Prime members will now get free access to Grubhub+, expanding Amazon&#x27;s food delivery and takeout services.

Amazon expands Grubhub deal in food delivery push

Hungry while scrolling on Amazon Prime? Now you can get food without leaving the app. Here&#x27;s how you can get free food delivery with Prime&#x27;s new partnership with Grubhub.

Amazon Prime membership now comes with Grubhub subscription offering free food delivery

Amazon just announced that Prime Members now get Grubhub+ for free and you can order takeout from your favorite restaurants right from Amazon.

Grubhub+ is now free with Prime — and customers can order takeout on Amazon

The food delivery membership would cost $120 a year without a Prime membership.

Grubhub+ is now free for Amazon Prime members

Fast Company is the world&#x27;s leading progressive business media brand, with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, leadership, and design.

Prime members just got free food delivery, but Amazon could get 18% of 
Grubhub

Grubhub+ offers $0 delivery fees on orders over $12, and it&#x27;s now available to Prime members indefinitely. Amazon will also let you order food from Grubhub on its website and app.

Amazon Makes Grubhub+ Perk Permanent for Prime Members | PCMag

The new partnership integrates Grubhub’s delivery services with Amazon&#x27;s extensive customer base.

Amazon and Grubhub launch US food delivery partnership

Grubhub

grubhub

Earlier this year, a surprisingly good feta pasta dish went viral on TikTok. It wasn’t the first viral recipe on TikTok, and it certainly wasn’t the last. Now TikTok is going to do something that no other company like it has done before: start a restaurant. Well, a virtual restaurant. Just like MrBeast Burger, it will be delivery-only, with an assortment of restaurant kitchens doing the actual cooking. The menu will feature TikTok dishes like feta pasta, pasta chips, smash burgers, and corn ribs, with a menu that rotates every quarter. It’s a marketing thing TikTok Kitchen is more about promoting the platform than starting a restaurant company. And the food will be very different from normal restaurants, featuring the trendiest dishes instead of long-time favorites like burgers and fries. The restaurant will begin serving in 2022 with 300 locations, with over 1,000 locations by the end of the year.  It’s unclear how long this campaign will last; it’ll probably depend on how well it does and how much profit it makes. This may or may not become a permanent restaurant. How does it work? TikTok will be running this as a “virtual restaurant” in partnership with Grubhub and Virtual Dining Concepts. Virtual Dining Concepts uses the concept of “ghost kitchens” or “cloud kitchens.” The ghost kitchens prepare food under different brand names in a single kitchen and distribute it nearby via Grubhub. It’s a sort of “Uber for restaurants,” where restaurants that are struggling financially or want to maximize profits can sign up to start preparing food for other brands, such as MrBeast Burger, in the same kitchen. Any restaurant can fill out a if they want to start serving TikTok food. form Virtual Dining Concepts has partnered with many restaurants and has worked with Guy Fieri, Steve Harvey, Mariah Carey, Tyga, MrBeast, NASCAR, and others. On the one hand, they help small businesses by giving them an alternative income source. On the other hand, they promote monopolies because small restaurants become reliant on a big company to give them business. Small Businesses don’t get all the profits from their sales, because a significant portion goes to Virtual Dining Concepts, TikTok, and Grubhub. Stealing from creators? Is it ethical for TikTok to profit off other people’s work on their platform? TikTok says that they will be giving users credit for their creations and even giving them a cut of the sales. But many questions still remain unanswered. How much will users be paid? How will TikTok determine the original creator of the recipe? For instance, the feta pasta was originally created and promoted by Jenni Häyrinen before being posted to TikTok. And what happens if the original creator doesn’t want their dish being used in TikTok Kitchen? I haven’t read the terms and conditions, but it’s likely that users give TikTok the legal rights to distribute and profit off of their content. While there are some ethical questions, I think this new restaurant is a really great idea. Because they are such a big company, and because this is such an unusual concept, they automatically get publicity - like this article! I think a lot of people will be interested and will check it out, but it will only be successful long-term if it can actually provide value to people. It’s easy to make a virtual restaurant, but it’s harder to make one that feels real; one that people want to keep coming back to. Check out the related and reports, and follow my new , where I’ll post more great stories about tech and programming. TechCrunch Bloomberg Twitter account

What is TikTok Kitchen and How Does it Work?

Ordering food online has become a part of our daily. Nowadays, people prefer ordering food online from multi-restaurant marketplace like Uber eats, GrubHub and, Deliveroo etc. rather than visiting the restaurants. There are various factors which attract customers to order food from these platforms such as the convenience of food delivery, various discounts offered by the restaurants and wide range of restaurant options to order food, etc. The demand for online food ordering and delivery business in increasing by each passing year. According to , online food delivery business revenue amounts to US$94,385m in 2019 and expected to show an annual growth rate of 9.3%. statista Names like Uber eats, GrubHub, and Zomato, etc are top players of the industry and popular in most of the countries. But still, there are many areas where these platforms have not reached or established themselves. We have few examples of online food ordering startups that started in such uncovered local regions and earning high profits:- NoCo NOSH in Northern Colorado (It has more than 400 users so far) Cyber online food delivery service in Fijians Considering the success of these businesses in uncovered areas where big players have not established. Starting an online food ordering and delivery business in the local region can be a profitable business idea. But starting an online food delivery business in the local region is not walk in the park as there are certain steps which you need to follow. In this post we will discuss all the key factors to launch an online food ordering and delivery business in local region. 1. Connect with the Local Restaurants The first most step is to connect with the local restaurants around. You need to show them the positives of online food ordering and benefits they get by joining the multi-restaurant platform of their local region. As, customers now would prefer ordering food from nearest restaurant appearing on top of the list rather visiting the restaurant from far area. 2. Set Commission Rates Sustainable Than Big Players In order, to and establish online food ordering and delivery business in local region one needs to set commission rates sustainable than big players like Uber eats, GrubHub, etc. It will certainly promote the restaurants to join the food ordering business of their local region offering high profit to them. stay ahead of big names Here are some other key revenue methods in online food delivery marketplace :- 3. Have an option of Pick Up From Restaurants In a local region; some customers might prefer to pick up food from restaurants on their own rather than paying for home delivery. So, your online food ordering and delivery website should support pick up from restaurants option. Here is business model of online food delivery marketplace:- Image Credit 4. Invest in Local SEO of Your Business To make online food ordering and delivery business popular in the local area, investing in local SEO is very important. It can help you gain the attention of your potential customers who are searching for online food ordering. This form of marketing is also quite reasonable as compared to others. 5. Choose a Right Technology Solution For Launch To run a profitable online food ordering and delivery business in your region, a website much be enriched with some best features. So, selection of right technology solution to launch your online food ordering marketplace become really important. The solution should support all the key features which make your marketplace user-friendly. Here are names of some popular solutions. YoYumm Foodesoft Ordering DeliverLogic Some of the key features that the online food ordering platform must support are:- Appealing Homepage with all the main components like sign-in/ signup, search functionality, banners, etc. Inbuilt SEO features like optimized Meta tags, URL structure, clear navigation, etc. Multiple options to generate revenue for the site owner. Payment Gateway Cash On Delivery Discount Coupon Systems Pick Up From Restaurants Testimonials and reviews management system User-friendly checkout & order placement process Advanced search function for quickly finding Chat support and social sharing buttons Order history and confirmation Conclusion There are lots of business opportunities for entrepreneurs in online food ordering and delivery business in local region but one need’s to take care of certain things to be next big hit. If you know more names of successful online food ordering startup in local regions share with me in comments I will add in the post.

