions of customers. Then they became dominant enough to start doing whatever they want.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  And that's fees. And that's the next part of the story. Okay, so fast forward to today and that cheap or free and exciting starting point is just long gone. Here's how the money gets wheelbarrowed in now. And I'll start by talking about the restaurants and some of the fees charged to them. But just know that, of course, these fees change all the time and they're different in different parts of the world. And if you want to get a clear view on what they're charging restaurants, you can actually just go to the website and find out what it is in your country.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  But basically, to get onto the app, you've got to pay a $500 activation fee. Then for that, you get a welcome kit and a photo shoot for the food. And that's done. And then you start paying the delivery fees on your side. And Rob, here's the breakdown. Thirty percent of the money from every order that an Uber Eats delivery person picks up and delivers, thirty percent. Sixteen percent if the restaurant delivers the food themselves, but it's ordered on the platform. And it's six percent of the revenue from the order if the person orders through the app and goes and picks it up themselves. And right out of the gate, these are massive chunks of money for a small business,

• 21:59Speaker 00

  which is also paying for labour, rent, utilities, ingredients, everything.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Correct. Yeah, I used to work at a restaurant through uni. And I remember that even though I kind of stopped working there, I knew the owners really well that occasionally they'd call me up and be like, "Hey, Robert Shaw and stuff, you mind just coming helping us out for a night?" And I would do that for a few years afterwards. And it was around the time when this was starting to take off. And I remember how much the owner of that restaurant was like, "We don't want to be involved with this." And they really fought it for a long, long time. And it was a successful restaurant that didn't need to. But eventually, you just need to, because people stop picking up the phone to call you. You go, "Hey, I want a large Hawaiian pizza." Instead, they're on the app and they're like, "Oh, why aren't you on the app now?" And you just, you have to just catch up with everyone else.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  So it's a really good point and it's one that we're going to, we're going to kind of get to through the lens of a single business in a moment that I spoke to for this episode. But it's important to say, for the most part, the small businesses, the restaurants, they hate this. They really hate it. And they hate it because it costs a lot of money, but also it's thirty percent of the revenue and it's for something that happens once the food is gone and out of their control. They can spend so much time and energy making this really delicious, excellent thing. And then they just hand it to someone out of their world entirely. And they have no idea what kind of condition it's in when it lands at their customer. It's something they have no visibility over and it's so expensive. But that's another point, but we're going to get, we're going to spend a bit of time on the kind of the restaurant side of things.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  But park that for now, because let's have a look at what the customer is paying.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  These fees are smaller, but there's an absolute pile of them. You've got delivery fee, service fee, small order fee, priority fee, if you want it, wrong address fee, busy area fee, surge pricing, running out of breath.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Fun.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  Fun. And this stuff changes constantly. I mean, when I was, when I was sitting down to write the chapter on this for my book, I got an email from Uber Eats saying that they were trimming the free cancellation period after making an order from five minutes to three minutes. You just go, "Why are you doing that?" So like little changes and fees, they pop up all the time. I mean, do they, are we to believe that people are robbing that system? Like using that two minutes to mess around? No.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Not really.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  It's just a way to apply a penalty to more people.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is really out of the Ryanair playbook, this one, I'd say.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  It is. And I think that's, that's really important to say that that's the way that this sort of goes, these arbitrary fees. They exist because you don't have enough competition, basically. And here's the kicker. To try to cover the fees that the restaurant is paying, the restaurant jacks up the menu prices in the app. Somebody really wants to talk about that one too much, but go and check. Have a look at a menu posted by a restaurant on their website and then check those prices against the Uber Eats menu ones and it will be different almost always. Which, you know, that messes with the whole economics of you deciding if you want to order through that app or go and get it yourself.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  It's, it's a big deal.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  It is a big deal.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  I'll get to that again in a minute. But park that too, because let's talk about these delivery drivers and riders. The people with the insulated boxes on the backs of their scooters, you know, weaving in and out of traffic.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  Almost always hired as a contractor, which means no breaks, no penalty rates, no sick leave, no superannuation. Not to mention they're doing work that is objectively dangerous because of the amount of time that they're on the road. They have to cover their own fuel, their own insurance, and they don't get paid for the dead time between orders, which quietly drags the real hourly rate way down. Back in 2020, the Transport Workers Union estimated that riders could be earning as little as ten bucks an hour after cost, Rob. Which is, that's a hard way to earn ten bucks.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  So that's the kind of, that's the picture. That's the, the three main sort of parties here, the restaurant, the customer and the rider. The restaurant's getting squeezed, the customer's paying more than they might realise and the rider is basically underpaid, no matter how you look at it. So who is winning here? I mean, I said fast forward a minute ago. And that fast forward was where Uber became the unstoppable force it is now and where the fees came stomping in just during that fast forward period of ten years. And that's how Uber ended up winning, basically. Last financial year, Uber's delivery segment, which includes Uber Eats, brought in a third of the group's total revenue, as I said before.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  So it has worked.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  For consumers, it's now totally ingrained in how the takeaway food economy works. Here's the problem, serves with an extremely obvious statement. Food has gotten a lot more expensive. The price of a restaurant meal rose more than twenty percent between 2019 and 2024, is according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. And it's still climbing, up another four percent in the last year. And that's if you eat in or pick it up yourself. Delivery is its own inflation story on top of that.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  And Rob, here's how it looks in sort of microcosm.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:46Speaker 00

