[HN Gopher] DoorDash and pizza arbitrage (2020)
___________________________________________________________________
DoorDash and pizza arbitrage (2020)
Author : jer0me
Score : 128 points
Date : 2022-07-13 17:44 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.readmargins.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.readmargins.com)
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| With regard to the Chinese restaurants, some of those are family
| operations, and so their delivery charges are much less because
| the person is not really earning a salary. Perhaps they only work
| for tips.
| notpushkin wrote:
| What's the fuss with SoftBank?
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Ex-Grubhub exec calls delivery apps "payday lenders for
| restaurants and drivers"_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23278157 - May 2020 (8
| comments)
|
| _Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852 - May 2020 (514
| comments)
| evan_ wrote:
| If DoorDash literally just gives their runners a credit card and
| pays whatever the restaurant charges, can restaurants just charge
| them like $1000 for a pizza? There must be a limit but I wonder
| what it is...
| system2 wrote:
| Did I just read someone scamming a corporate in fine detail?
| kelnos wrote:
| I remember reading this around when it was first posted, and I
| cringed at that too. I saw no problem with their first test:
| providing 10 perfectly-good pizzas and pocketing the $10
| arbitrage; I think DoorDash would be hard-pressed to argue
| about that. But just putting dough in the boxes for the later
| purchases felt like something that DD could sue for, and
| possibly win.
|
| I think it's hilarious, and DD got what they deserved in this
| case, but it seemed legally risky to write about something like
| that.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Startups and "corporates" never feel bad about breaking the law
| (only pretending to do so when it's good for PR), why should
| this guy? Not to mention, I'm not even sure any law was
| actually broken here.
|
| I too wish we lived in a society where illegal and unethical
| behavior was called out and shunned regardless of who's doing
| it, but let's drop the double-standards since we're not living
| in such a society and things don't look like they're even
| heading in that direction.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I was recently offered an affiliate link for a company that
| charges $20/mo for its service. They offered me $25 per sign up,
| and the end-user gets 50% off using my affiliate link.
|
| I am not an unethical person, but the thought of arbitrage did
| cross my mind...
| kelnos wrote:
| Not the same, but this reminds me of years and years ago when
| Google was giving away free AdWords credit. I think I got $75,
| and spent it on ads using my affiliate link for another service
| that offered credit for affiliate signups. I very easily maxed
| out my credit allowance for that. Not long after, the company
| got wind of what was going on and added something to their
| affiliate terms to disallow that.
|
| It's funny, because there was no deception involved: the ad
| text I used was something like "Sign up for [service] and get
| $[discount] off", which was true, as the affiliate link offered
| a discount for the person signing up (in addition to the credit
| I would get as the affiliate). The company in the end just
| didn't like that I spent $75 of someone else's money to acquire
| customers for them.
| mod wrote:
| Why wouldn't they like that?
| bombcar wrote:
| Because they can pay Google directly. The affiliate links
| are for people with existing readers/clients to push them
| toward the company, not for finding randos on Google
| search.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Presumably the affiliate program is more cost-effective
| than paying Google directly, or why even have it?
|
| Maybe the customers kelnos found were much lower quality
| than normal affiliate customers? That's the only reason I
| would think this makes sense money-wise.
|
| It's also possible they didn't want to anger google with
| "misspent" free credits.
|
| But it's also possible they had an ego about it.
| bombcar wrote:
| There was a lot of this for awhile with various affiliate
| links.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| When I worked at Coinbase, a Data Scientist did that to some
| huge volume. Company didn't care. Instead of hiring a bunch
| of people to manage ads, it was someone doing it in off-hours
| for $10 per signup.
| dfee wrote:
| I'm not clear where ethics fits in here. Was that expressly
| limited? They're offering you an affiliate link to drive
| conversions - they've externalized sales to you - what (more)
| permission do you need from them?
| seoaeu wrote:
| They're paying you to get real people to sign up with the
| intention of using the service. If you sign up a bunch of
| sock puppet accounts, or pay a bunch of people to sign up for
| a month and then cancel, then you aren't holding up your part
| of the (perhaps unwritten) deal
| dfee wrote:
| _That_ would indeed be unethical. But not passing along a
| referral code and subdividing profits from there.
| bee_rider wrote:
| This seems pretty different -- you have a relationship with
| that company. Probably there's like a contract, right? They
| must have included something in the fine print about not taking
| advantage of the service yourself (unless they are, like, real
| dumb).
|
| Restaurants have no obligations to random people on the
| internet who decide to re-sell their food without permission.
| rascul wrote:
| I'm about six miles from the restaurants and neither DoorDash nor
| any other delivery service or in house delivery will deliver to
| me, except Walmart. I wouldn't mind getting 1/3 off my pizza
| price as it would cover the delivery fee.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| If your address is blacklisted because of a previous owner, I
| wonder if you could try reaching out to customer service, or
| appending something like a fake apartment number.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| I think it's probably because of the distance right? At least
| to me 6 miles is pretty far out for a delivery
| site-packages1 wrote:
| In Seattle, yes. In Houston, no.
| rascul wrote:
| You may be on to something. I might try appending a fake
| apartment number in the future.
| Victerius wrote:
| > neither DoorDash nor any other delivery service or in house
| delivery will deliver to me
|
| Why?
| milkytron wrote:
| Maybe outside the delivery radius, or not enough drivers to
| have one cover that distance when they could perform two
| deliveries closer in the same time.
|
| Not certain, but maybe that's why.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I created a DD account but never placed an order. Quite some time
| later, they emailed to try to convince me to place my first order
| -- with a $35-off coupon (min $30 order).
|
| I ordered $41 of food and was stuck with a $22 bill (including a
| $5 tip I added). Delivery was "free" for this order.
|
| This taught me a valuable lesson: if DD sends you a coupon for
| less than $20, it is worth zero. If it's between $20 and $35, it
| is worth about 10 bucks (especially when you consider how they
| inflate prices for dishes).
| chrisacky wrote:
| I had identical experience but with Uber Eats. I was given 18
| GBP coupon off any orders over 20 GBP. So I ended up buying a
| breakfast delivery from McDonalds for the family, I added the
| food and the coupon to the order... The first time I tried the
| payment my card failed. No idea why... it just said
| Authorization Failed. Second time round, it went through.
| Driver came, and I also left a tip.
|
| About a week later I was doing my household budget and looked
| at the charge on my account, and it excluded the discount. Once
| you added in delivery, service charge and the tip, I ended up
| paying 30%+ more for the food (and didn't have my coupon).
|
| I think this was a genuine dark pattern that they use, although
| I have no interest in putting it to the test. After a failed
| payment, they auto remove any applied coupons to your
| transaction....
|
| This was my first and guess-what, last order.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| If you get an Uber credit in the future, you can use it to
| buy takeout instead of delivery. Of course there is no
| delivery fee or tip involved for takeout. My credit card
| gives me a monthly $15 uber credit, and I always use it to
| get takeout bun from a restaurant down the street.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Paying 30% is worth it to not have to go and get the food for
| many people.
| AmVess wrote:
| Aside from fees, there's tax, tip, and DD charges more per menu
| item than the restaurant does. Markup is about $2 for fast food
| item and $5 for more expensive places. One place I like to buy
| food from, our order costs $35 for pick up. DD cost is almost
| $52 not including tip.
