• @[email protected]
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    31211 months ago

    Pizza Hut made over $6 billion last year, you’d think they could afford to pay their drivers.

    • @[email protected]
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      22811 months ago

      Of course the can pay their drivers but think of the poor shareholders who may see 0.1% less profit or the CEO who may get only 99% of their usual bonus. Oh the horror!!

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        The Pizza Hut corporation will be fine. These are franchises we are talking about. The franchises pay an initial fee of $25k and then 6% + 4.75% sales/marketing fees to Pizza Hut.

        It’s the owners of the franchises that are responsible for fucking over their employees. While Pizza Hut could reduce their fees, they won’t. Franchise owners could increase pay, but they won’t. It’s more likely that the franchise owners will offload deliveries to Uber and Door Dash and not have to worry about managing drivers anymore.

        The entire model sucks, so I am not blaming franchise owners over the corporation. They are both at fault for relying on the extortion of teenagers or other people who don’t have extremely profitable job skills.

        https://franchise.pizzahut.com/faqs/

        Edit: Also, these aren’t one-off mom and pop franchise owners anymore. These are franchise owning conglomerates that likely have more negotiable franchise fees.

        • @[email protected]
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          1611 months ago

          Won’t offloading the delivery to those services cost even more? They take a pretty hefty cut of the sale. Last I heard it was around 30% of an order.

          • @[email protected]
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            1811 months ago

            At least where I live, delivery food is extremely expensive for that reason. Restaurants have two prices: one for walk-ins and the other for delivery that they show on the apps. The restaurant business (especially for independent owners) has cutthroat margins already so the customer is always going to pay the fees, one way or another.

          • Jeff
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            411 months ago

            They just offload it on consumers by raising the price of the food and the ever present tip feature.

            So done with post Covid timeline here.

          • @[email protected]
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            -911 months ago

            They will likely make a deal with a delivery company, as they should. It is inefficient for every restaurant to have delivery drivers.

    • Ghostalmedia
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      3111 months ago

      Technically it’s mega franchisees like Provender Capital Group’s “PacSun Pizza,” not PizzaHut that is going to be pocketing the cash from this move.

    • @[email protected]
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      111 months ago

      It’s staggering how many people don’t understand the difference between franchises and corporations on wall street in the internet age

      • @[email protected]
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        411 months ago

        It’s staggering how many people assume things without looking into them. In this case, it’s a corporation called Pac Pizza, LLC and makes over $25 million per year that’s doing the layoffs. I think they can pay their delivery drivers an extra $4 (according to the USA Today article linked above) per hour.

        If they had to pay all of their less than 500 employees (according to the Zoominfo page linked above) the extra $4 per hour, and they all worked full time, 40-hour weeks all year, the company would have to pay just over $4 million in extra wages.

        Assuming the franchises make the low end of the estimated revenue linked above, $4.5 million would be 16% of the total. Increasing prices by 16% to cover that cost is far less than the approximately 40% customers end up paying when using third-party delivery services.

        All in all, this sure seems like the franchise corporation (probably in cahoots with Pizza Hut proper) is just using these delivery jobs as a political stunt in opposition of the mandated wage increase.

        Here’s the takeaway, though. Any employer, including but not limited to mom-and-pop businesses, that can’t afford to pay its employees a living wage should not be in business.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months ago

        It’s staggering how many people assume things without looking into them. In this case, it’s a corporation called Pac Pizza, LLC and makes over $25 million per year that’s doing the layoffs. I think they can pay their delivery drivers an extra $4 (according to the USA Today article linked above) per hour.

        If they had to pay all of their less than 500 employees (according to the Zoominfo page linked above) the extra $4 per hour, and they all worked full time, 40-hour weeks all year, the company would have to pay just over $4 million in extra wages.

        Assuming the franchises make the low end of the estimated revenue linked above, $4.5 million would be 16% of the total. Increasing prices by 16% to cover that cost is far less than the approximately 40% customers end up paying when using third-party delivery services.

        All in all, this sure seems like the franchise corporation (probably in cahoots with Pizza Hut proper) is just using these delivery jobs as a political stunt in opposition of the mandated wage increase.

        Here’s the takeaway, though. Any employer, including but not limited to mom-and-pop businesses, that can’t afford to pay its employees a living wage should not be in business.

    • @[email protected]
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      -111 months ago

      There’s 19,000 pizza huts, but most all of them are franchises. It’s not “pizza hut” firing drivers over this. It’s franchise owners. Also, if you were to do some napkin math, 19,000 (I know. Just california, but that would hardly be fair to everyone else) pizza huts needing say…5 drivers each at 40 hours a week paid 20 means a cost of about 28 after insurance and such… that’d be 95 thousand drivers…$106,400,000 a week…$5,532,800,000 a year.

      Shit gets expensive.

      But face it. Delivery drivers make a lot in tips. People have been willing to do it using their own vehicles for decades while they make super low minimum wages. Making $20/ hour plus the tips will have the delivery guy out doing everyone else at the restaurant, which means their pay will have to go to like $35/hour which means a stupid pizza is gonna cost $30. Let uber eats handle the deliveries.

