“Business owners have less and less choice, and I truly feel like calling it ‘slavery.’ When it is busy, dozens of orders come in at once, and we work in a constant state of tension under heavy pressure.”

Yoon Mi-Jung (41), who runs a snack shop with her husband in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, spoke this way. This is because the stress from being forced by the delivery platform Coupang Eats to keep the recommended cooking time to around 5 minutes after an order is enormous.

According to Kyunghyang Shinmun reporting on the 30th, Coupang Eats is understood to have recently shortened the recommended cooking times. It varies by store and menu, but at some places the default recommended time to cook the food, pack it, and send it out for delivery upon accepting an order is set at 5 minutes. In Ms. Yoon’s case, the default recommended time used to be 10 minutes, but she said it has now been cut to 5 minutes. On social media and in online communities, many posts say, “Lately Coupang’s cooking time has suddenly been set extremely short,” and, “Even when the order amount is over 20,000 won, it is set to 5~7 minutes. The recipe cannot be done in 5 minutes physically, so why are they shortening it at will?”

Observers say that as an intermediary platform, Coupang Eats is using its market power to tighten control over owners. Chair Kim Jun-Hyung of the Association of Owners for a Fair Platform criticized, “Even if you simply pick up goods at a convenience store and put them in a bag, it easily takes more than 5 minutes,” and asked, “How does it make sense to give restaurant owners, who actually have to cook the food and then package it, a 5-minute recommended time?” He added, “Owners are not subcontracted employees of the platform,” and, “It should not be the intermediary platform but the owners, who know their shop conditions and actually cook the food, who choose the cooking time.” At his shop as well, the recommended time for a pork cartilage dish priced over 20,000 won is only 5 minutes.

Coupang Eats allows extra time on top of the given recommended cooking time, but even that is provided only up to 10 minutes. If you hit the ‘delay’ button, another 10 minutes is added. If you then press ‘accept,’ the (scheduled pickup) time is immediately reduced by 3 minutes. In other words, even when you add extra time and also press the delay button, the maximum time you can secure is around 22 minutes. Self-employed owners are under immense pressure, as they also have orders from other delivery platforms, dine-in guests, and takeout customers.

Rushing against the clock risks degrading food quality, and hurrying excessively raises the danger of getting hurt in the kitchen. If a mistake happens, the responsibility also falls on the owner. The pressure is especially greater for group orders. By contrast, Baedal Minjok is known to allow up to 1 hour, with a 30-minute default plus an additional 30 minutes.

Conflicts are increasingly frequent between owners, who need time to cook, and riders, who want to complete even one more delivery. Ms. Yoon said that recently there was even an incident where her husband and a rider grabbed each other by the collar. Critics say the platform is egging on fights between owners and riders, the ‘weaker parties.’

Odahun Oh (29), who runs a rice-bowl shop in Jeonju while also working as a rider, criticized, “From the owner’s standpoint, the platform forces short cooking times and shifts the problems of food quality, operational risk, and even responsibility for delays onto them, and from the rider’s standpoint, early dispatch assigns us before cooking is actually finished, causing repeated waiting at stores without compensation for the wait time, so we must accept losses of time and income,” adding, “It is an unfair structure that creates conflict between owners and riders, who have no choice over dispatch, while leaving the responsibility only on the front lines.” Koo Gyo-Hyun, a branch head of Rider Union, said, “Coupang Eats is controlling even riders and store owners in an excessive way without considering on-the-ground realities at all,” and, “With low per-delivery pay, riders are pushed to make one more delivery and complete missions, and since store owners also have their own circumstances, there is room for conflict to arise.”

Because Coupang Eats and Baedal Minjok effectively have a duopoly over the domestic delivery industry, owners find it difficult to give up orders coming through the platforms. In response to owners’ complaints, Coupang Eats reportedly repeated that the algorithm determines the settings and there is nothing they can do. Even so, they did not disclose specific algorithms or rules. Coupang Eats measures customer satisfaction based on order acceptance rate, order acceptance time, cooking time, and the number of missed orders to calculate a store score, and there are benefits and disadvantages tied to this, which leaves owners under even greater pressure.

Experts argued that legislation to regulate platforms is needed to solve these problems. Oh Min-Gyu, executive director at Finding Hope in Platform Labor, said, “A monopolistic structure is squeezing riders and store owners,” and, “They turn a blind eye to the problems and conflicts this causes and shift the costs and responsibility onto owners and riders.” He continued, “Coupang uses the internet and road networks laid down by the Korean government, yet does not bear corresponding user or social responsibilities,” adding, “Platforms must be given responsibilities and duties. A law to ensure fairness in online platforms is needed.”

Seo Chi-Won, an attorney with Lawyers for a Democratic Society, said, “There is room to view this as a type of managerial interference, and unilaterally changing business transaction terms without a procedure for owners’ consent is also a problem,” adding, “In a monopolistic situation, market-based, self-correcting ways of improvement and resolution do not function, so regulation is the only option.”

A Coupang Eats official said, “We provide recommended cooking times that reflect the differing operating conditions of each store,” adding, “Before accepting an order, owners can use ‘Busy’ mode and extra cooking time to extend the time by up to 30 minutes, and even after acceptance, a 10-minute extension is possible.”