|
| I have no idea how DD continues to lose money with this
| business model.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > I have no idea how DD continues to lose money with this
| business model.
|
| Labor in the US is too expensive for sufficient number of
| people in the US to afford it that would allow a business
| like DoorDash to earn a profit.
| jbay808 wrote:
| > Labor in the US is too expensive for sufficient number of
| people in the US to afford it
|
| How does that work? Naively, I'd expect that the more
| expensive labour is, the more disposable income labourers
| should have available to spend paying other labourers to
| deliver food, so it all balances out. It's at least not
| obvious that food delivery would be less viable in the US
| than, say, China or India, where labour is cheaper but
| customers also have less buying power.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It depends on the level of income/wealth disparity in the
| societies. China/India can have 200M rich people and
| 800M+ extremely poor people and still have 200M in the
| middle classes.
|
| The extremely poor live in huts/have no expectations of
| moving up/have no education with which they can do things
| other than manual labor.
|
| Although, even in India, the cost for
| cooks/maids/drivers/farm workers has exploded since the
| 90s. Many families that used to be able to afford them,
| cannot anymore. But that does not mean the
| cook/maid/driver can afford their own maid. It just means
| they now have the ability to eat at a restaurant once a
| month or buy a smartphone.
| jbay808 wrote:
| This would suggest that delivery would be even more
| impractical in countries with very low wealth inequality,
| like Japan, but my experience is that's not the case. If
| anything, the service quality is better there.
| entropi wrote:
| These kind of conundrums easily disappear when you factor
| in housing(or healthcare). Labour is expensive, but
| housing is even more expensive. The delivery guy needs to
| pay their landlord before they can pay other delivery
| guys.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| "Growth & engagement" is the main issue. Insane amounts of
| money are wasted on advertising, marketers, software
| engineers, etc not to mention subsidies to undercut their
| competitors and secure a monopoly.
|
| Food delivery is a viable business but only if the
| objective is truly "food delivery" and not "growth &
| engagement at all costs".
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Food delivery is a viable business but only if the
| objective is truly "food delivery" and not "growth &
| engagement at all costs"._
|
| Exactly. But not every restaurant is ideal for food
| delivery. That's where these delivery companies go wrong.
|
| We've had pizza delivery for at least half a century. If
| you lived in an area with enough density, you might also
| be lucky enough to have a Chinese place that delivered.
| Maybe McDonald's, or one or two others, again with enough
| density.
|
| Starbucks? Dunkin' Donuts? There's no margin there to
| make money on delivery, unless you're charging outrageous
| fees or being bankrolled by VC companies.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > Starbucks? McDonald's? There's no margin there to make
| money on delivery, unless you're charging outrageous fees
|
| I'm not sure about that - if you purely count the money
| that actually makes it to the drivers, it's reasonable.
|
| The problem with these services is that besides paying
| for the actual driver, you're paying about as much if not
| more to the company itself in the form of explicit fees
| as well as hidden ones (such as the markups on food
| items).
|
| The latter pushes the prices to unsustainable levels. If
| you just had to pay drivers, it could work - see my other
| comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32088565)
| about how delivered food used to work fine despite being
| done by employees of the restaurant itself and despite
| lacking the economies of scale that restaurant-agnostic
| delivery drivers provide.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I suspect they need to spend all that growth and
| engagement to mask the fact that enough people cannot
| afford to spend enough such that they earn a profit.
|
| Most people were not able to afford butlers or drivers
| before, and DoorDash or Uber have not changed that basic
| fact, even if the butler/driver is split over 3 customers
| per hour.
|
| Every time I see an example of a door dash order, it is a
| $30 per person minimum cost. The median annual wage is
| $44k and 75th percentile is $75k. Who is affording these
| on a regular basis?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > Most people were not able to afford butlers or drivers
| before, and DoorDash or Uber have not changed that basic
| fact, even if the butler/driver is split over 3 customers
| per hour.
|
| I disagree - delivered food has been a thing for a long
| time, back in the day done by employees of the restaurant
| itself.
|
| If it can work despite the driver being limited to a very
| specific restaurant, it should work better if the driver
| can be load-balanced across a wide range of restaurants
| near their current position to minimize downtime and
| travel time (in case of a driver owned by a specific
| restaurant, the journey back after their final delivery
| is a loss - doesn't have to happen if they're no longer
| bound to that specific restaurant and can deliver another
| restaurant's food on that otherwise-lost journey).
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is not obvious to me. Only certain types of
| restaurants did delivery, and they probably had process
| optimizations to make it work. One being that the driver
| was basically paid in all cash netting the driver
| immediate savings from tax evasion.
|
| It seems like it could be possible, but coordinating many
| individually owned and operated small businesses to
| ensure efficiency and throughput seems like a big task.
| Which is not a problem, but the upside is limited - how
| much extra are people really willing and able to pay?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > Only certain types of restaurants did delivery, and
| they probably had process optimizations to make it work.
|
| I think that a big part of that would be because certain
| types of food are primarily enjoyed taken-away instead of
| dine-in.
|
| It wouldn't make sense for a dine-in restaurant to have
| delivery staff & vehicles (which would sit idle for the
| most part) given the bulk of their customers dine in.
|
| However this is exactly the problem that a restaurant-
| agnostic delivery service would solve. The drivers can be
| shared across all the restaurants in the area which not
| only brings delivery to restaurants who otherwise
| wouldn't have it but it also theoretically makes it
| cheaper for the usual delivery-focused restaurants
| because their drivers no longer have as much downtime (as
| they will now be able to deliver for other restaurants in
| the area too).
| braingenious wrote:
| Wait... what? Labor is so expensive that people _can't
| afford_ DoorDash?
|
| If labor were so expensive, wouldn't the customers (who
| presumably get their money through working) be able to
| afford this service? Do DoorDash workers get paid more on
| average than the people that they deliver to?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The bottom few deciles might earn enough money to dig
| themselves out of debt, or save up for the next car
| repair. The next few might be able to send their kid to a
| better school or put together a down payment. The next
| few might prioritize going to the dentist. And only the
| top 2 deciles are willing to spend the money for a $30+
| per meal. Hell, I earn multiples of the median, and I
| would not pay $30 for a meal that has a 50%+ chance of
| being shitty.
|
| Either way you want to classify it, the number of people
| and the frequency with which they will order off DoorDash
| very well may not sustain their business.
| braingenious wrote:
| I'm still not clear as to what your point is.
|
| Are you claiming that DoorDash would be more affordable
| if (and only if) they reduced wages? I don't really
| understand the assertion that of all of the possible
| factors that go into pricing that it's important to focus
| on driver compensation.
| irrational wrote:
| I won a $100 gift card for grubhub. Awesome! That is about 4
| meals for my wife and I based on what we usually order. Uh...
| after all the fees and everything it came out to about 1.5
| meals. Even if I include my time and gas to drive and pick up
| my order myself, I can't see why anyone would ever spend their
| own money to use grubhub unless you don't have transportation.
| In that case, it seems to just be a scam to take money from
| poor people.