Start Online Food Delivery Business in Your Local Region

For most founders, landing Fortune 500 customers like GrubHub, Warby Parker & RBC Royal Bank is the definition of success. Imagine, then, telling these customers that you’re pivoting from your successful product to focus on something new. But that’s exactly what did — deprecating and launching . Jonathan Taplytics DevCycle Why pivot? Taplytics is a broad A/B testing platform for marketing teams. While DevCycle is a feature flagging tool built for developers. Taplytics actually has feature flagging, but DevCycle is much more focused and plans to compete directly with incumbents like by building a better developer experience (more on how later). LaunchDarkly But with Taplytics, they built so many features, and every customer was using them in a different way that it became hard for such a small team to maintain. Meanwhile, feature flagging is a much narrower problem where most customers will have similar use cases. In addition, Taplytics required lots of face-to-face time selling to executives, while DevCycle is more of a bottoms-up, self-serve sales process. Finally, we didn’t cover it in the interview, but feature flagging is a huge market. LaunchDarkly was in 2021. valued at $3 billion How did they make the pivot? Jonathan shared some interesting tidbits on what they did well. — they were able to bring many of their customers on the journey with them. There was two-way trust, and they struck me as a very transparent team. Have good relationships with your big customers For feature flagging, they shared that DevCycle would be a direct (better) replacement. For Taplytic’s other features, they communicated clearly and shared alternatives (such as ) while also continuing to maintain the Taplytics platform for those customers who are still in the process of migrating over. Ensure continuity for your customers — OneSignal With this approach, Jonathan shared that they were able to bring almost all their key customers with them. What does developer experience mean? I have a healthy skepticism of founders claiming they will win with developer experience. In , I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say developer experience wasn’t crucial, but the reality is that very few companies create great developer experiences. 60+ DevTools interviews So when Jonathan shared that he would beat the incumbents by building a better developer experience, I asked him what he really meant by developer experience. Your focus is on building a great core product that delights more than frustrates. As an example, they spent months on a custom testing system to ensure the consistency and quality of their server-side SDK. The team even jokes about having a landing page that just says, “DevCycle, well tested.” It’s not about building the flashiest and most marketable features. Iterating on core features can be boring when compared to shipping new things. So, they have a specific team focused on their core features. It’s about continually iterating on the core features. — DevCycle tries to make every piece of software that their clients install open source. With CNCF, they are leading a project called — a vendor-agnostic interface for feature flagging. Open-source & standardise interfaces OpenFeature Overall, this was a very brave decision to make, and only time will tell if it was the right call. However, I do believe that their commitment to quality and focus is credible, given the tough decision they made. P.S. I’m a lazy writer, so I condensed this write-up to only be about Jonathan. Even though the podcast conversation also included the equally great & . You can hear them in the . Andrew Brad full episode here Also published . here

Pivoting for Success: Jonathan's Startup Journey from Taplytics to DevCycle

The final frontier of delivery is going autonomous. As online orders surge and customers demand ever faster times, last-mile logistics is transforming at warp speed. Self-driving cars, drones and robots are invading suburbs worldwide, promising to bring goods to your door within minutes. No longer fiction, the vision of ordering coffee on a whim and seeing it arrive piping hot via robot is becoming reality. Need a package ASAP? Drones may soon deliver overhead. Companies like Yandex are accelerating this revolution by developing cutting-edge autonomous vehicles for last-mile tasks. In this article, we'll take a drive exploring the innovations upending last-mile delivery. We'll look at the technologies and companies at the forefront of this rapid change. We'll also peer into the future to speculate how new advances could push instant gratification to new heights. From Horse-Drawn Carriages to Delivery Drones People had been delivering goods for centuries using animals like horses and camels. Later, trains, ships and cars sped things up. But the last mile - getting items from large vehicles to destinations - remained difficult. E-commerce boomed in the late 1900s, creating demand for fast package shipping. FedEx and UPS rose with planes, trucks, and vans worldwide. Yet online orders grew so much that last-mile challenges also increased. Customers wanted speedier, cheaper, flexible options while costs rose for companies. To meet these problems, firms tried new methods. with free two-day shipping. They also did same-day and one-hour delivery, using instead of employees. Amazon has also experimented with drones, robots and lockers too, seeking better last-mile solutions. Amazon launched Prime in 2005 independent drivers The Last Mile: The Final Frontier of Logistics Last-mile delivery is important for several reasons. First, it is a key factor in customer satisfaction and loyalty. According to a survey by McKinsey, 25% of online shoppers would switch to another retailer if they had a bad delivery experience. Moreover, 56% of millennials said they would pay more for same-day or instant delivery. Therefore, offering fast and reliable last-mile delivery can give a competitive edge to online retailers. Second, last-mile delivery is a major cost driver in logistics. According to some estimates, last-mile delivery accounts for 41% of the total delivery cost and 53% of the total carbon emissions. Reducing the cost and environmental impact of last-mile delivery can improve the profitability and sustainability of online retail. Third, last-mile delivery is a source of . As technology advances and consumer behaviour changes, fresh solutions and players emerge in the last-mile ecosystem. For example, startups like DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates offer on-demand delivery services for food and groceries. Platforms like Uber Eats, Doordash, and Grubhub connect restaurants with customers and couriers. Companies like Yandex, Starship Technologies, and Nuro develop autonomous vehicles for last-mile delivery. innovation and opportunity The Tech Titans of Today: Yandex, Amazon, and Beyond Two companies that stand out as leaders in last-mile delivery innovation are Yandex and Amazon. Yandex is a Russian internet giant that provides services like search, advertising, e-commerce, maps, cloud computing, and self-driving technology. They've been developing autonomous vehicle technology and currently have a fleet of . These cars have driven over 4 million miles on public roads in Russia, Israel, and the US under various weather and road conditions. With this level of maturity and real-world experience, Yandex is considered one of the global leaders in self-driving development. since 2017 170 self-driving cars Yandex also launched their own delivery robot called Yandex.Rover for transporting small and medium packages autonomously. This robotic option could help automate last-mile delivery within their ecosystem and beyond, providing a sustainable way to deliver food and goods. In total, Yandex has invested approximately into their self-driving division. Recently, they launched Yandex.Rover commercial operations in Skolkovo, a major Russian tech hub. Yandex plans to introduce their autonomous services in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Tel Aviv in the near future as well. $150 million Amazon is another dominant player in e-commerce and technology, known for online retail, streaming, cloud