  A fish burrito.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Yum.

• 27:48Speaker 00

  From my, my favourite, from my local Mexican restaurant, costs nineteen dollars if I place the order and walk down there and get it myself.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  Order the same burrito on Uber Eats and the menu price alone jumps to twenty-two dollars. Add two dollars forty-nine for a delivery fee and three dollars and five cents for a service fee and all of a sudden it is twenty-seven dollars fifty-four. And that is forty-five percent more expensive for the exact same burrito.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  That's a lot.

• 28:21Speaker 00

  You know what I mean?

• 28:21Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  Like that is huge.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Amnesty time.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  So my last order on Uber Eats.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  So I ordered it last week on a Tuesday. Sorry, not last week, this week. It was Tuesday, I was here, we were really busy and I didn't bring lunch in. So I had to Uber Eat something. Now Uber Eats is on a place which is just a couple of streets over. And I essentially ordered a burrito bowl. Would you like to take a guess on what it cost?

• 28:52Speaker 00

  After that, I don't know, twenty-five?

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Ooh, keep going.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  Thirty?

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Thirty-one dollars and forty-eight cents. Now, if I'd gotten in the car and driven there, it would have cost me about twenty-two dollars.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Jeez.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  It's, it's good food, like I would pay twenty-two dollars for it. But I knew that ordering it and I was like, "I'm flat out, I'm busy, I'm hungry, I'm in meetings and recordings all day long." I'm just gonna have to spend the extra nine dollars.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  And I know that I could go there and I could save that nine dollars.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  Do you think that when you were doing that, you were like, it's nine, it's a nine dollar difference? Or do you just sort of blast through that?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Um, I, in this circumstance, I did know, like, I'm definitely more conscious to this than I once was.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  But I was, it's time and money in that scenario for me. If I had the time, I, I absolutely would have done it, but time is money.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  And I couldn't just walk out in the middle of what I was doing. And I was like, I'm not gonna sit here until 3pm starving. I'm gonna order it now, I'm gonna eat it at my desk and plough through what has to happen.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  So I think this is, um, why the amnesty that you suggested is such a good idea. Because, um, the reality is even if you are opposed to these apps, sometimes you just kinda gotta do it. Like, let's say your partner is out and you're at home with the kids. You're not leaving to go pick up takeaway.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  That literally happened to me like three weeks ago.

• 30:10Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  It was a Friday.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  I was like, cool, I'm gonna get home, I'm gonna put some rice in the rice cooker. I'm gonna go down to the charcoal chicken place, get a charcoal chicken and coleslaw. And that's what we're gonna have. But then, oh, she's not coming home.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  It's just me and him, I'm, I'm not taking him down there this time of night, I can't be bothered. So I get on the app, I'm hungry, oh, now I've ordered chips and dimmies as well, you know? And suddenly I'm like-

• 30:34Speaker 00

  It's a $700.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, oh, I was just gonna get a chuck, get a chalk and suddenly I've spent all this money.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  Oh, exactly. So there's that. And then, look, it's also provides a positive service for people who, um, maybe have a physical difficulty leaving the house.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  You know, like, there's lots of good uses for it. And I certainly, you find in these sorts of chats that you can end up painting with too broad of a brush. And it is important to say that for some people, it's a godsend.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  But I think the point is, I don't think anybody sits there and realizes actively, hey, this is crazy expensive. For something that was introduced as either free or extremely cheap. Like, that, that difference, that nine, $10 difference, not really going to the driver. It's not really going to the restaurant, it's going to this app.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, conglomerate.

