[HN Gopher] DoorDash to acquire Deliveroo
___________________________________________________________________
DoorDash to acquire Deliveroo
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 171 points
Date : 2025-05-06 06:27 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| colesantiago wrote:
| Most startups in the UK have either:
|
| 1. Sold to a foreign buyer
|
| 2. Shut down
|
| 3. Relocated to the US
|
| 4. Are stagnant
|
| The UK is up for sale (at a discount)
| fakedang wrote:
| You could say the same for traditional businesses. Or real
| estate. Or the farmlands. Even the political parties (for the
| princely sum of 50,000 quid).
|
| The UK is up for sale.
| graemep wrote:
| That is how globalisation is supposed to work.
|
| British companies have bought plenty abroad too:
| pydry wrote:
| it works great until you realize that your country's most
| strategic economic assets are in the hands of a strategic
| rival or shut down.
| graemep wrote:
| Whether it works well or not is a different issue.
|
| It is 1) a deliberate decision and 2) not unique to any one
| country.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| And yet the UK attracts twice the VC investments the next
| European country does.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| Is it because of the language?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Banking and incorporation laws.
| walthamstow wrote:
| London is the biggest tech hub outside of the US and one of
| the biggest financial hubs anywhere, plus Oxford and
| Cambridge are just 1 hour away by train.
| jjani wrote:
| > London is the biggest tech hub outside of the US
|
| You must be excluding China there, as it alone has
| multiple tech hubs that make London look meaningless.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Which Chinese city is bigger than London in VC money?
| jjani wrote:
| Tech hub != VC money.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Read the thread again. Since you haven't given your any
| metrics of your own, the default is the one already in
| context of the thread.
| jjani wrote:
| Fair enough, though VC hub would've been a more apt
| phrasing then. I just mentioned it because in terms of
| actual tech development going on, the gap between 1. SV /
| China and 2. anywhere else (including London) is so
| absurdly vast it's almost meaningless to be 2nd in VC
| investment, you might as well be 10th.
| walthamstow wrote:
| That's fair, I don't disagree, I was just giving reasons
| why the UK gets so much more VC than European countries.
| I was probably a bit slapdash with my statement but I
| think it's true in the context I was speaking in.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| It is a global phenomenon and is a result of how capital
| markets work. When you have money, it's easier to make more
| money by gobbling up assets. US has capital more readily
| available to try new things, fail and eventually build massive
| successes. The successes then get reinvested in the form of
| even more capital.
|
| When Manchester United is owned by US billionaires, everything
| else is up for grabs.
| Argonaut998 wrote:
| First FreeNow and now Deliveroo. So much for European
| independence from US companies. It's a wonder why these sales
| were approved in this climate.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| Deliveroo is a UK company. It doesn't matter to the EU. It's
| also very much non strategic so I don't see why it would be
| blocked either way.
| graemep wrote:
| The GP said European, not EU. Its a concern in the UK too.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| There is no such thing as European independence. Europe is
| a continent, not a political entity.
|
| The EU is a political entity which happens to be
| reconsidering its independence from the US. The UK very
| much is not and is kowtowing favours hoping to get a good
| deal.
| graemep wrote:
| Yes, but the comment said "European" nonetheless.
|
| "European" describes multiple political entities each of
| which has similar concerns.
|
| The only one of those entities that has actually made any
| progress towards independence from the US is Russia.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I don't think UK has similar concern as the rest of the
| UE.
| graemep wrote:
| What they have in common is doing nothing effective.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Unfortunately the current UK government has about as much
| backbone as a jellyfish.
| fy20 wrote:
| And Wolt.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a wonder why these sales were approved in this climate_
|
| The EU and UK have no good options at the merger level. If they
| block the sale, it trashes the start-up ecosystem. If they let
| it through, an American company buys a local one.
|
| The fundamental problem is the paucity of new-firm formation in
| the EU and UK, the scaling barriers they face that American
| compeitors don't, and the increased culture of risk-taking in
| America that lets its firms pay more for acquisitions. The last
| can't be addressed. The first two probably can by the EU. (The
| UK is not a viable sovereign entity in these regards.)
| jjallen wrote:
| Yes as an American who's loved in Europe for six years or so
| the risk taking and desire to start and do things a little
| differently is just night and day more than it is in Europe,
| generally speaking.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I'll never forget how jealous the Dutch coffee shop owner I
| met was of Americans.
|
| Dude worked at a bank - respectable white collar job acc.
| to his Dutch friends and family. He picked up a passion for
| coffee and wanted to open his own shop. His loved ones all
| thought he was nuts to leave a stable job for a maybe.
|
| I'm sure there's a degree of that in the US, but we have a
| lot more "just try stuff" in our cultural myths than the
| Europeans tend to. Guy felt like his options were keep a
| job he hates or be disowned by everyone he knows.
| SkyeCA wrote:
| Perhaps his friends and family were just being
| reasonable? Leaving banking to start a coffee shop is a
| drastic, risky move. Passion doesn't pay the bills or
| fund retirement and I'd legitimately wonder if someone
| was having a mental health crisis if they told me that
| was their plan.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Passion doesn 't pay the bills or fund retirement and
| I'd legitimately wonder if someone was having a mental
| health crisis if they told me that was their plan_
|
| We're still on a startup board, correct?
| andybak wrote:
| That's not what I thought HN primarily was.
| 9991 wrote:
| It's advertising, outreach, and public relations for a
| startup incubator company. There aren't ads here, because
| the website is the ad.
| NavinF wrote:
| What's the point of working in finance if you don't make
| enough money to quit and try something new for a couple
| of years? You make it sound like his job only pays a
| little more than flipping burgers.
| toast0 wrote:
| New coffeshop owner most likely pays less than flipping
| burgers. I'd imagine for the first three years at least,
| it's going to be a loss, especially on a cash flow basis.
| If the business can survive long enough, it might work
| out.
|
| OTOH, if it fails, you just go back to banking, right? No
| big deal; hopefully you had fun.
| davidcbc wrote:
| > I'm sure there's a degree of that in the US, but we
| have a lot more "just try stuff" in our cultural myths
| than the Europeans tend to
|
| Myth is the important word here for most people in the
| US. Unless you are already fairly wealthy or have wealthy
| parents your options are incredibly limited in the US
| because of the lack of a social safety net.
| NavinF wrote:
| Where in the US? In California if you quit your job
| you'll get free healthcare and ~$300/mo in food on your
| EBT card. You only have to be wealthy enough to pay rent.
| Median net worth in the US is $200k which can last quite
| a while.
| davidcbc wrote:
| The vast majority of people in the US don't live in
| California, and even those who do might be slightly
| better off in terms of healthcare and food, but given
| that CA has the second highest cost of living behind
| Hawaii and >25% of the country's homeless population I'm
| not sure it's considerably better.
|
| Net worth is a poor metric for this, it includes a lot of
| illiquid assets. You can't eat your car if you lose your
| job. On the other hand the median savings account balance
| is $8k which isn't going to last very long at all
| adventured wrote:
| Live in a college town. Either do contracting, or work at
| eg CVS/Walgreens/Sam's Club/Costco etc for $16-$20 per
| hour. Pay your bills with that. Work on your start-up
| ambitions. It will provide you a forever runway. Is it
| easy? Of course not, it's very long hours. It's very
| viable however. I did that path at one point so I
| wouldn't need VC while I hacked away at ideas, wouldn't
| have any contracting conflicts, and wouldn't have to
| touch my investments to sustain myself. And those
| businesses will also give you decent health insurance
| (worth $8k-$10k in terms of if you had to foot the bill
| solo).
| toast0 wrote:
| > You can't eat your car if you lose your job.
|
| No, but you can live in and save rent. Gotta be able to
| move it, at least every once in a while, though.
| aldrich wrote:
| Very anecdotal and stereotypical, of course. Doesn't
| quite paint the whole picture, though I agree there's
| usually a sentiment of risk aversion in the
| _conservative_ part of any population, perhaps more so in
| countries where employment for anything beyond SMEs is
| more normalized, like Germany and Austria that have
| adopted a "Rhine capitalism" model that is much more
| constrained.
|
| Just to give some counter-weight to this, the Netherlands
| has a self-employment rate that is significantly higher
| than the EU average [1], one of the higher EU rates of
| high-growth micro/small enterprises [2], a whole array of
| tax benefits for the self-employed and SMEs and a
| relatively fast moving law system that makes it
| increasingly easier for SMEs to be founded. And let's not
| forget a bunch of capitalist/financial scoops (first
| stock market, 1602; first investment banking, 1700s;
| first investment fund, 1774; etc.) some of which still
| have a presence today. Needless to say my experience is
| quite the opposite.
|
| [1] https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/skills-
| intelligence/s... [2]
| https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
| explained/index.php...
| jjani wrote:
| Meh - this isn't a Europe thing. That same sentiment of
| their friends and family would be even much stronger in
| e.g. Korea or India.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| No-one's approval is required apart from the company's board...
| louthy wrote:
| Not strictly true. In the UK, at least, a sale of a business
| needs to be signed off by the Cabinet Office if it is
| considered strategic or a security risk [1].
|
| Unlikely, in the case of Deliveroo, but I went through this
| exact process and it took about a month or so to get sign off
| and to be allowed to sell my own company to a foreign buyer
| (health tech)
|
| There's also monopoly and competition regulation that could
| stop a sale.
|
| [1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-security-and-
| investment...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Does any of this apply to Deliveroo, though?
|
| The general case is that no approval is needed in the UK to
| sell a company to anyone. This is a "free country".
