The GIG Economy Podcast
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The GIG Economy Podcast
DoorDash “Desperation Score” Claims, Uber vs Lyft Prices & Gig Work in 2026 | Ep 284
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We break down a wild start to 2026: rumors of a DoorDash “desperation score,” shifting incentives across Uber, Lyft, and Spark, and the thin line between algorithmic efficiency and exploitation. From a Waymo red-light fail to McDonald’s weighing bags, we push on safety, trust, and what drivers can actually control.
• Uber quest math vs Lyft drought on bonuses
• Spark incentives influencing supply on holidays
• Long-trip deadhead realities and hourly trade-offs
• DoorDash payout rumors and algorithmic steering
• Government scrutiny of pricing tests and AI ethics
• McDonald’s weighing deliveries to curb missing items
• Uber wrapped sparking budget wake-up calls
• Octopus tablet tying rewards to Uber Journey TV
• Pickup trucks powering hauling and delivery side gigs
• EV pullbacks and battery plants pivoting to data centers
• Waymo running a red and a trunk stowaway risk
• Delivery fraud by photo and string, trust erosion
• Zesty by DoorDash for AI restaurant discovery
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Welcome Back & Ride Quest Wins
SPEAKER_09Hello, hello. Welcome to the Gig Economy Podcast. 2026. We're back. And this is episode 284. We're going to be talking about all kinds of fun stuff. Especially the DoorDash Depression score. Or desperation score. Sorry. Desperation depression, same thing.
SPEAKER_02Pretty close.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. How's it going, Larry? How are you doing?
SPEAKER_02It's going good, man. Feels good to be back. It was nice to have a little break. I appreciate you handling it when I had my little family emergency before the holidays. But uh it is definitely good to be back behind the mic.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, for sure. I was, like I said, uh I was gonna try to roll with it by myself, but Steve jumped in and um and he did good and we did good. And you know, just like normal, we didn't talk about everything because you know we Steve gets on a on a rant, and which is a good rant, and uh, and definitely just goes to town. So sure. Uh gig economy show.com for everything, uh podcast related Patreon members. I want to thank them. Samson, Bud Dickman, Omar, Frank, Tom, Jim, Miguel, Linda, Jerry, Faith, Metal Kickass, and Anna. Appreciate you guys so much. Um now, jumping right into Stories from the Road, just a little bit of uh format change this time. We're gonna try to get after the content as soon as possible. So, stories from the road, Larry, you had an Uber ride quest. How was it?
SPEAKER_02It was it was good. It was good to have a quest. You know, those are few and far between for me on Uber. So I had a uh 10 rides for $80 bonus. So additional $8 a ride. I can't, you know, can't sneeze at, you know, that's nothing to sneeze at. Uh didn't want to turn that down. So yeah, I got out. Did take me a few times of heading out to do that because it is very dead here uh during the holidays with the western students gone. So yeah, I was sitting out there watching some football on my phone and waiting for a ride. But uh yeah, I got her done um on Monday, I think is when I finished it up. So yeah, hopefully I'll see some more of those um in the new year.
SPEAKER_09Do you ever? I know you don't do a lot of lift. Do you ever get any for a lift at all?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I didn't even have lift turned on because I just wanted to try, I was kind of focused on that. But yeah, it's weird. Some some days it'll be 80% Uber here and 20% Lyft, and then other days it can be the complete opposite. It's it's like there's no rhyme or reason to it.
SPEAKER_09But do you ever get any quests for oh quest?
SPEAKER_02Not anymore. You know, we used to get the ride challenges, and now they're talking about these, you know, choose your own ride challenge. No, I don't I haven't seen any of that. I haven't seen ride challenge from Lyft, and it's probably been six months now.
SPEAKER_09Wow, that's weird. Um it is, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well they give you one thing, you know, we started getting a little bit of lift surge or the bonus now. It's like a bonus hours, you know, 30% bonus or 40% bonus or all that. But yeah, the haven't seen a ride challenge from them in in months.
SPEAKER_09Well, yeah, I'm sure you're not I mean, not heartbroken too much for that.
SPEAKER_02No, I mean, you
Holiday Demand, Incentives & Spark vs Rideshare
SPEAKER_02know, it'd be nice, but well, I mean, it would get you out. I mean, yeah, yeah, it would give you some incentive for sure.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. Um, for me, I did a ton of gig work. I was telling Larry he I I think he was laughing at me. Uh because I said I think I on my two weeks off, I think I only took like four full days off. Like I took Christmas Day off, uh New Year's Eve off, which again, talking about incentives, Walmart had no incentives for for that day, and I didn't go out. I'm like, nah, fuck them. I'm not going out on it. I mean, I know technically it's not like a federal holiday, but it's a holiday, you know what I mean? It's it's New Year's Eve. And so I didn't go out, and then the next two days I was delivering all these orders I was delivering were from New Year's Eve. One gal, I like it was, I mean, it was it was like nine o'clock in the morning, it wasn't super early or super late, but I rang the doorbell because I have alcohol, all these have alcohol in them.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, I can't see them.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, yeah, I can't leave it. You can't leave it. So I'm ringing a ring. She stumbles to the doors in an apartment, and I'm like, hey, and I was like, was this from New Year's Eve? And she's like, Yeah, I'm like, Oh, I'm sorry. And so she signed it. Uh, most people were very like fine with it, like they weren't upset, and I was very shocked about that. I I I would have been a little hot, although don't you feel you can kind of blame yourself because you waited to the last minute on New Year's Eve to have somebody grocery shop for you?
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Yeah, have you know, have a little have a little forethought, have a little planning, you know. Yeah, you know it's gonna be busy. Uh go ahead and get that order in early.
SPEAKER_09I'm really I would be really curious to talk to whoever's in charge of the incentives and stuff at Walmart why they uh why they chose. I mean, there's an incentive every day at Walmart.
SPEAKER_03Really?
SPEAKER_09Every day. There's either like in the morning you get an extra fifteen dollars for early ones, or it's you know, you do five, you get thirty. I know Bubba Sue sees a lot of those as well. I just don't know why they decided not to do it New Year's Eve. Maybe they thought, oh, these drivers will think it's gonna be busy, and which it was, obviously. Yeah, um, and I don't really I know maybe one guy that I connected with on TikTok that's local to me that actually shops at the Granville one. I should send him a message and see if he did work New Year's Eve if it was like worth doing without the incentive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it'd be interesting to see.
SPEAKER_09Um, do you have do how close do you uh Walmart for you down there where you live?
SPEAKER_02We have we have two here in town in Bowling Green. There's kind of one on each side of the city. I mean, they're both within fifty you know, 15 minutes of my house.
