with a huge supply of underemployed people. Gone are the warehouses, the free bags and equipment, and even the employees. The only employees of Postmates are the engineers, operations managers, and customer service reps. Every courier who delivers on their platform is classified as an independent contractor (IC), allowing them to bring on as many people as possible to meet demand.

According to Co-founder and CEO Bastian Lehmann in a 2012 interview with TechCrunch, Postmates had a flat rate of $15 per delivery. When asked about how he got the idea for the company, his reply was, “...why don’t we help the guys who did their job already do their job better. They already know what it means to do their job for $10 - 15 per delivery.”

Since then, that fee has gone down to between $5 - 12 dollars, depending on the distance traveled from pick-up to drop-off, not accounting for terrain. What’s left of the delivery charge after Postmates takes their cut, plus tips, are what the riders take home at the end of the day. According to Nick J., a Postmates rider I interviewed, the riders of every city are dispatched by one team, based in San Francisco. Because of the sheer volume of requests they receive, riders are frequently tasked by dispatch with standing in line to make an order on behalf of the customer, eating up valuable time. Because of this, Nick tells me it’s very difficult to efficiently take on more than one job at once, and even more difficult to route effectively. Other couriers tell me that they regularly make less than minimum wage, despite the hours they work. A month after we first spoke, Nick moved on to delivering food directly for a couple of restaurants in town, for an hourly wage, plus tips. “I don’t know anyone who still rides for them. Their turnover is insanely high.”

The Game

I sat down to interview partners Arthur Lazear and Morgan Mack of the Lazear Mack law firm and ask about the legalities and requirements of an IC employment relationship. They specialize in labor law, which they tell me tends to be quite similar from state to state. They explained to me, “It’s not as easy of a question as it may seem. What determines your status as an IC is actually a number of factors, not all of which have to be met. The principle question that has to be answered is: ‘Are you in control of your own work?’”

The answer to that, at least with Postmates, is yes. You don’t have to wear their clothes, use their stickers, package things any particular way, or even adhere to your schedule. You can go on or off whenever you want, and reject whatever job they send your way. Are they paying what the work is actually worth? Will you make $20 - 30 dollars an hour? Maybe not. But then again, you don’t have to do it, and they’re not going to fire you for not doing it. If this is just a thing you want to do for some drinking money and exercise in between classes, Postmates could probably supply you with a healthy dose of job satisfaction. The trouble comes when you expect the real, living wages as well as the freedom.

Morgan Mack ended our conversation with a lament about organization of the messenger community. “Couriers are probably their own worst enemy as far as this goes. You are so independently-minded that you don’t team up and make decisions as a group. If you were to do so, many companies would have no choice but to let you have more say when laying down the terms of employment.”

Maybe he’s right. It’s the nature of the job. Couriers don’t like having people look over our shoulder, dictating how they ride and what they do when they aren’t riding. It’s always been a bit of an outlaw’s hustle, and while the messenger community is hugely supportive of one another, they’re also fiercely independent.

Takin’ Care of Bidness

TCB Courier is a local San Francisco courier business. It started a few years back when some riders found a market for the kind of thing that these app-based VC companies are only recently catching on to. They deliver whatever, whenever, especially burritos, beer, and smokes. Their rates range from $8 - 20, depending on weight and number of stops. You can even rent a courier by the hour from them to tailgate a Google bus and flyer for an event. Their business model is not altogether too different from Postmates; their riders

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