      • @[email protected]
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        1211 months ago

        What pizza hut has 5 full time drivers? There’s only 1200 people affected by this and 560 locations so a little more than 2 per location. Now let’s look at the cost those delivery apps charge 30%. So if 35% of sales are deliveries now theyre paying Uber ~110k to deliver their pizzas. 28$/hr is high closer to 23-25$/hr for overhead. That’s roughly what the delivery drivers would have cost and now they’re getting way shittier delivery service and people are much less likely to buy pizza from them. Sounds like a dumb move.

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          5 too many? I just figured there’d be like 2 delivery people at any given time and trying to have 3 on Friday and Saturday night.

          But as to Uber, that’s the customers choice if they want to pay an arm and a leg to have pizza brought to their door. It won’t much effect the pizza hut. Store dedicated delivery drivers are a thing of the past now. They’ve been outsourced.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            I don’t think you understand the business models of those food delivery apps. I used to own a restaurant and talked with many other restaurant owners at the time all those apps take 25-30% Uber was 30 the less known ones were 25%. This is outside of whatever the customer paid for the delivery. You also weren’t allowed to change the prices for delivery to compensate. So it does affect the pizza hut.

            • @[email protected]
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              111 months ago

              More than paying everyone on staff an extra $10 an hour, though? If the delivery guy is getting 20 an hour plus tips, the in house staff won’t be happy with making $22/hr.

              • @[email protected]
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                111 months ago

                States minimum wage is 16$/hr so it’s not as big a difference. That’s also not really an argument because then they could just leave and go to another pizza place that does do delivery if that made sense.

      • @[email protected]
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        811 months ago

        Pizza in Boston delivered by door dash is routinely right about $30 before tip. My credit card offers free door dash premium whatever it’s called and I usually choose places offering a promo and tend to order early when there are also promos. That brings things down to the $20s. But it’s generally about $30 with tip even doing all that. If I’m not paying attention it’s easy to order a $45 pizza.

        To be fair I don’t eat from pizza Hut or Dominos or other chains. Those might be a few percent cheaper.

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            Chase sapphire reserve. $595 annual fee seems crazy at first but if you use the perks it pays for itself multiple times over.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 months ago

          That’s half my point, though. You choosing to pay $30 through door dash or Uber eats is your choice. The restaurant isn’t charging way more for their pizzas because they have to pay everyone on staff a lot more. Delivery has been outsourced and so have the added costs that go along with it.

            • @[email protected]
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              011 months ago

              No more than you’re imagining each pizza hut only has one employee that cooks,preps, waits tables, takes orders, and delivers the pizza all on their own.

              • SatansMaggotyCumFart
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                111 months ago

                The ones around my place do.

                They even have to be the bathroom attendants too but the cologne selection sucks.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months ago

        $20/hour is only part of employee compensation. It does not include benefits or taxes. Your employer pays a lot of taxes on your behalf.

        Don’t even get me started on the money and time taken to recruit, hire, and train new employees.

        Don’t misunderstand me. I support a higher minimum wage. I am a firm believer that minimum wage should be $25/hour and increases should be tied to inflation.

        • @[email protected]
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          511 months ago

          Your employer pays a lot of taxes on your behalf.

          That’s money they would have paid you anyway, and you would have to pay in taxes. Your employer is not out any extra cash, they’re just saving you the trouble.

        • @[email protected]
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          311 months ago

          Don’t even get me started on the money and time taken to recruit, hire, and train new employees.

          For delivery drivers?

          Know how to drive? If not, next. Here’s the pizza. Put it on a flat surface in the vehicle, don’t throw or flip it. Use Google maps to get to the house. Hand it to the customer. Come back. Done.

      • @[email protected]
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        011 months ago

        Delivery guys should always outdo nearly everyone else at pizza joint, you seem to lack a necessary depth of knowledge and experience to make your conclusions.

  • @[email protected]
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    20511 months ago

    They could have just focused on providing a better delivery experience, instead they’re going to let uber drivers deliver cold pizza with the wrong soda.

    • @[email protected]
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      15811 months ago

      With higher delivery fees! Why on earth would anyone even order Pizza Hut after this? If I’m paying obscene delivery fees and jacked up menu prices through doordash or whoever anyway, I’m getting better food than that. Or just eating at home like I end up doing every time I look at the total from one of those services.

      • squiblet
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        5211 months ago

        It doesn’t even make sense as sure, Uber doesn’t pay drivers much and Pizza Hut won’t have to employ them, but customers will have to pay more. So Pizza Hut could have just said “due to increases in wages we have to implement a delivery fee”, and actually paid their drivers. They’d rather do this dramatic ‘omg we have to fire them’ thing though.

        • @[email protected]
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          6911 months ago

          Its a punitive measure. Our lords want to send the message that further wage legislation will not be tolerated.

          • squiblet
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            1811 months ago

            I agree. It might make financial sense for them as far as reducing payroll and management costs, but it seems just as likely to reduce their sales by as much as that saves. To me it feels like a political statement “how dare you expect us to pay employees!” where they pretend it’s not possible for them to make it work. Which is fine. If a business depends on paying subsistence slave wages, it should just close.

