The primary goal of any product is to improve the lives of its user or to solve a specific problem. 100 years ago, washing machines and vacuum cleaners took the place of mind-numbing busy work and gave people time to do what they enjoy. However, the convenient inventions of today aren’t inventions at all, but people willing to do menial tasks.
These jobs are given through apps, which have taken running errands like picking up food and driving people around into a business model and make billions doing it. While this doesn’t sound inherently like a bad thing, these apps have faced lawsuit after lawsuit for scamming and not protecting both customers and employees alike.
One big problem with large companies like Uber, Lyft, and Doordash, and many others like it, is they skirt things like medical benefits and paying a minimum wage by classifying employees as independent contractors. This also means the employees often get below minimum wage, can’t unionize, and can be fired without cause.
They then spend millions of dollars to continue to keep their “employees,” away from benefits. For example, Prop 22 was created to overturn California’s AB5 law which forced these companies to classify some workers as employees instead of independent contractors. Doordash, Lyft, Uber, Postmates, and Instacart all spent millions to pass prop 22 instead of paying for a minimum wage.
Delivery services thrived during the pandemic, but at the expense of small businesses. Companies like Doordash charged unreasonably high prices to restaurants and with no other way to get to their customers, they were forced to use it and Doordash profited off their desperation by inflating prices. This is one of the reasons so many small businesses failed during covid.
These apps also hurt customers, with restaurants not often working with food delivery apps. These apps often list items that are no longer available and allow large food companies to pay their way into being recommended, hurting small business. These apps also have hidden fees like a ”small order fee,” which gives users a false sense of affordability.
“I’ve spent around $300 in a month on Doordash,” says JD Greene, a Wilsonville senior. Many students don’t even use convenience apps because of their high prices. “I don’t use food delivery services or anything because they’re so expensive,” says Jachai Gates, another Wilsonville senior. “You have to pay for so much on top of the food.”
On top of expensive services, these kinds of companies seem to collect lawsuits like candy and even worse, don’t seem to care. Earlier this year, Doordash was sued for $17 million dollars for stealing tips from divers and substituting it with their base pay. This kind of morally corrupt practice stole from both worker and customer alike.
Not only that, but rideshare services have received harsh criticism for the lack of safety that comes with the use of the app. As of October 2025, there are currently 2,721 lawsuits against Uber and lift for sexual assaults that occurred while working for, or using their apps.
In the end, convenience isn’t always convenient. The apps that promise to save us time often do so by taking advantage of someone else’s. Workers are underpaid, small businesses are squeezed, and customers are misled. If this is the future of convenience, it might be time to rethink what we’re really paying for.