|
| This was especially a reply to the implied suggestion that
| there was some sort of political approval process.
| realityking wrote:
| The EU's competition review will likely apply due to
| DoorDash's Wolt subsidiary. The criteria is outlined
| here: https://competition-
| policy.ec.europa.eu/mergers/procedures_e...
|
| I doubt the EU is going to block it since AFAIk they're
| not competing in any country directly against each other.
| toast0 wrote:
| Competition reviews are common, although I don't know enough
| about the two companies to know if they have high enough
| market share in any countries where they both operate.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| There might be because they are big but this should be a
| formality since Doordash does not operate in any countries
| where Deliveroo does.
|
| My reply was rather to the suggestion that there was some
| sort of political approval.
| pzmarzly wrote:
| FWIW there still are some popular European alternatives left,
| such as Bolt, Glovo or JustEat
| n4r9 wrote:
| Tangential and anecdotal, but despite supposedly being the UK
| market leader JustEats is pretty terrible. I've used them
| twice in as many years and the experience was awful both
| times. Missing items, meat in vegetarian dishes, late
| delivery, cold food etc... . You can report issues via the
| app but have to select one of a generic list of issues and
| only get a paltry partial refund - think 33% off for an order
| that was stone cold on arrival. The app doesn't seem to be
| able to handle more than one issue per order. There is a
| well-hidden customer service chat but they don't seem to be
| any more flexible than the ap.
| pkaye wrote:
| From what I read Deliveroo was founded by two Americans and
| they got their VC investments from the US. Its just that they
| focused their operations in Europe.
| Spivak wrote:
| > We'll cover more than 40 countries with a combined population
| of more than 1 billion people, enabling us to provide more local
| businesses with the tools and technology they need to thrive,"
| said Tony Xu, CEO and Co-founder of DoorDash.
|
| This makes zero sense to me for a logistics company specializing
| in local to local deliveries. Being bigger in a given geographic
| area grants some benefits of scale and efficiency but being in
| Seattle and Bangkok there's really no difference than two
| separate apps. Just with the nature of the business you probably
| want this to be as local as possible so the profits aren't
| siphoned out of your community.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > Being bigger in a given geographic area grants some benefits
| of scale and efficiency
|
| And dictating terms to local restaurants and delivery workers,
| with the threat of shutting them out of the largest market.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Both my local Indian and Chinese use justeat. I don't select
| them because they're on justeat, I use justeat because it has
| them.
|
| If they changed to another platform then I'd simply move to
| that platform. Of course these companies did deliveries far
| before techbros decided to "disrupt" the industry.
| like_any_other wrote:
| That's great. Wanna bet the future of your family business
| on the great majority of consumers acting like you, and
| only a negligible number being steered by convenience and
| habit?
| Marsymars wrote:
| Based on what I see on my local Uber Eats, it's mostly
| delivering food from low-quality ghost kitchens and
| McDonald's to people who can't be bothered to find
| anything better.
|
| I'd find it too depressing to run any kind of family
| business that involved food delivery.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Yup, before "tech" arrived food delivery was quite normal
| in the UK, and from watching 80s and 90s sitcoms quite
| normal in the US too. Indeed the "pizza porn trope" is as
| old as the hills [0]
|
| I don't know anyone that regularly orders a takeaway by
| looking at some random website for some random crap,
| maybe it's a big city thing. I've tried to use things
| like ubereats in the past when away on business - last
| time in New York where everywhere was closed downtown at
| about 11pm, including the hotel room service. I was very
| disappointed, and vowed never again. I did something
| similar a couple of years earlier with the same vow
| though.
|
| [0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PizzaBoyS
| pecialD...
| carlosjobim wrote:
| If you've made your restaurant dependent on any deliver app,
| you've already made a fatal mistake in a cutthroat industry.
|
| It doesn't take great effort for a restaurant to do good
| without being on these apps. But some owners want to pay
| 15-20% of their gross revenue to a megacorp for the rest of
| their lives rather than invest a few hundreds or thousands in
| getting their own customers. We see the same thing in a ton
| of industries.
| like_any_other wrote:
| The more cutthroat an industry is, the less players in it
| are able to avoid long-term risks like dependence on a
| single party, if those risks provide a short-term edge.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| People often travel outside of their town. Having the same app
| in the next place you are offers some benefits for the users.
| And potential for earnings.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| As an example, US has Uber and Lyft and Mexico has Uber and
| Didi. When someone from Mexico goes to US, they probably wont
| have Lyft, and someone from the US won't have Didi. So Uber
| gets most travellers' business automatically.
|
| Likewise even though Uber in Japan is (almost) all taxis and
| not actual Uber drivers, most global tourists have Uber and not
| something like Go that's specific to Japan. So they are
| profiting off almost all the taxi rides from Western visitors.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| Note that Deliveroo's Hong Kong business was sold to Foodpanda a
| few weeks earlier. So it looks like DoorDash only wanted to buy
| certain markets.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| It makes sense that they wouldn't buy the HK business.
| Operating in HK essentially means entering the Chinese market,
| which feels like a bold responsibility for Doordash to take on.
| Better to let a company that's better positioned to buy out
| that part of the business.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Interestingly, here in the Phoenix market, with plenty of
| competing delivery services, there is at least one Chinese
| native service that competes with the "round eyes".
|
| Next door in Mesa, there is a significant designated Asian
| Quarter. So there is a high concentration of Asian
| restaurants and grocery stores. On a few occasions when
| ordering DoorDash from one of the big Chinese places, someone
| from the Chinese service delivered it instead; all receipts
| were printed in Chinese and sometimes I apparently received
| someone else's order entirely.
|
| I believe they did this on purpose to promote use of that
| native service for this set of restaurants. Unfortunately I
| don't feel like reaching out to them or installing their
| weird Chinese language app, so I decided to simply steer
| clear of those most authentic restaurants instead.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| From a business standpoint, operating in China means
| basically every aspect of your operations need to be
| duplicated and built from scratch. Accounting, legal,
| compliance, engineering. People in China don't use the same
| payment methods. Hiring people is different. The ability to
| reuse your existing business knowledge and infrastructure
| is completely kneecapped.
| decimalenough wrote:
| You're likely referring to HungryPanda (Xiong Mao Wai Mai
| ), which has carved out quite a niche in this and now
| operates across the US, Canada, Australia, Asia (outside
| China), Europe, etc.
|
| https://www.hungrypanda.co/
| jjani wrote:
| I actually use this, I'm really into authentic Chinese
| food and some of the places aren't on the mainstream
| delivery apps but are on HungryPanda. The app is pretty
| bad but usable.
| jedberg wrote:
| > competes with the "round eyes". > weird Chinese language
| app
|
| Not sure if you're intending it, but this reads as really
| racist.
| jpsouth wrote:
| For what it's worth Mongolians call Westerners 'coloured
| eyes' - I wouldn't immediately consider 'round eyes'
| having racist intent.
|
| > weird Chinese language app
|
| I can't really defend that one though.
| creaturemachine wrote:
| It's playing off the old trend of depicting Asians with
| slits for eyes and buck teeth. You can't call one racist
| without including the rest.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| China's gig-economy dwarves the west. I actually don't think
| they can enter the market, simply because the competition
| will eat them alive.
| stevenwilkin wrote:
| Probably related that Foodpanda announced they were shutting
| down in Thailand.
| Raed667 wrote:
| It is inevitable for DoorDash to make tipping an even more
| annoying and intrusive part of Deliveroo. I can't wait to see how
| europeen users react to that.
| pluc wrote:
| These things are _omnipresent_ in European capitals, it 's
| quite striking. It might be inconvenient but it's not gonna
| stop people any more than the privacy concerns of the apps do.
| Raed667 wrote:
| I live in France and use Deliveroo (or UberEats some rare
| times) maybe once a month.
|
| There is already a tipping UI in the app, but it is not
| intrusive, nothing as aggressive as what you'd experience in
| the US where you're inclined to pre-tip even before the
| delivery happens.
|
| As for the capitals, yes it is becoming a thing but from my
| personal experience it is limited to touristy places
| n_ary wrote:
| Tipping is NOT omnipresent in the European capital I live in.
| Of course some apps have tipping options but I never found
| correlation in service quality to tipping. On the contrary,
| when I tipped, service quality was "less optimal" and I
| noticed visible entitlement.
|
| That being said, it is cultural norm here to tip by rounding
| up the order(say total is 2.59/ you tip by asking to make it
| 3.00/) when you are ordering in person and the service is/was
| good and the food is/was also good quality. Alternatively, in
| some restaurant, it is not usual to tip as order is collected
| by someone near the cash register while served by someone
| else entirely and someone else is preparing it. Once you are
| done eating, you return the dishes and go home, so there is
| no option to tip as you simply don't tip at the prepayment
| step because you don't know the food and service yet, you
| don't tip the server as they simply bring the food and walk
| away.
| pluc wrote:
| I don't know why both replies are about tipping when I
| didn't mention it at all. I meant these delivery drivers
| are everywhere. I've never used these data-sucking app so I
| don't know anything about them.
| nmstoker wrote:
| Will be interesting.
|
| Back when I used Deliveroo, tipping always led to worse
| delivery success rates so I gave up.
|
| They suddenly became really bad recently, which is unfortunate
| as they generally had the edge on Uber Eats (total charlatans!)