| rajup wrote:
| Use the coupon and pickup the food yourself. Avoids the tip and
| delivery fee.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I considered it. But most of the fees didn't disappear when I
| selected that option. I'd have saved the $5 tip, but the
| hidden fees would have remained. I figured if I'm paying for
| delivery related fees either way, I might as well get it
| delivered.
| rvnx wrote:
| I don't understand, isn't 41-35=6 USD ?
| gnicholas wrote:
| There were a bunch of fees that were added on top. I added a
| $5 tip, but was expecting the total would be around $12.
| newfonewhodis wrote:
| I'm guessing the coupon only applied to the value of the
| order items and not to taxes + fees (lol) + tips.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Same here. They sent me a 50% off coupon a while ago. Once I
| had completed an order the price with all fees was basically
| still double the in-restaurant price despite 50% off.
|
| InstaCart's pricing seems way more reasonable.
| lkbm wrote:
| If I'm understanding correctly, it's worth zero iff you
| attribute $0 of value to the delivery.
|
| DD's value prop is that they deliver. If you don't want that,
| then yes it's probably not for you.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I do attribute some value to the delivery. But this was a
| promo code plus free delivery. A future promo code that
| doesn't have free delivery would result in even higher fees.
| So if it's a code for less than $20 I'd expect that entire
| amount would be eaten up by fees and the increased cost of
| menu items. Delivery would be extra.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| With Doordash and co the fees over the normal cost of food
| are so high that even vs traditional delivery fees you're
| overpaying.
|
| -
|
| Off the top of my head, yesterday I passed a billboard for
| McDonalds advertising two large sandwiches for $6.
|
| Lets open Uber Eats and try ordering two Big Macs... $13.68
|
| So they don't carry the deals. Not looking good already.
|
| Went to checkout...
|
| $1.49 delivery fee for a place 6 minutes away. Fair enough.
|
| $3.27 service fee. The explanation text is implying the cost
| of servicing my order (orchestration essentially) is more
| than double the cost of delivery.
|
| $2.00 CA Driver Benefits fee. Delivery drivers were always
| employees of independent stores, but Uber took such offense
| to being forced to provide healthcare that they itemize the
| cost.
|
| Grand total comes out to $20 before tax. For a $6 meal in
| store.
|
| -
|
| And in case you were thinking "Well Uber isn't DoorDash" this
| whole time... DoorDash comes out to $22 before tax.
|
| _Has a "traditional" delivery place ever charged you a 60%
| delivery fee?_
|
| It's so absurd I even tried increasing the order size... the
| ratio of price of fees to price of food actually went up!
|
| And all this is before tips!
| Fnoord wrote:
| Well, you live in a country with tipping culture, but
| you're free to not tip. If its mandatory, then include it
| with the price. Its very American to pull this kind of BS.
| They mention a price, and then say X is tax, Y is delivery,
| but then they come with all kind of 'additions' (Apple does
| it here too, about mentioning environmental taxes or
| something). I don't give a shit about any of these (they're
| your expenses), just tell me what it costs and I'll say
| 'yes' or 'no'. I mean, what on Earth why would you as
| customer be responsible for 'CA Driver Benefits fee'?
| That's on the employer. And 'service fee'? Which service?
| The service you get is a proper delivery.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Like I said, none of this includes tips, but decided to
| see if this happens in other countries, so I switched
| around my delivery location:
|
| UK: 10% "Service Charge" on top of delivery fees
|
| Spain: "Marketplace Fee"
|
| Canada (Montreal): "Taxes and other fees" which when
| expanded shows "Service Fee" separate from.
|
| Doesn't seem to be tied at all to tipping culture, these
| companies are quite content taking extra money regardless
| of social norms
| Fnoord wrote:
| In my country the market leader is TakeAway / Just Eat
| (Thuisbezorgd) and they just mention a price for the food
| and a price for the delivery. Nothing else, no bullshit.
| If you're a regular customer, you're better off ordering
| directly though, since they take a cut of about 10%.
| Websites of restaurants regularly mention this, and since
| Dutch like to be cheap I suppose it works. In a way its
| honest to mention the 'service fee', if they were also
| upfront that the cut is because they're a
| broker/middleman.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Capitalism, n. A machine for CEOs to transform money from VCs
| into money for luxury yacht builders.
|
| Maybe we should just cut out the middle man and stop creating
| businesses. Have a CEO pitch an idea, the VC can hand them a
| check, they can buy a yacht, and the VC can keep the rest of the
| money that would have been wasted on jobs that created no value,
| avoiding the "externalities" of destroying small pizza shops. Or
| better yet, give that non-yacht money straight to the government
| to pay for health care, housing, job training, infrastructure,
| the homeless, veterans, education, social security, regulatory
| enforcement, thus creating an environment where American citizens
| can create more real businesses, more people are eligible for
| good jobs, and the overall quality of life skyrockets.
|
| While I'm dreaming I'd also like a unicorn and a garden robot
| that zaps snails.
| jer0me wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852
| ejb999 wrote:
| this is pure genius.
| pyrolistical wrote:
| Seems like all restaurants should charge an extra fee to delivery
| services they didn't sign up for. If the policy for the driver is
| just to pay whatever then there is no crime here.
|
| Restaurants use this extra fee to compensate for the bad reviews.
|
| If the policy changes for the driver then a customer is screwed
| over with a canceled order, guess who gets the blame? The
| delivery service!
| shagie wrote:
| Name mismatch fee.
|
| For carry out orders, there is an additional $5 surcharge
| added. This is in place to cover issues arising from stolen
| orders and poor 3rd party delivery experiences. Display your ID
| matching the name on the order to receive a refund of the fee.
| seoaeu wrote:
| Wouldn't the delivery service just use the driver's name when
| placing the order?
| na85 wrote:
| So I gotta pay extra if my wife orders Thai but I'm the one
| that picks it up?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Only if your wife can't remember your name when she makes
| the order.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Showing ID to get food sounds a bit dystopian.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Hmm, to me it sounds pretty reasonable. Or some sort of
| order code...
| [deleted]
| sokoloff wrote:
| I'd have no problem with a code to use as lightweight
| auth (mostly just protection against mixing up orders).
|
| I don't have any interest in giving my address, date of
| birth, and other information from my ID to pick up a food
| order.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Why would I want the restaurant to mistakenly give my order
| to someone else? And what is dystopian about a business
| wanting to ensure the correct customer gets their order?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Some marginalised groups struggle to get ID.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Doordash is such a waste of money that I'm not very
| worried about the overlap.
| mmmpop wrote:
| Imagine an app where we can bring the identifying people
| _to you_.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That problem is not within the scope of operating a food
| service business.
| Spivak wrote:
| That's not how that works, the problem of getting
| marginalized people ID cards isn't solvable by someone in
| food service. The problem of selling food to your
| customers in a manner that doesn't require government ID
| is.
|
| Like it just requires a little empathy and two seconds of
| creativity to come up with some other ways you could,
| depending on what they have, check that it's their order
| -- they could show their phone, any credit card with
| their name since they paid with an app, specific details
| about the order, approximately when they sent it in.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think it'd be nice -- minimize the chances that my order
| will be swapped with somebody else's.
| googlryas wrote:
| You're showing ID to get a refund, not to get food.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I liked this article, and I like the cleverness of the scheme.