services, AI, and smart devices. They've invested heavily in logistics to speed up and improve delivery. Amazon developed their own delivery network called Amazon Logistics which uses stations, sorting centres, transportation providers, and delivery partners to ship packages independent of traditional carriers. Amazon has also introduced autonomous solutions like , which aims to deliver packages by drone within 30 minutes, and Amazon Scout, a six-wheeled sidewalk robot for navigating neighbourhoods and dropping packages at doorsteps. Other experimental delivery methods from Amazon include in-car/home delivery with and locker/counter pickup with Amazon Hub. Through technological capabilities and their massive customer base, Amazon has become a major force in last-mile delivery. Amazon Prime Air Amazon Key Beyond Yandex and Amazon, companies like , , and are innovating as well. Starship designs small self-driving delivery robots for food, groceries and more across Europe and North America. Nuro partners with retailers to autonomously deliver goods like groceries and prescriptions using their vehicles. And Zipline runs what they claim is the world's largest drone delivery network, transporting medical supplies in Africa and beyond. In the next section, we'll examine some current last-mile delivery case studies. Starship Technologies Nuro Zipline Case Studies from the Front Line: Last-Mile Delivery Today Yandex.Rover in Serbia In June 2023, , Serbia, marking the first time it operated outside of Russia. Yandex partners with local restaurants, cafes, and supermarkets to offer fast, convenient food, grocery, and item delivery to customers via the Yandex app. Customers can track the robot's location and estimated arrival time. Using cameras, lidar and GPS, Yandex.Rover autonomously navigates sidewalks, crosswalks, and traffic lights. Speakers and a screen allow it to communicate with pedestrians and drivers. Its cargo compartment only opens with a unique QR or PIN code provided to the customer. Yandex launched its delivery robot Yandex.Rover in Belgrade This launch was part of Yandex's European expansion strategy. As a leading provider of search, maps, taxi, and food delivery services in Serbia, Yandex aimed to highlight its technological capabilities and offer a unique value with Rover as well. Amazon Prime Air in US, UK, and Italy Amazon Prime Air will integrate drone deliveries into Amazon’s existing fulfilment network, deploying from Same-Day Delivery sites. Amazon customers in Italy, the UK, and an additional U.S. city will soon have the option to get their packages delivered by a drone beginning in late 2024. The Prime Air drone delivery system is expanding to international locations and adding a third city in the United States by the end of next year— specific cities in the U.S. and abroad will be named in the coming months. Zipline in Nigeria In October 2022, through partnerships with the Kaduna State Government and Gates Foundation. Zipline delivers blood, vaccines, medication, and medical supplies from its Kaduna distribution centre to over 1,000 health facilities across the state via 120 km/h flying drones carrying 1.8kg payloads within 30 minutes in all weather. Zipline launched drone services in Nigeria Zipline's Nigeria launch expanded its mission begun in Rwanda in 2016 and Ghana in 2019, where it delivered over 1 million vaccine doses and saved thousands of lives. It aimed to further support universal healthcare in Nigeria. Upcoming Technologies: What’s In the Pipeline? Technology is one of the main drivers of innovation and disruption in last-mile delivery. As technology advances, novel solutions and possibilities emerge that could enhance the efficiency, convenience, and sustainability of last-mile delivery. Here are some of the upcoming technologies that could have a significant impact in the coming years: Hyperloop is a proposed mode of transportation that involves sending pods or capsules through a network of tubes or tunnels at shockingly high speeds, up to 1,200 kilometres per hour. Hyperloop could enable fast and low-cost transportation of goods over long distances, reducing the need for trucks, planes, or trains. Hyperloop could also connect urban areas with rural or remote areas, expanding the reach and accessibility of last-mile delivery. : Hyperloop Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that enables secure and transparent transactions among multiple parties without intermediaries. Blockchain could improve the traceability, accountability, and efficiency of last-mile delivery by enabling real-time tracking of goods, smart contracts for payments and deliveries, and decentralized platforms for peer-to-peer delivery. : Blockchain 3D printing is a technology that enables the creation of physical objects from digital models by depositing layers of material. 3D printing could revolutionize last-mile delivery by enabling on-demand and localized production of goods, reducing the need for inventory, warehousing, and transportation. 3D printing could also enable customization and personalization of goods, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. : 3D Printing Biotechnology is a technology that involves the manipulation of living organisms or biological systems. Biotechnology could transform last-mile delivery by enabling novel solutions for packaging, preservation, and delivery of goods. For example, biodegradable packaging made from algae or fungi could reduce waste and environmental impact. Bioengineered foods or medicines could extend shelf life and improve quality. Biosensors or biometrics could enable secure and convenient delivery verification. : Biotechnology However, challenges exist - technical and regulatory hurdles, social acceptance, ethics, and cybersecurity risks require careful evaluation before adopting unfamiliar concepts. Strategic Shifts: Predicting the Unpredictable While technology drives change, unpredictable human factors also impact last-mile delivery's future. Shifting consumer behaviours, economic conditions, environmental concerns, politics, and natural disasters create uncertainty, with opportunities and risks. To adapt amid this complexity, companies must strategically pivot. Transitioning focus from products alone to customers' experiences demands deep understanding of needs, personalization, and loyalty-building through positive impact. Transitioning from ownership to access alters business models, as shared subscriptions and rentals replace individual purchases in the circular sharing economy. Platform ecosystems boost availability. Moving operations away from centralization delegates control and fosters innovation through distributed localized partner networks, peer-to-peer crowdsourcing, and community cooperation. However, achieving the right product-service balance with these shifts requires trade-offs. Implementing changes across dispersed stakeholders introduces risks that must be diligently governed. Incentives and resource coordination become more intricate. Careful consideration weighs consequences before wholesale adoption. But navigating humanity's disruptive course demands agility and vision. Strategic flexibility positions resilience amid uncertainty, preparedness navigating both risks and opportunities ahead. With responsibility and diligence, last-mile leaders can help deliver the future people need. The Future is Now One thing is clear - we are witnessing the dawning of a new era. An era where imagination meets innovation, where science fiction becomes a science fact, where the impossible becomes possible. Yesteryear's visions of drones, robots and self-driving vehicles delivering goods on demand have already transformed into today's reality. Pioneers like Yandex, Amazon and Starship have pulled the future into the present and set us boldly on a course we could only dream of just a decade ago. What will the next decade bring? It is impossible to say for certain, but if history is any guide, it may surpass even our most outlandish speculations. The innovations will continuously reshape life as we know it, delivering value to all in their wake. As for the rest of us, our role is clear - embrace change with optimism and curiosity. Keep an open mind for what is to come, everyone!