| NavinF wrote:
| > tipping always led to worse delivery success rates
|
| What does this mean? If you don't tip on doordash in the US,
| your order just arrives a few minutes later than usual since
| the auction starts at a lower price and drivers will reject
| the lowest prices
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > A few minutes later than usual
|
| That's an understatement. Your order sits on the shelf for
| while before someone picks up if you don't tip, sometimes
| more than 30 mins, until DoorDash forces some poor
| underpaid driver to pick it up sometimes with incentives,
| but mostly threats on their livelihood. In some cases,
| drivers do pick it up, don't deliver, eat your stuff, or
| drive in other directions to focus on other orders. Orders
| without tips do extremely poorly these days.
| adityamwagh wrote:
| A tip is essentially an extra 15-20% pseudo-tax on food
| delivery (at least in the US-where some people feel
| entitled to be tipped just for doing their job).
| tptacek wrote:
| No, a tip is a variable component of the price of having
| your burrito delivered to you in a private taxi cab, and
| if you don't want to pay it, go pick up your own burrito.
| xingped wrote:
| No, I'm already paying for a delivery service fee. A tip
| is an extra thank you. If restaurants charge me a
| mandatory fee ("tip") on top of my food price, there's no
| extra tip on top of that.
| tptacek wrote:
| I mean, you can choose to pay or not pay for the service.
| I'm not saying you should go out of your way to patronize
| businesses that charge you more for your burrito taxi
| than you think it's worth. But if your burritos arrive
| cold because you are the lowest bidder for the service, I
| think you've lost some of the moral high ground to
| complain.
| xingped wrote:
| If food delivery services were presented to end users as
| some sort of bidding model, sure, but it's not. It's
| presented as simply as "you order food, food gets
| delivered to you". There's no ability to see how my order
| might be affected by how much I pay.
|
| For the record, I never use food delivery services
| because the upcharge is absurd. If I want food delivery
| it'll be pizza and that's it. At least that's an honest
| transaction and I don't have to wonder when my food will
| arrive or how cold it might be.
| elliotto wrote:
| I have a high moral high ground because I don't use these
| services at all due to poor treatment of employees.
|
| It's difficult to conflate the moral high ground with
| maximal participation in a weird auction format when
| people are just trying to buy a burrito.
|
| In most other countries (like mine Australia) the price
| of the good is the advertised price. There is no extra
| weird moral based financial game played on top.
| tptacek wrote:
| I mean, OK, but they're treated badly because they're not
| paid enough, which makes tipping a strange complaint! You
| could use the service, if you wanted. Just pay what it
| really costs.
| koolba wrote:
| > You could use the service, if you wanted. Just pay what
| it really costs.
|
| Then they should have whatever that is be the actual
| displayed cost.
|
| As it stands now, there's an often delivery fee which
| apparently does not guarantee and reasonable delivery
| time. How does that make any sense?
| kelnos wrote:
| Oh certainly, it doesn't make sense at all. We should be
| presented the cost of the service, including a reasonable
| wage for the driver.
|
| But it's a little odd to turn this into a moral issue
| when the app actually does give you the means to pay the
| driver what you believe is actually fair, above the base
| amount being charged.
|
| So what this really tells me is that you just think the
| true cost is more than you want to pay. Which is totally
| fine.
| const_cast wrote:
| It doesn't make any sense and it's purely exploitative.
|
| However, you should still tip, because not tipping isn't
| a protest. You're not hurting doordash by not tipping,
| you're just hurting the driver and yourself. The driver
| who, as we've all rightfully pointed out, is already
| exploited.
| rounce wrote:
| Yes so your solution is to buy into that exploitative
| model?
|
| It's not a tip. A tip is an additional sign of
| appreciation for the quality of service. When this
| becomes a compulsory addition (as it seems to be in US
| culture) it's simply a hidden tax, paying it in advance
| of receiving said service is even more ridiculous. In
| this case - as we seem to have established - it's a model
| that hurts both worker and consumer, allowing
| exploitative employers to externalise costs by presenting
| a false moral dilemma.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's not purely US. In the UK, an "optional" (though not
| really) ~10% service fee is often added for sit-down
| service though not if you just pay at the bar. So more
| like Anglosphere than just US--though US is both higher
| and more pervasive. I forget what it was the other day
| but I was asked about a tip for some totally routine
| retail transaction.
| theshackleford wrote:
| > more like Anglosphere
|
| No such wide spread culture or requirement in 50% of the
| counties considered to be in the Anglosphere.
|
| Whilst it might exist in some capacity, a capacity that
| is far more limited, not applied in the same manner and
| easily avoided. It's not even remotely the same as the
| situation in the US where it's effectively mandatory
| across the board.
| rounce wrote:
| Ask for it to be removed, it's absolutely optional. In
| many cases, though not all - because I ask discreetly
| _every_ time - it doesn 't even translate to any benefit
| for the staff, they get paid the same and it just goes in
| as general takings which makes it even more of a flagrant
| piss-take. If I do want to tip as a sign of genuine
| appreciation I give them cash separately and ask they
| share it with the kitchen team.
| const_cast wrote:
| That's not a solution, but it's what you should be doing.
| A solution is legislation, any other "solution" is a lie
| and we should actively disregard anyone who claims
| otherwise.
|
| > it's a model that hurts both worker and consumer
|
| Yes, it is. But by not tipping, you're objectively
| hurting the worker more. Notice my choice of words here -
| objectively. That means don't bother trying to argue
| against it.
| rounce wrote:
| > but it's what you should be doing
|
| Why?
|
| You haven't even begun to further explain nor explore the
| wider economic and social implications of what you claim
| to be _the one true way_ , nor potential alternatives
| (and why they are impossible or insufficient). You're
| making increasingly bold claims, therefore you should
| perhaps back them up. Simply declaring what you think to
| be true as _objectively_ so, doesn 't make it such.
|
| > That means don't bother trying to argue against it.
|
| Thanks, wasn't sure if this was meant to be humorous but
| it did give me a chuckle.
| prmoustache wrote:
| There is no reason for a tip to be given before the
| actual service is provided. A tip is meant to show
| appreciation for the quality of service, not to be an
| insurance to get a barely decent one.
| koolba wrote:
| If you're never coming back or feel it will not
| reputational impact you, there's no economic incentive to
| tip after the service is rendered either.
|
| It's a moral and social contract decision. In particular
| if you want to incentive the world to provide good
| service.
| hiq wrote:
| > they're treated badly because they're not paid enough
|
| They're also treated badly because they don't know how
| much they'll get paid in practice, which makes financial
| planning even more difficult, including comparing job
| offers. Instead of just getting the higher-paid job, you
| get lured into accepting a low-paying one with promises
| of tips that may or may not materialize. My salary is
| basically the main thing that's legally enforceable when
| I sign an employment contract, but I wouldn't even get
| that if I relied on tips.
|
| > Just pay what it really costs.
|
| How much is that exactly? Is that +5/10/20% of the
| initial price?
|
| Tipping when it becomes non-negligible completely breaks
| transparency (as in
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(market))
| which makes everything less efficient.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yes I paid for a service, I expect to receive said
| service
|
| Honestly only Americans could come up with this BS
| justification about "lowest bidder" for a service I'm
| fully paying for
| rendaw wrote:
| I don't think GGGP was complaining about the price. I
| think they were complaining about it being a non-
| disclosed fee (like tax) while also not being a clearly
| defined amount (pseudo-tax) and with aggressively bad
| consequences if someone doesn't go along with the mind
| game (deliverer eats the food, wastes an hour of your
| time while you're hungry, need to follow up with support,
| etc) rather than just an up-front rejection.
|
| Obviously nobody wants to order food on ebay, and if
| you're going to argue that an auction is the only
| possible outcome why wouldn't that apply to the
| restaurant itself too? The restaurant could aggressively
| underpay/understaff chefs, then you go to pick up the
| order and restaurant says "Oh someone else offered to buy
| food at a higher price, but feel free to order again and
| offer more, and sit here for 30m while we prepare it!"
| pjerem wrote:
| I'm not from the US so I'm barely concerned with tipping
| but it seems to me that even in the US, the amount you
| tip is dependent of the QoS you got.
|
| So I really don't see the point of tipping beforehand.
| You can tip the driver when he delivers the meal if
| that's what you want.
|
| Anything before the service have been delivered sounds
| like a fee and, if I understand other comments here, a
| mean to pay for your position in the queue which imho
| sounds pretty disgusting.
| Steve16384 wrote:
| And even then, you won't know how good or cold it is
| until you've unwrapped it and started eating it.
| what wrote:
| No, the service fee is the price of having a burrito
| delivered.
| renewiltord wrote:
| To be honest, this is all nonsense. When I Doordash I
| don't really tip and things are fine. My wife tips 10%
| and she's fine. But I think it's pretty funny that you're
| going around defending pricing dark patterns with the
| latest Twitter-trend-du-jour. It's a pity you couldn't
| refer to the burrito as "slop" eaten only by the "deeply
| unserious" who need to "go to therapy" because you're
| "begging them, please read a book". Maybe a little
| description of how the "enshittification" of the delivery
| process leads to "ghoulish" requests that demonstrate
| "late-stage capitalism" in a "mask-off moment".
| 9283409232 wrote:
| > A tip is essentially an extra 15-20% pseudo-tax on food
| delivery
|
| Then what's the delivery fee?
| chii wrote:
| to make the delivery fee seem lower than it really is.
| delfinom wrote:
| Extra profit for the app, on top of the 30% they charge
| the restaurant. They do technically pull from the
| delivery fee for the base offering to drivers, but they
| certainly don't start the offering there.
| dagw wrote:
| The fee is to make the delivery happen at all, the tip is
| to make it happen in a timely manner.
| NavinF wrote:
| In the bay area we're talking 25min vs 30min. It's a
| pretty simple auction: The price increases until someone
| accepts. The driver has no idea how much you tipped.