| But I wish it had offered more of an explanation about the
| economics of delivery. He said his friend was just figuring it
| out: two years later, can he offer a reason for why Doordash can
| be losing so much money, other than a network of pizza
| arbitrageurs?
|
| One thing that bothered me a little was the "fuck Doordash"
| mentality as an excuse for something which may not legally be
| stealing, but is ethically equivalent to it. I think "fuck X,
| they deserve it" is an excuse a lot of people use, but obviously
| it's still wrong even if you don't like your victim, or if you
| can get away with it.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| The unethical part is Doordash's predatory pricing.
|
| There's an aphorism "You can't cheat an honest man". Probably
| not strictly true, but it applies in this case.
|
| Anyone who takes advantage of this is doing the world a favor
| by punishing bad actors.
| bitpow wrote:
| > can he offer a reason for why Doordash can be losing so much
| money
|
| Just speculation, but Doordash is obviously loosing some money
| due to poorly implemented "tests" like these, and who knows
| what other experiments-at-a-loss they are running.
|
| Maybe if they toned down their "web scraping auto delivery
| option" program, and who knows what else, they could show a
| profit (and maybe they know this). But why bother if you can
| get away with it, and something truly innovative and profitable
| may come out of it.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't think it is unethical, to accept the deal that Doordash
| for some reason decided to offer. I mean you'd have to read the
| fine print I guess since you have a relationship with Doordash
| as _the customer_ using their app, which probably has some
| contract.
|
| It may be possibly ethically questionable to intentionally post
| a menu that Doordash's automated system will misinterpret
| (which would clearly be possible in this case, since they
| figured out that Doordash was charging the plain slice price
| for the custom one, so they could just drop the plain slice
| price to $1). I mean, again they didn't ask Doordash to start
| this relationship and they don't have any contract, so... I
| guess their obligation would be to honor the $1 plain slice for
| anyone who wants it. Maybe make it a $1 no-cheese, no-sauce
| slice.
|
| Another option would be to spread word about the community that
| Doordash offers a $8 discount on your pizza. Like, if you tell
| the person "hey, order on Doordash to this address, they'll
| give you a $8 discount and we just have to have a dude come
| hand the pizza off from me to you" right before they get to the
| register... seems pretty ethically clean to me, you are just
| informing people of an offer you heard about, you have no
| contract or relationship with Doordash, right?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| DoorDash is ruining the reputation of a legitimate business.
| The correct approach is "fuck DoorDash".
|
| Delivery economics makes sense when the restaurant is doing it
| because the delivery drivers are also employees helping to make
| the order. They are getting paid for each hour they work and
| the stores have a set delivery area and a base.
| game-of-throws wrote:
| I don't think there's anything ethically wrong with this. It's
| the textbook response to predatory pricing. Replace "bromine"
| with "pizza": https://fee.org/articles/herbert-dow-and-
| predatory-pricing/
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > But I wish it had offered more of an explanation about the
| economics of delivery
|
| I believe _delivery_ is a viable business model, but that isn
| 't what these companies are offering. These companies are
| trying to monopolize access to restaurants with some "growth &
| engagement" sprinkled on top.
|
| A simple _delivery_ service where you pay X amount of money to
| get something from point A to point B would be viable with a
| network of hyperlocal, real-time-geolocated couriers and modern
| routing software. It will however not give you a monopoly and
| the returns VCs hope for (however, in the end the current
| system doesn 't either as VCs spend more money trying to
| undercut each other's attempts at monpolizing the vertical).
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I agree that in general, people use "fuck X, they deserve it"
| way too much and way inappropriately.
|
| I think, though, that when a company's whole business is
| dishonest and based on screwing _all_ their stakeholders
| (restaurant, driver, customer) and loses money despite all
| that, then one may look at it differently. Your parish priest
| or rabbi might not, but I might.
| mcculley wrote:
| It is the duty of every capitalist to exploit market
| inefficiencies once they are discovered. How else would the VC
| funds learn?
| bee_rider wrote:
| "Here at meta-dasher, we don't actually exploit market
| inefficiencies -- we offer an app that connects individuals
| to local arbitrage opportunities, and allows _them_ to
| correct the market. "
| gspencley wrote:
| I'm not sure I see the ethics violation. DoorDash was paying
| them full price and charging their customers less, which meant
| DoorDash was paying out of pocket to under-cut the restaurant's
| prices.
|
| If anything DoorDash is the unethical actor because it can cost
| the restaurant future business. Imagine you're a customer and
| you're faced with choosing to buy directly from the restaurant
| (for $24 a pizza) or order through DoorDash (for $16 a pizza).
| You're going to choose DoorDash. You are now a DoorDash
| customer, not a direct customer of the restaurant. Now imagine
| the restaurant has it's own in-house delivery service. DoorDash
| is undercutting the restaurant's prices to put the restaurant's
| drivers out of work by heavily incentivizing customers to
| purchase through DoorDash, all without even consulting the
| restaurant!
|
| Then factor in that people might mistake bad service from
| DoorDash as bad service by the restaurant, resulting in
| negative Yelp reviews and lost business and things kind of
| start to border on fraud a little bit.
|
| For the restaurant to realize that they can game DoorDash back
| to try and recoup some of the damage that DoorDash is causing
| them is not unethical in my opinion. It's the restaurant's
| business that DoorDash is messing with and the restaurant has
| every right to recoup every penny of damage caused... and
| DoorDash has contractually agreed to it by agreeing to pay what
| the restaurant is asking literally everyone to pay.
| DSMan195276 wrote:
| > I'm not sure I see the ethics violation. DoorDash was
| paying them full price and charging their customers less,
| which meant DoorDash was paying out of pocket to under-cut
| the restaurant's prices.
|
| I'm on the fence on this, I completely agree with your
| analysis but I would note that they originally thought
| DoorDash just scraped their website incorrectly for the
| prices. Even with the update at the end it's not exactly
| clear to me what happened to cause the lower price (I would
| assume 'no fees' just means the price would be the same as at
| the restaurant, not lower). That said, whether it's unethical
| to abuse a mistake made by such a company is up to you, I'm
| certainly not losing any sleep over it :D
| kelnos wrote:
| > _it 's not exactly clear to me what happened to cause the
| lower price (I would assume 'no fees' just means the price
| would be the same as at the restaurant, not lower)_
|
| I believe I read elsewhere that DoorDash would (in addition
| to not charging fees) underprice items during their
| "restaurant acquisition period" as an additional way to
| inflate sales numbers, so when they go to the restaurant to
| negotiate a deal, they can say "in the past month we
| delivered 500 of your pizzas to customers! With your $24
| price, that's $12,000!" ... while they conveniently hide
| that DD themselves only charged $16 per pie, and it doesn't
| take an economist to understand that more people will buy a
| product if you reduce its price by a third. Or, more
| relevantly, fewer people will buy a product if you
| "increase" its price by 50%.
| shagie wrote:
| > Imagine you're a customer and you're faced with choosing to
| buy directly from the restaurant (for $24 a pizza) or order
| through DoorDash (for $16 a pizza).
