It wasn't bad before the gig-economy middlemen stepped in, in highschool i delievered pizzas and pocketed something like $2 + tips for each delivery (this was 20 something years ago )

it scaled pretty well, I would just take 3-4 orders per-ride depending on distance ended up with a decent chunk of change just from the weekends, and there was a decent amount of downtime and socializing waiting for pizzas to be cooked

with the gig stuff drivers are shuttleing between multiple resturants non-stop in ill-defined areas to random customers and probably walking away with less cash it's a stupid system

Ya it was a thing before when labor costs were cheaper. Will It remain a thing now? We still get delivery, some Chinese places don’t even bother with a dining room, but the costs keep increasing such that I don’t see it lasting for much longer.