|
| Note the implications: If every driver in your area
| accepts orders at the same price, doordash will absorb
| the entire tip from every order. I dunno why people make
| up FUD instead of just doing an image search for what the
| driver's UI looks like.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/doordash_drivers/comments/1kfu6a
| h/t...
|
| Edit: while it is true that base pay does go up if an
| order gets declined, it doesn't ALWAYS go up and if it
| does, it takes a while to get it to a reasonable rate.
| That is when your order just sits there.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| That model will die within weeks in Europe.
|
| Customers will not correlate poor tipping with poor
| service, because tipping is considered so culturally
| different. If that behaviour starts to happen, customers
| will just use it once or twice, have a poor experience
| and decide "nope, that doesn't work for me, I'll not use
| that any more".
|
| In the UK Deliveroo offers me a chance to tip when making
| an order but only really "pushes" it after delivery,
| conforming to the UK sense of a tip being in response to
| great service. I've only been minded to do it once when a
| driver genuinely did something exceptional when I messed
| up an order - so he got a PS5 tip on a PS2.50 delivery
| fee from a restaurant about a mile away from me.
|
| DoorDash could actually try something innovative here -
| they could eradicate tips, and push service fees up a
| little, and make a big deal of it in their marketing that
| their gig economy riders are getting a great deal. If it
| catches on, you could find this ripple out into other
| services like Uber, and perhaps change the tone on
| tipping in general in other scenarios, too.
| Spivak wrote:
| I wish they just exposed the auction system to make the
| whole tipping thing moot. A slider that sets your delivery
| fee that updates based on demand / driver availability
| would eliminate a lot of the awkward social dynamics.
|
| Low fee slower less likely to get a driver. High fee faster
| drivers will take your order over others.
| nmstoker wrote:
| It means if you add a tip there's a higher probability of
| them screwing up the delivery, either not finding my flat
| (apartment) at all or being severely delayed because they
| sent someone who cannot read the simple English directions.
| If you do not add a tip then this tends not to happen. It's
| the inverse of what you'd expec. It may be some side-effect
| of Deliveroo asking for the tip in advance - one theory is
| that the delivery agent thinks I'll give a cash in hand tip
| and therefore tries harder; or it could be something more
| obscure, eg perhaps the illiterate delivery agents (of
| which there are many in London now) generally work faster
| but cope less well with any modest complexity and they are
| being rewarded by an algorithm that does not take that into
| account.
| m000 wrote:
| Wait, wait... You now need to tip BEFORE receiving any
| service at all? WTF is wrong with you USA?
| NavinF wrote:
| I explained why you don't _need_ to tip before delivery;
| your food will just arrive 5min later. Ignore the replies
| making up fake consequences. He 's clearly never used
| doordash.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >It is inevitable for DoorDash to make tipping an even more
| annoying and intrusive part of Deliveroo. I can't wait to see
| how europeen users react to that.
|
| On demand food delivery is a premium luxury service (though the
| platforms have done their best to market it as otherwise).
| Please tip accordingly. These people work their asses off and
| are generally from a very low income background. If you have
| problems with that, go to the grocery store.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _On demand food delivery is a premium luxury service,
| though the platforms have done their best to market it as
| otherwise. Please tip accordingly_
|
| I stopped automatically tipping in New York City and the Bay
| Area. They earn a minimum wage now [1]. If they go above and
| beyond, sure, I'll tip. But if they just do their job, there
| are now regulations that have them get paid.
|
| [1] https://www.nyc.gov/site/dca/news/018-24/mayor-adams-
| first-a...
| ramesh31 wrote:
| That's great for NYC. The other 99% of their markets do
| not.
| NavinF wrote:
| NYC and California are 10% of the US population and I'd
| be unsurprised if the two make up 50% of the food
| delivery market. Flyover states aren't dense enough for
| drivers to drop off 3 orders on the way to your home and
| the median income in many states isn't high enough for
| people to buy private taxis for their burritos
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| How are you defining markets? I would be surprised if the
| 99% stat is true at either the national or global level
| tptacek wrote:
| Explain the logic of not tipping people who make minimum
| wage?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Explain the logic of not tipping people who make
| minimum wage?_
|
| It's more that they're regulated, the price of the
| delivered food is already high, and I'm not putting a
| premium on their labour above _e.g._ the folks who
| prepared the food.
| umbra07 wrote:
| Because logically I should give tips to every service
| worker I interact with that makes min wage. I'm obviously
| not going to do that. If I do tip some category of
| service workers, it's certainly not going to be the ones
| that eat/delay/spit in my food as a get back for not
| tipping them, and it's certainly not going to be the
| group that makes well above min wage (I. E waiters are
| the highest-paid min. wage staff).
| rounce wrote:
| It's you that needs to explain the logic behind why these
| people _need_ to be compulsorily tipped instead of
| receiving a reasonable base wage.
| Steve16384 wrote:
| How do I know what their wages are?
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Wait staff have had minimum wage protection for a very long
| time at the federal level, do you not tip them anywhere?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Wait staff have had minimum wage protection for a very
| long time at the federal level, do you not tip them
| anywhere?_
|
| Different contexts. Even though restaurants are meant to
| make up the gap between the tipped and actual minimums,
| they often don't. And delivery drivers in New York and
| California are making well above the federal minimumw
| wage. Most importantly: a restaurant tip is split between
| skilled servers and kitchen staff. It's going to multiple
| people, each of whom have developed a specialised skill
| that adds value to my experience. None of that is true
| for someone carting my food to my home.
|
| Absent regulation, I think tipping drivers and delivery
| staff is good. With regulation, the tradeoff has sort of
| been made for me.
| Raed667 wrote:
| or maybe let's not play guessing games with the livelihood of
| people working in these fields, and let's bake a livable wage
| in the price... like any other service job ?
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Except no other service job does. Outside of a patchwork of
| local ordinances here and there, few servers makes beyond
| the state/federal minimum wage without tips. A minimum wage
| which is almost always below the poverty line.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Low compensation is how the world shouts "we don't value
| your work, do something else". They should listen.
| jdeibele wrote:
| https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-
| wage/tipped
|
| I live in Oregon and employees here make a minimum of
| $14.70/hour and $15.95 in the Portland Metro area before
| tips. California and Washington have slightly higher
| minimums, seemingly state-wide. There are other states
| listed that are not as generous.
|
| I tip but am sympathetic to my relatives who don't. Many
| places expect you to pay and tip, then take your drinks
| and food to the table, bus your tables, etc.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| The dollar amount doesn't matter if it doesn't add up to
| a living wage. $15 an hour at 40 hours a week is 31,200
| annual before taxes. Is that a living wage in Oregon?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _$15 an hour at 40 hours a week is 31,200 before taxes.
| Is that a living wage in Oregon?_
|
| Absolutely with a roommate.
| carstenhag wrote:
| The comment rears like "This is impossible to do in the
| US", while it is commonplace in many countries around the
| world. And of course, there are also many countries where
| it's more shaded (in Germany you don't need to tip, but
| it is definitely appreciated and it's leaning a bit more
| towards the US, but still far away from it)
| renewiltord wrote:
| If they want to deliver they can. If they don't they don't
| have to. There's no problem here. There's a market clearing
| price and a regulation to protect not being paid enough. I
| don't also have to guess at a price higher than that. It
| doesn't give me too much pain if something isn't delivered on
| time or at all. I can happily adjust plans and rate down the
| thing I can't get.
|
| As HN frequently points out "your business model is not my
| problem".
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| You do realise you're replying to a comment about a company
| operating in countries where compulsory tipping isn't
| normalised?
| scbzzzzz wrote:
| My two cents, tipping should be optional and only reserved
| for exceptional service.
|
| It is problem with business taking advantage of low income
| groups and business should be guilt into doing the right
| thing. Not people for not tipping.
|
| If a company can't exist/ will be bankrupt ( or whatever the
| greedy business owners complain) if they can't provide
| livable( not minimum wage that was set 10 years ago and never
| account for inflation) wage to workers they should not exist
| in first place.
|
| Tipping just enables this exploitation and at the same time
| paying billion of dollars to shareholders . I have read news
| about companies, owners taking share of the tip.
|
| delivery drivers should protest and make sure government to
| pass bills to stop this exploitation.
|
| these business are taking advantage of situation of
| vulnerable people who either have to sleep hungry and not
| exploited or be exploited but have a meal. No idea how we can
| as a society make it better.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Tipping culture results in far, far worse working conditions.
|
| Either don't tip, or don't use the service. If you do tip,
| you're contributing to workers being exploited.
| JambalayaJimbo wrote:
| These kinds of comments always leave me a little puzzled. The
| people working at the grocery store may well be low income
| people as well, as well as anyone on the chain of growing and
| transporting that food.
| mejutoco wrote:
| Deliveroo has not operated in Germany for a while. It might go
| like that in other countries.
|
| https://deliveroo.de/en/
| meitham wrote:
| and just exited HK few months ago
| jen729w wrote:
| Left Australia some time last year. Ironic, given the name.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Click "no" or ignore depending on UI.
|
| The Deliveroo app already asks if you want to tip.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| The one and only time I used Deliveroo I gave a 1 pound tip. A
| pound or two is a normal service tip for many places in the UK.
| You would tip your hairdresser or the taxi 1-2 pounds.
| Xss3 wrote:
| I usually give whatever decent change I have laying around,
| or a fiver if I know them and it has been a while. I never
| tip via the app. I do tell the driver they'll get a cash tip
| in the instructions though.