|
| It's worse than that. The pizza company appears on the web
| for delivery with a $16 pizza. They come in to the pizza
| place and get charged $24 and that's a customer negative
| experience. The pizza company adds delivery to their service
| and chases off Door Dash, and now it looks like they've
| raised prices by $8 (and meanwhile other pizza places in the
| area that are getting undercut with $16 pizzas from door dash
| means that the pizza company isn't getting business to be
| able to support the delivery drivers).
| bee_rider wrote:
| Just tell the customer before they get to the register to
| order via Doordash, to the address of the restaurant if
| they want the $8 discount.
| rvnx wrote:
| Restaurants can have different prices for delivery, pick up
| or dine-in, and this predates delivery apps. There can be
| many reasons.
|
| Some places actually charge less when you are ordering
| takeaway (because their costs are less because they don't
| have the costs of service or rent), and some charge more
| (like +1 USD per box).
|
| If the restaurant has a prime location, it makes sense that
| if you don't use their seats / toilets / dining room /
| service that you don't have to pay for it.
|
| Thinking further, why do takeaway people have to pay for
| the shiny location ?
|
| Every time I eat a pizza, I sponsor the nice terrace dinner
| of someone else in front of the Eiffel Tower.
|
| But I don't want the Eiffel Tower view, the pizza could be
| baked in a factory (dark kitchen) I'd be fine with it.
|
| In general, how did we get to this point that it is more
| expensive to order takeaway food from a restaurant than if
| you cooked the food by yourself ?
|
| Scale is supposed to bring the price down, not up. The more
| quantities of a food is produced, the less expensive it is
| per item.
|
| Popular restaurants run like factories, the 11th or the
| 271th baked salmon is going to be the same.
|
| By logic it should be considerably cheaper to produce
| 10'000 pizza (this is 30 per day) using professional
| ingredients and optimised processes than baking your own
| pizza at home.
|
| We got to this point of 5 USD for a beer + 20 USD for a
| very generic pizza in a dark kitchen.
|
| What's wrong with that ? Everything.
|
| Part of the solution could be delivery companies offering
| their own drinks selection and restaurants opening more
| takeaway-only businesses (hence, more efficient).
| kelnos wrote:
| > In general, how did we get to this point that it is
| more expensive to order takeaway food from a restaurant
| than if you cooked the food by yourself ?*
|
| Because it costs more for the restaurant to make it. I'm
| not sure where you are getting "how did we get to this
| point" -- this has _always_ been the case. The restaurant
| not only has to pay for the cost of the ingredients, they
| have to pay to store those ingredients, pay for someone
| to assemble and cook the final dish, someone to take
| orders, payment processing, real estate, electricity
| /gas, insurance, business fees, accounting, and all that.
| And that's just for takeout; add dine-in or delivery and
| costs go up even further.
|
| When you cook yourself, you only pay for the ingredients.
| We don't think about the electricity/gas costs for
| refrigeration or cooking, or that the space in our home
| for our kitchen and pantry costs us money in home
| purchase price or rent. The main place the restaurant
| "wins" here is that their cost of ingredients is probably
| lower because of their scale.
|
| > _By logic it should be considerably cheaper to produce
| 10 '000 pizza (this is 30 per day) using professional
| ingredients and optimised processes than baking your own
| pizza at home._
|
| If you only consider the cost of ingredients, then yes,
| that's true.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > Was this a bit shady? Maybe, but fuck Doordash. Note: I did
| confirm with my friend that he was okay with me writing this, and
| we both agreed, fuck Doordash.
|
| Loved it.
| [deleted]
| dwighttk wrote:
| I saw a few ads towards the beginning of the pandemic for
| Dominoes doing delivery from local non-Dominoes restaurants...
| what happened with that? Did it not work out or are they still
| doing it?
| rgj wrote:
| You should have set up two pizza restaurants and just sell the
| same set of pizzas back and forth between them. That would have
| removed the cost of making the pizzas from the equation entirely.
| vzqx wrote:
| No need to use two restaurants. Just order 1000 pizzas to your
| own address. When the delivery person shows up, hand one pizza
| back and forth between you 1000 times (or until the delivery
| person gets bored and leaves).
|
| Question - at what point does "abuse of promotional pricing"
| get classified as fraud?
| kache_ wrote:
| I started boycotting food delivery services because the quality &
| service was just god awful. I found that if I drive, I actually
| don't spend that much time, and I get wayyyy better service.
| petrikapu wrote:
| Premium is that you get to do other things while waiting for
| delivery
| mr_cyborg wrote:
| What I've found is that normally, the consumer - restaurant
| contract is between two parties. I pay food, I get to eat. If
| there's a problem, I tell the restaurant, and they fix it.
| There's ample opportunity to find an amicable resolution to any
| issues that arise.
|
| When you add DoorDash or any other third party delivery service
| into the equation, you add two more parties to this - the
| service itself, and the driver, who is usually an independent
| contractor.
|
| What this has led to in my experience is that when something
| goes wrong, instead of me working it out with the restaurant, I
| am left frustrated, hungry, and hung out to dry by three
| parties - the restaurant, the platform, and the contractor.
|
| If you read enough of the DoorDash subreddit[1], you realize
| that a tip is not a gratuity for good service, it's a bid for
| an independent contractor to take up your delivery. However,
| you have no ability to choose which Dasher takes it, and they
| are under no obligation to represent you as your agent or look
| out for your interests. So if they show up and the food is
| cold, not their problem, they get the tip because they accepted
| the bid.
|
| When DoorDash had a major outage some time back, I had placed
| an order for about $70, generous tip (because I realize it's
| really a bid) and fees included. My order was prepared and
| ready for pick up _just_ as the whole platform went down. It
| was impossible to cancel my order, because DoorDash was down,
| so I made alternate arrangements for dinner and figure I 'll
| reach out for a refund when things are back up.
|
| About three hours later, I get a notification that my order is
| out for delivery. The optimist in me hoped that the restaurant
| saw that some food sat out in the "danger zone" for several
| hours and remade it, or that the Dasher realized that the
| containers weren't the slightest bit warm, or something like
| that, but nope. I got dropped off a lot of food that was beyond
| safe to eat, not even worth saving to have as leftovers for a
| later meal, and now I have to dispose of all of it.
|
| When I finally got through to support later that night, I asked
| for a refund, and they said they could only give me a credit
| for the meal, not the tip. I said I want the whole order
| refunded to my original payment, they said well, here's a
| credit and it will convert over to that later. One week and
| several phone calls later, they stopped telling me it was "too
| late to get a refund" and I got my refund and uninstalled the
| app. I don't need that negative energy in my life.
|
| 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/doordash/
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > What this has led to in my experience is that when
| something goes wrong, instead of me working it out with the
| restaurant, I am left frustrated, hungry, and hung out to dry
| by three parties - the restaurant, the platform, and the
| contractor.
|
| My experience with delivery services (mostly, but not
| exclusively, Postmates) is that they are usually very good at
| giving refunds (your experience clearly sucked, though!),
| which is nice (but I'm guessing not for the drivers, who may
| or may not be at fault), but that restaurants with their own
| delivery services have been more willing to send out the
| missing food on an expedited basis, which is often a better
| resolution (if I didn't want the food more than the money, I
| wouldn't have ordered in the first place.)