SPEAKER_09Oh, okay. But I know you probably would never do shopping, but yeah, no, I you know, uh I've done I've done the Spark uh you know shopping shopping delivery stuff. Oh, you are you active on their their platform?
SPEAKER_02I think so. Yeah, but I mean I I checked last time I checked, and it was that was probably a month ago. Okay. Yeah, but yeah, I I'll I'll have to uh I'll have to log in to my my DoorDash and my Spark and stuff here in the new year to make sure and keep them active.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I know that you love like connecting with the riders and stuff, and but man, you're gonna make honestly, you probably make more money on Spark. Yeah, you know, if you if you do it right, especially if they have incentives. Like the right the rides here, man. I see because I kept my uh ride part on and when I was you know when I would do deliveries and man, some of them prices, I mean it's like sixteen dollars an hour, it would be on there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_09And every once in a while it would I would get a 30, but it was just like an annoying ride where the way I had to go, and it just it just wasn't worth it.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, that's that's for sure. Yeah, I had a few rides during my ride quest, and they were uh they were a little bit longer. Not not Nashville rides, but they were uh you know at 40 minutes away to places and paying like $30, $31. Nah, like no, not not happening. I'll sit here.
SPEAKER_09Even though you're doing a quest, you're those are not worth it.
SPEAKER_02I mean yeah, because you're driving, you're deadheading back, you know. You know you are because you're I was going to these little you know, Scottsville or Glasgow, these you know, small towns, there's never never gonna catch a ride back. And so, yeah, round trip that's gonna be you know hour and a half or so for 30 bucks.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, for 30 bucks. So well, I mean come on, you get your extra bonus for the eight dollars, thirty-eight dollars. You're gonna be
Pricing Reality Checks On Uber And Lyft
SPEAKER_09balling. Gig economy in the news. I'm sure you've seen there's been a lot going on, actually, but um the DoorDash uh little debacle, and I I read this on actual Reddit when it was going on. Like I didn't see this as a story. I someone had posted it in the subreddit. Well, I don't know if it was the actual guy posting it, but um there was a Reddit post accusing of an unnamed food delivery app, aka DoorDash, uh including a desperation score to determine how much it pays its delivery workers. The developer alleged that the app constantly were scheming ways to profit uh off drivers.
unknownOf course that's true.
SPEAKER_09Who are uh purposely referred to as human assets in internal meetings. Uh and then what's his name? Tony U decided he you know he got on and defended it. Um the weird part of it is like I wanted to know was this guy verified? Because it sounds like he hasn't been.
SPEAKER_11Okay.
SPEAKER_09So people are leaning toward that it was possibly AI generated. I don't know if it was or not, but um there's some other things that the developer also claimed that priority delivery features in the food delivery app were a total scam, and that it does nothing to speed you up, and that the benefit fee charged to customers actually goes straight to a corporate slush fund used to lobby against driver unions.
DoorDash “Desperation Score” Allegations
SPEAKER_09So that one was a little reaching. So I that made me when I read that, I was like, this doesn't sound like how would this like developer know that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that that would be interesting to as always we don't get the full story, we just get you know what they want to put out there, but yeah, it would be interesting to know uh you know how he got his information and uh how how accurate it is.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, and it kind of just piles on what we talked about, and I don't know if it was you and I or Steve, uh the report that came out about Instacart with their AI pricing that they were doing and just testing out like what people would pay. And so that brings up a really good point. Is is are these algorithms now? I know the the the developer was talking more as a driver, but are these algorithms gonna get to the point where the government steps in and says this is unethical?
SPEAKER_02You know, that's a good question. Uh and I I don't know, I don't know how far it have to go before they step in. Uh, but I mean, I I would not be surprised. I I would not be surprised at all.
SPEAKER_09Well, the whole Instacart one it says in the bottom of this article that um this this happening prompted a wave of congressional scrutiny with some lawmakers mulling legislation, cracking down on algorithms. So I mean it's just a statement, of course. You know, someone put a mic in front of their mouth and said, Hey, tell me about AI algorithms, you know. But I I think I wouldn't hate it, you know. I'm I'm kind of on the fence with when the government gets involved and when it doesn't, but at this point, if it is actually like if they investigate it and it's actually detrimental to the drivers, like in a in a pretty horrible way, then I'm fine. I also don't want to ruin their secrets either, as much as you know, we always give them shit, these apps, you know, they're there to make money, and it's it's capitalism, you know what I mean? So we should let them do their thing, but as long as they're not being super unethical about it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, which they usually are, right?
SPEAKER_09And then what's the definition of that? Of being exactly where's the line?
SPEAKER_02Where's the line between being a you know a successful profitable company and being a you know POS that's just you know uh running your workers or or your contractors into the ground, you know, whatever you want to call them.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, you can't tell me they're not looking at the statistics of like what driver decline, what certain driver declines, what they take, how they will, you know. I rarely see I see all these wild ones online. I don't see those.
SPEAKER_11Really?
SPEAKER_09I mean, I'll get some bad ones, but like the two dollars for 14 mile, like they probably like, well, this guy's not even gonna even bat an eye on it. We see how many he rejects and how many he takes, and you know, you gotta know that they're sending it to frickin' the guy that is gonna take all those, you know.
SPEAKER_02You would think so, yeah. Yeah, and you know, they've got all that data, you know, they're churning it all the time and sifting through it and analyzing it and adjusting and and tampering with it, you know, all that uh to try to make it as, I guess, an efficient uh process as possible.
SPEAKER_09Would you uh in that scenario where they know if you're gonna take it or not, would you consider that unethical for them to send the driver that's gonna take it and not the other one? Like I'm just asking hypothetical because we were like, where do you draw the line? Is that unethical or is that unethical?
SPEAKER_02I mean, no, I don't think it's necessarily unethical because uh I mean if I was a business owner and I know these people are not not gonna take it, and and why you know why am I gonna send it to them? But I I knew I have this group of people who who will. Yeah, that's that's leaning toward deficiency, I guess.
SPEAKER_09I mean, yeah, I wouldn't I was just gonna see what you thought. I figured we'd think the same, but yeah, that's just like you're running a business, you know this person's gonna take it and this one isn't. But then they'll say, Well, why aren't you sending me the good ones then? Well, because you take the shitty ones, bro. Yeah, like there's there's dumb employees at every job. Like, no doubt. Yeah, you don't give the great orders to uh a guy that doesn't, you know, yeah, and and at one time we we we were all those people, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we first started out. We didn't know any better. We were you know, I remember taking Seth that nowadays I'd be like, What was I thinking?