| omneity wrote:
| International operations? Is DoorDash entering new markets?
| hug wrote:
| > Outside the United States, DoorDash and its European
| subsidiary Wolt have operations in a combined total of 32 other
| countries as of the end of 2024.
|
| From wikipedia.
| omneity wrote:
| Little did I know. Thanks!
| modeless wrote:
| They ought to rename themselves Deliveroo. It's a better name.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| This is disappointing from an innovation perspective. I know
| Deliveroo are just there to make money but they were uniquely
| positioned to do something transformative with their apps over
| the past ten years. Instead, we've basically seen little to no
| innovation on the consumer product other than an expansion from
| restaurants to now including grocery deliveries and group
| ordering.
|
| What about including a human, social element? Deliveroo could
| have been a channel for building a relationship between customers
| and Frankie's Pizza where I could hear about upcoming specials,
| promotions, news about their expansion to a second location etc.
|
| There could be an integration with power users (superhosts, sort
| of, but the analogy isn't exact) where consensus can form around
| who really _is_ the best Chinese food in town. Let's get the
| hygiene rating of the kitchen front and centre too (perhaps they
| do this in some markets?)
|
| For the riders, why has there never been a successful internal
| commitment to building a positive human workforce on the city
| streets? I feel like the brand started that way with their iconic
| jerseys and oversized food boxes but devolved into freelancers of
| the lowest common denominator. When my orders started arriving
| 50/50 in a just eat thermal bag, it really drove home the point
| that these services are never about long term value for the human
| workforce. We are now haggling on price in an auction against
| everyone else in the same way airline flights compete solely on
| price. When that happens, just as with airlines, any notion of a
| quality product or differentiation on service goes down the
| drain. It's as if the major component of service differentiation
| _is_ the lower price which is such a shame when there's so much
| opportunity to shine as a food service app.
|
| If these companies truly do want to race to the bottom as generic
| low latency courier services then perhaps we will hopefully see
| them exit the app layer and solely occupy the transport layer,
| leaving space at the app level for someone who cares about the
| state of restaurants, food, and quality, leaving the delivery
| part to the auction apps. I'd much rather have a high quality
| integrated service but if we're obviously not going to get that
| then the sooner they stop trying the better.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I never understood why these delivery services are popular.
|
| Yes people are lazy. But lazy to the point of paying an
| additionnal fee to be waiting twice the time it gets to fetch the
| same food yourself and receive dishes that are cold instead of
| hot? What is the incentive really? If only those delivery
| services would use devices that keep food warm and deliver from
| somewhere far from home, I would maybe understand, but they
| aren't even available in a wider than a small radius around your
| house, so it is always more convenient to walk/cycle/drive to
| wherever you would order that food anyway.
|
| The only ones that do it relatively well are pizza joints and
| they usually have their own delivery service so you don't even
| have to use these apps.
| alt227 wrote:
| > Yes people are lazy.
|
| You dont seem to understand _just_ how lazy people are.
| ghaff wrote:
| They are and I include myself in this category every now and
| then. But even when I had to go into an office every day, I
| had quite a few things I could toss into the oven or skillet
| and have ready in a few minutes.
|
| Have some friends over and want to get a couple pizzas that
| everyone is happy with? Sure I get that rather than someone
| having to go out and pick them up. But, as a routine thing,
| I've never gotten the attraction of delivery.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Same here. I prepare 2-3 meals for myself every day.
| Breakfast this morning was scrambled eggs. It took maybe 15
| minutes, and for part of that time I was also checking
| emails and getting dressed for the day. For lunch I'll
| throw together a salad in a few minutes. Meal prep just
| isn't the hardship people seem to think it is, and by doing
| my own, I spend about a tenth as much on food as my co-
| workers who get everything delivered.
|
| That doesn't mean I begrudge them their use of these
| services. If that's what they want to spend their income
| on, that's their business. I just think it's foolish and
| based on misconceptions.
| theshackleford wrote:
| > Meal prep just isn't the hardship people seem to think
| it is
|
| For you, and your circumstances. For other people, it's
| exactly as hard as they think it is.
|
| I can't use a knife, or look down to prepare food without
| risking the inability to use large parts of my body for
| the rest of the day and potentially the next.
|
| Though my answer to this is shakes, not food service to
| be fair.
|
| > based on misconceptions
|
| You don't say?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >I had quite a few things I could toss into the oven or
| skillet and have ready in a few minutes.
|
| I don't. That was eggs for me, but alas. At best I have
| oatmeal ready.
| wiether wrote:
| Chickpeas!
|
| Even cheaper than eggs and much longer shelf life
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Y1Gsjj5iU
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Interesting. Sure. I'll grab a can next time I go for
| groceries and see if I like the taste.
| ghaff wrote:
| Buying a dozen eggs and maybe some cheese and associated
| veggies is still a lot cheaper than getting meal
| delivers. Also sauteed shrimp. Pasta with even store
| bought sauce. I sometimes don't feel like cooking either
| but it honestly doesn't need to take a lot of effort or
| money.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Yes, but it feels a lot worse. What's competing when I'm
| at the grocery is different from when I'm ordering
| delivery. I've cut down my Doordash substantially but I
| still have my down days a few times in a month where I'm
| either really lazy or really crunched for time at work.
|
| I do in fact have pasta but I wouldn't call it much of a
| meal by itself. I usually cook it with some ground beef
| or turkey and try to keep some leftovers, but that leaves
| the realm of "quick 10 minute meals".
|
| I'll keep the shrimp in mind when going for groceries
| next time as well. I'm all ears for some quick and tasty
| sources of protein.
| ghaff wrote:
| Frozen shrimp was good when I had a priority on quick
| dinners; usually some shrimp scampi variant. Have a
| turkey farm in town so a frozen turkey pie isn't a bad
| option. You do have the option of refrigerated ravioli or
| tortellini with some store-bought pasta sauce which comes
| closer to being a whole meal. After all, not _every_ meal
| needs to be a complete /balanced one. I've also found
| other frozen stuff like soup dumplings that are really
| quick/easy to prep.
| Peanuts99 wrote:
| What's more, these services only go to make the customer
| experience of people who have actually turned up at the
| restaurant worse because the same staff are now having to cater
| for twice the amount of orders while they manage a long line of
| motorcycle drivers crowding around the entrance. Personally to
| me it's wild, spending restaurant money to eat at home.
| braza wrote:
| +1.
|
| Someone nailed it in the thread above related to the
| -time/+money, but after a couple of years working on it, I
| realized that the people that use those services are not the
| public that would go to a restaurant for a gastronomic
| experience, and that's ok.
|
| At least for me, the biggest 3rd or maybe 4th order effect of
| the food delivery industry and their dark/gray kitchens is
| that the concept of having a nice cooked meal locally is
| almost over, with some exceptions.
|
| Due to the over-optimization of the kitchens and the offset
| in terms of revenue that restaurants can have (i.e., orders
| without increasing the real estate), we have a bunch of pre-
| set mounted meals in almost all restaurants, and the
| probability of eating something tasty and unique is very low
| due to that.
|
| The irony is that, at least in my experience, the best non-
| chain and/or fine restaurants that I found were the ones in
| some shopping centers in the Nordics for a simple accidental
| association: none of those has any possibility to have food
| delivery due to hard physical constraints, and my assumption
| is that, since they do not have this possibility, they have
| to deliver the best meal possible to have people return and
| build a positive reputation.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| 5th order effect - enabling shut-in's to stay shut in.
| vidarh wrote:
| I _am_ the type who would both go to a restaurant for a
| gastronomic experience _and_ order from Deliveroo.
|
| When I want "an experience" I travel to a high-end
| restaurant. A local restaurant does not deliver that
| experience, whether I order home or go eat there. When I
| feel like that quality food, I order it because I don't
| want to spend my time for that quality food.
| prmoustache wrote:
| > I travel to a high-end restaurant. A local restaurant
| does not deliver that experience
|
| That is very generic.
|
| There are people who travel to restaurants that are a
| walking distance from my place because they are known
| from afar to be very good. And they are not necessarily
| "high end" in the sense that they don't serve plates
| dressed according to a chief desire nor do they have
| sommelier, they just happen to make very good dishes
| anyway.
|
| Not all good restaurants are the ones where you are
| greeted by some people in a tuxedo. And the good ones
| aren't necessarily far away from you.
| vidarh wrote:
| It is however true where I live, and in all of the
| locations I've lived throughout my life.
|
| And I did not say there aren't _good ones_ closer, but
| that they don 't offer enough of an experience for me to
| value wasting time traveling there, and eating somewhere
| where I don't have the comfort of being in my own home.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Some time I just go to the restaurant next door BECAUSE
| it is more comfortable than being in my own home: I don't
| have to set the table or clean it afterwards, wash
| anything or make sure they are correctly put in the
| dishwasher, or manage the trash etc and I can meet people
| there I wouldn't necessarily want in my own home, at
| least at that exact moment.
| theshackleford wrote:
| > I realized that the people that use those services are
| not the public that would go to a restaurant for a
| gastronomic experience, and that's ok.
|
| And you'd be wrong with your assumption (because that's
| what it is.)
| amjnsx wrote:
| Are you talking from experience with DoorDash or Deliveroo?
| This has not been my experience with Deliveroo in London, UK.
| There's just no way I could get the same food quicker, everyone
| is on motor/pedal bikes so delivery is usually about 20-30
| minutes. Food is always hot on arrival bar the odd item (Nandos
| chips specifically, always cold).
|
| Also I'm ordering Deliveroo specifically so I can get the time
| back, that's the price you're really paying - I had a long day
| at work and I want the time to relax and not spend it sourcing
| and making dinner.
