Greentext

To be fair, typically in America (outside of major cities and certain planned neighborhoods), 4 minutes away implies by car. Even if driving only 20mph (unlikely), the pizza shop would be a minimum 1.3 miles away, which would be more like a 30+ minute walk for a pizza.

On top of that, there's almost no safe walking paths by design. You would likely have to traverse major roads with no sidewalks, crosswalks, or even pedestrian stop lights.

It's an unfortunate design that many are stuck with.

Unironically, yes.

It doesn't occur to most Americans to walk a bit instead of drive.

This is exacerbated by the design of American neighborhoods that discourages walking and encourages driving, which of course becomes a feedback loop where Americans don't walk because their neighborhoods aren't designed for it - or worse - designed against it.

4 minutes is 2 miles.

That's the part that's criminal about delivery fees not going to the driver. My nephew used to deliver for a pizza place but then switched to Uber Eats after his pizza company outsourced and fired all the drivers.

People place orders and see that they're paying a delivery fee, a service fee, and a higher menu price than ordering in the store and then think that they don't need to tip much (if anything) because surely that money is going to the driver doing the actual work and deliverying the food.

But nope, the driver gets paid very little for taking an order. The tip is the vast majority of their salary. My nephew will show me screenshots of orders that he gets that will be like "drive 10 miles to pickup the order, then 5 miles to picked the second piece of the order, then 10 miles to deliver it - for $2.00."

What's worse is that since companies have figured out they can hide this from consumers and get away with it, they've expanded to stuff like "same day delivery" from retail stores. Customers think "same day delivery" is the equivalent to an item being shipped, so would never consider tipping. But it turns out those services are also going through delivery drivers like Uber Eats, meaning someone will pick up a retail order in their own car and get paid next to nothing without tips (which most people don't even think to pay).

Tipping in lieu of salary is a scam.

Where I'm at, I'm pretty sure sales taxes aren't assessed on the fees, only on the product

Probably an “online convenience fee,” as if it’s more work to have an order print up at the restaurant than to make someone there take a phone call.