Not Just Delivery Riders: We’re All Trapped by the Algorithm

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A Note from Foodthink

Released this August, the film Another Day Full of Hope stands out not only as the most profound exploration to date of food delivery and algorithms, but also as a rare work of realist cinema in recent years.

On 4 September, Foodthink invited director Liu Taifeng and producer Zhu Tong to join us for an episode of the Food Talk podcast. The following piece draws directly from that conversation with director Liu.

Within the article, the director outlines the social concerns that drove the film’s creation. The profound societal shifts wrought by algorithms extend far beyond food delivery riders; indeed, one could say that “we are all trapped by the algorithm”. Director Liu hopes the film will illuminate the struggles faced across different social strata, serving as a lasting record of our times.

Our editorial team has already recommended the film to our readers. With screenings still taking place across major cities, we warmly invite you to catch a showing and share your reflections with us.

– Scan to Listen –

Liu Taifeng

Director and Screenwriter, Another Day Full of Hope

 

 

 

● Still from *Yet Another Hopeful Day*. The film opens with a traffic accident: an algorithm engineer working for a food delivery platform collides with one of his company’s riders, sparking crises within two families from vastly different social backgrounds.

In 2021, while driving and waiting at a red light at a Beijing intersection, I nearly hit a food delivery rider.

It was summer. The countdown digits on the traffic lights kept shifting unpredictably, stirring a sense of irritation. Everyone in front of me was either running a red light or coiled and ready to surge forward. When the light turned green, I pressed the accelerator on instinct. Just then, a delivery rider who had run the red light and was cycling the wrong way flashed past, grazing my front bumper and number plate. I could practically feel the physical presence of his body brush past the car. Had he been a fraction of a second closer, I would have sent him flying.

A chill ran down my spine. My immediate thought was: if I had actually struck him, what legal liability would I face? As a motorist, I had failed to properly assess the road ahead. Yet he had run the red light to make a delivery in time. Apportioning fault in such a scenario is a delicate matter.

Coincidentally, I had long wanted to make a film exploring everyday livelihood struggles and reflecting social realities, but I needed the right narrative angle. Suddenly, these elements converged in my mind. I turned to the screenwriter beside me, Cai Zhiling, and said, ‘How about we draft a script about a programmer who designs algorithms for an internet platform and hits a delivery rider from his own company, to see what kind of story unfolds.‘ And so the concept was born.

From that moment, we began fleshing out the character dynamics. I interviewed numerous delivery riders across different ages and genders—some who had managed local stations, others working dedicated routes, and some doing gig work. This kind of groundwork is essential in filmmaking. My screenwriter also spoke with friends employed at major tech firms, while I chatted with cleaners in my housing estate and even elderly residents walking their dogs. Through open-ended conversations, we gathered authentic slices of everyday life before slowly refining the script.

From the decision to move forward with the project to the start of filming, barely three months passed. We began shooting in Hangzhou that summer of 2022, with a total production schedule of 40 days.

● Filmed in Hangzhou during the summer of 2022, the film makes extensive use of real-world locations, allowing audiences to witness the everyday reality of pandemic life on screen.

I. Is working as a delivery rider really “zero cost”?

Much of the reality of working as a food delivery rider comes with hidden pitfalls that outsiders never see. Online recruitment campaigns promise free meals and accommodation alongside “zero-cost onboarding”. It is their standard pitch, designed to attract as many applicants as possible. But signing up is far from free. For dedicated delivery riders, there is a strict rule: you must give a month’s notice to resign, and your wages for that final month are split evenly with the local station. This means joining a dedicated team locks you in for at least a month, during which you must deliver a full month’s worth of value to the station. The station is guaranteed a steady income regardless. If someone quits after a short stint because they realise they cannot handle the work, that month effectively amounts to unpaid labour, with the earnings pocketed by the station.

Stations also do not supply the riders’ equipment. Uniforms must be purchased privately, while e-bikes and batteries are rented, all feeding into a vast, underlying commercial chain. Before you start, the station claims it will provide accommodation. In reality, they simply take you to a rented property to sign a lease agreement. You do not need to pay anything upfront, but these costs are deducted directly from your wages.

So it is not zero cost. It is a system designed to load you with debt, leaving you with no easy way out. If you want to leave, you have to “buy” your way out.

● A delivery station holding its morning briefing on the roadside. The platform’s staff management, order coordination, and other operations all rely on these local stations. Photo: Tianle
In interviews, many station managers also expressed a profound sense of helplessness, weighed down by the platform’s performance targets. Platforms entrust these stations to managers because they supply a steady stream of fresh, reliable recruits. Beyond that, the platform washes its hands of everything else. There is no employment relationship between them and the delivery riders; the contracts are mere cooperation agreements, signed electronically on mobile phones. This setup makes it remarkably easy for loopholes to be exploited, as you simply cannot be expected to scrutinise every single word. Yet this very document dictates the riders’ future labour protections and compensation for accidents. But for most job seekers, there is only one objective: to earn money first, leaving every other concern for later. When it comes to this work, most of the delivery riders I interviewed view it either as a transitional phase in life or as a means to quickly accumulate disposable capital in a short period.