• 31:25Speaker 00

  And it changed gently and slowly over time.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  And this is a problem, particularly for the restaurants, but also of course for the consumers. The platform has the size and the power to say, well, you're either in or you're out and we really don't care. There's not a whole lot of pressure on it from competitors anymore. It means that the small businesses have to keep increasing their prices without actually seeing any more cash. And that means taking on risk, if you think about it. Cause for me, is $27.54 an acceptable price for a burrito?

• 32:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 32:06Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  It is not.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  It's, it's not.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Unless it's like a foot long burrito.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Which is not still probably not.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  And the problem is, people sort of forget that it's actually $19 and it's not $27.54. And so naturally, if I think that's the cost of a burrito, I'll order it less.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  For sure. Maybe never. Maybe I'll be like, ah, that place is too expensive. I've spoken to a few businesses about this a few times. And I wrote about Super Nash Brothers in Sydney, which is, Rob, it's a Nashville fried chicken chain.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Delicious.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  They say, and I have no reason to think that they're lying, is better than Kentucky Fried Chicken.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Oh, are they Melbourne?

• 32:49Speaker 00

  Nah, Sydney.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  Well, they may come here one day.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know, I'm just-

• 32:53Speaker 00

  If you stab your feet and say, we must have this in Melbourne, I'm sure they will listen.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, not to peek behind the curtain, but it's almost 11 o'clock, you'll be lunch a couple of hours. I'm like, hey, I could go some Nashville fried chicken.

• 33:02Speaker 00

  I could too. And I think that they are a great business. Um, anyway, I spoke to them and I checked in with them recently about their experience with Uber Eats. And the update was really interesting and I'm gonna tell you what they said right after this message from our partners.

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• 34:52Speaker 00

  Welcome back to How We Got Here. So, Super Nash Brothers. As I said, they do Nashville fried chicken, delicious. They've got five locations in Sydney and 35 employees. Now, they told me that what Uber Eats means to them is about 60 plus $1,000 a month. That's their outgoings just to Uber Eats.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  One small business. Their most popular combo sells for $27, Rob, in store. On Uber Eats, the same combo has to be $36 before Uber's fees.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  The owners say, look, they don't have a massive problem with the 30% fee or the activation fee. They are getting growth through the platform because they're able to reach more people and, and, you know, there is logic in being a part of it. The issue is with the new costs arriving all the time, popping up out of the blue for the businesses. They're currently running nine separate advertising campaigns inside the app at once, at a total combined cost of $420 a day.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Wow, just to be seen on the app.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, cause it's all rankings and visibility.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  It's a good, it's a good point that, because like, you know, a lot of apps on my phone, I have the notifications off, but that one, I keep it on because I wanna make sure I know when things are coming.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  And it's very clever. I always seem to get a notification from Uber Eats, Uber Eats around five o'clock. Cause it's like, you're gonna get hungry now.

• 36:26Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Order. And then I'm like, I've got a message, what is it? And then it's just like the local pizza place near my house being like, come here and get a pizza.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  And you think about it for a second.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  Sure. And if you wanted a pizza, um, let's say Domino's, they've got the budget to make sure that they appear higher in the search results for pizza than the small one four doors down from Domino's.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  So it's about paying to be seen and the fees are not fixed. This is important. They depend on an opaque operational performance ranking.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:56Speaker 00

  Which we don't get to know about and the businesses don't get to know about, but it determines how much they have to pay.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Now, I asked them straight, I asked these restaurant owners straight, is this a monopoly? And they said 100%. He said, yeah, we pay for DoorDash too, but that accounts for about 3% of sales? The owners have been careful about how publicly they complain because speaking out has consequences when you depend on a platform this much. But he told me something that's stuck with me since, which is, quote, we just can't fight this anymore. To your point about the, the business that you worked for, you don't wanna be a part of it, but, you know, bloody hell, one foot in front of the other, you kinda have to.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  And you have to be all in, in a way.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Eventually you get customers coming through the door being like, oh, how come you guys aren't on Uber? I tried to order you the other night, but you're not there and I went somewhere else. And then you're like, well, I'm, I'm kinda losing business now.