| danielbln wrote:
| Yeah, I never had cold food delivered. Maybe that's a US
| thing where you live 50km away from the restaurant or
| something.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I am in Spain and the only restaurants that these services
| propose are in a 5km radius so it is often easier/faster to
| walk, cycle or take the motorbike to said place. The apps
| hide all stuff on other sides of the city so I wouldn't be
| able to order from 50km away anyway.
| tssva wrote:
| In the US and none of the food delivery services deliver
| from some place as far away as 50km. I don't know why you
| think that would be necessary in the US. That being said I
| have never received a food delivery that was cold or that
| wasn't delivered in a timely manner.
| danielbln wrote:
| I was poking fun at the fact that distances in the US
| tend to be bigger than e.g. in Europe, I figured that the
| delivery apps don't allow for that much of a range. Since
| I've read the complaint about cold food frequently, but
| like you have never received cold food, I figured it must
| be some US specific thing (but I guess not).
| tshaddox wrote:
| If the restaurant is 30 miles away it's also going to be
| cold if you pick it up yourself and drive all the way home.
| And you'll be driving roughly twice as far, assuming a
| delivery drivers was positioned close to the restaurant.
| 2dvisio wrote:
| Not my experience in London. In any zone that is not Zone
| 1-2, or other Deliveroo hot spots, my experience has always
| been not great with times that do reach also the 45 minutes
| to 1h for food delivery. We still do it occasionally _because
| we are lazy_.
|
| However, we did draw some lines as some foods are not
| enjoyable in case one of those long wait times happens (e.g.
| pizza, burger, cooked meat dishes, etc).
| antonyh wrote:
| Zone 2-3 here; Deliveroo is the only service that failed to
| even turn up, delivered to the wrong address then tried to
| blame me for "putting a pin in the wrong place" which I did
| not. Worse service ever.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I am in Spain. So Uber Eats and Glovo are the most common
| services but they are equally bad anyway so I wouldn't expect
| Deliveroo to be better.
| dataengineer56 wrote:
| Nando's chips are cooked fresh when the delivery driver
| arrives so that they're as fresh as possible. The probelm
| here is that chips travel horribly.
| chardz wrote:
| Would recommend an air fryer for this; They are basically
| made to reheat things with oil on them already.
| mattl wrote:
| French fries don't travel well.
| ghaff wrote:
| French fries often don't travel well from the kitchen to
| the table. The hamburger/fries/related seems to be a pretty
| bad target for food delivery. Pizzas can at least be put in
| a warm oven which I do even if I'm just picking something
| up myself.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| If you have more money than time, and you don't mind the
| quality, it seems like not a bad trade.
| braza wrote:
| > What is the incentive really? > I would maybe understand, but
| they aren't even available in a wider than a small radius
| around your house, so it is always more convenient to
| walk/cycle/drive to wherever you would order that food anyway.
|
| I know that you mentioned the incentive from the customer
| perspective, but since I've worked in 2 of the top 5 world food
| delivery companies, I can have some insights about it beyond
| people's laziness.
|
| 1) Availability of different cuisines regardless of distance:
| If you're talking about a bikeable, small-sized European
| capital or city with a limited number of restaurants, yes--you
| can place your order in person without any issue. But if you're
| in a mid-sized city with a high variety of restaurants, like
| Berlin, that's not feasible. Most of the time, people don't use
| the app to order from the local pizza place; they use it to get
| a nice Indian, Japanese, Nepalese, or Thai dish from a
| restaurant 6 to 10 km away, especially on a rainy Friday.
|
| 2) It's hard for restaurants to coordinate table bookings with
| walk-ins: Many restaurants join the platform because, while
| they can manage bookings and some fixed demand, they also risk
| losing walk-in customers (dynamic demand) when there's no space
| available. What restaurants do now is manage both bookings and
| walk-ins without worrying about losing revenue--because
| delivery can make up for no-shows or frustrated walk-ins.
|
| 3) Food delivery removes waiting logistics: If you walk, cycle,
| or drive, you incur the full logistics cost plus the
| opportunity cost (e.g., if you're organizing an event and need
| to set aside an hour for food). With delivery platforms, you
| can "actively wait"--you place the order through the app and do
| other things while waiting. You're paying for both the
| logistics and the saved opportunity cost.
|
| 4) Restaurants can optimize menus and kitchen efficiency
| instead of real estate: This relates to point 2. In my
| experience, restaurants are becoming more like a front-end
| experience for dine-in customers, but many are transforming
| into what could be called "kitchens as a service." Customers
| order remotely, and a highly optimized kitchen, in terms of
| logistics and execution, prepares a specific dish. One thing
| I've noticed--and personally feel conflicted about--is that
| restaurants are betting on hyper-optimization by selling more
| of what I call "pre-mounted standardized dishes." In other
| words, instead of restaurants thinking about increasing their
| space to accommodate potential walk-ins, they will move towards
| maximizing kitchen efficiency.
|
| Example: In Brazilian food restaurants, they have preset
| portions of rice, beans, French fries, and salad, and just
| reheat pre-cooked steak. For Thai food, they keep cold
| dressings in containers, and all noodles are pre-cooked and
| stored in warmers, and so on.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Your last point is the most interesting: restaurants are now
| _optimizing_ for cranking out generic slop.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| for fast food restaurants, they always have.
| rtpg wrote:
| I mean in bigger cities lots of people don't have cars, they
| might also be in the middle of something and so having someone
| else get the food makes sense. And a lot of people have "too
| much money", leading to them being like "yeah I'll pay like 40
| bucks for somebody to bring these burgers to me so I can just
| keep on playing something with a friend".
|
| And you know... if food is cold, you probably have a microwave?
|
| Whether this is a good use of money is debatable but I think
| it's pretty easy to imagine scenarios in which this would be
| used.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _if food is cold, you probably have a microwave?_
|
| Order $40 of mediocre food and pop it in the microwave when
| it gets to you, cold. No surprise this is the community that
| brought us Soylent.
|
| Do these people even _like_ food? Fine if not, but in that
| case stock up on broccoli, rice and chicken and eat it every
| day; you 'll save money and be healthier.
| wiether wrote:
| > Do these people even like food?
|
| They don't.
|
| Basically they _consume_ food like they _consume_ shows on
| Netflix.
|
| They want tons of choice, they want something constantly
| new, but they never actually enjoy what they consume. Ask
| them what they ate last week and they can't tell you. Ask
| them what they thought about what they just ate, same
| result.
|
| It would be fine if it wasn't for the tons of trash that
| creates and the cooks/delivery people that are exploited by
| this system.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not sure the comparison with Netflix is fair as the
| latter does have some good shows. But, in the case of
| food delivery, yes, some subset of people are neither
| choosy nor especially price-sensitive and they're an
| ideal target audience.
| prmoustache wrote:
| OTOH when you are in a big city you usually have food
| available virtually at your doorstep. That is my experience
| at least.
| adzm wrote:
| My car broke down and it's taking forever to fix! Delivery
| services have made this much less of a problem.
| fergie wrote:
| * Dons tinfoil hat *
|
| They want you scared alone and staring at a screen. These
| services allow people to withdraw from the social interaction
| of ordering food in person- they feed off of and encourage
| social anxiety.
| m000 wrote:
| You make it sound like a therapists' conspiracy.
|
| I think the DoorDash culture is promoted because it means you
| can now work an hour more of (often unpaid) overtime, without
| worrying for your dinner. Or that you won't resist the extra
| time commuting to a far office location, so that your
| employer can save on their office space rent. Or won't
| complain for being forced to live out of the city because
| funds have bought up all the housing for "investment" and you
| can no longer afford a place in it.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Honestly when I lived in Ireland I sometimes preferred an app
| because there were times I couldn't tell what people were
| saying (loud background noises, accents, etc)
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| You'd be extremely surprised if you saw internal dashboards.
| Kinda opens up your mind to society's decision making processes
| when you see the numbers.
| jbs789 wrote:
| Live in a major city without a car/bike. Many restaurants
| within close physical proximity.
| postexitus wrote:
| Food delivery is a game changer with little kids to feed.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Food delivery is a game changer with little kids to feed._
|
| Can you elaborate?
|
| I have little kids. We buy food at the grocery store and cook
| it. What game is being changed? You're talking about ordering
| takeout.
| bluedino wrote:
| Easier to put chicken nuggets in an air fryer than order
| them from DoorDash last time I checked
| ghaff wrote:
| My mother cooked but, when I was growing up, tossing a
| Swanson TV dinner or some Stouffer's frozen thing in the
| oven if my parents were going out was pretty routine. I'm
| sure I'd turn up my nose today but I probably regarded it
| as a bit of a treat at the time.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Is it, though? Is it really?
|
| First you have to have frozen chicken nuggets on hand at
| home. That means that you've already been to the grocery
| store, picked some up, and brought them home somehow to
| be stored.
|
| Now you've also got a working and clean air fryer, sink,
| utensils, and other kitchen accoutrements that can be
| used on the nuggets. You may also find it necessary to
| have, on-hand, some condiments or side dishes to make a
| complete meal of the nuggets you're trying to make.
|
| Then you put them onto a plate -- hope you got a plate --
| and eat them with clean utensils, and then you clean that
| stuff up, wipe the counter, wash and put away dishes.
| Then you make a note on your shopping list or inventory,
| to replenish what you just ate.
|
| It's not a simple proposition, all of these steps,
| especially when someone is a bachelor, mentally ill,
| isolated, etc. You feel it's easier for you, that is
| great, you've got some life skills, but other people
| struggle mightily with just the cleanup bits, for
| example.
