And you likely had "downtime" when waiting at the shop for an order to deliver; these delivery people are often servicing an almost infinite number of orders and shops, and the next order is just an app click away.

Sort of. I'd help out around the pizza shop if there wasn't a bicycle delivery to be done. I could handle any of the other positions in the shop as well. But yes, there was generally plenty of downtime, other than maybe a 2-4 hour super rush period around lunch or dinner some days.

Much of the current "labor complaints" in general come from the maximization that doesn't "exist on paper" - jobs often involved "downtime" (even if you have slogans like "if you can lean, you can clean") and a few hours each day of absolute panic crunch-time.

Now we're becoming quite capable of optimizing it so that the panic crunch-time is the entire shift (and if it isn't you make less than minimum wage) via these "Silicon Valley gig apps".

Now imagine the pizza shop put you in a race with another delivery driver, and the loser was going to be banned from delivering and making that extra money.

Because that's the reality these delivery apps set up.

Isn't this the plot of Snow Crash?