• 37:55Speaker 00

  Totally. This is about the scale and the market dominance.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  Important to say here that Super Nash Brothers and a bunch of other businesses do have a campaign asking customers to order directly with them and pay less. Just pay less. It's a good campaign. We're going to talk about it again in a minute. Here's the thing. This all works, as we've hinted at, because Uber Eats is basically a monopoly. There has been a lot of consolidation and collapses around it. In fact, do you remember Deliveroo, Rob?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  I do. My housemate worked there for all of one week.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  There you go. Was it a good week?

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Um, no, he regretted his decision, but he kept all the gear. So somewhere he has a Deliveroo jacket and the, the box.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Oh, maybe he came out on top.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It was just a scheme to get the outfit.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, it lasted seven years in Australia, 2015 to 2022. Um, but bombed out because it wasn't making enough money. It was an international company despite the Rue part sort of feeling Australian.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  It's actually a UK business.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Do you remember MenuLog?

• 39:03Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Now, MenuLog predate Super Eats. It goes back to about 2005, 2006, which is crazy. And I can actually remember being home one night. I don't know where my sister and my parents were and they're like, oh, here's some money for food. But it was cold. I didn't want to go out. And I remember going on to this MenuLog website on a desktop computer and ordering delivery through that website. And I was able to pay cash to the guy who came to the door.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  On a desktop, Rob?

• 39:27Speaker 01

  On a desktop. Uh, and that went around for a while. I think it got bought out by an American company. Australians might remember the big campaign they had with Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg, you know? And that's gone now.

• 39:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is the thing. They would have had billions of dollars at their disposal. They probably didn't have 11.25 billion to burn to get to the tipping point they needed to get to. So this is, this is the thing. And when Deliveroo bombed out of Australia in 2022, I mean, this is when Uber Eats lost another key competitor and started pumping in fees.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:59Speaker 00

  Cause you could. And here's another one. Do you remember Milk Run?

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember seeing the ads. Never used it though.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  So for our, our best friend who's listening overseas, they will not probably know about Milk Run. If you're in Australia, you will at least probably have seen the billboards or been familiar with it. It promised groceries delivered to your door in 10 minutes.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Which is unreal promise. I loved it actually, because this is COVID. We had a new baby. We were getting like bits and bobs, nappies.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  Bit of chicken maybe. And it was really, really fast. And of course, as they all are in the early days, it was really cheap. And now we know why.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:38Speaker 00

  Cause of the reporting on it. It was losing up to $40 on every single order.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  God.

• 40:44Speaker 00

  And it was spending 57 to acquire each new customer.

• 40:50Speaker 00

  So it nailed the losing cash part of the operation.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  That part of the plan went smoothly.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  That's the easy part, isn't it? Lose cash.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, ran out of money in 2023. Woolworths ended up buying it, well, not much. Maybe, it was never disclosed. Maybe about 10 million bucks, mostly for the name recognition. Woolworths, uh, is Australia's largest supermarket organisation. These businesses kept making the same promise, fast, cheap, convenient. And the last man standing gets to claw back all the money they lost in the beginning. The point is that it's a risky game. You have to be the last person standing. And a big part of whether it can work does come down to workers and how much you can get away with paying them.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  Interesting, because drones are being rolled out in some parts of the world to do the food delivering. Have you seen this?

• 41:46Speaker 01

  I have seen it.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  I think it's big in LA.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  And other parts of America.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  There's videos of people just like kicking them over and stuff.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Can you imagine if they put that in here? We would do, like, when I say we, the good people of Melbourne would throw them into the Yarra immediately.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, as is tradition.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  That's what they do.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  Like we got, um, we got LimeBikes and the scooters and within like a day.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Into the Yarra.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  Into the Yarra they went.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  I don't know why we're like this. I can't tell if I think it's endearing or like annoying, somewhere in between possibly.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  It's just something that happens.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  It's, it's our culture. It's what we do.