| daseiner1 wrote:
| Is this a point being made via absurdity or is this your
| sincere position? Buying a five pound bag of frozen
| nuggets and a bottle of ketchup isn't climbing everest.
| Maintaining a shopping list takes no effort at all. Being
| depressed doesn't get better by eating out of a carry out
| box.
|
| Your whole comment is just infantilization, plain and
| simple.
| reginald78 wrote:
| This is what always gets me about it. I get being to lazy
| to cook and to drunk or busy to drive or whatever. But
| there are actually tons of pretty good frozen prepared
| meals these days. If you're lazy and this happens to you
| all the time, throw a bunch of those in the freezer.
| Cleaning a baking sheet isn't actually more cleanup work
| than dealing with take out trash. You'll probably get the
| food just as fast as the delivery service as well.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's definitely something to be said for having some
| things in the freezer you can throw in the oven now and
| then. I cook regularly but I have those.
| postexitus wrote:
| Let me explain - it is not a replacement for daily meals -
| of course we do cook both from scratch and frozen stuff for
| dailies. I would go broke pretty quickly if we ordered
| delivery every night. It is a replacement for eating out.
| If you have little kids and take them out for dining (let's
| say as a treat), first you need to agree on where to go,
| then a bunch of complaints about the lack of X / Y at the
| menu, then them getting bored etc. Delivery means you can
| do this all at your home's comfort - if somebody wants to
| make a scene - sure go ahead!
|
| Otherwise I would also prefer to eat in the restaurant,
| cheaper and easier as well.
| prmoustache wrote:
| My kitchen has never been as prepared since I had kids. I
| used to have a very limited stock of food but it changed when
| I had kids. So quite the opposite in my experience.
| b8 wrote:
| They do use devices to keep the food warm such as the pizza
| like boxes. Also, my family members who DoorDash wait by
| popular destinations to pickup orders quicker and they deliver
| them within 20 minutes.
| dbbk wrote:
| Have you ever had a hangover
| black3r wrote:
| I live in Bratislava and order food to work everyday. Delivery
| times are on par or less than what would take me to fetch the
| food myself. All delivery services in the area use thermally
| insulated boxes to transport the dishes - I can't remember if I
| ever received a cold dish (that wasn't supposed to be served
| cold).
|
| And because I'm a software developer with a flexible work
| schedule paid hourly, the act of going to grab the food myself
| and not working for 30 minutes would cost me way more than
| delivery costs (even cooking my own meals can be more expensive
| when time is factored in, compared to food price at restaurant
| + delivery cost (for ~2 portions prepared in 30 minutes. Proper
| meal-prepping would be cheaper of course, but yeah I'm too lazy
| to do that)).
|
| Also the food delivery services often offer discounts and with
| them it's sometimes cheaper to order the food than going to the
| restaurant and eat there. Yesterday I ordered with a 30%
| discount - I got a dish which would cost 10.80EUR at the
| restaurant for 7.50EUR including delivery.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Ironically delivery apps to be designed for walkable (ie non
| US) cities. At least where I lived in the US, driving was
| always very congested and adds extra time for parking and
| such, always at least 30 min with huge variance based on
| traffic. Plus you have to pay for the energy to transport a
| 1.5 tonnes vehicle for.. usually a single meal.
|
| In Europe it's an electric kickbike or scooter at most, and
| they can pick up the food without parking. Still, not
| perfect, but a lot more efficient and the margins can be
| lower. They don't have to hit you with those deceptive fees
| and tip shaming - often it's the same consumer price.
|
| To me, in the US it would make much more sense to chain
| deliveries similar to Amazon packages. A set daily menu,
| heaters in the truck, and multiple stops with TSM style
| route. Maybe that's too much communism but it would at least
| make sense logistically.
| vel0city wrote:
| A lot of offices around me have food delivery services
| operating in the lobby of the building. This food delivery
| service will often only serve a few restaurants every day
| with the restaurants rotating daily. Everyone is supposed
| to get their orders in by some cutoff in the morning, the
| food delivery operator makes one big pickup for all the
| orders for the building, and it all gets delivered at the
| lobby. You get a text when the delivery arrives. Delivery
| is really cheap since its essentially a cost shared with
| potentially several people.
|
| The one operating in my building these days is Lunchdrop,
| but I've also seen Foodsby offered at other buildings. On
| the days I go into the office I look at the menu for the
| week and pick what meals I might want or I'll just plan on
| bringing in food. I get the email with the menu for the
| week either Saturday night or Sunday and can then order
| days ahead of time.
| edude03 wrote:
| > I'm a software developer with a flexible work schedule paid
| hourly, the act of going to grab the food myself and not
| working for 30 minutes would cost me way more than delivery
| costs (even cooking my own meals can be more expensive when
| time is factored in, compared to food price at restaurant +
| delivery cost (for ~2 portions prepared in 30 minutes
|
| Off topic but I quit consulting because I had this exact
| realization. Sure making $1000 to fix a production outage in
| 15 minutes on a Saturday was amazing but it made me always
| think about life in billable hours to the point where I was
| not hanging out with friends or going to the gym anymore
| ghaff wrote:
| A legal job I once did paid billable hours. There was
| something to be said for being paid for travel in off-
| hours, etc. But it does create this always on-the-clock
| mindset. On the one hand, you're basically never working
| for "free." On the other, as you say, you're always
| cognizant of the fact that you could be being paid if you
| work another hour.
| black3r wrote:
| Maybe I'm biased because I'm from an eastern EU country
| where hating your job is the local culture and cost of
| living is lower than in the USA, or because I worked like
| this part-time during college experienced FOMO because of
| it, so I learned to prioritize social events, but I never
| had this issue.
|
| In fact, I'm the exact opposite - I value this kind of job
| arrangement, because I can earn enough money to live
| comfortably (and save some money) just by working 100-120
| hours monthly, which gives me much more free time than
| working a normal full time job + I have the flexibility to
| take a day off (or even a week or two of vacations) anytime
| I want, but I still can work some weekends if I want some
| extra money...
| prmoustache wrote:
| > And because I'm a software developer with a flexible work
| schedule paid hourly, the act of going to grab the food
| myself and not working for 30 minutes would cost me way more
| than delivery costs
|
| That doesn't make sense. Quite the opposite being flexible +
| paid hourly means that you are free to take a decent break.
|
| Not taking proper time for a pause in the middle of a shift
| is both incredibly unhealthy and extremly unefficient as we
| can't be at 100% for long hours at a time.
|
| Having said that anyone can prepare a decent meal in just a
| few minutes, there are literally tons of recipes where you
| just have to crudely cut stuff and throw them in a baking
| dish and in the oven or cook in a wok. + when you are working
| at home you can always eat some dinner leftovers + a bit of
| pan.
|
| Your prices seems fine but I guess that is only because your
| delivery services are still in the pre-enshittification phase
| where they are competing for monopoly and actually losing
| money.
| drooopy wrote:
| Those services have their use, and I'm glad that they exist,
| but it feels like people are just abusing them for convenience.
| It's unfathomable to me that there are people (I personally
| know of a few) who use a food delivery service on a daily basis
| for no good reason other than "i'm just lazy". The amount of
| money being wasted really makes my head spin.
| bobxmax wrote:
| i pay a bit more so I can get food to my house from wherever i
| want
|
| how is this hard to understand lol
| daseiner1 wrote:
| Not going to presume your lifestyle, but many regular users
| of food delivery are paying a steep premium to eat junk for
| the convenience of not having to drive 10 minutes
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I substantially reduced my doordash, but I still have off
| days where I either just drove back home tired or otherwise
| just feel too down to order out and am low on groceries.
| It's a nice "once a week" kind of luxury thesse days
| bombcar wrote:
| It's amusing because the "luxury" of going to a
| restaurant isn't even being discussed - just the added
| luxury of delivery.
|
| But going out to eat is a big cost compared to eating at
| home!
| yakz wrote:
| > The only ones that do it relatively well are pizza joints and
| they usually have their own delivery service so you don't even
| have to use these apps.
|
| At least in my area, the pizza joints also use DoorDash now.
| They're not just available on DoorDash. It is delivered by
| DoorDash also when ordering directly from the pizza joint.
| mooktakim wrote:
| You fire and forget. Order something for lunch, get back to
| work. Eventually ring at the door with food.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| In the US, I think you underestimate the power of lazy.
|
| But seriously, people without transportation (or whose family
| has a single vehicle and it's at work with someone), people
| with disabilities ...
|
| In any case, it's seriously overpriced. Uber Eats offered me
| "$30 off" and the final bill would _still_ have been twice the
| restaurant prices - and Uber likely has a markup on that as
| well.
| troupo wrote:
| > In any case, it's seriously overpriced.
|
| As someone on Twitter aptly put, "you're ordering a taxi for
| your burrito"
|
| What do you expect the price to be?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| They kept it really cheap over the pandemic. But that long
| ended and we are indeed back to taxi prices.
| troupo wrote:
| Doordash's first ever quarterly profit was in late 2024,
| _12 years after founding_.
|
| Just like most companies from ZIRP era it was held
| together by unlimited investor money that let it grow
| through price dumping.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are an almost unlimited number of services out
| there that many people want but aren't willing to pay the
| true cost of providing. Food delivery (in whatever form)
| is one such in many cases.
| jfoster wrote:
| In the ideal case, your burrito is sharing a taxi with many
| other burritos going the same direction.
