this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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no I mean the people doing the work. I realize that initiailly thye places ran at such a loss it was kinda doable. especially if it was just supplement. Now though it seems like people do it as a main thing and with the wear and tear on the vehicle it just seems like its a loss long term. Its like the more you do it the less it should return. Once there is a car repair or such.
Yeah I wasn't sure if you meant for the workers, the platforms or the consumers, haha. But, yeah, tips are the only thing that makes it viable for drivers, I think any delivery without a tip is at best break-even, but they need to accept any delivery they're offered to keep their ratings up high and so on. Cyclists can probably make more too, at the cost of higher risks of getting hit by a car...
There's a reason why these jobs are so popular with people who might not be able to find other jobs for various reasons.
problem with cycling is now you have what is made goes over a longer period lowering any rate manageable. I think it wins if the density is high enough where you can be as fast or faster than the cars.
Just to tag onto this, you should use the option to add the tip after the delivery. If you don't then the app will just subsidize themselves with your tip.
For example each delivery is an offer to the delivery driver so a delivery will be 10 dollars. Well if you tipped 8 dollars on that order then the service will pay you 2 dollars and the 8 dollar tip will be the rest. But if you start by tipping zero then the service will pay ten dollars for the delivery and then if you add the tip the gig worker will get 18 dollars for the order.
They won't initially offer it for $10 without a tip ever.
I do DoorDash for extra money, and the initial offer in my area is always $2 if there's no tip (for food delivery, shopping can be more), and since tips added after delivery are almost nonexistent, I never take these orders.
When I turn that down, they offer it to the next driver for $2.25, or $2.50, and keep going around until they find someone to take it. They'll also try to bundle a couple of low paying offers together ,or find a higher paying offer to bundle it with.
But they don't offer it for $10 unless they absolutely have to.
It really depends on the area, usually it depends on the distance. Generally an order like that would probably start at like 4 dollars or something. I have noticed that I can't really get over like 17-18 dollars per hour when I did doordash, like they would always give you a good order and the bad orders to even it out. I do think doing no tip and then adding it after the fact does make dd pay the drivers more but it would only work if everyone did it
We're in a kind of small city in SC, with a lot of rural areas around, so that's probably why we get $2 per offer. We get offers for $2 or $3 dollars with 10+ miles all the time.
I generally average $20 an hour, but I do a lot of grocery shopping, and my wife often goes with me and drives (and helps shop on very large orders), so that speeds the process up. But I also don't take anything under $5, and nothing less than $1 a mile ($1.50 with gas prices the way they are now).
I agree that tipping after would put pressure on DD to raise the base rate, but with almost 4000 orders over the last few years, I bet less than 5% of the no tip orders have ever added anything after the fact.