• 42:22Speaker 00

  Who says we don't have culture?

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Exactly. Throw things in a river.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  Into the river.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  We drink out of a shoe.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  Yes, that too. So they are using drones in some parts of the world. They're probably being strategic about where they do that. And in a lot of places where we are, um, included, they're still using people. Which brings us to where this whole story sits right now. Because there's a big breakthrough happening in Australia, which is that the gig economy delivery drivers have just won a legally enforced minimum wage, Rob, of 31.30 an hour.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Australian dollars this is, which is well above the $26.44 national minimum wage.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  That's pretty good.

• 43:06Speaker 00

  Pretty good. Anyone listening overseas will also say 26.44 is a solid minimum wage. We don't have the tipping culture and we'd kind of do it properly, in my opinion here.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  But what's happened is the Fair Work Commission approved the deal late on August 11, 2026. So this is recent to when we're recording this. After more than four years of negotiation between the Transport Workers Union, Uber Eats and DoorDash. Now, the deal only applies while a driver is actively on a job, not downtime in between orders. But the platforms will also have to provide personal accident insurance. This is massive.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  That is big.

• 43:50Speaker 00

  This is a huge moment in food delivery world and it's happening right now. And Uber Eats seems to have come to the party here because they're no longer in this cash burn part of the journey. But rather in the pumping up fees part of the journey. This decision, which increases the wages of food delivery people is important for those people. But it is going to make the food delivery more expensive. If you're someone who orders food on these apps regularly, just watch. It is going to rise in price from an already high starting point.

• 44:31Speaker 00

  Now, there is a point to all this, and that is to order your food directly with the restaurant whenever you can. Do not fall into the trap of paying more than you have to. It's cheaper for customers and it's better for restaurants. And if you go down there and pick it up, they'll be so chuffed to be dealing with you outside the app, Rob. They'll probably give you a high five and a dim sim for free. You know what I mean?

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Do they have dim sims in other countries?

• 44:58Speaker 00

  No.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  It might be a, a, an Australian cuisine.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  How do you describe a dim sim?

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Well, it's a Melbourne, Melbourne invention, invention in foots gray.

• 45:07Speaker 00

  Here we go.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  By a Chinese Australian man.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  I thought it was South Melbourne.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  No, foots gray, I'm pretty sure, I think.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  What is it?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Um, it is a blend of some sort of minced meat and some kind of herbs wrapped in God knows what that can either be steamed or deep fried.

• 45:25Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Um, and depending on where you come from, people may refer to it as a mowee oyster or a rat coffin.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  It's good. It's, it's good with soy sauce. Um, you have them at your local footy events. Um, I'm actually on a bit of a campaign to, to head around to local footy with my stunt at the moment and just sample the local dim sims. And it's, it's good. It's good fun. It's what I, it's what I do in the weekends.

• 45:47Speaker 00

  I'm sorry. I'm still a bit stuck on rat coffin.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Rat coffin. Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Oh, so the fact that it's called dim sim is just to make it sound vaguely orientalised, but.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it was, it was a Chinese Australian guy who invented it. Um, his name is William Chen Wing Young.

• 46:07Speaker 00

  So yeah, we went into an explainer on, on dim sims. Um, wasn't expecting it. Happy we did it though.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 00

  And look, we might've got our facts wrong. Hey, if you know about dim sims, hit us up in the comments. Correct us.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, let us know.

• 46:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Let us know.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  I'm fascinated by that now. I might have to do some Wiki, Wikipediary.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 46:25Speaker 00

  It's time though, well, it's almost time to do two truths and a lie.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Should we do a final amnesty?

• 46:30Speaker 00

  Ah, yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  So this is my final story. This is, this is, this is my, my, my shame. So it was, uh, I believe it was after a grand final weekend, which for your, your, your foreign listeners, you know, it's kind of a Super Bowl here for us here in Melbourne.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  Huge.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Big piss up. Uh, and for some reason we decided that we have a public holiday the day beforehand. So basically it's, you know, two, two days of drinking.

