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The story
On 5ch’s News VIP board, a claim that “Uber Eats couriers get looked down on, but they’re close to the pinnacle of the self-employed” drew a wave of responses. Some praised the low barrier to entry — zero startup cost, zero monthly royalty, zero fixed costs — while others countered that it’s simply a different scale compared to self-employed people who put up large capital, like real estate investors, and still others pointed to the risks of working without social insurance or paid leave. The thread ended up split over just what should count as the “pinnacle” of self-employment.
What people said
Monthly royalty: ¥0
Fixed costs: ¥0
Guys running apartments at a commercial scale are on a totally different level.
Just because the entry cost is cheap doesn't mean grinding away at the bottom puts you anywhere near the top.
Real estate investment takes about ¥10 million upfront,
and only 10% of people actually manage to turn a profit lolololololololol
Isn't that true of pretty much everyone though?
If you drive a bus, about all you can do is drive a bus.
If you work retail, about all you can do is retail.
If you're an Uber Eats courier, about all you can do is Uber Eats delivery.
They're self-employed too, same as Uber Eats couriers.
It's zero cost precisely because you're just a hired part-timer.
There are countless zero-startup-cost part-time jobs out there.
That's basically what subcontracting is.
Small and mid-sized companies make up 70% of all businesses out there, and most of them work as subcontractors.
Drones replacing them doesn't look realistic in Japan anytime soon either.
This job could go on functioning as a safety net until the current working generation is all dead.
Drone delivery's probably still 100 years off.
https://youtube.com/shorts/9BM41OrDzuE?si=zqqhko1hZ7j8Q-X-
Re: #28
Like I said, drone delivery is 100 years off lolololol
Maybe it'll be possible around the time VRMMORPGs actually become a thing.
That's really what it comes down to.
A business with zero startup cost and zero monthly fixed costs is a strong business.
Uber makes money because it gets to use them as errand-runners with zero risk, without ever hiring them.
Uber itself ran at a loss for years, you know.
Running Uber Eats delivery and still ending up at a loss?
You mean you moved to the city and your living costs outpaced your earnings? lolololol
First off, I wasn't even talking to you.
You're just misreading it.
I actually think doing Uber is a good thing.
Don't come at me with some weird angle.
Go back and reread the whole Re: #79 thread.
Uber, the company itself.
You said Uber profits off using them risk-free, so I was just letting you know Uber itself was in the red for years…
So Uber Eats is all about exploiting bottom-tier workers under the 'self-employed' label instead of actually hiring them, huh.
You're getting paid by putting your own body on the line, right? To me, that's a losing trade.
Isn't working as a regular full-time employee just better and less risky?
If you get into an accident, labor law won't protect you.
No social insurance, no bonuses, no severance pay, no unemployment insurance.
Don't you realize how much Uber is exploiting you?
This thread is about comparisons within self-employment, so stop derailing it by dragging in comparisons to guys who'll be salarymen till they die.
What exactly do you mean by 'if you get into an accident'?
Like a traffic accident?
Would that be your fault, or the other party's?
About ¥4,000 an hour.
That's surprisingly good.
Seems pretty low-stress too.
But if this is your main job, social insurance and taxes will eat up more than 30% of that.
National Health Insurance is basically a rip-off if you just enroll the normal way.
And there's no sick pay on top of that.
That's not something just anyone can do.
Telling someone 'become a doctor, go independent, and pull in ¥300 million a year' —
not everyone can do that, so comparing it is just dumb.
It's not really about the comparison —
is it really fine to be self-employed and still end up on the exploited end?
Fine or not fine —
bringing up some exceptional case that not everyone can pull off doesn't really help.
What we're talking about is self-employment that anyone can get into.
By your logic, I could just say 'become a doctor, open your own practice, and you'll make ¥300 million a year.'
Is it 'fine' to make ¥2 million a year as an Uber courier?
That's no different from just saying 'become an independent doctor and you'll make ¥300 million.'
Even the bottom-rung site laborers you all look down on
pull in ¥4 million a year without even trying.
They just see no benefit in going self-employed, so they stay hired.
You're the one who said it yourself — that it's the pinnacle among the self-employed.
What's the actual difference between a 'self-employed' person who just handles whatever orders come down the pipe, and a regular hired delivery driver?
Sure, there's no risk — but that also means the upside is capped.
And since you're not an employee, nobody's got your back either.
It's a mystery what people are even trying to accomplish by hyping up a job that, within the narrow world of self-employment, takes no risk and therefore has a low ceiling on reward.
If you don't actually want to take on risk to make more money, then just be an employee already…
Isn't this ultimately just companies using the 'self-employed' label to cut the cost of actually hiring bottom-tier workers?
That's exactly why workers and the self-employed are completely different things.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Uber Eats couriers work under contractor agreements rather than employment contracts, making them self-employed (freelance) workers who fall outside the scope of workers’ compensation insurance, employment insurance, and paid leave under Japan’s Labor Standards Act. At the same time, in 2022 Japan’s Central Labour Relations Commission recognized couriers as “workers” under the Labor Union Act, granting them the right to collective bargaining through a union — part of an ongoing legal debate over their position somewhere between self-employed contractor and employee. In the thread, opinions split between those who saw the near-zero startup and fixed costs as an advantage of self-employment, and those who stressed risks unique to being self-employed, such as a heavier social insurance burden and thin protection in the event of an accident or illness. Underlying the disagreement is a difference in premise: even though both sides are discussing “self-employment” as one category, should couriers be measured against large-scale business owners, or judged simply on how easy the work is to get into?
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News VIP) thread “Uber Eats couriers get looked down on, but aren’t they close to the top of the self-employed pile?.”
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