The Last-Mile Delivery Revolution: What’s Next on the Horizon?

In October 2022, The Markup published an investigation into . Afterward, many readers, including fellow journalists, reached out to ask how they could replicate the investigation for other cities. internet disparities in 38 major cities across the United States We wanted to help make that possible, but we knew that the early challenge we had with sourcing, cleaning, and wrangling street addresses would pose an issue. So, we got to work on finding a way to help people get easy access to randomized address data—or as we like to say, receipts from streets. Here's the tool United States Place Sampler (USPS) Today we’re introducing a beta version of The United States Place Sampler (USPS), a new tool by Big Local News and The Markup that samples random street addresses in the United States: https://usps.biglocalnews.org/ The “P” in US S refers to the U.S. Census Bureau’s definition of “ ,” which is an encompassing term for geographic entities such as municipalities, cities, towns, neighborhoods, and named areas. P place This includes legally defined geographic areas called “incorporated places,” like New York City and Milwaukee, Wis., as well as “Census designated places,” which are unincorporated and have no legal boundaries, like Stanford, Calif., and Hershey, Pa. USPS can collect either a percentage or a finite number of street addresses for geographic designations, such as Census block groups, cities, towns, and counties. Here's the code GitHub Based on the work The Markup has done so far, we know the tool will be useful for analyzing disparities between address-level outcomes with socioeconomic data from the U.S. Census Bureau and historical redlining maps from the University of Richmond’s project. Mapping Inequality With that in mind, each address record USPS provides contains the surrounding area’s Federal Information Processing Series ( ) codes down to the Census block group level. FIPS Aside from allowing readers to reproduce our investigation in their own cities, we also hope that USPS will be useful to fellow journalists, researchers, and others who seek accountability through street-level data. Journalists and researchers can use USPS to sample addresses and test for disparities in: Outages to utilities through service outage portals for , , and electricity gas cable Access to grocery stores, hospitals, trauma centers, polling places, and other essential locations across neighborhoods and cities Availability, and rates of location-based services likes ride sharing (Uber, Lyft, Revel), food delivery (GrubHub, DoorDash, Uber Eats), and e-commerce Soon, we will be releasing a step-by-step-guide showing how to replicate our investigation into internet disparities in other American towns and cities using USPS. (Sign up for our newsletter to be among the first to know. here Why Did We Build USPS? As part of our investigation into internet service providers, we collected and analyzed more than  one million internet plans offered across 38 major cities and found that lower-income, least-White, and historically redlined areas were disproportionately offered slow internet speeds for the same price as faster speeds elsewhere in the same city. In the process, we discovered the difficulty of a seemingly simple task of building a representative sample of random addresses in a city. The first issue was finding a data source. Publicly available street address databases were scarce, and those that we could access were incomplete. Even though “clicking around Google Maps” was the accessible, readily available option for most people trying to gather addresses in a given area at any sort of scale, statisticians advised us (and we agree) that it’s biased and shouldn’t be used. We decided to use , which is an open-source repository of addresses and associated geographic coordinates collected from public data from state and local governments. Although OpenAddresses does not include full coverage of the United States, it was the best source we could find and had adequate coverage in the major cities in our investigation. OpenAddresses Coverage aside, we found that many addresses were incomplete—lacking cities, zip codes, and other geographic markers we would need for our analysis. To standardize and complete these addresses, we used the U.S. Census Bureau’s , which lets us map the Census block group and designated place (city) to the geographic coordinates that were provided for every address in the dataset. To learn more about our methodology, see our companion article for our investigation . geocoder API here Following publication, journalists in at least seven of the cities we investigated used our data to for their neighbors. But , researchers, city workers, educators, and readers who were not in one of those 38 cities also expressed an interest in reproducing our methodology to map internet speeds near them. localize our findings journalists We began writing a guide on how to manually collect internet offer information from the front end of internet service providers’ websites so that anyone from high school classrooms to community groups to civil servants could follow the process. However, we soon realized it would be unrealistic to expect others to source street addresses the same way we did. We also didn’t feel as if it would be responsible to offer an easy solution that could be biased, such as “clicking around Google maps.” So, we partnered with Big Local News to download, clean, and index every address we could find in the United States to simplify the task of sampling random street addresses. How Do You Use USPS? To build a sample of addresses on . usps.biglocalnews.org Enter the name of the location you would like to sample from Specify a number percentage of addresses you’d would like to sample or Press “Search” Now you should see a map with some dots; click the plus sign and then “download CSV” https://themarkup.org/still-loading/2023/03/02/introducing-the-united-states-place-sampler-usps These searches will require a bit of patience, since USPS queries more than 200 million addresses. Want More Control Over Your Search? If you need greater precision, you can specify a search by a Census block group, county, or city using custom query strings. To search by a city or town name, use the `place` query syntax. place: buffalo city You can do the same for , , county-subdivision ( ), Census , and Census block group ( ). state county cousub tract bg In the future, we will document the underlying API for others to programmatically pull samples of addresses. Please visit Big Local News’s and for updates. GitHub page usps.biglocalnews.org How Did We Build USPS? USPS uses addresses from public data from the open-source project OpenAddresses, and shapes and geographic metadata from the U.S. Census Bureau’s from 2022. Tiger Shapefiles OpenAddresses data was ingested for every address in the United States between Feb. 19 and Feb. 23. In total, the first iteration of USPS contains more than 200 million addresses. The tool is powered by , an extension to the PostgreSQL database that supports geographic objects and spatial queries. PostGIS Rather than make a request to the Census geocoder API for each U.S. address from OpenAddresses, we preprocessed addresses with PostGIS’ . This executes the same functions as our original methodology but with a simpler data pipeline that doesn’t strain the U.S. Census Bureau’s servers, given the scale of addresses we preprocessed. Tiger Geocoder PostGIS also allows USPS to use “ ”—which uses geographic bounding boxes as the main reference point, making geographic-based queries fast and efficient. spatial indexing For USPS, we created spatial indices around the Census Tiger Shapefiles for each geographic designation (Census block group, place, county, etc.) and used those as reference points to quickly filter addresses against their geographic coordinates. But before that was possible, each address’s geographic coordinates were converted to the same coordinate system as the TIGER data (called epsg:4269) and stored in another spatial index. By , , and Leon Yin Aaron Sankin Joe Nudell for Big Local News at Stanford Also published here Photo by on israel palacio Unsplash

The United States Place Sampler (USPS): The Tool to Help You Learn More About Your City

Typically, banks prefer predictable and stable customers. And yet, due to the sporadic nature of gig workers’ income, they don’t make for safe and reliable customers in the eyes of the bank. But with gig economy workers bringing in each year in the UK alone and with the number of gig workers in Europe expected to reach by 2025, this viewpoint has started to change. £20 billion 43 million The gig economy refers to the market primarily consisting of temporary, contract or workers. In other words, they’re integral members of a profitable economy since millions of entrepreneurs and businesses rely on part-time workers. freelance The main reason why there are more gig workers is that since the first wave of COVID-19 wiped out about jobs in the European Union, unemployment rates have been skyrocketing and parents have needed to prioritize childcare. Therefore, a significant section of the population was searching for flexible jobs — and here saw a considerable rise in the gig economy. six million However, the new influx of gig workers highlighted the existing gig economy issues of high cross-border payments, slow , and limited access to banking products and services. And without gig-specific help from financial institutions, entrepreneurs, startups and gig workers will struggle to grow in the current economy. payments So, how can the banking industry use open banking to address its neglect of the gig economy? And what essential products and services do gig workers need? Open banking: External collaboration is the golden ticket The open banking paradigm drives embedded finance as a first step for many banks. Through the power of application programming interfaces (APIs)–coupled with an embedded finance platform that enables intelligent API orchestration–banking can be composable to allow individual financial products, payments, and fintech features to be embedded into bank or brand applications. This shift towards collaboration and a banking ecosystem enables banks to leverage the technical capabilities of embedded finance platforms that expose financial APIs, so the bank can focus on bringing products to market through diligent program management. Banks face several limitations regarding product innovation, most related to legacy Most legacy cores are not real-time, and transactions don’t become official until the end of the day processing. By using an embedded finance platform, banks can run accounts above the core through a virtual ledger, increasing speed to market without the need to invest vast sums of money into core modernization projects. Hence, all these advantages make building embedded finance products economically viable for banks. banking systems. Through this partnership, banks can subscribe to their own tech stack allowing them to use the platform’s technology to design products and services of their choosing, like gig-specific bundles, that may include payroll accounts with earned wages, micro-loans, and insurance.  Banks can create bundles specific to gig-industry verticals such as transportation services, like Uber, or asset-sharing services, like Airbnb. As banks partner with gig platforms, they can embed these products and bundles into their platform, making them more desirable employers to gig workers and creating new customers and core deposits. Essential tools needed by gig workers Financial management tools When workers don’t receive routine income, tracking spending and sticking to budgets is much more challenging. One way for banks to cater to the specific needs of gig workers is by providing financial management tools. For example, Moves Financial has created a gig-specific bank account with no fee or minimum balance and can track earnings and expenses from over 20 gig platforms. Another app, such as Para, is ideal for drivers within the gig industry with automatic integration with gig platforms like Uber, Grubhub, and Lyft, allowing drivers to compare earnings and mileage across gig platforms helping them to them make better work decisions. Moreover, since many gig workers are considered self-employed, this doesn’t make them eligible for health care which is a frequent benefit of full-time permanent employment. Yet, with apps like Starship, gig workers can save specifically for health care expenses for themselves and their families, with their investment earning interest tax-free. These financial tools can assist entrepreneurs and gig workers in keeping track of their contracts and payments, giving them greater control of their work and financial health. Payment integration A report from Wonolo found that of gig workers surveyed live paycheck to paycheck. Therefore, real-time payments are crucial for gig workers to accelerate capturing their income. 55% To overcome this frequent bugbear, banks can enable instant and secure transactions, and request to pay by integrating payment APIs into gig platforms. Another positive of providing payment integration is that it can increase bank processing time and reduce exchange rate volatility — essential for gig workers based in a different country than their employer. For example, before 2016, Uber drivers had to wait up to one week for payouts. However, Uber’s partnership with Mastercard Send and Green Dot, a fintech and bank holding company, allowed real-time payments to debit card holders and caused up to Uber drivers to sign up with Green Dot. 100,000 Tailored loans A recent survey from Rollee discovered that gig workers had been denied access to basic financial products, like loans, and 57% had to apply to more than three lenders before accessing a loan or credit card. seven out of ten These cash advances can help gig workers improve their day-to-day life and business prospects. For instance, small loans could cover car repairs, equipment purchases, and additional workspaces. By partnering with gig platforms, banks can also gain data insights and trends of gig workers, allowing the banks to create unique and gig-specific customer loans to a broader spectrum of gig workers who would have previously not qualified since work records would have been spread across various platforms. Wrapping up Through the power of open banking, banks can partner with embedded finance platforms, to serve a growing and previously marginalized area of the economy. By accessing previously unavailable customer data, banks will no longer view gig workers as risky customers with unstable incomes. Banks can improve gig workers’ daily lives and support business opportunities while opening themselves to another strong income stream. This article was originally published by on Riaz Syed 150Sec.