|
| I've also noticed that wrong or missing food items are more
| common with third-party delivery services.
| rhino369 wrote:
| Doordash's refund algorithm is usually pretty fair, but
| sometimes it isn't. I order a lot, and once in a blue moon
| the order will be significantly messed up (missing entrees,
| for example) and they give a low ball offer.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _My experience with delivery services (mostly, but not
| exclusively, Postmates) is that they are usually very good
| at giving refunds_
|
| This has changed over time, though. For the first year or
| so of Postmates' existence, refunds were easy and near-
| automatic. It was trivial to get in touch with a support
| person, and their response to pretty much _any_ complaint
| was either a refund or a (usually generous) credit. But
| after Postmates grew beyond a certain point, they got more
| stingy with refunds, and credit they offered -- if any! --
| would be much lower.
|
| I remember the same thing happening with Uber when it was
| new. Rating a driver under 4 stars would win you an
| unsolicited email from support, asking what went wrong,
| with a credit or refund for the ride. That pretty much
| never happens anymore.
|
| Agree with you on restaurants, though. Restaurants that do
| their own first-party delivery are almost always better at
| customer experience and fixing things when something goes
| wrong. And it makes sense, too: DoorDash and the driver
| don't care if you end up with a negative impression of a
| restaurant because the food arrived cold. The consequences
| for DD are much less than the consequences for the
| restaurant. And even if you do call the restaurant, there's
| usually not much they can do, because they're not able to
| get DD to redo the delivery for free, and have no leverage
| over DD to give refunds.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I've gotten plenty of certificates from restaurants who
| gave me "a bad delivery experience", without my asking. I
| didn't even consider the experience "bad". It was something
| like the driver had a flat tire, called me and said he was
| going to be late and then said he would have the food
| remade. I said don't worry about it, bring the food cold
| (pizza) and I would just heat it up. I didn't even think
| about it anymore. But I still got a free coupon.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| This is the same reason I never use "portals" to book travel
| and airlines. It's even worse because I also don't get any
| loyalty points.
|
| Of course this is different with my work travel portal run by
| Concur. I get to keep the points/miles and "non refundable"
| tickets are refundable when the airlines are trying to stay
| in the good graces of a company that books...a lot.. of money
| in travel.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > It's even worse because I also don't get any loyalty
| points.
|
| All airlines and hotel groups I've used let you get points
| no matter where you book. Just need to use the website to
| claim the spend.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| https://frequentmiler.com/hilton-honors-complete-guide/
|
| > Elite nights are not earned with online travel agency
| bookings. For example, if you book through Expedia, you
| will not earn elite night credit (or points) for your
| stay. You also might not receive elite benefits during
| your stay, but some hotels have been known to offer them
| anyway as long as you add your Hilton Honors membership
| number to the reservation.
|
| Yes this is different if you use a portal like Concur
| used for business travel. You can even put your personal
| loyalty code in and it shows up automatically -- at least
| through Hilton and Delta.
| harles wrote:
| Interestingly, I found tipping less will get you way better
| service and quicker food. I did some experiments after I found
| food always comes quicker when my wife orders - turns out she
| doesn't overtip like I do. I tried a bunch more times and found
| this to be true, at least with Uber Eats.
|
| What I'm guessing happens is that if you tip high, less
| scrupulous but tech savvy drivers will snag the delivery. These
| folks have multiple accounts and work for multiple services at
| once, so your order is way down on their list. It frequently
| comes with location spoofing, where the driver is supposedly
| waiting at the restaurant for nearly an hour, and once they're
| actually on their way, they'll teleport miles away (having
| unlocked their location).
|
| When I tip less, I don't see this behavior. It's probably folks
| not gaming the system that will take whatever delivery pops up.
| kelnos wrote:
| It's bonkers to me that the drivers can see the tip before
| they accept the delivery. Hell, weird that they can see it
| before the delivery is completed, even.
|
| Tips are supposed to be for good service! I know they've been
| perverted into more than that by a combination of
| unscrupulous business owners and the US's broken tax code,
| but... c'mon. These services shouldn't even _ask_ for a tip
| until the delivery is complete, let alone show the amount to
| the driver before they accept the job.
|
| (I'm fine with them asking for the tip as a part of the
| initial checkout, though, since I imagine many people won't
| remember to revisit the app post-delivery within the tipping
| window, even if they did want to leave a tip, and that alone
| would unfairly take money out of drivers' pockets. But the
| tip should be adjustable for some amount of time after the
| delivery completes, and the driver shouldn't see it until
| that time expires. Amazon's grocery delivery has this right.)
|
| If drivers can see the tip before accepting the job, then
| it's not a tip: it's a competitive bid that the customer
| makes for delivery drivers... though if your theory is
| correct, it's already gamed into uselessness.
| bombcar wrote:
| Sounds like the best deal would be to "tip" normal like OPs
| wife does, and then add cash on hand at the door.
|
| But even better would get to know the local dasher and
| contract directly. Heh.
| krisroadruck wrote:
| You also pay way less. DoorDash and all the others don't just
| charge the fees and the tips and what not, they also inflate
| the food cost by a pretty hefty amount. A simple example:
|
| McDonalds has a 2 for $2 deal on sausage mcmuffins & hashbrowns
| - been around forever. Let's say you and the wife want a
| McMuffin & a hashbrown each - you're in for $4 dollars and a
| bit of change for tax.
|
| Here is the same meal via DoorDash:
|
| McMuffins: $2.87ea Hash browns: $1.91ea
|
| Subtotal: $9.56 (just below the 10 dollar minimum to wave the
| fee if you have DD+)
|
| Delivery fee: $1.99 Service fee: $3.00 Tax: $0.91 Dasher Tip:
| $5 (good luck getting your order on time if you tip less than
| this)
|
| Grand Total: $20.46 for $4 of food.
|
| You can "optimize" by ordering an additional hash brown to get
| over the $10 hump so you can wave the delivery fee and reduce
| the service fee - which will instead cost you a total of $17.91
| for $5 worth of food. Either way it's a shit deal. Not included
| here are the costs associated with 1 in every 4-5 orders being
| incorrect, or delivered to the wrong house and the hassle that
| adds to your life.
|
| Obviously I went with low cost items to illustrate a point but
| often any food prices you see on DD are a good 50% markup vs
| going in person regardless of the restaurant before you even
| get into fees and tips.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| But guess how much money I can save by not having a car?
| horsawlarway wrote:
| You say this like it's either/or.... which is dishonest.
|
| I have no car, but between grocery delivery and an e-bike,
| why would I want to continue paying an exorbitant tax to
| get shitty, cold food two hours after I order it?
|
| Basically - you having a car or not has zero (zilch, nada,
| nothing) to do with the insane markup these companies
| charge.
|
| And if the difference in you having a car or not really was
| doordash... jeez man. Go re-evaluate your life.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes my difference between spending money on the average
| price of car + car insurance + gas + maintenance and
| using Uber for the weekend and a delivery service for the
| week is great.
|
| I bet you live in a higher cost of living area and not in
| the cheaper burbs to be able to take an e-bike
| everywhere.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| You keep conflating the type of wholesale delivery
| services talked about here (doordash/uber/grubhub/etc)
| with delivery in general.
