After the fierce battle among Chinese food delivery platforms, a drastic drop in riders’ income has become a common phenomenon. On April 17th, the topic labeled “Riders’ Income Plummets After the Food Delivery War” surged to the top of trending topics on Weibo.
“Can you still make money delivering food now? Nowadays, each order only brings in three or four yuan, running for more than ten hours a day, the income is not as good as before. Behind the title of ‘Delivery King’ is the result of enduring 14 hours every day. ‘If you don’t stay on for long hours, you won’t make any money,’ the rider joked, expressing that their fate is controlled by the ‘system’. ‘If the system likes you, it will keep assigning you orders; if the system doesn’t like you, it will keep you idle’,” described by “Three Links Life Laboratory”.
On April 17th, “Three Links Life Laboratory” under “Three Links Life Weekly” announced the release of a 28-minute documentary titled “2026 Chinese Food Delivery Worker Survival Report (Click here for the original video)” amidst the lingering smoke of the “food delivery war”.
The report mentioned that in Beijing, one of the earliest cities to develop the food delivery industry, delivery workers come and go. Today, over fifty percent of the remaining delivery workers are young people from rural areas around Beijing, with a majority from Hebei rural areas. They all mentioned similar phrases, “We rural young people have few opportunities for advancement.” Other similar statements included, “After delivering food, my language skills have regressed,” and “We can’t even earn money, let alone worry about our lives.”
Every delivery worker knows someone who has had an accident while delivering meals, maybe even themselves. A delivery worker who only worked for a few months stated that delivering food helped him overcome depression, but he also understood that delivery is just a temporary job. Although it appears to be a temporary job, many have been doing it for nearly a decade, like all other manual laborers, today saying “I will never do this again,” but tomorrow, they continue to accept orders.
This report immediately sparked widespread attention on the internet.
Netizens expressed, “This is really a bit sad! I remember during the subsidy war not long ago, ordering food was almost like getting it for free, the full discount made me feel a bit embarrassed. At that time, the riders said that they could earn several more yuan for each order, and working hard could make a couple of hundred a day. I thought at the time, ‘Hey, this is good, the platform battles while the riders profit.'”
“A delivery rider runs from seven in the morning until eleven at night, making 300 yuan,envy? They are risking their lives during this time, with no breaks, real businesses aren’t earning money, riders aren’t earning money, and the platform claims to be losing money, where is the reason?”
Some netizens pointed out directly, “Those who used to order food are now delivering food, more wolves, less meat, it’s strange if incomes don’t drop!” “Is it just food delivery? Many basic jobs have had decreased pay and more time off, you can leave if you want, that’s the saying — if you don’t do it, someone else will.” “Actually, it may not necessarily be due to the food delivery battle, with the current economic downturn, many people’s salaries have decreased, many can’t even find jobs, the overall environment is like this now.” “There are fewer urban employment opportunities, factories no longer need people. Everyone is returning to the villages to barely get by. It’s not just delivery workers, even Didi drivers don’t have money anymore.”
“Nowadays, being able to break even in any industry is already good enough, don’t think about getting rich all the time, ideals are lofty but reality is harsh. The economy is not doing well, the common people have no money, chasing after high GDP just accelerates the decline. Not afraid of inflation, not afraid of deflation, the most scary is stagflation, once entering stagflation, it is a trend towards total decline, it’s hard to reverse. Next, you can go home and eat your own food, no need to discount, just close the door directly.”