How Open Banking Helps Bridge the Financial Divide for Gig Workers

Earlier this week, announced their . Nelson Chai, Uber CFO, reported: Uber first-ever profitable quarter The unique power of the Uber platform and the team’s relentless focus on profitable growth was on full display in Q2, with record profitability and over $1 billion of quarterly free cash flow Uber’s stock has gone through a roller coaster journey since its IPO in 2019. Several factors contributed to this, including lower demand during COVID lockdowns, and a highly competitive market in both ride-hailing and delivery. Uber’s stock was hit hard when the market correction began in 2022, particularly given its lack of profitability. So, their first profitable quarter is a remarkable milestone for the company. One number stood out in their earnings. That was - Even though the advertising business has only been around for four years, $650M (for simplicity, assume this is pure profit given advertising is an all-margin business) is Uber’s annual free cash flow**.** Undeniably, this has been one of their largest drivers of profitability. Uber ads’ annual revenue run rate . $650M ~15% of In this article, we’ll dive into: Uber’s difficult path to profitability Breaking out of the low profitability loop The Uber ads product How successful can this be Uber’s difficult path to profitability Since Uber’s founding in 2009, the ride-hailing business has grown exponentially. An influx of venture capital money into the industry kicked off an era of heavily discounted rides and regulatory successes against taxi cartels, ending with Uber owning . The recent years also saw a steady state emerge in non-US geographies - Uber sold their China business for a and continued to maintain a in India. 70%+ of the US market today partial stake in Didi 40-50% market share However, the market in most geographies today continues to be a duopoly, and Uber given the lack of consumer loyalty towards a particular brand. In fact, despite getting to profitability this quarter, Uber’s stock dropped due to concerns about a . continues to have to engage in price wars re-emerging price war with Lyft In the delivery business, while UberEats had a first-mover advantage, in the US. While this business has grown steeply through the pandemic and now constitutes of gross bookings, the market continues to be highly competitive, limiting how profitable Uber can be. DoorDash now has the lead ~half Breaking out of the low profitability loop has made some strategic product investments to break out of this loop, let’s look at a few. Uber They - a monthly subscription that provides $0 delivery fee on Uber Eats, ~5% discounts on Uber rides, and promotions at specific restaurants. Uber says they have . On a generous basis, the $10/month subscription generates ~$1.4B in annual revenue, which could be very meaningful especially if it can make consumers use Uber more often. On a conservative basis, 12M is the current active subscribers at this moment in time but does not account for how many would churn. I would imagine that the churn rate is high + the acquisition rate is not great, given several competitor memberships come complimentary (Chase Sapphire gives you free DashPass, Amazon Prime gives you free GrubHub+). Nevertheless, even at a limited level of success, this could make a meaningful dent in profitability. launched Uber One ~12M subscribers Uber also announced a to start bringing autonomous vehicles into the platform long-term. While this is likely to take a while to play out, it could be a long-term driver for profitability. multi-year partnership with Waymo Uber mentioned another interesting win in their earnings press release but in suspiciously vague terms: . “Mobility Revenue in Q2 2022 and Q2 2023 benefited from business model changes in the UK by $1.1 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively” Upon further digging, it turns out that Uber , instead of the total price of the ride. For example, Uber would show a driver that they would make 4 GBP instead of showing the ride price as 5 GBP (of which Uber takes ~20%). This was done in response to new UK regulation, but the impact was surprising: started showing drivers how much they would earn while accepting a ride . “Mobility Take Rate in Q2 2022 and Q2 2023 includes a net benefit from business model changes in the UK of 810 bps in each period” In other words, changes to how prices were shown to drivers created thereby increasing Uber’s profitability. opacity, that effectively let Uber increase their take rates by ~8 percent points, Beyond these, the most notable profitability driver for them was advertising. The Uber ads product Uber has a few different product offerings tied to surfaces where ads can be shown. On the Uber Eats app: Sponsored Listings let restaurants appear in front of users when they’re deciding what to order, directly tying the ad to the successful outcome of Uber Eats transactions. Storefront Ads and In-Menu Ads allow promoting specific items within a restaurant/business’ list of items, typically catered towards consumer packaged goods advertisers (eg. PepsiCo promoting Doritos when you’re ordering from 7-Eleven) Post-Checkout Ads let any advertiser (doesn’t have be an Eats business) show brand awareness ads, including video. In the Uber ride-hailing app, they offer Journey Ads (video or image ads that appear when you’re waiting for - or during your ride) and Tablet Ads (on Ubers that have tablets). These formats can be used by any advertiser but primarily work for brand awareness purposes. What makes advertising attractive for Uber as a company is that it’s essentially a . Ride-hailing and delivery are high-scale but low-medium margin businesses - Uber typically keeps 20-30% of the gross bookings. With ads, Uber can create advertising inventory at zero cost and keep 100% of the revenue generated. 100% margin product Advertising does not exist in a vacuum (i.e. if there are no users in the ride-hailing and delivery apps, there is no ad inventory to monetize) but in the presence of high consumer engagement, it’s an incredibly powerful tool for Uber to . generate net new profits that subsidizes the lower margin core business How successful can this be? The success of this product depends on being able to sell to a large set of advertisers and scale revenue. How much advertisers are willing to pay is typically determined by: the scale of users, outcomes a particular surface/ad format can drive, the ability to target specific users, and the ability to measure outcomes. Uber definitely has the scale ( ). They also have robust data to target users based on a variety of factors - like loyalty to a restaurant, cuisine interest, past items purchased, locations visited, location trends, and more. 137M monthly users Among the ad surfaces, there is a clear duality. UberEats is a cleaner pitch for any performance advertiser - spend ad money with Uber and measure the value of UberEats transactions generated. The ROI is straightforward and given UberEats’ market share, this is an easy sell. However, ads within the Uber ride-hailing app are a trickier sell. Uber : makes the argument An average ride is about 20 minutes, which means 20 minutes where a person is leaned back and really receptive to advertising. And that’s where a lot of clients, such as those in entertainment, fashion, travel and financial, are using the opportunity to engage our consumers. The idea here is really to go into more CTV (connected TV) types of advertising campaigns. It’s basically your TV placement. These placements are likely to work better when a brand is interested in building awareness - either for the brand itself (eg. the GEICO ad you see on TV) or for a particular seasonal product (eg. the ad you see on NYTimes when Nissan is releasing a new Rogue model). Typically, the placements that receive high cost per impression (CPM) are the ones that are very high quality / have dedicated eyeballs (eg. Super Bowl ads) and are well-targeted, and Uber is only one of those. Not to say this isn’t an opportunity - several advertisers have large branding budgets and Uber’s scale gives them a , and they will. What could further accelerate this opportunity is the - until then, I’m and I am excited to see advertising be a key profitability driver for the company. clear right to take a piece of the branding pie creation of more formats that could cleanly tie to advertiser ROI most bullish about UberEats ads Also published here. Thank you for reading! Like this piece? Do consider subscribing to . I publish one in-depth analysis of a current tech and business topic every week, in the form of a 10-minute read. Best, Viggy. my weekly Substack newsletter Unpacked

