For 27 hours this spring, my colleague Andy Newman was one of those workers.

[Read the article: My frantic life as a cab-dodging, tip-chasing food app deliveryman.]

Online and ready to go

Your favorite restaurants may not have changed, but the way they deliver food probably has. In the past few years, a cadre of apps has popped up: GrubHub, Seamless, Uber Eats, Caviar, DoorDash, Postmates .

Ping! Pong! Hurry up and go (where?)

Mr. Newman joined the apps as a deliveryman. Then he hopped onto an electric bike, opened his phone and waited for orders to come in.

Ping: an Uber Eats pickup at Cocina del Sur on West 38th Street in Manhattan.

Pong: Postmates wanted him to pick up two orders at Shake Shack on Broadway and 36th Street.

“I had to decide,” Mr. Newman wrote. “Take on three orders at once and risk falling behind? Stick with Uber Eats, which was running a $10 bonus for doing six deliveries by 1:30, or try for a Postmates bonus?”