• 46:52Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  So it was the day after the grand final day, obviously, you know, I was feeling a bit shameful with myself. And I decided to Uber Eats from the local Domino's near my house. Now, at the time I was living in North Melbourne, um, and I just, I just had to quickly double check it. But the Domino's was 160 metres away from my house.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  It's not much.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  And the look of the guy at the door when I opened it, dishevelled, just like, I've never seen someone like look, look down upon me, more so in my life. And I'm just like, thank you.

• 47:24Speaker 00

  I need more. What was the order?

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 47:27Speaker 00

  Is this like some dirty stuff crust, meat lovers?

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it probably would have been like a supreme or something. And I might've got like a garlic bread and a can of coke with it as well. And the guy's looking at me just being like, mate.

• 47:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, you've got to sort yourself out.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  He's like, the look he gave me was like, I walked you. I walked you to deliver this to you, you know?

• 47:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, that's right. And I got paid all of, you know, six bucks.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but look, I've come a long, I've come a long way since then.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm proud. I'm proud. I'm proud of us both.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  Look at us. Practicing what we preach here and there. Um, hit us up with your most shameful Uber Eats order in the, uh, in the comments. I'd be fascinated to read them.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's an amnesty. No judgement here.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  We do two truths and a lie?

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  Let's do it. Okay. Number one, Australia got Uber Eats before England. True.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 48:16Speaker 00

  We can hold that over them.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  After we win the ashes again.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  Number two, Australia's new minimum wage for gig delivery workers is a lot. It's gone up a lot. That's true.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's pretty good. I couldn't believe that.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  It's unbelievable. It's huge. Four years in the making. World first. Number three, a restaurant pays 30% of the order to Uber Eats and that's it. That's a lot.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 48:42Speaker 00

  Obviously, because it's a lot more than 30% of the order. So they've got to cough up 30% of the order. But then they're paying so much in these ancillary fees now.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 48:49Speaker 00

  Which we don't really think about very much, but I'll tell you what, the small businesses think about it.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  They sure do.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  Unbelievable. 30% is just the starting point. Now, what's the point? Where do we sort of land on? Where do we wrap this whole schmuzzle up, Rob? Food delivery, it's just, it's just fees on fees.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  It arrived at that place sort of slowly. It's something that's gone from exciting and cheap and good to something that's expensive and not good in 10 years flat.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's come a long way since your stereotypical pizza delivery guy driving around in his car. You know, it's so far from that. And I think it's just, if you have the time, if you have the capability, get down there, walk down there, get in the car, whatever it needs to be. Save the money. It's better for the restaurant. You'll, you'll feel better for doing it.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  We talk about supporting small businesses. This is a great example.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Of if you can, just bypass the big business.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:50Speaker 00

  Entirely. You don't need them. They don't need them.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  It's, I think, a really interesting case study in something that you see all the time. The, it's, it's kind of, it's the playbook of deliver something really, really good that is hemorrhaging you money. And then claw that money back by making it bad.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  Over time. And as we said at the beginning, first impressions last.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:17Speaker 00

  In business.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:18Speaker 00

  And in everything.

• 50:22Speaker 00

  What an absolute shocker.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  What do you think the first impression was of that Uber Eats guy when he saw me at the after grand final?

• 50:28Speaker 00

  You think he's telling people about it now?

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. This lazy bloke. What a piece of shit.

• 50:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, for a lot of people.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  And you know what? I lived on the second story of a terrace. I could have had the bucket.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  Could have had the bucket.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  I could have had the bucket and the stream.

• 50:42Speaker 00

  It's not too late.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  I was a rookie.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  You know, one of the things I think about is that for people who come to Australia, often it's the first job. It's a first job. And what must be the first impression when they rock up and are delivering something from 160 metres away? I mean, what is going on in this country?

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, laziness. Absolute laziness.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  But that's Uber Eats and that's food delivery. As I said at the beginning, I don't like it. But maybe I'm just becoming curmudgeonly in my old age. Rob, it's been a pleasure as always. Thank you very much for having this ranty chat with me.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  It's been fun and I will be walking down the street to get my lunch later.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  Same. Goodo. I'm Chris Cole. Thank you very much for listening and we'll see you next time.

• 51:24Speaker 00

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