The lines I wrote for Wei Li in the film:

“This is just a part-time gig. Do you know how many registered riders are out there? If the company had to provide statutory social insurance and housing fund contributions for every single one of them, could it even stay in business? They do it voluntarily. They are paid per delivery, and if they don’t take a delivery, they can rest. They don’t have to face daily or weekly reports, end-of-year performance reviews, or any of that sort of pressure.”
These are the costs of working as a part-timer: you have absolutely no affiliation with the platform, and the cooperation agreement is only ever signed with a third-party labour firm. Everyone knows what a cooperation agreement implies: no safeguards, including statutory social insurance and housing fund. In the riders’ words, some of these clauses are simply unfair. Since all the leverage rests with Party A. Here are a few details. As you know, riders pay three yuan a day for insurance, but it only covers losses caused to third parties due to the rider’s negligence. If the other party is at fault, their insurance handles the compensation. But there is a third scenario: if a rider injures themselves due to their own negligence, they simply have no recourse. The rider receives no compensation whatsoever—exactly the situation depicted in the film.

II. We Are All Trapped in the Algorithm

In truth, the delivery rider and the algorithm engineer at the internet platform are merely the film’s starting points. Rather than a story about riders trapped by algorithms, it is far more about how we are all trapped by them. Alongside the rider being knocked down, there is a parallel storyline: a programmer facing redundancy. Both families live in contemporary Chinese cities, yet across different social strata, even when we pass each other day in and day out, we might not even spare a glance. Why? Our own demanding work lives have eroded human connection, breeding distance and indifference that ultimately harden into an irreconcilable hostility.

One can imagine that without the accident, the programmer would never have crossed paths with the delivery rider in his entire life. The system dictates that you must not engage with them, and forbids you from letting sympathy for them interfere with your work.

● In this scene, the programmer and the rider brush past one another in an elevator—a situation familiar to our daily routines. What’s intriguing is that in the final cut, none of the riders in their yellow uniforms bear Meituan’s branding or logo.
The aim of an algorithm engineer is to optimise the system; this is an action driven by a strong professional imperative. It is not his objective to study the plight of food delivery riders and design mechanisms to protect them. A competent algorithm engineer must follow the algorithm’s logic to maximise commercial profit while sidestepping labour disputes. In the film, the programmer Wei Li works at a frantic pace, leaving no time to consider others’ perspectives. The only things weighing on him are the KPIs and performance reviews that determine whether he secures a promotion and a pay rise or is made redundant. He does not stop to consider whether the algorithm might cause harm, great or small, to others.He must have unshakeable faith in the work he does, because the environment demands it; otherwise, he will be let go.

It is only the moment he runs over a delivery rider that a flicker of doubt begins to emerge. At first, it is not directed at the algorithm itself; rather, it is a flash of humanity awakened within him—the realisation that having hit someone, he might bear some responsibility.

This awakening is a gradual process. To suggest that an algorithm engineer like him could genuinely end up on the opposite side of the company would be unrealistic.A former university classmate once put a piercing question to him: “At our age, is money really the only thing that matters?” Given this context, his eventual refusal of the company’s offer to rehire him at a high salary is already a testament to his humanity. He realises there are things that cannot be measured in money or material wealth. Thus, when presented with the company’s offer, he says:

“People are not oranges. You cannot simply eat the fruit and toss the peel aside.”
Ultimately, although the wife of the delivery rider Jin Peng opts to stop treatment, the representing lawyer decides to shift the target of the lawsuit from the programmer to the platform.This is fundamentally a tragedy, yet it serves to spur a quiet awakening in people from two entirely different social classes.

III. Where Does the Value of Work Lie

The film introduces an elderly man who worked as a film projectionist in his youth. He tells Wei Li about travelling to rural villages to show films for the locals, a time when tickets were hard to come by. He later went through the transition to a marketised economy and was made redundant in the 1990s. In truth, this old man could represent any worker who lived through that era. He is telling Wei Li: you have experienced redundancy, and so have I. The work I did in my youth filled me with such pride because I was serving the people. Every task felt valuable and meaningful.

And now? Today, every value we create can be measured in profit. Yet the delivery rider who generates that profit in the film lies in the ICU, with no one looking out for him. There is a conversation in the movie between Wei Li and the rider’s lawyer:

“We created this software and brought so much convenience to people. Do you order takeaways when you work? How much time have we saved you? That is its value. We have even introduced an entirely new way of life. You cannot deny that.” “I do not deny that you have created value, but have you ever considered that the person truly creating that value is now lying in the ICU.”