SPEAKER_09You know, I mean, as a as food delivery or like ride share, all of it. Yeah, I mean early on it it wasn't a big deal because you were making bank.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09I mean, I think it's later on when the transition happened, you're like, uh, this is okay. And then you're like, gosh, that was not okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, yeah. Like I said, you kind of get up in the in the flow of are you know, it's one of those rides that get queued up while you're driving somebody else, you don't really get a good look at it. You just hit accept, and then after you're done, you're like, Man, that was that was not not worth it.
SPEAKER_09Well, especially if they were like annoying or smelt or whatever. I'm like, that was not worth the money.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, or they wanted to stop at McDonald's with the drive-throughs backed up around the building.
SPEAKER_09Right. Oh, remember when we used to do that, and then we got I like I did it like twice, and I'm like, okay, we're done with this. Or I will say, yo, it's gonna be $40 for me to go through the drive-thru. Money up front. Yeah, yeah, like yeah, no problem.
SPEAKER_02Because I'm gonna be sitting here forever.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, like you got, and then I'll explain you guys. I make 10 cents a mile or uh a minute, you know what I mean? Like me sitting here for 40 minutes is like not worth it.
Algorithm Ethics And Possible Regulation
SPEAKER_02Not at all, especially if it's busy.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, for sure. Hey Steve. Uh I definitely had a most of them say no when I I mean I I wouldn't uh 40 wasn't my like hard and fast rule, but I kind of just felt out the I'm out doing Uber Eats promo, I lost a bet. I kind of just felt the passengers out, if not if they were like rich or not rich, but just like how the vibe was like if they were kind of nice, sure, I'd be like, eh, 20 bucks and I'll take you through there. Or you know, I go, how about we drive by if there's one or two cars we're in, if not, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's what I would usually say. I like, yeah, we'll we'll drive by and see how busy I was like, if it's if I think it's too busy though, I'm I'm I'm just keeping on driving, man. For sure.
SPEAKER_09I'm not acting, but and there and most people understand that.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, most of them do, and you know, if they didn't, you know, fuck them. Sorry about your luck. You know, you you you've got Uber Eats or DoorDash, you can you can get it sent to your house if you want to. Yeah, for sure. Uh somebody else can wait in line.
SPEAKER_09I love that Steve's like sad that he's doing Uber Eats. I'm like, I do Uber Eats regularly. I mean, I mean there's a lot of shitty orders on it that I don't take, but you know, I he I feel like I'm uh he's slumming there, and I'm like, man, dude, like I do Uber Eats.
SPEAKER_02One man's trash, another man's treasure.
SPEAKER_09There you go.
SPEAKER_02I love it.
SPEAKER_09Um speaking of McDonald's, uh Larry.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so uh we'll watch this TikTok about um uh what they're doing at at least at this one McDonald's because apparently they're having trouble with the delivery drivers stealing food, so they're going to trying to put in some measures to prevent that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, guys, so this is what it's come to. This is what it's come to with DoorDash and the customers. Now I have to weigh every order. I have to weigh every order. Apparently, things are getting lost. We're DoorDash and the customers have to make sure everything is weighing. They're going by the assets now, guys. That's what you know. So if you guys are thinking it's food missing because we sell it, yeah, we can't use that too small. That's the way we're living now, guys.
SPEAKER_02I'm trying to think through how this is working. So they're weighing it, and I guess they're what are they putting that total number on the bag, and then the customer weighs it when he gets it to see what he's been taken.
SPEAKER_09No, I I think this is this is a completely internal thing, and it's funny he said, now you can't complain that we ate it. I would I don't I don't think that you ate it, I just think you're fucking incompetent. And you yeah, I didn't put it in there. Yeah, exactly. And McDonald's had, I remember a couple years ago, we had talked about an exclusive deal with Doordash, and they had a lot more strict uh metrics that they had to do compared to any other place. Right. And my guess is you know, they started doing you know, they started auditing, and they're like, fuck man, we're we're getting on left and right. So yeah, I mean, I don't think it's a horrible idea because if you know you know how much a cheeseburger weighs and a diet coke and a fry, you weigh it. I mean, the manager has to do it. Then you go to your employee, I'm like, hey, fuck head, like, come on, like this is the third one tonight that's not weighed correctly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's you know, that stuff happens, and I just you know, people and sometimes it's just a mistake. My wife last night got uh I like I said, I took I took food down to my mom and pop last night, so I ate with them. But uh my wife went by Chick-fil-A to get her and and our daughter some dinner, and she ordered just an you know number one combo sandwich, fries, and a drink. She gets home, she had no fries, but two chicken sandwiches. She's like, This is the first time Chick-fil-A's ever messed up her order. She because everywhere else she checks, she will check, you know, pull pull up after you get the order and check it out, and uh she never checks Chick-fil-A because they've never messed up.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, they're great. Yeah, exactly. We all go to certain restaurants and we don't check because you've had good success, and then you're like, I always check McDonald's every single time.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_09Although there's one McDonald's local to me that's freaking awesome. I actually drive further away from the one in town to go to that one because it's better and the other one fucks up every single time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Every single time. It's like I I get it. Where it you know, it can get busy and it's hard, but like man, I don't know. Maybe they
McDonald’s Weighing Orders To Stop “Theft”
SPEAKER_09don't maybe some of them just don't care because they're like, It's McDonald's, people are gonna come. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like you're gonna do yeah, but man, they keep getting raising their prices.
SPEAKER_09I don't know. Yeah, I know. You gotta order on the app. I order everything on the app.
SPEAKER_02I do too, man. And and here, I I the only thing I I don't get a lot from there, but um toward the end of last year, I kind of got in the habit once, twice a week. I would go, you know, they have the uh one dollar large iced coffee from five to eleven. Uh especially when I was um having trouble sleeping through the night with my shoulder, I'd you know, be so tired. I was like, I'd stop by and get a dollar coffee on the way. So I always bought them in the morning, never even looked at the price of what they were. We were coming home from the airport on New Year's Eve. I was like, all right, I'm cutting them out next year. I'm gonna get one last ice, large iced coffee. Of course, it was at nighttime and go through there. It's like five dollars and three cents. I was like, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_09Like you went through the you went through the regular drive-thru?
SPEAKER_02Well, I went through the drive-thru. It was at night, so it didn't do the app. No, no, I looked on the app, there wasn't anything on there. Sometimes I'll sometimes it'll have something for the coffee, but it didn't. And five bucks, five oh three, I think is what the total was. I was like, I would never ever do this again. I apologize to my wife. I was like, I'm I'm sorry, this is certainly not, and then I don't think they put any, it was supposed to be iced, you know, vanilla uh, and I don't think they put any flavoring in it.
SPEAKER_09Oh fuck that for five bucks. I'm going through that drive-thru again.