            • Gnome Kat
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              111 months ago

              Boomers keep threatening the collapse of the fast food market, “no one wants to work anymore”. Like they think anyone is going to miss the absolute shit that is fast food. Why are we supposed to care?

          • @[email protected]
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            1011 months ago

            “In retaliation we shall destroy their Pizza Hut. Let us see how the uppity peasants like that!”

            • @[email protected]
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              311 months ago

              Not aboutdestroying, its about directing anger back to the working class. Its a look what you made me do for standing up for yourself.

        • @[email protected]
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          You are vastly overestimating the brain dead American population that will see the higher price, order delivery anyway, and then stop thinking about it.

          Like, they just don’t think about how it will affect their finances at all. People order takeout and delivery every day without a second thought.

          To be clear I am not victim blaming the poor, but we are beyond late stage capitalism here. They won.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            This is a defeatist take and while the answer isn’t a super simple “just tell people to not order out and cook more” we can definitely do more to help people stop relying on eating out and fast food.

          • Aniki 🌱🌿
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            111 months ago

            Except that’s not what’s happening at all. Go look at Just Eats stock price after aquiring grub hub for a few billion. Turns out, people actually do scoff at the delivery price of these services.

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            No. In the days you maybe added $3 to an order for delivery and added a tip. Now you pay a $5 delivery fee and tip plus 20%-30% markup. They cornered and ruined the market and only those with too much money will simply not care.

      • @[email protected]
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        3211 months ago

        I’ve only ordered from the big ones to avoid fucky delivery services. It just eliminates the point of it.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 months ago

        Why on earth would anyone even order Pizza Hut after this?

        More money than sense.

        Businesses have long realized it’s easier and cheaper to rip off a smaller group of wealthier customers.

    • admiralteal
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      11 months ago

      After winning on Prop 22, Uber/Lyft guaranteed drivers $13/hr. I’m not sure where the likes of Uber Eats/Grubhub stand in comparison, but even if we assume they’re also at $13/hr, that’s a full ‘federal minimum wage’ less than the Pizza Hut drivers would need to be paid. For doing literally the same job but with way, way worse benefits (e.g., having to provide your own insurance).

      It’s actually insane. Prop 22 is a travesty.

      $20/hr isn’t even what I would consider a living wage in California, and Pizza Hut is here proudly admitting they were paying their drivers substantially less than that. But the deliveries will still happen, just to even worse-paid people. It’s a crazy cycle of abuse of labor.

    • @[email protected]
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      1511 months ago

      Seriously. I don’t see why companies that were already paying for delivery drivers (eg, the chain pizza companies) don’t sell their delivery services as a value add. When I order a pizza from DoorDash, it doesn’t come wrapped in an insulated carrier and so often arrives cold. I’m not sure what else they could throw in but they’re just tossing it (no pun intended).

      I’m also curious as to the numbers on this. I don’t know if this was done after a full evaluation of raising delivery service fees or other ways of addressing it, but the fact that they’re doing it in all of California instead of keeping it in markets like SF or LA makes me think it was a petulant act rather than a rationally justified one.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        Just as a clarification (not a defense) from someone that drives for DoorDash - every time the driver picks up a pizza order, they are required to provide photo proof that they own a pizza bag. I’m not saying this forces drivers to use them, but they have to upload different pics of their pizza bags sometimes with every pickup.

        Edit: autocorrect

        • @[email protected]
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          511 months ago

          The reason you have to do this is because you drivers are notorious for having absolutely zero standards and a solid “idgaf” attitude.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            Give them a low rating, then. Hardly anyone leaves ratings, and a 1 star could easily tank them below the 4.2 rating they need to avoid their account being deactivated. I’ve done over 600 runs and only 35 have left any kind of rating, for example. Super easy to tank the average.

      • Apathy Tree
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        11 months ago

        This is so weird to me because pizza is one of the few things I actually order for delivery… there isn’t much around here other than 3rd party services, which I don’t use because I’m rural and the way it works here is just gross. Had 6 come in for the same failed order while I was out on Tuesday (menu wasn’t open for that item but it was ordered through another platform, and 6 people came asking for it for the same order because of how the platform works). I can’t imagine actually working there.

        But I suppose in more urban areas, pizza hut is competing with actually good food also on delivery (for a very steep markup people are apparently willing to pay or the services would die), so it’s no surprise they can’t compete on their own; and still also turn record profits. Heaven forbid they die in the region. 🙂

      • Jeff
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        211 months ago

        This is why I won’t order pizza from places that use a sub contracted delivery. It gets here like shite. No thanks.

    • @[email protected]
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      311 months ago

      And they are going to charge for it. I hate pizza places that have done this. It’s at LEAST $20-$30 more now to get delivery.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      If it even comes at all. I had several just disappear driving all over town and never show. Last one I got a bag of soup. That’s the plastic bag, with spilled bowl of soup, leaking out of said bag. Never again

      • @[email protected]
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        211 months ago

        Right? It’s pretty bad. A lot of the food drivers don’t really speak English, either, so you’re kind of fucked in some way each time you order.

        (I don’t mind immigrant uber drivers, but it’s a pain when there are food issues and they can’t understand you.)

