DoorDash, Postmates, GrubHub, Seamless, InstaCart: these food-delivery companies promise to disrupt the employer-employee relationship and innovate away the downsides of working in the food-service industry.

Their trick is that there are no bosses and no workers at all, or so it appears. The company is a service provider, and anyone ordering or delivering food is a service user. The platform is simply connecting users, some of whom are paying and others of whom are getting paid. A worker gets to make their own schedule and accept jobs at their convenience, like a freelancer. They can “be their own boss.” On the face of it, that sounds a lot nicer than getting ordered around by someone else for the entirety of your shift.

But even though plenty of food-delivery workers have good things to say about these gig platforms, they’re riddled with trapdoors. From food service to ride-sharing, the companies that operate them can easily wash their hands of an employer’s most basic duties to full-time employees — like providing health benefits, steady wages, and job security — and then turn around and act exactly like bosses in all the worst ways.