SPEAKER_02I I just put it, I just we were like 20 minutes from home. I just put some cream in it when I got home and it was and it tasted fine, but I was like, I will never do that again.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, that's that's so expensive for just an iced coffee. Holy smokes. Um, that's like Starbucks prices, and that's exactly you're paying Starbucks prices for McDonald's coffee quality. So terrible. So this article, this is kind of uh like a 2025 wrap for food. Uh, and this was from Grubhub, and I really enjoyed uh the statistics in this. Um, it said that Grubhub says people sought out foods that boosted energy, supported gut health and protein, which I I thought that was an odd, like really so we'll go through some of this. Bean orders jumped 135% with more than 1.5 tons of legumes delivered nationwide and orders of tinned fish tripled in 2020. Tinned fish? What's tinned fish? Like, is that like tuna fish in a tin can?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, jardines, something like that.
SPEAKER_09Oh, oh yeah, tin fish tripled in 2025 with grocery purchases. So yeah, up to 209%. When it comes to restaurant orders, they said that more than 750 chicken nuggets, uh, tenders, and strips are ordered from restaurants every single hour. So 750 an hour, which calculates to 5.2 million orders so far this year or for 2025. Because I don't know when this was uh written. December 10th. This was written December 10th. So five 5.2 million orders of chicken.
SPEAKER_02That's a lot of chicken.
SPEAKER_09Drink orders were popular. Uh they said cold foam orders surged 75%, and more than 76,000 electrolyte drinks were delivered each month. Grocery egg orders increased 58%. Grab up says the sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich was the most restaurant egg dish ordered, um, which that's delicious. Of course it is.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_09Grubhub says the standouts of his report in its report was a rise in convenience store meal orders of grab and go foods like taquitos, chicken rollers, and hot dogs. Um, that's about it on the stats. But yeah, that's a lot of chicken. That is a lot of chicken. And are they basing it that order just are those stats on Grubhub? Because it had to be so much more if it was through all the apps.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they must just be doing Grubhub.
SPEAKER_09That's a lot. Then it that's even insane for just for Grubhub. 5.2 million so far this year of chicken just through Grubhub.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it kind of boggles the mind.
SPEAKER_09It's hard to how much that is. Another thing I've been noticing people talking about, you know, their their year in review, they go in and they look at how many times they ordered for DoorDash uh or Uber Eats, and it's like 137 times. I heard one I'm like, how can you afford that? Bro, that's more than twice a week.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. How can you afford it? People are talking. This is what boggles my mind, unless people are just putting on credit cards and going into debt for it. But like people are talking about the economy's so bad, we can't afford a house, can't do any of that. And I I I I know that some of that is true, but then you you got these girls on here, like, oh, I did 137 times, unless unless it's like her dad's card or or whatever. But I'm like, you gotta figure each of one of those orders is probably $30 to $40 a pop. Yeah. You know, in regards to like how much it is, but yeah, I thought that was that was pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_02So that that's yeah, it's it's so funny how everybody's doing the the year-end reviews now. Yeah, Spotify. The rap.
Year-In-Review Spending Habits & Delivery Costs
SPEAKER_02I love it. It's gotten so popular, man. I had a candy crush wrap. Oh, did you really? Yeah, yeah. It wasn't. And then you look at it and you're like, oh man, look at how much time I've spent playing this game.
SPEAKER_09Well, thank God they didn't give me the time because they don't they're not gonna do that. They that would shoot them through.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they don't want to make you feel bad. They wanna make you feel good. Well, exactly.
SPEAKER_09They don't want they'll be like, he'll be like, oh my god, he's gonna do a New Year's resolution of like not playing the game.
SPEAKER_02So would they tell you like how many candies you've crushed?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, basically like how many gems and how many like what are the the color bombs or whatever you used and stuff like that. I love that game. It's it's honestly the only game that you don't need the internet for. And so, like, if I go to the cabin, I'll have to try it sometime.
SPEAKER_02I've never played that game.
SPEAKER_09I go in and out, and what's funny is though it's such a scam because I have like 300 gold bars right now, and like I'll play a level and just can't get it and can't get it, and I'll pay ten dollars or not ten dollars, but ten gold bars. Yeah, that I have one, I didn't pay any money, and then all of a sudden I clear the level right away.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it sounds exactly it's probably very similar. I I used to play a game, I don't play it really much anymore, called Best Fiends. Okay, and it's I think it's very similar, it's kind of a puzzle game where you have to connect different colors, and yeah, you'll it's funny though, because yeah, you'll get stuck on a level and then like you don't play it for a while and you come back and you get through that level, like they've yes, and people talk about it in the message boards, you know, they make it easier for you to get through that level all of a sudden, and uh yeah, you spend your spend your gold bars to help you get through, and yeah.
SPEAKER_09Well, I find too if I'll spend gold bars and then I'll be able to bang out like seven levels, like right in a row, like and then all of a sudden I'll get stuck on one and for three, four days, and then more gold bars. Actually, I have earned those just through competitions during that. So it did I I you know, I I'm not gonna say I never spent money on Candy Crush, yeah, but this last little surge of mine that I've played it, I haven't spent it.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, yeah, which sounds very similar to Best Fiend.
SPEAKER_09Well, which is fine. Like my wife would get after me and I would spend like we have blow money, we have a certain amount of money that we use just for whatever we want. She's like, You why would you spend money? I'm like, because it's entertainment.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it's it's yeah, yeah, it's it's a game, it's entertainment. It's like going to a movie or play putt-putt golf or you know kind of other entertainment.
SPEAKER_09It seems silly, but like if I enjoy playing the game and I want some extra boost, then screw you. So speaking of extra boost or not extra boost, Larry like that intro.
SPEAKER_02Like that intro.
SPEAKER_09All right. So uh hey, before you talk about this, I gotta give Bubba Sue a hard time. Uh she uh she spoiled this in the main group. Not that she doesn't know that we're gonna talk about it.
SPEAKER_02Right, yeah, I saw that. I saw that. I saw you giving her hell on.
SPEAKER_09I was like, I'm trying to run a show here, and then Bubba Sue is just popping my my balloon here. Um, but here we go. This is Octopus Tablet, which is uh what we've talked about a lot, but I don't know if we can anymore.
SPEAKER_02Highly recommended it. Uh, but yeah, we're that's up for debate now. So yeah, I got this email. It says octopus is up to date updating the tablet rewards program to focus on Uber journey TV trips, delivering greater value for every ride. Octopus always focused on creating incredible experiences, and journey TV is the next exciting step, you know, yada yada yada. But anyway, here's the changes that started uh yesterday, actually. So uh all all the rewards, uh the points you you earn will apply only and exclusively to Uber rides if that are connected to journey TV. Uh per trip rate is increasing, so they're increasing the points from one to one point five.