    • Wren
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      111 months ago

      Honestly, that’s not much difference from how it’s been

      • @[email protected]
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        211 months ago

        It has been getting worse.

        Out of curiosity, did you send that message recently or a day or two ago? My inbox says it’s been like 20m. Looking at the thread it says 2 days.

        • Wren
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          111 months ago

          Definitely at least a day 🤔

          I wonder if instances just take time to federate all content across to each other

  • Adderbox76
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    19211 months ago

    If your business plan can’t make a profit while paying your people a living wage, than it doesn’t deserve to be in business.

    Expecting people to live paycheque to paycheque in order to subsidize your desire to be a business owner is the Pinnacle of bullshit.

    • GladiusB
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      2511 months ago

      Pizza Hut is a joke in the bay area and Sacramento area. There are just too many good pizza places. I think it’s messed up, but I also think they aren’t doing well for more than just the delivery process.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months ago

        That’s good to hear. I left the bay area almost 20 years ago and I remember there being very little good pizza back then. Don’t get me wrong - there was some great food to be found, but the pizza wasn’t it

        • GladiusB
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          111 months ago

          I can always find a slice anywhere better than Pizza Hut.

      • @[email protected]
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        -1111 months ago

        Look there is always better pizza, but I’m still going to have to buy Pizza Hut once in a while unless The Pizza Shop in SF starts selling stuffed crust

        • Zoolander
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          1211 months ago

          This is exactly why we have the type of shit we have right now. Because stuffed crust is more important than principles. I swear people have no willpower anymore.

          • @[email protected]
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            511 months ago

            I don’t get why people like stuffed crust anyways. It sounds like a good idea, but it’s trash

            • @[email protected]
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              111 months ago

              It was fine like 25 years ago when it came out. Tastes have since changed and there’s far more good quality food available even in the middle of nowhere.

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            Wow you made a lot of assumptions about the type of person I am entirely off the fact that I genuinely enjoy stuffed crust pizza. You think me enjoying stuffed crust means I have no principles nor willpower? You might want to try not judging people so hard over incredibly unimportant things.

            • Zoolander
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              -111 months ago

              Wow… it took you 9 days to come up with that?

              And, yes…that’s exactly what it means. I didn’t assume anything. The topic is literally avoiding buying Pizza Hut because of bullshit like this and your response was “But muh stuffy crust!”. I didn’t assume anything. You laid it all out for everyone.

          • @[email protected]
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            011 months ago

            1 guy isn’t going to change corporate America. Real change is only gonna come from execs and politicians, not from the 5 people who start a boycott.

            • Zoolander
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              011 months ago

              There can be no flood if there are no raindrops.

              • @[email protected]
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                011 months ago
                1. That saying doesn’t work because non-water floods exist

                2. A water droplet ain’t gonna form with 5 hydrogen atoms

                • Zoolander
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                  11 months ago

                  Wow. The level of pedantry here while simultaneously missing the point is, quite frankly, staggering.

                  Way to argue semantical nonsense as opposed to the point.

        • @[email protected]
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          1111 months ago

          If you actually want cheap shitty pizza, then at least go to Little Caesars and only pay $5 for it

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            Pretty sure they aren’t $5 anymore.

            And little caesar’s sells cardboard, not pizza. Just eat the box your pizza comes in if you want the Little Caesar’s® experience.

            • @[email protected]
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              411 months ago

              It’s honestly no worse than pizza hut. It’s not great pizza, but the quality is similar for half the price

              • @[email protected]
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                -111 months ago

                Sorry, you’re wrong.

                I think the only people who believe little caesar’s isn’t shit are those who were raised on it and got used to eating cardboard.

                • @[email protected]
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                  111 months ago

                  It absolutely is shit. But so is pizza hut. I might give pizza hut a slight edge, but just barely

            • @[email protected]
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              111 months ago

              They’re still charging $5 where I live. I can’t disagree about the cardboard, but it’s hard to beat the calorie/dollar ratio.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 months ago

          You mean some gimmick no one gives a fuck about? Have you seen a real pizza restaurant sell stuffed crust? I haven’t. And if they did I wouldn’t order it.

          You’ll eat shitty pizza that tastes like ass purely because it has stuffed crust.

          Bullshit like this is why everything in this country is going down the toilet.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            lol someone else made a disparaging comment and was voted into oblivion. I never knew but it seems that people really like stuffed crust pizza.

    • Natanael
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      1311 months ago

      In a fair economy every business pays for all of their externalities

    • @[email protected]
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      111 months ago

      Honestly I learned how to make bread awhile back and haven’t ordered pizza ever since. I can make my own better than they can.

      • @[email protected]
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        2611 months ago

        People generally should use the best option. Often expense is the metric. These are able to operate at competitive rates because they get away with shenanigans. They should be regulated properly, then their rates would reflect that and people would use them less.

        • @[email protected]
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          1111 months ago

          Already they are expensive AF. The menu prices on doordash can be like 50% more, then there are the service fees and more.

          • @[email protected]
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            611 months ago

            Yeah, last time I ordered through grubhub from a Chinese restaurant, by the time I paid the delivery fee, inflated menu price, service charge, and driver tip, I was looking at almost $90 for mid-tier Chinese food. I ordered by calling the restaurant up and ordering takeout and paid $40 instead.

