Uber Eats driver hangout upsell

According to rigorous research (1 Google search and a CNN article), American society is experiencing a loneliness epidemic. I don’t feel particularly lonely but to each their own. Part of me does wonder how much this is perpetuated by the technology we use on a daily basis in the name of making our lives more “efficient”. Between getting our household supplies delivered by Amazon, seeing therapists remotely, and ordering our food to get delivered to our doorstep, it’s no wonder that we see people in person less often. 

My unfounded hypothesis is that this is a particularly persistent trend for tech workers coming out of the pandemic, but that’s not based on anything concrete. I digress… 

Thinking about this more, I started to wonder about chaotic ways to reintroduce human interaction into our daily routines. This led me to design an optional upsell during Uber Eats checkout where you could pay extra to have your driver hang out with you while you eat. This at first glance is pretty insane, but part of me wonders if some people would use this either out of morbid curiosity or because they are in desperate need of a friend. 

Either way could be an interesting experiment to test given their scale.

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