Octopus Tablet Shifts To Uber Journey TV
SPEAKER_02Huge. Uh the class octopus experience will remain available for entertainment only and will no longer earn points, rewards for gameplay, or other activity. So, what this really means is when if you're doing lift rides, uh they can play the game and stuff, but you're not you're not getting any money for that. You're not earning any money for that. Uh you're not you're not earning any money for games that Uber people play. Only you're only getting it for one 1.5 points for the ride.
SPEAKER_09Oh. Right? Just the ride?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, per trip rate. I think. Yeah. Here it says, um let me see. Because I got I got I I looked at a FAQ that I found online too. So it says uh when you complete an Uber journey TV trip, you'll earn 1.5 points, which is a 50% increase from the previous one point. Uh you no longer earn half a game point or points for non-Uber journey TV trips. So maybe if they play the yeah, it doesn't. I'm trying to find if it says anything about the games on the journey TV.
SPEAKER_09Well, either way, cutting left out is fifty, maybe not 50% because well, some places, some places it is. Well, I'm just saying, yeah, it does I I would imagine it's not maybe in bigger cities it's 50-50 with Uber and Lyft drivers, but I don't know, it seems kind of dumb. And I hate that it's called Uber Journey. Like that that word is journey TV. Yeah, Uber journey TV. I mean, even adding the word journey, that that word's been overused. Like it's time to put it to bed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and if your account's not linked to your Uber app, you're not gonna earn anything.
SPEAKER_09Uh yeah, you said that once you had to do that, you were out, and I I don't blame you. It's just frustrating that, like, okay, so you're getting 1.5. Can we just do a half a point for Lyft then? Like, at least, at least keep it in there. But maybe that was um, you know, Uber's way of saying, like, well, we're not gonna do that. We, you know, we're exclusive with Uber, so octopus. I don't know. I hope they got a big payout.
SPEAKER_02I mean, yeah, I mean, we talked about this when they announced that they were partnering with Uber. We're like, man, we know this is coming, you know, it's just a matter of time. Yeah. And it took longer than I I thought it would, but uh, yeah, I don't see anything about this as when you complete an Uber journey TV trip, you earn 1.5 points. It doesn't say anything about any game points at all.
SPEAKER_09So maybe it's a vet because this is well, it is from octopus. I was like, maybe it's uh maybe when it says per rate trip, it means I don't know. I mean what it says it says you only get it for the trip, which then how are you gonna earn any points if you did 10 trips? That's 15 points. Yeah. I mean, that's gonna take forever to get anything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, because you gotta get 250 points to get the $25.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I mean, that's a lot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because I you know, I said part of it was people love playing the game. So yeah, you would get you would get half a point when everybody when you know people played the games. And I had a lot of people that played played the games. I mean, they love the trivia, especially at night.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I I don't know if I'll keep it.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I mean, this might be an opportunity for other people other, you know, you know, maybe there are people in the wings going like, well, they're exclusive with Uber, let's go with Lyft or something. Like, I don't know, but they had such a good platform, and I and again, I'm not I'm not hating on them because they probably got paid really well.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure they did. I'm sure they did.
SPEAKER_09And let's face it, they're a small business. That's what they started up from the ground up, and they created this and they they want to do something great. And I I don't blame them at all.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, no, I understand. Uh you know, if we got off they got that offer, uh, I would jump on it, I'm sure, as well. Absolutely. And it's also opportunity for drivers if they want to put in their own tablet and hook it up somehow to uh you know sell things or whatever you want to do. Uh I know people who who who did that. I know didn't Levi Levi did that, I believe. He's got his own does he? I believe I remember him talking about it. I do remember.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I don't know if he still does that or if he's you know hopped on one of these. But yeah, again, no hate to the tech to the guys. It's just it just sucks. Like everything's disappointing. It is disappointing. Like all like this is a little sidetrack, but like all the HVAC companies that are getting by bought up by private equities, you know what I mean? Like it's just a sales company. I mean, yeah, they'll do the repair, but like they're just you know, it's it's get seems to get harder and harder to find mom and pops for that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_10So no doubt.
SPEAKER_09Uh right. Seven and ten pickup owners are using their trucks for side hustles, which I feel is an insane high number. Yeah. I mean that that is the trucks I see drive around here are pristine, they're not used for work. They're the they're the they're their daily driver, but um it's with the farm tags on them. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. These freaking diesels. Uh yeah, 70% of truck owners have begun a lucrative gig work using their pickups, with a third planning to launch a full-time business. Again, a third of those? That seems a little high. It says both demand for their services and the income truck owners generated were strong for uh enough for about 35% of okay. I already just talked about that. I don't know why I said it again. I highlighted it, but then didn't read the highlighted part. Uh, popular standalone sign also involved helping people uh making furniture, deliveries, towing, transporting goods, especially oversized products and equipment. I've definitely thought about this. I the amount of people I see online that post like in the the like the the groups of like, hey, I bought some furniture,
Pickup Trucks As Side Hustle Platforms
SPEAKER_09I need it picked up. Like we were in the same boat. We bought a couple things off Faith Marketplace, we rented a U-Haul.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_09I mean, so there is an opportunity, yeah. There's a market. There's a market for it, and I don't know what kind of what you could charge, but I I I always say to myself, if I had a bigger truck, I would definitely look into you know starting a little side hustle with that. Um more often than not, truck owners doubled up on their activities with the average survey participating and juggling a 2.6 hide side hustles at once. Nearly 40% of respondents says demand led them to work more than 10 hours per week doing gig work with their pickups, which I feel like that's about the average of what a gig worker works, anyways, 10 hours. So yeah, if you have a truck, I mean it it definitely there you got the gas prices there, but oh, did you speaking of that? Did you see that Ford discontinued their Ford Lightning? They're not the electric one, they're not gonna make it at all. Yeah, they're completely done with it.
SPEAKER_02It's uh yeah, yeah, it's it's happening in a lot of places. I think I talked about it before the holiday break, but uh we had a huge humongous. They built two humongous plants about 45 uh 50 minutes uh north of here to build you know the electric um uh batteries for the electric cars.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And they're gonna, you know, they got all these tax incentives, they were gonna be hiring you know 2,500 people. Uh the first building finally got operational. It was operational for four months. Um right before Christmas, they laid everybody off. They're changing, completely changing to uh not gonna be making electric batteries for cars anymore.
SPEAKER_09I wonder if it's just the way the administration works, because like you know, and I'm sure so what was it? It was Obama, which was Democrat, then it was for for two terms, then it was Trump for four, yeah, and then for four, and then back to Trump. So during the Obama, he they were probably already working on all those incentives and initiatives and stuff like that, and then you know, and then it you know, the the administration changes and it flips the other way, and they're like, because I mean it's tough for I mean, I it's tough for a company to just start something from scratch without a lot of tax incentives. You know what I mean? Um, but it it's just wild to me that they're just gonna scrap it, you're just gonna take a loss.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I mean they're changing it, they're gonna retool the factory and they're gonna make uh batteries for data centers.