            I literally could order from halfway across the state and make a road trip out of it and still come out ahead.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            100% agree. Too rich for me, or at least their local counterparts Foodora and Wolt, but that is highly subjective. I guess many just place a higher value on date night with PJ’s and a bed.

        • @[email protected]
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          211 months ago

          Once they fully stop subsidizing them with VC capital we’ll probably see the return to traditional delivery

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          Yeah, it’s this. The only thing innovated by DD or UberEats is avoiding regulation. This is the real cause of all of the enshittification that everyone is seeing. It’s been the plan all along; charge an absolutely unsustainable price, jack things up when you’re the only option. DD is already well along this pattern; it used to be much cheaper, and it’s still going to go up.

      • @[email protected]
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        1611 months ago

        I look forward to the downvotes again because everyone has their heads so far up their asses but we are the problem. Fuck us.

        We are the reason we are racing to the bottom. We expect cheap & fast and we don’t care how it happens as long as it does.

        • prole
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          11 months ago

          That sounds like human nature. This is exactly why government exists, to regulate this shit because otherwise we will consume everything we can until the planet is dead.

        • @[email protected]
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          611 months ago

          I think about this a lot whenever Airbnb comes up. People mention it and I’m like airbnb caused rents to rise a lot, and I just get deafening silence.

          Honestly I would respect “I know it has externalized costs I’m not paying for, but it’s convenient and I accept it’s not the best thing” more than awkward silence or clumsy justifications.

          I’m guilty too, sometimes. I should probably order directly from the restaurant instead of using seamless or whatever

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            It’s not like housing is inherently capped. Cities choose to pass and enforce zoning laws that limit the number of housing units - shortages drive up prices, which homeowners love.

            Blaming AirBnB for taking up a fraction of housing units in a market that is profoundly short on housing because of the NIMBY greed of residents is missing the forest for a tree.

        • TheRealKuni
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          311 months ago

          I look forward to the downvotes again because everyone has their heads so far up their asses but we are the problem. Fuck us.

          We are the reason we are racing to the bottom. We expect cheap & fast and we don’t care how it happens as long as it does

          Yep. Some More News had a sobering bit in their video on the generation war about how Millennials are also responsible for fucking up the world for the people coming after us like the Boomers were (as in, the real problem lies with politicians but we do make it worse in some ways). The gig economy was one example of fucking shit up for Gen Z without us realizing it at the time.

          (Obviously the major problem here is that somehow DoorDash and Uber Eats get to pay people less, poorly written regulation that carves out concessions to make shit worse for everyone.)

          Been a while since I watched it and I don’t know how well it holds up but it was interesting.

          • @[email protected]
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            411 months ago

            I will challenge that the advent of the gig economy did exactly what it was supposed to do and it never benefitted worker. All it did was enable employers to further justify stripping benefits like a living wage and private healthcare and all those other things that full-time employees benefit from.

            Sharing economy is the same bullshit. Exploit our need for cheap and fast over all the rules and regulations that evolved in the industry they’re undercutting.

            Uber fought tooth and nail against providing rides for handicapped users “let the market sort it out”

            Airbnb did and does the same on all those things hotels have to do.

            Mark my words years from now those undercutting companies will die or morph into the industry they killed as costs go up because they will stop being able to skirt the decades of regulations that existed to benefit us all.

            This is what happens when you have a bunch of entitled techno bros thinking they can design a better wheel.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      For every else (like me) who had never heard the term ‘gig economy’ before:

      A gig economy is a free market system in which temporary positions are common and organizations hire independent workers for short-term commitments. The term “gig” is a slang word for a job that lasts a specified period of time. Traditionally, the term was used by musicians to define a performance engagement.

      • @[email protected]
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        3011 months ago

        The lock-downs definitely aren’t at fault for doordash and ubereats, they were there and gaining traction before covid was discovered.

      • @[email protected]
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        811 months ago

        Bruh, idk where you’re at, but in the major cities we were using Grubhub back in 2016. Though I think it was “Eat24” back then. And Door Dash had existed even earlier. This one isn’t on the 'rona.

  • @[email protected]
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    8311 months ago

    It would take a lot to convince me that they haven’t been discussing this for years and have been waiting for the right time. The market is now loaded with others to do the delivery, which was probably one of the considerations. I’m sure another was how to announce it where they can blame someone else; at least to the point of ensuring some will defend them.

    The minimum wage increase is their excuse. What they are doing is outsourcing their delivery to a 3rd party (GrubHub, Uber eats, etc). They wont have to pay them anything, the customer will. They are decreasing their head count, payroll, insurance, taxes, benefits, etc. They will lose some sales, but that wont even be close to their cost savings. They will easily make more money while selling their product at the same price. Any business would love to be in the same position.

    • @[email protected]
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      3011 months ago

      Weird part is that San Diego increased their minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2016, $18 an hour in 2018, and $20 an hour in 2020. Papa Johns and Domino’s still have delivery drivers. I can’t actually speak to Pizza Hut, since I never order from them.

      Methinks this is just more corporate greed that will be masked as “inflation,” even though their costs just went down.