Uber's Profitability: A Deep Dive into the Impact of Advertising

Uber-এর লাভজনকতা: বিজ্ঞাপনের প্রভাবে গভীর ডুব

Ubers Rentabilität: Ein tiefer Einblick in die Wirkung von Werbung

Rentabilidad de Uber: una inmersión profunda en el impacto de la publicidad

La rentabilité d'Uber : une analyse approfondie de l'impact de la publicité

उबेर की लाभप्रदता: विज्ञापन के प्रभाव का गहन अध्ययन

Uber の収益性: 広告の影響を深く掘り下げる

Uber의 수익성: 광고의 영향에 대한 심층 분석

Rentabilidade da Uber: um mergulho profundo no impacto da publicidade

Uber'in Kârlılığı: Reklamcılığın Etkisine Derin Bir Bakış

Khả năng sinh lời của Uber: Tìm hiểu sâu về tác động của quảng cáo

Uber 的盈利能力：深入探讨广告的影响

The economy has changed. There are many reasons for this, most of which appear to be good, and coming from the motivation of wanting to find the balance between income, passion, and freedom. COVID was a huge wake up call to millions of people that the traditional means and order by which the world tends to view work is not only outdated, but also unhealthy. Trading a lifetime of employment for a bit of security and a 401k is no longer as appealing to newer generations as that of freedom, fulfillment, and the opportunities to grow in the abilities that truly after. As a result, the 9-to-5 structure is beginning to wane in popularity in comparison to the flexibility of lifestyle afforded by a gig economy. Entrepreneurs who take the time to learn about and study the specifics of what is driving the gig economy can benefit greatly by understanding what types of hiring decisions to make, what services are most needed, and how to grow those businesses. Gig Economy A is powered by freelance workers running on short-term contracts, a job that usually only lasts until a project is complete. Being that there are emerging ever more and more opportunities, app’s, business, and platforms by which people can begin to find and offer their services or the work that needs to be done means that there is plenty of work to be had. gig economy The fact that these new ideas are ushering in new ways of thinking about how business happens means that even things as traditionally strict as hours of operation are getting thrown out the window. People can now work a few hours a day, a few times a week or just when they feel like. The ability to shift between multiple different services like GrubHub to a part-time job, then to teaching a class on a subject matter that they have experience in means that people are finding more freedom. The plethora of jobs and service variety that makes up the gig economy is only limited to the imagination. From dog walking to freelance writing, photography, or gardening, someone somewhere needs help with a project. That's what fuels a new growing aspect of the overall economy that is projected to be valued in trillions of dollars by 2025. The gig economy is not really a new idea. While it has certainly gained traction with the newest generations, much of this gig economy has its roots born from the necessary reactions due to the global financial crisis in 2007-2008. Being that so many businesses during that time were harshly affected by those unfortunate turn of events meant that they had to rethink how to do business or face closing their doors. When millions of people started getting laid off by no fault of their own, they had to start thinking about what to do to survive. As a result, many of those people started turning to freelance and contract work to make it through those tough financial years. When the same things started to happen during the pandemic, our adaptable, capable species began to again do what it needed to do to survive. Only this time, the nature of the crisis was financially and existentially based. It's hard to be comfortable with the idea of going back to a loathsome job when the constant threat of death is looming in the back of one's mind. The combined motivations inspired people to start reaching back into the skills, talents, and abilities that bring them fulfillment with a paycheck— most of what makes up the ever-growing popularity of entrepreneurial work. Interestingly, the shift in economic tides to a gig economy already had a solid place in the American workforce. There were an estimated 55 million people making a living by a gig lifestyle in 2017. That's around 36%. That number has grown by about six million more people since 2010 according to a CNBC report. Changes to the Workforce It may not be surprising to hear that, in Edelman Data & Intelligence, 63% of people chose to start freelancing work rather than out of necessity, and 79% of freelancers find freelance work to be better than a normal job. a survey done by the independent research firm The key motivations in people switching over to freelance work has to do, not surprisingly, with freedom and flexibility afforded such a lifestyle: 68% of freelancers say that the ability to own their career is very important, paired with the attractive ability to work remotely which scored at 54%. When combining those motivations with 78% wanting greater flexibility of schedule and 73% citing the ability to pursue work that they find more meaningful, it's easy to see why there is a significant shift taking place in the foundations of traditional ideas about work and business. As more and more people step into the stream of the Great Resignation, more people who have yet to do so are considering the benefits they hear about from friends, family, and relatives. Shifts in Traditional Business As more companies see and feel the shifts that are taking place generally and specifically as to how business is being conducted, they will need to adjust. The rapid and undeniable growth of the gig economy is fueling entrepreneurial interest and availability. Every entrepreneur will come to a place in their business history where they will have to make tough decisions about how to proceed amidst the struggle of profitability. When a tough project with a curveball kind of request comes from a favorite client, the ability to turn to the gig economy platforms that connect freelancers with businesses in need. For the seasoned entrepreneur, the gig economy provides greater flexibility to deliver consistently great work without the chains of paperwork, , training, and the like. corporate taxes Setting aside a lot of the major expenses not only minimizes risks, but it also allows for reallocation of ideas and resources for new growth in the future.

The Gig Economy Revolution: Inspiring a New Generation of Entrepreneurs

Backend Development is also known as server-side development. It is everything that the users don’t see and contains behind-the-scenes activities that occur when performing any action on a website. It focuses primarily on databases, backend logic, APIs, and Servers.” The top backend development frameworks in 2022 are Node.js, Golang, PHP (Laravel, cakePHP), C# (ASP.NET), Java (Spring), Python (Django/Flask), and Ruby (Ruby on Rails). Why Use A Backend Framework? Separating your backend from your frontend is modern best practice when building web applications. 95% of the time the backend serves as a CRUD application with an API that allows you to send data to and from the frontend of your website. This makes your application more scalable as you can make edits to the backend or frontend without risking the functionality of the other. The frameworks that we will go through below are all built with security in mind. By using a modern backend development framework you have the power of the communities working to ensure that your backend is secure and safe from modern threats. Major companies, banks, and institutions rely on these frameworks including Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and most major companies. You can think of frameworks like building blocks that are already put together for you. They allow you to benefit from the knowledge and progress of others without needing to write everything yourself. In frameworks like Laravel things like login and user management are already built into the codebase from the start. This way your development team doesn’t need to waste time reinventing the wheel. The Top Backend Frameworks in 2022 Node.js Is The Clear Cut #1 Backend Node.js stands out as the best backend framework. It is used by the most modern and cutting edge companies to develop web applications. The list includes Netflix, NASA, Trello, PayPal, LinkedIn, Uber, Twitter, GoDaddy, and more. You simply can’t argue with a list like that. Node.js also allows web developers to build their entire application in JavaScript, making fullstack engineering teams easier than ever. For many year JavaScript was seen as a web framework that could only run with a JavaScript engine in the browser. Chrome helped change that with the opensource v8 JavaScript engine. This allowed the creator of Node.js, Ryan Dahl, to build the Node.js runtime for server side execution of JavaScript. Essentially making it so the backend of the application also had a JavaScript engine in order to execute JavaScript. Ultimately most technologies come down to their efficiency at a use case and the level of support in the community to innovate and move it forward. Node.js has both of these. Node.js is built to be able to handle a large amount of simultaneous interactions, perfect for the web. In fact PayPal saw a 35% reduction in average response time after switching to Node.js. It also boasts a massive and growing community with the most momentum out of any backend framework. Popular Node.js frameworks include Express.js, Adonis.js and others. These include different pre-built elements depending on the project you are working on. Golang – The Top Backend Choice For Heavy Computation Golang is an awesome programming language that was made specifically with performance in mind. Developed by Google in 2007, Go was made similar to C to make it as efficient as possible when dealing with high-performing concurrent services. It is also useful for many different purposes like Python making it a powerful all around language as well as a backend technology. Go also boasts a load of top companies using it including Google, Dropbox, Riot Games, Twitch, and others. Top companies like Netflix and Uber use both Golang and Node.js. This is because with modern web applications you can write different microservices in different languages, allowing you to use the best performing technology for each specific service needed. Maybe streaming video uses one language, while facial recognition uses another technology. Ultimately, if you are building something big that will be data intensive and complex Golang could be the right backend technology for you. Go is a more specialized language and therefore for the average project it can be more complex than other alternatives. Python – Django & Flask Python is one of the most popular programming languages in the world. These days it is often one of the first programming languages people learn in computer science. With this community comes the support of two excellent backend frameworks Django and Flask. As always with Python one of the main reasons it is a popular backend framework is due to the simplicity of the code. Python is almost like readying written text compared to other more complex languages. Python also boasts some of the best frameworks for machine learning and data science including Keras, Pandas, Tensorflow, and others. This means that if you want to build a data intensive application then you only need to have Python developers to build the whole backend. C# – ASP.NET ASP.NET written in C# is one of the most popular backend frameworks. As with all things Microsoft it comes with excellent support and a strong community moving the technology forward. Companies using ASP.NET include Slack, Alibaba Travels, Grubhub, CNN, and HBO. C# is a programming language that has been perfected and supported over the years, making it one of the most powerful technologies for building large enterprise applications. You will have a world of documentation at your fingertips, great plugins for VSCode, unit testing ready to roll, and every other feature you could ever need laid out for you. You will also benefit from the support of Microsoft if you ever need it. Building a backend in C# with ASP.NET is not the most modern technology, but it is a robust and powerful framework that would make any technology nerd impressed. PHP – Laravel & CakePHP Come Ready To Deploy With PHP you have several popular backend frameworks. We will focus on the most popular Laravel and CakePHP. With these frameworks you get you backend API ready to send routes in almost no-time. For beginners and smaller projects these technologies are excellent as they are some of the fastest to build in. The web itself is built on PHP which has been around since 1994. This means that PHP is very well documented and has a massive community of developers. However, with an older language like PHP you miss out on all the innovation that comes with newer technologies. Luckily in frameworks like Laravel you are working mostly with their documentation that keeps you out of the weeds of regular PHP development. This speeds things up and allows keeps it simple. Unless you have an existing skillset in PHP (Laravel or CakePHP) we would recommend you build with a newer technology like Node.js. However depending on your development team’s skillset PHP can make a lot of sense. We use Laravel ourselves for some services at slashdev.io and have loved it. Java – Spring Java is the most used programming language in the world followed by Node.js, TypeScript, and C#. It has been around for years and boasts a massive community. It would be considered the oldest and most bulky of the technologies on this list and to be honest we almost never see anything new being built in Java. large companies use Java and have been building with it for years. The support is strong and you can build anything with it. However, for most there are better options (Node.js). Ruby – Ruby on Rails Ruby and it’s backend web framework Rails were on top of the world for a few years. Rails was released in 2005 and was a hot new framework for companies building web applications. Ruby was made to be easy to learn and has clear syntax. This makes it similar to Python and easy for developers to pickup. In recent years Ruby on Rails has fallen off with most companies. It has a very small pool of developers making finding talent harder than other languages. It also has been eclipsed by technologies like Node.js and Golang as the most performant new frameworks around. Ruby on Rails is a strong framework and it makes this list for a reason. However if you are looking to build a team around it we have found it to be one the hardest skills on the market to find. Along with this it has lost momentum to other frameworks on the market. Your Job As CEO/CTO Is To Make The Right Call Ultimately, only you understand the inputs and needs for your project. It is your job to consider speed vs. support, hiring vs doing yourself etc. We hope that this helps give you an idea of what we are seeing in our development community so that you can use this knowledge in your own pursuits. Also published . here