|
| I have no problem calling a restaurant and ordering
| delivery. Or ordering groceries for delivery.
|
| Neither of those delivery services is charging me a 50%+
| markup to get food from them. And the quality of the food
| is generally much higher.
|
| Doordash and Uber _are_ charging me a 50%+ markup.
|
| Basically - I have no problem with you preferring
| delivery instead of a car (hell - I made a similar choice
| and take public transit and bike when delivery doesn't
| work)
|
| I'm saying that's _unrelated_ to the fact that you 're
| getting swindled by these companies.
|
| If you're coming out ahead by using doordash, imagine how
| much money you could save if you literally just called
| the same fucking restaurant and ordered delivery
| directly.
|
| ---- As for your bet...
|
| I live in SW Atlanta. For comparison - cost of living in
| Atlanta is _almost_ exactly the national average
| (101.8%), and the south side of the city is MUCH cheaper
| (I paid less than you for our house, slightly smaller at
| ~2200 sqft, but we got nearly a full acre of land)
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I happen to live in North Atlanta off of 400.
|
| Most restaurants don't have there own delivery service.
|
| If these companies aren't making money, how are they
| "swindling" anyone?
| krisroadruck wrote:
| None. If you live in a city that has enough stuff nearby or
| public transit sufficient to be considered "walkable" your
| housing costs are 2-3x higher than they would be otherwise
| and your taxes are probably higher as well. Far more than
| the cost of a car.
| googlryas wrote:
| Huh? Yes your housing costs will be higher but your
| salary will probably be higher too. I was able to
| save/invest insane amounts of money by ditching my car
| and job in suburban NJ and moving to Manhattan.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I was able to ditch my car and work remotely for "a
| FAANG" while living in the South....
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You keep forgetting other scenarios - someone who works
| remotely and can just take Uber when he needs to go
| somewhere during the weekend.
|
| In fact, my son started working at a pizza place before
| he had his driver's license. It was cheaper to pay Uber
| $350 a month than his current car note + car insurance.
|
| Just to give you a hint about "affordability", we paid
| $335K in 2016 to have our house built - 3100 square feet
| - in the "good school system" in the burbs of a major
| metropolitan area.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| $350 a month would cover a $22ish thousand car loan. I
| know the used car market is a bit absurd right now but I
| think you're being a bit excessive
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You're forgetting about how much car insurance is for an
| 18 year old male. Car insurance alone is $200+/month for
| a new driver.
|
| https://www.valuepenguin.com/18-year-old-car-insurance.
|
| It's slightly cheaper bundled with a parent's insurance.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Are you getting screwed over for how much liability your
| state requires you to carry? The insurance on my $0 value
| dodge neon in 2012 AFTER a fender bender was $400 a year,
| because it was on my mom's plan, and had $0 of coverage
| for my car and only the minimum liability required by the
| state (which is a reasonable amount).
|
| All of my high school friends have the same experience as
| I do, a car with near zero value, and no collision
| coverage, just liability, and paid similarly dirt cheap
| rates. My friend had coverage on his old dodge van for
| $120 a year.
|
| My car insurance on my nearly new car is actually double
| the price, despite me now being significantly older than
| 18, because I pay for coverage so I could repair it if it
| gets in an accident.
|
| Consider switching insurances?
| bombcar wrote:
| The era of kids driving old hand-me-down cars is over.
| Now at 16 you need a $85k SUV or why even bother!
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Well, seeing that my (step)son is six foot 3 and couldn't
| even fit in my car at the time -- a Chevy Sonic -- that
| wasn't an option.
|
| Also car insurance for a teenage male ain't cheap...
|
| https://www.valuepenguin.com/18-year-old-car-insurance
|
| Not to mention that the old car needs maintenance and
| repairs.
| apalmer wrote:
| This to me is what killed delivery as a service. It doesn't
| work even when they are charging what works out to be double
| the salary the restaurant pays its own delivery people. And
| it works out for no one, restaurant, driver, even the
| delivery as a service providers since they are all
| hemorrhaging money.
|
| It's a fake industry held up by VC money.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Even the VCs ultimately don't make a profit on it. I think
| the only winners here are the employees of the delivery
| companies who get paid hefty salaries to work on a
| guaranteed failure.
| bombcar wrote:
| The VCs could make money if everyone became dependent on
| it, they drove the actual delivery restaurants out of the
| market, and then jacked prices.
|
| But I don't see Dominos dropping delivery.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Only one company must win for this to work. If they
| compete (and use their respective VC's money to subsidise
| orders) then they all lose.
| shyn3 wrote:
| UberEats in Canada inflates the regular menu price as well.
| NavinF wrote:
| Who would be dumb enough to pay $20.46 for that?
|
| I looked at my most recent receipt for something more
| realistic: A $12 (in store) pizza was listed on doordash at
| $14.25 and I paid $17.30 in app with the Chase CSP discount.
| I guess not everyone has the card, but IMO it's financially
| irresponsible not to.
|
| Note that this restaurant is a 20 minute drive each way. Even
| if I worked minimum wage ($15/hr in CA) it would have cost me
| a lot more ($10 time + $5 gas!) to pick it up myself.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _it would have cost me a lot more ($10 time + $5 gas!) to
| pick it up myself._
|
| Can we stop doing this? Our free time has zero monetary
| value. Every minute of our lives is not billable, and it's
| disingenuous to frame it that way.
|
| Sure, avoiding 40 minutes of driving time might be worth
| $10 to you (it is to me, too), but... just say that, maybe?
|
| And I agree with you in general that the grandparent's
| example was maybe not the common case. Sure, sometimes
| people get late-night munchies and make a small delivery
| order to Taco Bell, but I would hope that most orders are
| at least for a single, full, lunch- or dinner-sized meal,
| and will often be for multiple people. Delivery is still
| certainly more expensive than going into the store, but not
| having to deal with driving somewhere to pick it up also
| has value to many.
| NavinF wrote:
| I do freelance work so I really can convert 40 min into
| money when I want to.
|
| > avoiding 40 minutes of driving time might be worth $10
| to you
|
| My point was that avoiding 40 minutes is worth the price
| increase for almost everyone, not just me! You'd have to
| go out of your way to find exceptions such as the GP's
| McDonald's deal.
|
| And yeah doordash pretty much forces you to order at
| least $12 off food which often works out to 2 meals. I'm
| sure a lot of orders are larger too.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| "Our free time has zero monetary value"
|
| You're right... it's priceless. Some of us really do
| place a high value on our finite quantity of time that we
| have on this planet.
|
| I remember being absolutely flummoxed by how much time
| people were willing to just throw away to camp overnight
| for some hot commodity Black Friday sale at Best Buy back
| in the day.
| fancyfish wrote:
| Agreed, I see this often where people confuse their
| marginal income (e.g. $0) with their total income. Most
| are paid a salary and don't just choose to work an extra
| hour on a moment's notice. Let alone the possibility of
| working 24x7 and having billable hours like a switch they
| can flip at any time.
|
| The framing of something "costing me my time" has never
| made sense to me especially when someone tries to
| actually quantify it.
| vageli wrote:
| Even if you can't make money during that time, time is
| inherently limited and most people value their limited
| time on the planet. Some may value that time more than
| some arbitrary dollar amount.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| You can't reallocate time and money "on a moment's
| notice", but why does that matter?