SPEAKER_09Okay, yeah. Yeah, so the Ford thing was interesting, and I'm ignorant with this. I know there's hybrids, okay. And the one the Ford is making now is actually like a generator in the car.
SPEAKER_02Really?
SPEAKER_09So at some point the generator kicks on, and that's what charges the battery. So it's not like like the hybrid, the car will do on lower speeds, it will do electric and then gas, and then anything that it regenerates is just from the braking, you know what I mean? But according to this, the gas is gonna run something that's gonna charge the battery.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_09So don't quote me on it. I just remember seeing it somewhere. Uh, but I was like, oh man. So yeah, thinking of what got me on that run is just thinking about the gas prices. If you own a truck and you're paying $350 a gallon, you know, you want to make sure that whatever hustle you're doing is is covered.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I mean, I mean, they're gonna be giving gas away. We're getting all this oil from Venezuela. I mean, they're gonna be giving it away.
SPEAKER_09They're not gonna be giving it away. They're not gonna be giving it away.
SPEAKER_02We're paying us to fill up our cars, yeah.
SPEAKER_09So, oh, Travis says Honda does that. Do they? Because I what what is that called then? Because it's not a hybrid, that system, whatever it is. I'd be curious. I mean, it doesn't surprise me if it's Honda, because they kind of, you know, the or Toyota, the Toyota Prius has been around for a hot second. So yeah. Alrighty, let's see here. So this was back before, well, this was for our last show of the year. Uh, Larry talked about a new side hustle. And I I is this tongue in cheek or is this no no no?
SPEAKER_02There there's numerous accounts on uh I'm but this is this is you know, uh, we talk about things that that we want to do, uh follow up on stuff. I'm gonna follow up on this one, and I'm gonna I'm gonna try to do some of this and see if any of it sucks is successful because I I doesn't surprise
EV Retrenchment, Batteries & Costs
SPEAKER_02me, it really doesn't.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, especially okay, we'll watch it and then we'll watch it and we'll discuss new side hustle for 2026.
SPEAKER_05Here we go. There you go. All right, this is day seven of no proof lawsuits that you can apply for, okay? The first one is Fortnite, a video game addiction lawsuit. Okay, if you or your children plays 15 hours or more of Fortnite each week and have shown symptoms of gaming addiction for at least 12 months, don't miss out on this one because you don't need any proof to claim. Lawsuit number two is Amazon. Get your bag, okay? They're getting sued for making their cancellations on their subscriptions. So difficult to cancel. Another lawsuit that you don't need proof for is something with the New England Patriots. I don't even know what it is, but apparently their app they're using was giving away data. And this is another one. You don't need any proof, you just need to apply, and this one's for two. And if you didn't know, if you don't apply to any of these lawsuits, all the money just goes to your state rather than in your pocket. Okay. So I highly recommend this has been my side hustle. Come back for day eight.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, yeah. New side hustle you can do is you can file uh to be part of these class action lawsuits that don't you don't have to, you know, don't require any any proof. Um, but I'm definitely like I said, I want to follow up. Of course, I saw that one and I watched it a little bit, and then of course it got in my algorithm, and then I started seeing all these different you know account, TikTok accounts doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_09Why don't you do just the three he listed and see okay it's you know that it keeps it easy. You got that one video, you can kind of search for it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, as long as I can find that one again.
SPEAKER_09Well, I got it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, that's true. I sent it to you, so yeah, I can get it. Um but yeah, I'd be very interested uh to see if that works. I mean, yeah, I'm no most of most of these class action lawsuits, you don't make a lot on it, but you know, if it doesn't take you much time to do it and you make you know 20, 30 bucks, yeah, whatever.
SPEAKER_09You know, why would why would a company or a law firm do something that there's no verification? I mean, you like I would feel like the Fortnite one, you'd have to prove that you bought Fortnite.
SPEAKER_02You know, like that's all you at the very least, at the very least, bare minimum. You think you would have to do that?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I mean everything's digital now. You you definitely have a receipt somewhere or someplace that you can find that you bought the game. Yeah, but no, I mean, I don't know. Does it feel dirty doing that? I mean, you can't be making that much, right?
SPEAKER_02Like no, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure you're not. You know, it's not something that's gonna replace like the money that we would make doing doing ride share or food delivery or anything like that. But uh yeah.
SPEAKER_09Well he said day eight tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02Was that more lawsuits, or is that just the yeah, I think he was doing like a 10 day or 12, whatever, you know, I don't know how many days uh of uh posting a video about it.
SPEAKER_09Okay, I thought it might be just 10 days of different side hustles, and that day eight was or day seven was the the lawsuits that you don't need to prepare.
SPEAKER_02I think it was different lawsuits every day. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_09Oh my god. Guys freaking got a lot of time on his hands. Yeah. All right, here we go with Waymo.
SPEAKER_08Waymo
“No-Proof” Class Actions As A Side Hustle
SPEAKER_08in the news.
SPEAKER_09All right, I got a couple of um got a dude in the trunk and Waymo runs the red. So we'll do the Waymo runs the red first.
SPEAKER_05That's a red light.
SPEAKER_02That's a red light.
SPEAKER_09I kept it playing because the guy's just losing it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's laughing. It's laughter, man. It's just so funny. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09So clearly it was a red light. I mean, it came to a stop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sitting there at a red light, and it was making it making a right turn, you know, past that light, but it wasn't uh was not a right on red. He went, you had to go way through that light to get to the side street to turn right. So that was a definite screw up.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, and that that's gotta be like a coding thing, right? Like it just you were you thought you were close enough to I don't know, but a red, well, we talked about the school.
SPEAKER_02A red means red, like even exactly, and there was like what three, three, three stoplights up there on the wire across the street. It wasn't like there was just one and it was obscured or anything like that. They were they were very invisible.
SPEAKER_09Oh man, you guys gotta get your shit together. All right, and then this other one, this is uh we talked about uh you know safety in Waymo's, and this is kind of part of it, so this is a little strange.
SPEAKER_01Why the fuck are you in the trunk? That's why I'm trying to figure this out. Like I'm always yeah, this shit won't let me out. Why are you in it? Huh? They just put me in here. Who put you in? The the what? The people. That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_09Just so yeah, you know, where how'd this guy get in there? Did he take a Waymo and sneak in the back? And like, why isn't Waymo flagging that and saying they gotta. I mean, you gotta know. Do you think there's real live stream cameras in there that they can access at any moment?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's gotta be.
