Some DoorDash truths

I started DD about 6 months ago ostensibly to get out of the house and make a few extra bucks doing something. I retired a few years ago and the latter part of my career was in tech and the last company, we had a logistics piece so I know how it works. I'm done with this dumpster fire.

DoorDash is a joke.

First, your tier. The only difference between Gold and Silver is? Nothing. Until you hit Platinum you're getting the bottom of the barrel orders everyone in Platinum passed on.

Ratings. Only two matter. Acceptance and Completion. These keep you IN Platinum. If you don't care then just do the minimum and get the sludge orders. On time? Random number. I tracked mine. It's fake. Customer rating? You'd have to be delivering by mule pack to not retain some semblance of a rating above 4.2.

Shopping. Hit and miss but if you actually took the time to ping the customer every time the platform didn't recognize a bar code, or try to substitute their substitution because the item/brand is completely out of stock you might as well pay them to shop for them. Pro-shopper is a joke.

Routing. Here's where the magic of DD comes in. You're NEVER going to make more than $20/hr. Cope. It doesn't calculate that you're 1/8 mile from the hot zone you WANT to be in, or that you're on the highway doing 80... if you're the only one of a few available you'll get the request to exit and go the other way for 5 miles to Dunkin. But the best part is that you're at 70% acceptance so you couldn't decline the order knowing full well it's a 7 mile one way trip into a desert you'll never pick up an order on the way back... for a whopping $4.25. But you can click unassign if you're over 95% delivery rate or deviously "Already picked up", "Not accepting DD Orders" or my favorite their having "system problems".to get out of it and hope something better pops up but those are nuclear options.

The whole thing is random.

Just download your driver data. The spreadsheet of variables is a joke. I mean, beyond laughable.

One thing you can count on though, and I've had it happen even post lawsuit... they will steal your tips DIRECTLY, they will manipulate your pay via tips, service fees etc to make sure they can make their quarterlies for investors - or at least get close. But you're NEVER, EVER going to make more than $20/hr. THAT IS part of the algorithm.

Customer service? Barely literate poor people with no training in Bangladesh or the Philippines. Pray you get a Philippino. They can't do much more than cancel and order. Don't ask them technical questions about your ratings or anything else... they'll talk a lot and say absolutely nothing useful because they just don't know. The email questionnaire post call? Another waste of time. Nobody reads them.

It took me the first month to kind of figure out what was going on and how to game the system which was the fun part for a bit. Then it became annoying so I started running metrics against their "algorithm", the platform inputs, customer service etc. Now I'm writing a dissertation that I'm sending to every tech rag, the WSJ and anyone else who wants to know just how vile this publicly traded dumpster fire really is.

If hope they rot. Looks like from their most recent disclosures they're on the way.