|
| Most events can be moved around, so even if there's a big
| delay on changing your work hours you can still exchange
| extra free time with extra money.
|
| And people generally can choose how many hours they want
| to be paid for.
|
| It's easy to quantify, it's just something that happens
| in bigger shifts. One hour by itself probably doesn't
| make you change your work hours. But as more and more
| hours pile up, eventually you might chose to reduce your
| work week by half a day. Or if you find yourself doing
| unimportant and uninteresting things very often, and with
| a shortage of cash, you might increase your work week by
| half a day.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| If you're a contractor and set your own hours, the
| relationship is pretty clear.
|
| You could spend 30 minutes to pick something up, or that
| same 30 minutes has a value of half your hourly rate
| (minus taxes). Why would you be opposed to anyone doing
| the calculus on how to best utilize their time?
| bombcar wrote:
| I think it's because people use it to justify being lazy
| - if you were going to sit there waiting for your food
| and then use that time not driving to justify the
| delivery costs - you're kind of kidding yourself that
| you're "saving money".
| dawnerd wrote:
| A lot of people surprisingly. People all the time late
| night ordering Taco Bell.
| bombcar wrote:
| Not around here. For some reason they went to 7am to 7 pm
| hours because of short staffing - breakfast tacos must be
| big business.
| seoaeu wrote:
| In other words, you paid $17.30 for $27 of goods and
| services ($19.50 if the driver avoided the return trip).
| Which means someone was losing money on the deal and the
| price is unlikely to be sustainable long term
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| I avoid them too. Delivery apps:
|
| - Give hilariously bad estimates for delivery time. Dan Luu
| tracked this.
| https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1469755162004582400?s=20&t...
|
| - Cause huge pileups for restaurant workers, who in pre-
| delivery app times were shielded by the presence of "a line",
| which puts a natural limit on order throughput (people drop out
| of line or don't enter when it's too long)
|
| - Generally aren't good at giving prompt notifications, which
| sucks for both the driver and the order maker
|
| I'm starting to believe two sided marketplaces tend to be worse
| for everyone except for the intermediary
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Give hilariously bad estimates for delivery time._
|
| Huh, I wonder how universal this is. I agree with this take
| for Lyft and Uber (for rides), but for Uber Eats, at least,
| it's been incredibly rare for it to take longer than the
| estimate, and in the majority of cases the food arrives 5-10
| minutes faster than the estimate suggests.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| If the majority of time the delivery happens 5-10 minutes
| faster than the estimate, then either the delivery was
| scheduled to take a huge amount of time (50 minutes) and we
| are looking at a small error, or indeed, the estimates are
| hilariously bad.
| [deleted]
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > Give hilariously bad estimates for delivery time.
|
| They lie and try to blame restaurants for slowness too. I've
| found that most of them have a specific timer for the all the
| stages before "driver waiting at the restaurant". If they
| can't allocate a driver or he doesn't arrive there by that
| time, the status will switch to "driver waiting at the
| restaurant" even if that's not yet the case, putting the
| blame on the restaurant.
|
| I had suspicions about most of them doing it but what I can
| say for sure is that I caught Uber Eats doing this by calling
| the restaurant directly and confirming that there was
| absolutely _nobody_ there and the food has been ready for 40
| minutes.
| bombcar wrote:
| Ever since the dominos pizza tracker came into the market
| I've noticed more and more places copying it - and outright
| lying about the status.
|
| I got a "free" door dash related thing and I tried it (no
| markup, made the poor guy deliver an avocado from the
| convenience store, did tip) and it was marked as "picked
| up" after it had been dropped off.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The Dominos pizza tracker "lies" too in the sense that
| it's just a well-calibrated timer, but at least they're
| only hurting themselves and their own reputation.
|
| The food delivery companies on the other hand ruin the
| restaurant's reputation by lying about them being slow,
| not to mention that they have zero excuse for doing so
| considering they actually have all the _true_ information
| behind the scenes since the drivers are geolocated in
| real-time.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| People who do not understand the role of balking and price
| information act at their own peril. This economic
| backpressure is something that executives hate - it keeps
| line from going up - but people who actually do the work
| love, because it keeps workloads manageable.
|
| If you ever wanted a _feature-length_ explanation of queueing
| theory and how ignoring it makes everything worse, well...
| here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE .
| The context is Disney parks and Fastpass, but the lessons are
| applicable to basically any business. _Everything_ is a
| queue.
| mywittyname wrote:
| DD drivers definitely take their frustration out on both
| restaurants and DD customers.
|
| I've seen a lot of drama from DD drivers at restaurants, one
| thing that sticks in my mine was during a midnight run to White
| Castle. The place was packed and the workers kept asking about
| this huge bag of food for DD. The bag was easily 2 foot tall
| and completely packed full of food. The entire time I'm waiting
| on my food, people keep asking "any word on this door dash?"
|
| Then some lady comes in screaming, "f- y'all, I've been waiting
| 20 f- minutes for a f- order and y'all slow mfers won't do
| shit!" The manager tells her the order is here and has been
| ready for 15 minutes. She goes up to the counter, takes the
| food, then throws the drink at the manager, screaming "f- you",
| throws the bag of food back at them yelling, "f- door dash" and
| "f- this $4 tip!"
|
| So, not only did the person not get their food (and probably
| didn't find out for a long time afterwards), the restaurant had
| to cover the costs of all of it, and the delivery driver was
| out like her time and gas.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I sure hope the restaurant didn't have to cover the cost.
|
| If they did, they need to sign a less abusive deal with DD.
| fundad wrote:
| She was out her mind if she was waiting but not checking
| inside and then abused people and didn't realize most people
| are bad tippers.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I found:
|
| 1. When I am on business trips and getting reimbursed, I don't
| care. It's "other people's money"
|
| 2. The food delivery services have made it possible for us to
| have one car off an on since 2020 and not have to pay for two
| cars. In fact, we just sold our newer car back to the dealer
| and are sharing one car now saving us $900+ a month in car
| insurance, car payments, gas, maintenance, etc.
|
| We don't plan to have a car for the next three years as we
| embark on our "digital nomad" existence.
|
| If I can get away without ever having a car again, I will. It
| just doesn't make sense for me as someone who works remotely
| and has grown kids and really only needs to get out on the
| weekend to deal with paying for a car just to sit in the garage
| most of the time.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > $900+ a month in car insurance, car payments, gas,
| maintenance, etc.
|
| There's a huge gap between 'no car' and $900/mo in car
| expenses. Buy a used car, not too old, and do basic
| maintenance (oil/filter, brakes, etc) yourself where you can.
| It's trivial to own and operate a car for well under
| $200-$300/mo - millions of people do it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Millions of people fix their own brakes?
|
| The average price people paid for a car is $27K
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/274928/used-vehicle-
| aver...
|
| The average price of a new car is $47k.
|
| https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-
| tops-4700...
|
| The average cost of maintaining a car is between $7K - $10K
|
| https://www.thebalance.com/average-car-maintenance-
| cost-4775...
|
| Even the IRS says the average cost of a car is now $0.63 a
| mile.
| kuharich wrote:
| Past comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23278157
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