SPEAKER_09There's gotta be, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because they they they can't, you know, they don't know if this car or some like say if somebody's thrown up in it or yeah, leaving a huge mess and it needs to be cleaned, or yeah, they've gotta be able to have some cameras that they can access.
SPEAKER_09And and maybe they don't have a system set up where they know, let's say, okay, it's one passenger, they're not verifying like the that the door is opening and shutting, and like that. It feels like I don't know if there's some way they can do it, but my guess is he took the ride and then stuck in the back.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Somehow, somehow is able to you know, sneak in the back and and nobody, you know, like I said, that they have cameras they can't access. I'm sure there's not somebody watching every ride all the time. So, yeah, he was probably able to end the ride, slip in the trunk, and then you know, the Waymo goes to pick up the next person. I mean, think about that, you putting your kid in a car and some dude's hiding in the trunk, dude.
SPEAKER_09That's what I'm saying. Like, this is bad. This is an important video to go back to Waymo and say, how are you gonna address this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, how are you gonna prevent this and detect this? And you know, yeah, that would that would be really, really bad.
SPEAKER_09And then it goes back to the liability. Like, you know, Uber likes to blame the driver if something happens, right? Well, we're not responsible, you know. He's a subcontractor. Well, now you got this, you know, million-dollar company. Like, are we suing them? Who's going to jail? Like, there's gotta be some heads gotta roll.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, somewhere, yeah. Some somewhere, somebody's gotta take responsibility for it.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, for sure. But yeah, that was a little creepy. I I was not a huge fan. That guy was weird, too.
SPEAKER_02Like it yeah, it sounded like he was on something because he was talking about they put me in here, and uh, yeah, and but uh you know, luckily um she was able to call the authorities and and it looked like that, you know, they did arrest him.
SPEAKER_09And yeah, uh either he was on some or he maybe had some mental deficiencies.
SPEAKER_02Mental problems, yeah. Could be could be on some kind of a mental
Waymo Red Light Fail And Trunk Stowaway
SPEAKER_02mental health crisis.
SPEAKER_09Well, make sure you check the trunk of your Waymo if you're gonna take an autonomous ride.
SPEAKER_02Apparently, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess that's a thing. So yeah, you gotta remember that.
SPEAKER_09Uh another quick thing about 2025. Uh, this is Uber 2025. Now, this is a news article. I don't know, it's two minutes, so we'll see if we'll watch the whole thing, but it's just a wrap of Uber stuff, so we'll quick watch that.
SPEAKER_06Uber launches Uber. So this is interesting. This is you know Spotify rap where you get like all of your year-end like music listened to, yeah, some of the genres that are most popular on your playlist, some of the songs that you've played the most. It also tells you like the percentage of where you rank with other people listening that same song or the same artist. Well, um, this obviously is with Uber its own version. It'll give you recap of the year and rides and Uber eats orders through the app. It's based on your habits, so it'll assign you one of 14 personality profiles. So this is unlike my rank. Like planning strategy for those who observe rides and events, okay, for delivery darling, for those who order food for delivery alone. It also tells you how many rides you've ordered and how many different places you've been to, along with the type of rides you ordered the most. Um, like, for example, Uber comfort or Uber bleep.
SPEAKER_00I think this is dangerous for Uber. Yeah, why? Um, the reason why I think it's dangerous is because you are now making people see um things that we sometimes don't think about. You know, you get hungry in the middle of the night um and you think, I don't want to go out. It's cold outside, let me just Uber. It puts your financial um information right in your face. Like it basically is showing you essentially where you spend your money. And it may make you rethink, especially if you're always ordering food, whatever. You gotta be cutting that out. Yeah, it may make you rethink your financial decisions.
SPEAKER_09It was just basically an Uber wrapped, um, and just they were concerned about, like I had said, when you're looking at how many times you're ordering food, like, do you really want to have those statistics as a computer?
SPEAKER_02Ubers you ordered.
SPEAKER_09And and maybe they figure while you're you're gonna be loyal to them regardless, but man, I would have to have like a little come to Jesus if yeah, I said 130. I'm like, it's me going to the gas station and getting an energy drink and a slice of pizza. Like if they said, Oh, you went to there 64 times, I'll be like, bro, 64 times.
SPEAKER_02So what am I doing in my life?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I mean, like, but if you think about it, I mean it's okay, it's once a week, that's not a big deal. But when you see that giant number, right, you know, you're forgetting it's 300 and how many days are in a year?
SPEAKER_02365.
SPEAKER_09Why did I want to say 352? No, 52 weeks in a year. Okay. Yes. 365. So yeah, I don't know. I I don't I don't I think these consumer ones probably shouldn't do a wrapped, or if they do, they need to like spin it a different way because that would make me depressed and not want to uh to use the app anymore. So I hear you. Oh god, I cannot, I forgot about this one.
SPEAKER_02Oh, this one's good. Yeah, this is good. Wild. Yeah, so this is a food delivery, and uh this guy's you know have to give him have to give him credit for for his ingenuity because this is not, I wouldn't, I don't think I would have ever thought of doing this uh any way, shape, or form. No, we're not stupid. Yeah, but this is this is pretty funny. So we'll play this and then we'll we'll talk about it.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, here we go. Uh it's labeled as Looney Tunes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Takes the picture, walks out of the camera, can't see him, and all of a sudden, oh my god.
SPEAKER_09Okay, so I gotta play it again because I want to see where if if he get like I'm just gonna start it real quick and then hang on. Okay, I just want to see where he walked up from. I I was wondering if he came up. So you want to explain to the audio listeners?
SPEAKER_02So the audio listeners, this guy he walks up to the house and he sets the bag down. He sits on the sidewalk, like pretty decent away from the door. So that was that was you know, it looked suspicious to me when I first watched it and didn't know what happened. And so he puts he puts this bag of food on the ground on the sidewalk, and then he he has a bag with him, you know, delivery bag, and and you can see him mess with it a little bit, and he starts backing away. And so he's kind of backing up instead of turning around and walking away. He backs up, then walks off to the side out of view of this you know, doorbell camera or whatever it is that took this video, and then all of a sudden you see this bag of food jerk to the left and then slowly get dragged across the yard. And when you watch the video a second time, you can see the guy kind of laying out this string or whatever he's got attached to the smooth, and he just drags slowly drags it out of view out of the camera range. I didn't even notice him laying it out like a little just so like you can see him adjust it or or something a little bit when when he does it. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_09What a dumbass. Like, what did he think was like I I think this is a true video, I don't think it's staged at all. What did he think was gonna happen?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't know what went through his mind, you know. I mean, you might as well just walk and pick it up. I mean, it's not like there's any any doubt about who took it, you know. Yeah, we saw you on where it went.