      • @[email protected]
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        211 months ago

        Domino’s runs very tight delivery radius like 2 miles so they probably just get by with less staff and more locations

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          I’m not sure. I worked for all three chains, and it is true that all the Domino’s and Papa John’s locations strictly restricted their delivery to 2 miles, all the Pizza Huts that I worked for restricted their delivery to 2.5 miles.

          I cannot imagine that it’s better to give up 40-60% of your sales just because of an extra half mile delivery range, rather than simply reducing your delivery range.

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            They will just use Doordash drive where you can summon a driver for $6 usually and charge a $6 delivery fee. That’s what my place does in Florida as insurance rates for the business to have drivers is insane. Those drivers are higher caliber and need to be the top few % of Doordash drivers to qualify to get summoned.

    • Nukken
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      2511 months ago

      It’s such a short sited goal though. Those delivery apps are going to start dictating terms and extracting money from restaurants eventually.

      • @vin
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        411 months ago

        Delivery apps are not in a strong position though - both demand (customers) and supply (delivery personnel) easily change where they are on.

    • Jubei Kibagami
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      1311 months ago

      They will easily make more money while selling their product at the same price.

      😂 Come on, man, like they’re not use this to increase prices.

    • @[email protected]
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      511 months ago

      That’s not true that pizza hut won’t pay Uber etc to deliver. Uber takes 30%. Since it’s a large chain they might be able to negotiate something better. If you can make 2- 4 deliveries an hour depending on your rang and how busy the place is. I used to deliver in highschool and sometimes could do 6 an hour when it was real busy and deliveries were close to each other but averaged 2-4. Then with Uber eats the drivers aren’t reliable and drivers don’t have pizza warmers to keep it hot in the car. Sounds like this just means their delivery business will drop to near nothing.

    • squiblet
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      111 months ago

      I’d say that they’d lose more business than that, but I guess not considering how happy people are to pay ridiculous prices to Uber Eats and DoorDash for fast food that’s already overpriced. My neighbors get DoorDash from fast food places 5-6 times a week.

    • @[email protected]
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      -311 months ago

      The minimum wage increase is their excuse.

      Why would they need an excuse? No one cares about the principle of the matter except anti-consumerist hipsters who weren’t eating their pizza anyway.

      • @[email protected]
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        711 months ago

        Shareholders. They might have a opinion on massive layoffs and long term success of the company

  • @[email protected]
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    7611 months ago

    Pizza hut is trash anyways, unless you live in the middle of nowhere, you’ve probably got a better local pizza place. Please support them instead of a chain.

    • TheRealKuni
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      811 months ago

      Shit, even Dominos is better than Pizza Hut these days. (Though yes, local is better.)

        • TheRealKuni
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          311 months ago

          I actually quite like Dominos, specifically their Philly Cheesesteak pizza. They really turned their brand/quality around a few years back.

          But there is obviously better pizza out there.

      • Coskii
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        1511 months ago

        That heavily depends on location. Here in Philly competition among food places is so tight that a lot of places offer a better deal than the chains and have much better products.

  • Flying Squid
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    6011 months ago

    I’m not in California, but if Pizza Hut thinks I’m ever going to go out of my way to get one of their shitty pizzas, they’re very wrong. There are plenty of other places that deliver.

    • @[email protected]
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      3411 months ago

      I go out of my way to avoid them already. They changed their sauce or something like 10 years ago and it tasted awful.

      • @[email protected]
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        1011 months ago

        I’ve found it’s highly variable by location and how much of a fuck the franchisee/owner cares.

      • @[email protected]
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        711 months ago

        I think they removed the msg and it was game over for their pizza. Used to think of it as like premium pizza (but with heartburn) now I think of it as a more expensive version of dominoes.

      • @[email protected]
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        511 months ago

        Do you know to what specific change in their recipe this is owed? I haven’t had pizza hut in 20 years, their ground meat looked like it was shaped to resemble small bones like you would for maybe dog-treats. idk, that was the last time trying their pizza.

    • Zoolander
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      1011 months ago

      That’s not at all what they think. They know people will pay for delivery through DoorDash or whatever and also pay the tips and the service fees. It costs them less money and passes on the majority of what they were paying onto you so they can keep prices the same and make bigger profits.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        It’s insane to me that people are willing to pay the exorbitant delivery fees. Whenever I’ve checked, especially lately, it doubles the price even before tip (including things in my immediate area). Uber/Lyft/doordash all want to offset their costs onto both the restaurant and customer. I can’t see that it’s sustainable in the long term to do this.

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          It’s not that insane. People pay for convenience. That’s all this is.

          If you’re broke as fuck then I get it but I would bet most people using DoorDash aren’t worrying about their finances.

          If you do it every day for every meal then ya you may have issues.

          Personally I’d rather just hop in my car and pick it up.

          • Flying Squid
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            211 months ago

            I used to game with a lady who ordered DoorDash constantly and was also constantly complaining about the price and how they were always late and how they could never find her apartment. I didn’t get it.

    • @[email protected]
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      811 months ago

      Genuinely surprised pizza hutt still exists tbh. They were never good and now you can make better pizza at home from the frozen foods aisle at weis.

