Meituan Signs 2026 Rider Agreement, Raises Pay Weight for Hard Deliveries

The pay-weighting shift is the substantive part: it moves rider compensation away from pure volume toward order difficulty, which changes the unit economics of bulky and walk-up deliveries. Because Meituan frames this as a negotiated agreement with rider representatives, it also signals a governance model that pre-empts regulatory pressure rather than responding to it. The open question is whether the red-light timer pilot and pension subsidies scale beyond pilots, and whether rival platforms match the pay structure.