Every day I feel inclined to add my 2c when I see the hot topic of the day on Twitter. Then I remember that I don’t want to be one of the main characters there, so I just go and delete it.

There are so many emotionally driven bad takes here that I want to cry. That day I tweeted about how Zomato is staying relevant and so many people QT’ed me to dunk on me and tell me they never order from Zomato and Zomato is not relevant.

Blinkit has become one of the leaders in fast commerce, literally from the brink of shutting down. Zomato has gone from being a leader mainly in the north to rapidly gaining market share in Swiggy’s home turf of Bengaluru. And its share price is at a record high. And you can have a guess at their PAT for this year. Most of that is public, you know, disclosed. But people are using their one and only data point to make strong statements. Everything is emotion and outrage led. Dunking on each other. Just optimising for likes. There is no critical thinking.

For example, take Swiggy’s insurance for gig workers. For a company that is trying to go public, any increase in opex is either going to eat into their margin, or they are going to have to pass it on to the end customer. Most customers like to post screenshots of delivery firms stacking fees on top of each other in order to dunk them on Twitter. Or they have a rant about how the whole industry is VC subsidised. Then there is the thorny issue of the full-time employee vs. the gig worker.

All companies are mandated by the government to insure their employees. Nothing said about covering Gig Workers. So if a company is providing insurance, they are doing it as an extra incentive for their gig workers.

How do you decide who you’re going to cover? Does someone qualify for permanent health insurance if they only drive and complete one job? Do you use a tenure system? Zomato experimented with tenure in a few cities. Workers who had been with Zomato for X years got insurance.

So do you reward long-term tenure, or do you tweak it for gig workers who may not have tenure, but are more sticky: they are engaged on your platform, so they start earning this insurance a lot earlier?

There is no such thing as a free lunch. You can’t make everybody happy.

You have to figure out how to build a sustainable business in a low-margin industry. You can read all the stories about Amazon and their warehouse workers.

Should Swiggy cut 20 per cent of their workforce to save costs that they can pass on to increase insurance coverage for gig workers? If they do it people are going to cry about layoffs. Or are they going to add a toggle at the checkout so that you pay more to help cover x gig workers? Someone is going to have to pay the costs.

This is why it is pointless to have discussions on Twitter about these hot topics. Most people will QT to virtue signal and collect likes. They have no idea how the world actually works.

I remember when a clothing company in America offered 2 manufacturing options: Choose American manufacturing and support local industry (pay more) or Chinese (cheaper). You already know what the people chose to do.

Tomorrow there is going to be a new hot topic. A new main character who will be the focus of all the attention. At this point, it is a clown show.