Wei Li points out that food delivery saves you time, and that is its value. But where does all that saved time actually go? You soon realise there is never quite enough of it. We all long for a little downtime away from work—to travel happily with family and friends, or to do something truly meaningful. Yet most of our days are consumed by what we call work, or simply by commuting, leaving us to rely on fragmented pockets of spare time to tackle the things we actually want to get done.

So what exactly are we rushing about for day in, day out? Compared with the past, we certainly have our mobile phones and cars. So why are we so mentally exhausted? What is the true cost behind it all? That is precisely what I, too, hope to convey to audiences through this film.

● Some behind-the-scenes photos. The film employs numerous shots to capture the everyday reality of Hangzhou in 2022. Director Liu Taifeng also noted in an interview that sitting by the roadside to observe and document a wide range of ordinary people is a key way for him to gather material for his work.

IV. The Current Landscape Is Growing Increasingly Cutthroat

It has been two years since the film was shot, and rather than improving, the situation in the food delivery sector has only deteriorated. More people are entering the industry, while the per-order rate for riders continues to plummet. It is said that the insurance premium, once three yuan, has now been slashed to two yuan fifty. A couple of days ago, while we were on a promotional tour in Shanghai, we went to a restaurant to eat soup dumplings. The place boasts excellent ratings on the delivery platform. Upon arrival, the manager told us that if we simply checked in on social media and left a positive review, we could each have a complimentary side dish worth over ten yuan. After we completed our check-ins, a whole table of side dishes was served. The manager sighed, saying there was no other way; that is just how business operates on our street these days. If they do not actively farm positive reviews, their ratings will drop, and the platform will stop recommending them. Yet when we tasted the main dishes, they were far from appetising, despite the shop’s sterling reputation on the platform.

This is a vicious cycle, which is why the dine-in experience is bound to deteriorate. But I do not blame the restaurants, as they are all trapped within the algorithm; without resorting to these tactics, they cannot make a living. Many restaurant owners remark that, delivering food means losing money on every single order, yet you must do it just to retain your customer base. If you step away, you simply vanish from the platform.

●The Restaurant Industry Under the Platform Economy: Data from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics shows that in the first half of 2024, the total profit for large-scale catering businesses in Beijing (those with annual revenues exceeding 10 million yuan) amounted to a mere 180 million yuan, an 88.8% drop year-on-year, with profit margins sinking to a low of 0.37%. During the same period, Meituan’s local commerce revenue reached 60.7 billion yuan, with an operating profit of 15.234 billion yuan and an operating profit margin of 25.1%. Photograph by Tianle.

The film industry is no different; the criteria for evaluating a movie or television series are equally data-driven. This level of control can be refined down to every plot point, every scene, every character, and even casting choices. The prevailing belief is that if a project is designed according to big data, audiences will inevitably buy into it. But where do these data points and traffic figures actually come from? They can just as easily be artificially inflated by “giving away side dishes.” This is a widespread phenomenon across all industries, though it is most glaringly visible in food delivery.

In the past, restaurants could hire their own delivery staff, charging a modest additional fee per order to get meals to customers’ doors. Cinemas would draw patrons from surrounding neighbourhoods; people would come on weekends and holidays, with prices clearly displayed. Neither restaurants nor cinemas back then faced such hardship, as the ecosystem around them was healthy and sustainable.

What the platforms have achieved is consolidating all these resources into one. In reality, platforms do not profit solely from the services they operate; they care far more about polished financial reports and upward growth metrics. With those figures in hand, the capital backing them and their stock market manoeuvres can generate substantial dividends. I believe this is the fundamental logic at play. Beyond that, whether one contributes through manual labour or intellectual work, the value added matters comparatively little. Yet today, those who optimise algorithmic efficiency and those who execute it are yoked together onto a massive juggernaut, relentlessly driving forward in the pursuit of profit.

A few years ago, when a food delivery took forty minutes to arrive, we did not find it slow. Now, if it does not arrive within twenty minutes, we consider it delayed. This represents a shift in our psychology, yet it is not necessarily one we engineered ourselves. Many consumers could easily be patient; for instance, if I know I will be dining in forty minutes, I could simply calculate the timing and order ahead of schedule. So why does this mindset persist? In truth, a powerful underlying force is gradually reshaping both our thought processes and our way of life. One might argue that these are simply our established consumption habits, but there is a fundamental flaw lurking behind those habits.

I have spoken with countless Didi drivers and food delivery riders. The source of their frustration lies in an unreasonable system. The system requires extensive, more humane adjustments, not merely because these riders and drivers labour for the platforms, but to restore the dignity they deserve as human beings.

As a film, *Another Day Full of Hope* is unlikely to effect major change or launch a scathing critique. The issue at its core is systemic. I have simply distilled the dilemmas we all encounter in daily life, projected them onto the silver screen, and left a large question mark hanging over them.

●A still of director Liu Taifeng at work on set.

Unless otherwise stated, all images are provided by the production team of *Another Day Full of Hope*.

Edited by: Wang Hao

 

Published by Foodthink