        • themeatbridge
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          811 months ago

          80s Pizza Hut personal pan pizza was the greatest dining experience available to anyone under the age of 12. You could earn one by reading books, or pretending to read them.

          • @[email protected]
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            511 months ago

            Going to eat at Pizza Hut back then was a treat. The pan pizza was new and amazing. It took like 20 minutes to cook, which felt like an eternity. It was worth it. It’s a real shame it was ruined for corporate profits like so many things.

        • themeatbridge
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          311 months ago

          80s Pizza Hut personal pan pizza was the greatest dining experience available to anyone under the age of 12. You could earn one by reading books, or pretending to read them.

            • @[email protected]
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              211 months ago

              Usually the day when I can’t think of something for dinner, I suggest pizza to my wife. She’s yet to say no.

              • @[email protected]
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                011 months ago

                So generally once a week you can’t think of something for dinner?

                I’m just curious, what would happen if you planned out dinner for the entire month ahead of time? would you stop eating pizza or would you schedule the pizza dinners on a weekly basis?

                • @[email protected]
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                  111 months ago

                  Once a week sounds about right for being out of ideas. I work a bit of an odd job where I’m gone for 24h at a time and after a work cycle I get 9 days off, so what day of the week isn’t as relevant for me.

                  Pizza is a bit of a treat, and it’s fairly lazy to make (I just make a quick dough and throw tomatoes on the boil, then wait until it’s time to assemble toppings).

                  If we planned out, I suppose we’d have it something like every other week. I see no reason not to, maybe do something slightly more healthy by adding some salad on the side.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months ago

        That deep dish is not something you duplicate at home with frozen options. I’m with you guys but let’s be realistic.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      I’ve lived in California for the past 12 years and have never seen anyone I know get Pizza Hut. We have better options

  • @[email protected]
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    5811 months ago

    FYI: They’re part of Yum! Brands : KFC Pizza Hut Taco Bell Banh Shop (minority investor) The Habit Burger Grill

    I will continue to boycott their “foods”.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        Not since about 25 years ago. It was spun off from PepsiCo in 1997. And in fact it was not called Yum until sometime later than that – it was never Yum under PepsiCo.

        Edit to add: I still don’t go there, of course.

    • @[email protected]
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      511 months ago

      Taco Bell was the last holdout with their $1 beef burrito (which was actually a double beef burrito)

      They removed it and added shittier $2 items with less beef and more bullshit. Idiots ate that shit up, so we’re left with expensive garbage.

      KFC, lol. So fucking overpriced and it’s shitty chicken anyways.

      Honestly, with all the grocery delivery options, eating out just doesn’t make sense these days. I haven’t eaten out in almost a year since I got Walmart+.

    • @[email protected]
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      211 months ago

      Habit started out so good and now it tastes like ‘optimized supply chains’ like all the other shit places.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      I didn’t know they scooped up The Habit. I love The Habit. Rest is crap. Which means they’ll ruin The Habit soon

    • @[email protected]
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      -511 months ago

      You had me until The Habit. I will die for their pineapple teriyaki burger. Can’t get anything like it anywhere near me.

  • @[email protected]
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    5611 months ago

    Is no one else going to blame an overly specific minimum wage? I couldn’t find anything too specific but in California, it looks like:

    • fast food minimum wage: $20/hr, going to $22
    • gig drivers: $15/hr

    Of course they’re going to outsource drivers, This looks like a nice Christmas gift to UberEats/DoirDash

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months ago

        They should create incentive by taxing the shit out of businesses and offering tax breaks for actually offering living wages and benefits to their employees. If the “correct” answer in capitalism is to find the cheapest solution,

        I think this is a novel idea and an interesting thought experiment.

        If we passed this federally, I think it’s most likely we see an outsourcing - to ourselves. With the market floor raised so high across the board, distortionary effects would then kick in and what I posit we’d see is a shitload of both business and consumer flight to rural areas.

        Prices for rent, obviously, would go through the fuckin roof. This would cause a mass exodus to surrounding areas, but I think business investment would actually beat them, because if you’re paying 60k/year anyway, you may as well put your facility in the cheapest possible location.

        Businesses are already shifting toward being physically close to their suppliers/major logistics hubs, to save cost elsewhere, so big “shipping towns” (which are, essentially, a few big wholesale distributors and nothing else) could see massive investment.

        What’s weird for me is that this may actually help our housing situation in the medium term, as explosive growth in these areas even out demand hotspots.

        Idk about high raises in labor market floors to predict much beyond that, but it’s something I’ll definitely check out.

        These aren’t completely pie-in-the-sky proposals, either. Simply tying maximum compensation for publicly owned companies would start this kind of a chain rolling, in a smaller way, I think. Labor prices would jump ludicrously just from the amount of low-skill labor employed by major companies.

        Inflation would be bonkers and you can’t raise interest rates too fast or you basically nuke your economy, so how this plays out for the average joe is anyone’s guess. Fun to think about tho

    • @[email protected]
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      1811 months ago

      I can’t for the life of me think that this will be good for them though. Food delivery services are notoriously shitty/slow. If I order a pizza and have to wait for an intendent person to come pick it up and deliver it when ever is convenient for them? Thats not gonna work for me… and I would be loud and boisterous to the company.