SPEAKER_09We saw you on the camera. You're you're assigned to the order. Like, I mean, it it'd be one thing if you delivered it, and then you got in your car and drove away, and you had like a friend freaking polling it, you know what I mean? Like you dropped him off a little bit early, like that would be the smart thing to do, and then do it that then that is genius, right? Because you they saw you get in the car and drive away, and all of a sudden, like 20 seconds later, it gets pulled away. You know it's not the guy that dropped the order off.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but it's so obvious the way he backed away. If you watch a little bit, you can see him. Like I said, I think he's got the string in the bag, and it's you know, he's kind of feeding it out a little bit.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, fucking idiot. Still funny though. I I when I watch that first, I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.
SPEAKER_02Like oh man, my my son's my son just texted me, he's giving me shit about my audio issues on that video.
SPEAKER_11I'm being able to hear the one I couldn't hear. Oh, he's giving you shit about it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's like, Man, need to fix your audio issues. I was like, Oh, was it silent for you too? He's like, Nah, just you. What was it? He heard it, he heard it. That's what I yeah. It's your fucking internet, Larry. You need a no, it's not my internet. No, it is not. No, hell no, it's not. I rectified that problem.
SPEAKER_09Well, we'll see. We'll see. Um, all right. Uh let's see, let's skip the Uber's
Uber Wrapped: Loyalty Or Sticker Shock
SPEAKER_09Lyft or cheaper. Okay, here's the gist of that article. They're about the same. Only 16% check both apps. And yeah, and it didn't matter if it was short or long, they roughly were all the same. So they're that article.
SPEAKER_02But check them both because yeah, it's worth it. It's worth it.
SPEAKER_09It's worth it. Especially, you know, again, it's it's we talk about it's the brand loyalty or the Kleenex syndrome, or what do they call it? Not the Kleenex syndrome, but Kleenex. Um, basically, when you say hand me a Kleenex, that's a brand. It's not exactly it's a tissue. Yeah, you know what I mean? Or give me some Lysol. Well, doesn't matter. You if it's we have the off-brand Lysol, and I said, Give me the Lysol, I need to spray this.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, and I I've had I've had tons of people that you know, I was giving them a Lyft ride and they'd be on the phone, like, yeah, I'm in my Uber. Yeah, I'm in my Uber.
SPEAKER_09Uber's definitely the one, not Lyft. Yeah, Uber is definitely the one.
SPEAKER_02So no doubt.
SPEAKER_09All right, Larry, DoorDash rolls out Zesty, uh, an AI social app for discovering new restaurants.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so uh I think uh we may have talked about this once before when I first maybe different one. Okay, yeah, so yeah, this app is called Zesty. It's uh from DoorDash. They're initially offering it in you know New York and uh San Francisco Bay, so on the left and right coast, pretty much. Yeah, so so you know it's just another way they're trying to branch out into some other stuff besides food delivery. You know, this is getting into the social media kind of space. So what it is, um people can sign into the app with their DoorDash accounts. So it is a separate app, but you sign into it with your DoorDash account, and you can ask an AI chat bot for a personalized recommendation, you know, based on what kind of food or or what you know what your scenario is. So you can put in a prompt. Um, it's just like any you know, ask asking chat GPT or something, the more precise you are in your prompt, the better the response is gonna be. Yeah, so you can put in something like, hey, I'm looking for you know, like a low-key dinner in Williamsburg, Virginia that's good for introverts, or you can see something that has um they'll also have some suggested prompts that says like brunch spots good for groups, or a romantic dinner with a vintage feel, you know. So things like that. Um because you know, we all especially run in a new place, you're like you can look at reviews, but you know, that doesn't really tell you the whole truth sometimes. Um yeah, and I as you use the app, you know, more often, uh, like like so many of the apps, it starts to learn what you like and what you don't like. Uh when you find something that that you have a good experience with, you can save it, you can share it out to others. You know, that's a social aspect of the app. You can view and share photos and comments about restaurants, uh, you can discover you know content from other people, and you can follow people just like you do on Instagram or TikTok. So yeah, it's kind of kind of the rec food recommendations with the social aspect to it.
SPEAKER_09So I actually love this idea. Um, I've I've even said it to my wife a bunch of times, like, oh let's let's try something different. You go to Yelp and you're just like burying yourself in there and you're reading reviews and you're just like, No, I I actually like that this where AI would step in and kind of curate, like, tell me what you're in the mood for. I'm like, okay, Chinese, and then you know, kind of expand off that and then learning
Delivery Scam With A String
SPEAKER_09kind of what you like. No, I think this is great, and I feel like as long as they don't add sponsors to it, because I feel like a lot of these apps you get onto, they sponsor all these restaurants, and you don't know if it's actually like a legit ranking or if it's shit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if they start start letting people pay to be higher up or whatever, yeah, that's when it all goes, you know, goes to pot pretty much.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, and and there's it's that's I saw this and I was actually excited. I may have missed it, but um, do you have to have DoorDash or is this a separate app where you can just uh this is a separate app, but you do but you have to sign in with your DoorDash account. Okay. Okay. All right. Uh I don't hate that, but um yeah, I I think I might try it out because I obviously have a DoorDash account, but yeah, yeah, I definitely try it out. Because we're always looking for something different or new or um, and not to say that reviews are bad, like I do like to see reviews, but it's really hard. Like you see one that says it's amazing, and the other one it says it's like there's roasts. Yeah, and it's like, well, is it the worst place ever because you didn't like that style of food, or was the food quality bad? Like it's really hard to dig in.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, and like I said, I think it you know, especially we be good. Uh, you know, if you're traveling somewhere, you don't know anything about the area, a hundred like that, you can get recommendations, especially if you know people that you might follow on social media uh that you trust, it's kind of their opinion. Yeah, so I think we'll definitely both be trying this one out.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I definitely will. Um, I don't know why I didn't download it yet, but it kind of forgot.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's not, I mean, it's not here, it's only in San Francisco, New York now.
SPEAKER_09Thank you. That's probably or it was from the last show, and then we didn't get to it, so I'm just getting getting to it today. But yeah, all right. Well, good show. Welcome back, everyone. Uh, thank you for uh such a great 2025, had a great year, looking forward to this year. Same old, same old just giving you the news, giving our take on it. So, yeah, and Patreon tonight, 8 10 p.m. And actually, it's in eight minutes. We kind of started the show late, so check that out. Free seven day trial. And as always, uh, don't put up with anyone's bullshit. And we'll see you on the road. All right, have a good night. Hey, good night, everybody. This podcast is produced and edited by Hey Guys Media Group. Want to start a podcast? Check out Hey Guys Media Group.