The Top Backend Development Frameworks in 2023

By the time the ambulance arrived, Brandy Littrell said she didn’t know how many times she’d been shot. As the paramedics carefully cut off her clothes, they counted—seven. She said she was hit in her leg, stomach, arm, breast, neck, and back. The impact of the bullets broke her shoulder and bruised a lung. Littrell was driving for Lyft when she picked up a passenger around noon on Nov. 2, 2021, in a tree-laden suburb of Jackson, Miss. Shortly after the ride began, the passenger, whose name in the app was “dtown,” held a gun to Littrell’s head and told her to get into the back seat, she said. He drove to a forested area, forced her to walk into the woods, told her to get on her knees, and repeatedly shot her. Then, she said, he took off with her black Dodge Journey. “I felt blood dripping down my neck and my face, and it was dripping on my glasses. I thought, ‘This is how I’m fixing to die,’ ” said Littrell, who was 36 at the time. “I lay there for a few seconds and realized I wasn’t dead, and I realized I got to get out of there.” Littrell was working for Lyft, but she is just one of hundreds of gig workers—Lyft and Uber drivers, and DoorDash, Instacart, Grubhub, and Amazon Flex couriers—who’ve been carjacked in the U.S. over the last five years. In many of these cases, the would-be assailants used the company apps themselves to lure unsuspecting drivers. The Markup has tracked a total of 361 ride-hail and delivery drivers who’ve been victims of carjackings or attempted carjackings since 2017. We initially reported and now have tracked 237 more. 124 such incidents last July https://themarkup.org/working-for-an-algorithm/2022/07/28/more-than-350-gig-workers-carjacked-28-killed-over-the-last-five-years#the-markup-has-tracked-a-total-of-361-gig-workers-who-have-been-victims-of-carjackings-or-attempted-carjackings Many of the drivers were immigrants, women, or elderly. A total of 28 workers were killed, and dozens more were severely or permanently injured. Ride-hail drivers were most frequently victims of the carjackings, with 121 Uber drivers and 101 Lyft drivers targeted in these incidents over the last five years. Newly revealed data from Uber, however, indicates that the numbers could be far higher. Uber has produced at least 24,000 “safety incident reports” that involved physical assaults perpetrated against its drivers by passengers from 2017 to 2020, according to a filed on July 11 in a against the company. plaintiff’s motion federal wrongful death lawsuit Uber spokesperson Navideh Forghani confirmed to The Markup that the company provided the 24,000 incident reports in the case. Those safety incident reports are among tens of thousands of pages of discovery in the suit, which are under seal. In a , Uber’s lawyers confirmed the company has provided more than 70,000 pages of safety incident reports in the suit, which “contain highly sensitive and personal information regarding alleged assaults and threats of assaults.” response to the motion It’s unclear how many of the 24,000 incidents were carjackings; the details are confidential. But this is the first time the number of alleged assaults against Uber drivers has been made public—and it provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the high rate of these attacks. Uber is being sued by the family of a driver who was fatally stabbed by two passengers during an attempted carjacking in Issaquah, Wash., in December 2020. The driver, Cherno Ceesay, was a 28-year-old immigrant from Gambia. The case is pending trial later this year in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, at Seattle. “While we are unable to comment on pending litigation, we can’t imagine the pain and loss Mr. Ceesay’s family feels,” said Uber’s Forghani. She added that for carjackings of Uber drivers overall, “​​We want to make sure it is clear how seriously we take this issue and its impact on drivers and their families.” Lyft spokesperson Gabriela Condarco-Quesada said, “Safety is fundamental to Lyft.” Regarding the carjacking of Littrell, she said, “The incident described was horrific and our hearts go out to Ms. Littrell and her loved ones.” Hundreds of Carjackings Uber and Lyft drivers and gig workers for other companies have little say in how the apps assign them passengers or delivery jobs, and they typically don’t know the ride’s destination until they accept the fare. If they decline rides, the companies . can issue penalties Additionally, the app platforms tend to urging drivers to work long hours and often into the night—making them especially vulnerable to crimes like carjackings. use bonuses and incentives “The less voice and self-determination you provide to workers, the more tenuous the situation that workers are placed in,” said Michael Maffie, an assistant professor at Cornell who focuses on gig work. Ceesay frequently worked long hours because he was saving money to start his own business, according to his family’s lawsuit. It was around 9 p.m. on a Sunday when he got the ding on his Uber app to pick up “Stephanie Tylor.” Almost immediately after the two passengers got into his car, they attacked him with a knife—stabbing him in the head and neck. Ceesay probably became unconscious within seconds and then died shortly after, said the medical examiner in a that The Markup obtained from the Issaquah Police Department. probable cause statement Police departments across the country have reported an overall surge in carjackings over the past couple of years. But some departments, like those in , , and , say gig workers have been specifically targeted. Chicago Minneapolis Oakland Last fall, for instance, the Minneapolis Police Department issued a warning that reported over a two-month period. nearly 50 carjackings of Uber and Lyft drivers “We’re very concerned about the safety of these drivers,” Officer Garrett Parten, a spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department, told The Markup. “This is tough, this is people’s livelihoods.” More than 198 of the carjackings and attempted carjackings we tracked have taken place since The Markup’s first report last July, with 92 so far in 2022, 200 in 2021, and 55 in 2020. While ride-hail drivers were most frequently targeted, one Instacart, two Grubhub, two Amazon Flex, and 10 DoorDash couriers were also victims, according to local news and police reports. Along with Minneapolis and Chicago, other cities with high rates of gig worker carjackings include Atlanta, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Our data isn’t comprehensive, however. Most police departments don’t gather statistics on carjackings specifically against gig workers, and the gig companies have repeatedly declined to provide their own data on carjackings. The Markup compiled its database through police reports and local news articles that cite police reports, and by conducting interviews with drivers, family members, and lawyers representing drivers (or their families) who were victims of carjackings. DoorDash spokesperson Julian Crowley said that anytime a DoorDash worker “is the victim of a crime it is a tragedy and we do everything we can to support law enforcement to hold the perpetrators accountable.” He added that the “overwhelming majority” of deliveries don’t have safety-related incidents. Crowley said eight of the DoorDash incidents tracked by The Markup don’t show “any evidence” that the company’s workers were involved or that they occurred on its platform. The  incidents referred to by Crowley were all reported in local news outlets citing police as saying a DoorDash worker was a carjacking victim. Similarly, Grubhub spokesperson Liza Dee said one of the Grubhub couriers wasn’t actively