      • @[email protected]
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        In an alternate timeline where restaurants never thought to offer delivery (or regulated against it…since objectively it is kind of strange how we do it now), but did offer takeout, I’d expect private food courier services would have thrived. Especially in denser areas.

        Even in an era before DoorDash and internet, it’d be a call-center/concierge style.

    • @[email protected]
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      811 months ago

      But also gig drivers aren’t getting the minimum. Uber and Lyft promise you’ll make the minimum through the ride fares if you work a whole hour. But that doesn’t happen. Many people don’t notice because the pay is distributed across the rides but some have actually done the math with their daily totals. They also just lost a court case about paying mileage, so they not have to reimburse mileage they weren’t doing before.

      With a business climate like that it’s no wonder everyone else is jettisoning delivery drivers. The rideshare companies are getting away with murder by comparison.

    • @[email protected]
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      -811 months ago

      This is what’s so annoying. I had literal arguments with both people online and IRL about this massive jump in minimum wage and how it would have this exact effect. I was told over and over that it didn’t work like that, that people needed a livable wage, etc. My argument was that not all work has equal value and that minimum wage jobs aren’t intended as jobs you raise a family on. They’re a stepping stone as you enter the workforce and begin to develop/gain skills to be able to do work which has more value. With the insane increase in fast food minimum wage only one of two things will happen. Option one is that the price of the food shoots up and can no longer be competitive. Why would you pay $30 for fast food when you can go to an actual restaurant and get better quality for the same price? This leads many of these fast food joints to close and with it the jobs. Option two is that companies find ways to cut services and/or automate to offset the increased cost. The end result here is that once again the jobs go away.

      I would love to have a proponent of this explain to me how no jobs is preferable to lower paying jobs. As a highschool kid, I was grateful to have my minimum wage job.

      • @[email protected]
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        711 months ago

        Except minimum wage should support you fully because, as you may have noticed in high school, NOT everyone working at your minimum-wage workplace was “a high school kid”. Walmart and a lot of other places that skate by offering minimum wage effectively outsource the rest of the money they SHOULD be paying to the government - what you may know as “your fucking taxes”. You wanna see less people using welfare? You should be out there demanding companies pay more - some estimates are that Walmart’s profits are effectively buoyed as much as 40% by taxpayer-funded welfare programs like EBT, SNAP, TANF, and various forms of rent assistance, and there are similar numbers for other minimum-wage retailers and workplaces.

        “BUT THAT MIGHT RAISE PRICES”, you cry? Well, here’s the good thing - by raising MINIMUM wage, you can go to your boss and say “hey I’m only making $17 an hour doing [highly skilled job], that’s only $2 more than minimum, could we work out a raise?” And if you get your whole workplace to do this, or enough of your fellow coworkers doing similar positions, they would definitely feel far more compelled.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 months ago

        My argument is that the jobs DIDN’T go away, they just became gig jobs. In the big picture the increase had no effect except for speeding up the transition from one form of delivery job to a different form of delivery job.

        Min wage has to cover living expenses because otherwise people are forced to make up the difference from wellfare. So in effect it is a subsidy from taxpayers to companies that pay low wages.

        Full time, min-wage workers cannot afford rent for a 1-bedroom flat in 90% of the entire country.

  • Margot Robbie
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    4811 months ago

    Didn’t Pizza Hut use to be a high quality sit-down restaurant that didn’t even do delivery and had a big salad bar? At least, that’s how I remembered it, because I don’t think I’ve thought about Pizza Hut in years.

    Also, it is worth noting that these are companies that franchises Pizza Hut, not Pizza Hut owner Yum Brands. This is more of a case of companies being horrible in general instead of a large company being horrible.

    The 20 dollar minimum wage is however well deserved, and probably should be higher considering the cost of living here in California.

  • @[email protected]
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    4611 months ago

    A few months ago I was suddenly craving a pan pizza… out of nowhere. In the 80’s, Pizza Hut pan pizza was the shit. I was pining for the nostalgia, I suppose.

    The pizza was got was awful. Truly horrible. Pizza Hut is dead to me.

  • AlwaysNowNeverNotMe
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    3811 months ago

    Anyone remember reading that pizza had the highest profit margins in the restaurant industry?

    And the price has? Tripled? Quadrupled?

    And the ingredients are worse? And you get less?

    I wouldn’t consider buying pizza without 3 or more coupons going to the same transaction.

    • @[email protected]
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      411 months ago

      Huh, so it was a global thing then, here Pizza Hut became more expensive than every local pizzaria, and Domino’s is even worse, it’s like they compete on who can raise the prices more before closing.

    • @[email protected]
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      111 months ago

      It’s literally: cheese, bread, tomato sauce, and cheap processed meats.

      I stopped eating at Domino’s when they changed their 3-topping $8 large takeout deal to 1-topping.

      The amount of greed coming from these companies is insane, and it only exists because there are people willing to pay for it.

  • @[email protected]
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    3611 months ago

    Damn for a company that’s been shutting down locations I’d think it be cheaper to pay their employees better than lose all those customers. My state alone has seen them shut down nearly every location.