working on the platform when the crime took place. who was killed She added, “Still, our senior leadership met with that courier’s family and directly provided financial support in the wake of a senseless crime.” Amazon spokesperson Alisa Carroll said the company is committed to the safety of drivers and “we proactively communicate that drivers should never make a delivery if they feel unsafe.” She added that when incidents do occur, “we evaluate the incident and take action to help prevent it from happening again.” Instacart did not respond to a request for comment. Both and have released public safety reports—but those reports only include specific data on motor vehicle fatalities, fatal physical assaults, and sexual assaults (the reports include incidents to both passengers and drivers). The public reports don’t include any other type of assault or attempted assault, such as nonfatal shootings, robberies, or carjackings. Uber Lyft Uber’s 24,000 safety incident reports, however, are the company’s internal count of all other alleged physical assaults that aren’t included in the company’s public safety reports. And those 24,000 incidents specifically detail alleged physical assaults or threats of assaults on drivers by passengers. (It’s unclear if fatal physical assaults are also included within these incidents.) In the plaintiff’s motion in Ceesay’s case, attorney Corrie Yackulic wrote that Uber acknowledged in a still-sealed document that there was a “surge in carjackings against Uber Drivers,” which began before the end of 2020. She added that the sealed document shows the company’s system for recording safety incident reports “was designed so as to seriously undercount the incidence of carjackings, obscuring from Uber’s ‘data analytics’ system the magnitude of the problem.” Uber’s Forghani didn’t respond to questions about these claims. Last month, a group of U.S. senators to Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Grubhub asking them for data on worker safety incidents over the past five years. sent letters In , DoorDash, Instacart, and Grubhub didn’t provide any data, and Uber and Lyft both referred to their previous safety reports, the most recent data of which was from 2020. responses to the senators Under Lyft’s current guidelines for its safety reports, it wouldn’t have included the attack on Littrell. Lured Through the Apps Both Littrell and Ceesay were matched with their assailants through the ride-hail apps. According to the data collected by The Markup, the majority of the ride-hail carjackings (at least 182, or 56 percent) reportedly took place after drivers were paired with their would-be assailants through the companies’ apps. In both Littrell’s and Ceesay’s cases, the suspects used fake names ( “dtown” and “Stephanie Tylor” were bogus) and other false information on the apps. While drivers must go through background checks, neither Uber nor Lyft require passengers to use an ID to open an account. The companies make it fairly simple for riders to create fake accounts with fake names and, oftentimes, to use untraceable payment methods, like gift cards. The two people who carjacked Ceesay created an Uber account just 13 minutes before they requested the ride, according to the Issaquah Police Department’s probable cause statement. The suspects used an unverified form of payment and the false “Stephanie Tylor” name to open the account. “In a dark section of Renton Issaquah Road, they created an Uber account with a fake name and an email they both disavow for the purpose of hailing a stranger, Cherno Ceesay to their location,” senior deputy prosecutor Adrienne McCoy wrote in the . charging papers “When he arrived, they stabbed him to death in the course of trying to steal his car.” In both Ceesay’s and Littrell’s cases, the suspects were found and charged. Uber has since said it to open a new account in the U.S. without also uploading a valid ID. no longer allows the use of a prepaid card, gift card, or Venmo And Lyft said that in 10 U.S. cities, it has also stopped allowing new passenger accounts without an ID. If a non-anonymous payment method is used to open an account, a valid ID isn’t required. to use untraceable payment methods “Based on discussions with law enforcement and experts in this field, we know that additional verification requirements may deter potential malicious actors, but it is not a complete fail-safe,” Uber’s Forghani said. The ID requirement “was a direct response to the increased number of carjackings in communities across the U.S.” “Drivers can always cancel a trip if they ever feel unsafe,” Forghani added, saying that Uber has included , such as an emergency button, to its app. Lyft’s Condarco-Quesada said Lyft too has added to its app. several safety features various similar safety features Both Forghani and Condarco-Quesada said Uber and Lyft work with local police on carjacking task forces in several cities, including Chicago, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C., and that the companies assist police in their investigations. Neither company responded to questions about why they don’t require passengers to always use a valid ID to open an account. They also didn’t say if they verify riders’ email addresses, phone numbers, and names. Picking Up the Pieces All of the gig companies we tracked consider their workers independent contractors, so they don’t have sick leave, workers’ compensation, or medical insurance through the companies. When something goes wrong on the job, workers say, they’re often left to take care of medical bills and destroyed or stolen vehicles on their own. Many drivers, , started GoFundMe campaigns to help pay for hospital bills and car replacement or repairs. Families of killed drivers have done the same for funeral expenses. like Littrell After Littrell crawled out of the woods that November day, she made it to a nearby apartment complex, and a woman there called 911 for help. “I could tell I was quickly fading,” Littrell said. “I tell her, ‘If I don’t make it, please tell [my family] I love them.’ ” Littrell spent a week in the hospital. At home, she said, she first needed a wheelchair and then a walker. Lyft paid for some of her medical expenses, she said, but she had to sign a nondisclosure agreement specifying she could not reveal the amount she received. Condarco-Quesada confirmed Lyft provided Littrell with financial assistance but didn’t respond to questions about the nondisclosure agreement. Now, nearly nine months later, Littrell said she’s been focusing on recovery and slowly getting back to work. She no longer needs the walker but said she still deals with the emotional and physical reminders of the carjacking every day. She drives for Uber and occasionally for Lyft but said it makes her nervous. Both companies could do more to improve safety for drivers, she said, suggesting they enforce the rule that only people 18 years and older can sign up for the app and require riders to use a valid ID to avoid fake accounts. “The guy that shot me was 17,” Littrell said. “He wasn’t even old enough to use Lyft’s platform.” Are you a gig worker who's been carjacked? This database will be periodically updated with additional incidents. Help us keep tracking. Send your police report or official documentation of the incident to carjackingdb@themarkup.org. We will not share or publish your personal information. Update This article has been updated to clarify that the 24,000 incidents are classified by Uber as assaults. alleged Credits: , , , , , , Dara Kerr Maddy Varner Anson Chan Gabriel Hongsdusit Maria Puertas Jill Jaroff Kris Fischer Also published here Photo by on Viktor Bystrov Unsplash

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