| troupo wrote:
| It's still a taxi for your burrito where you pay three
| entities: the restaurant, the delivery, and Doordash
| bluedino wrote:
| It seems like the neighborhood Facebook feeds are full of
| people complaining about incorrect orders, missing food,
| stolen food, food that got delivered to the wrong house, as
| well as drivers complaining about not getting tips, customers
| incorrectly reporting food as stolen or missing...
| gosub100 wrote:
| I think you're arguing against yourself in the last paragraph.
| Decades of ordering pizza proves the market for food delivery.
| And the app makes it even easier than calling and talking to a
| person for both sides.
|
| I haven't used DD or ordered pizza since 2022 at the latest,
| but I usually got enough food that it didn't get cold. Since it
| was so expensive I'd load up on appetizers and extras so I
| could get at least 2 meals out of it.
|
| I don't get it today because I heard how expensive it got, and
| my apartment complex is huge and I don't trust them to find my
| unit.
| ghaff wrote:
| For whatever reason, pizza and Chinese delivery seems to work
| --at least in reasonably dense areas. I haven't really used
| since college, long time ago. Don't really have reasonable
| options these days. I probably would now and then if they
| were available but I fall back on some things that I just
| keep in the house and basically take no time/effort.
| dagw wrote:
| _they usually have their own delivery service so you don 't
| even have to use these apps_
|
| Still? Around me almost all the pizza places have stopped
| offering their own delivery services and moved to apps.
| blibble wrote:
| you also get smaller portions
| wkat4242 wrote:
| First of all, not everyone has a vehicle. I certainly don't. So
| it will take me much more time in most cases.
|
| And it's convenient when you have friends over and want to
| spend your time talking to them not getting food.
| wiether wrote:
| I guess it's a cultural thing, but here in France if you
| invite some friends over, you are expected to cook. It
| doesn't need to be fancy or anything.
|
| The only time its okay to order food its when people came for
| something else in the first place (moving, doing some
| handywork...)
|
| Otherwise just set a meetup at a restaurant and split the
| bill.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I think that's a French thing yeah. Here in Spain if people
| make dinner it's really a special occasion and you'd tell
| them they are coming for 'dinner'. Usually you do something
| really simple like finger food, get takeout or just grab
| some beers and snacks at the cafe downstairs.
|
| The idea is to spend the most time with your friends, not
| in the kitchen. But I know in France food is a bigger
| thing.
|
| The thing is also that here dinner is usually an afternoon
| thing.
| ghaff wrote:
| Among my crowd in the US, the host may order some pizza but
| it's generally pot luck to some degree. Personally, I'll at
| least cook a main dish (and would be happy to do more) but
| people will bring stuff anyway and then we'll have too much
| food :-)
| Ekaros wrote:
| Laziness and here they are not that much more expensive. A few
| euros at most. Regular discounts make it close enough. So not
| having to walk to my car and drive somewhere and back is
| reasonable effort save.
|
| And vast majority of time food is entirely fine and warm
| enough.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| That's actually what turned me off from Doordash as the
| pandemic ended. they added a bunch of extra fees to the point
| where some $15 order doubles in price after all is said and
| done. "service fee", deliery fee, and then tip. Not to
| mention the fast food itself is just more expensive.
| shakna wrote:
| Just to add to this conversation, because I haven't seen it
| discussed yet -
|
| One of the groups of people using these apps are the disabled.
| Those aren't people who can just hop in a car. And they aren't
| always able to walk. But they absolutely are people who feel
| run ragged and too tired to cook some nights.
|
| Australia's NDIS even partners with some of them to perform
| that service.
| akudha wrote:
| Delivery times don't matter as much - you can always order
| 15-30 mins earlier, you could also microwave the food a few
| seconds if it is cold.
|
| That said, I am not a fan of ordering often - food quality is
| generally bad in my area, those extra fees are just nuts and
| the drivers get screwed the most, followed by restaurants.
| vidarh wrote:
| I have other things to do, and don't drive. That's the
| incentive.
|
| Cold food has never been a problem for me with these services.
|
| I'd pick Deliveroo over a restaurants own delivery service _any
| day_ because it means not having to keep track of numbers,
| having tracking, and trusting their customer service. In fact,
| to the point that while Deliveroo allows restaurants to do
| their own delivery, because you lose the tracking I tend to
| avoid ordering from restaurants that do.
| prmoustache wrote:
| When I don't want to make my own pizza dough and order it, I
| just call from the google maps link. It doesn't take longer
| than finding any delivery app in my smarthone.
|
| And I will just wait 10 minutes, hop on my bicycle and 2
| minutes later I get my pizza right out of the oven and head
| home directly much faster than any delivery rider would
| because they mutualize orders and let the first pizzas lose
| most of their heat while waiting to have sufficient orders.
| rors wrote:
| People are odd in terms of what they will tolerate. I prefer
| having a 15 mins stroll to pick up my coffee or food, for
| others it's deal breaking.
|
| The time argument is also weird. I find that I have a maximum
| of 6 hours highly productive work in me a day, perhaps an
| additional few hours of less productive work. A stroll or
| cooking recharges my mind. I envy all the people here who are
| working a productive 12 hour day.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| It really depends on where you live. I'm in a suburb and my
| "15 minute stroll" consists of one mexican joint. Nothing is
| "walkable" from my place. A real shame because I have a plaza
| only a mile away... up the steepest hill possible. I get
| lazy.
|
| in an urban area it makes less sense. Friend's house is
| across the street from a plaza consisting of a grocery store,
| corner store, starbucks, froyo joint, and a few other
| eateries.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Not having the time is usually false. They don't prioritize
| that time over others.
| prmoustache wrote:
| People who say they are productve 8 to 12 hours a day with
| barely pause are just liars (or slaves that get whiped at the
| second they stop).
|
| Heck, when I became parent and decided for a couple of years
| to work at 80% I realized I was doing the same amount of work
| as before and as much or more than any other colleague
| working at 100%. I only came back at 100% because I realized
| businesses are willing to subsidize procrastination over
| efficiency and I didn't find normal to be paid less if all I
| was asked in return was spending 1/5 of my work time time
| doing nothing productive for the company.
| thinkindie wrote:
| I personally believe that money spent on delivery food is a
| waste of money, unless it's an emergency or it's sushi: any
| type of food (excluding sushi) will arrive soggy (especially
| pizza or burgers) and/or cold and it will definitely be more
| expensive than necessary.
| TheSoftwareGuy wrote:
| Your lack of empathy is obvious when you say the benefit of
| these services is that "people are lazy". Many _many_ people
| simply don 't have extra time, and taking one thing off of
| their plate makes life easier. For many decades, pizza was one
| of the only meals you could get delivered, these services just
| expand that to more restaurants.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Who watches my kids while I get the food?
| tartoran wrote:
| You can prepare food at home if you're not too comfortable in
| the kitchen. You can learn to enjoy it too after some first
| failed attempts, everybody fails at the beginning of this
| journey...
|
| I could understand getting delivery as the emergency resort
| but doing that on a regular basis does not make sense to me.
| I think of preparing food as a form of self care.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I love cooking but when I had a baby and a toddler I used
| delivery a lot
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I know there are always edge cases, but, just spit-balling
| here, maybe the other parent? When I was a kid, my dad got
| the pizza while mom stayed home. It's a tradition I brought
| to the next generation as well, and, by god, I hope my kids
| continue it as well.
|
| Also, consider if you can order from a restaurant with in
| house delivery instead of using Door Dash.
| jmyeet wrote:
| You need to check your privilege. This is also a very ableist
| take.
|
| Some people don't want a car. Some can't afford a car. Some
| can't drive. Some simply don't want to pay to maintain, insure,
| fuel and park it. Some simply don't want to take the time to
| leave the house, get their car, drive to some place, pick up
| their food and then drive home
|
| There is absolutely both a need and a desire for delivery. Yes,
| you can get a bad delivery experience. I've had more than one
| pizza delivered where the boxes were clearly on their side,
| possibly because they fell off the car seat. Some drivers had
| hot bags. Most did not. The dedicated drivers for Dominos do,
| which is why that works.
|
| Where delivery works particularly well (IME) is NYC and there
| they most often are on bikes, sometimes scooters. It tends to
| be an incredibly efficient operation.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Presumably they are referring to the customers that are able
| bodied and own a car. You are stating the obvious
| SirMaster wrote:
| >the time it gets to fetch the same food yourself
|
| Why do you think that people are simply capable of fetching the
| same food themselves?
|
| What if they don't have transportation, what if they are too
| sick?
| rezistik wrote:
| Or people are sick, or drunk or high and want food but also
| want to be safe.
| bombcar wrote:
| > What if they don't have transportation, what if they are
| too sick?
|
| Some customers of these would fit this, but I suspect the
| vast majority of the valuation is from delivering food to
| people who could pick it up themselves if they had to.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| That's just bullshit. You don't know how far away the
| restaurants are and how many people don't own cars or if
| they do, the traffic back and forth and wait time would be
| more than a guy on a motorbike.
|
| People want to insert morality and virtue in every stupid
| thing. Cold showers, delivery or not, wake up times. Get a
| grip and sort your own shit while other people decide to
| use and pay for other services that you might not.
|
| It's fine to criticize cost or experience but to pretend
| you're superior for your choices... Ridiculous.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's one thing to pay the reasonable costs (including a
| living wage) for things you want, it's another to demand
| a massive company enslave those with little other choice
| to provide you what you want at a low price.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Is this a dichotomy? Door dash or get the food yourself? No.
| Like OP said, there are places that still have their own
| drivers...
| nsonha wrote:
| > waiting... dishes that are cold
|
| No wait, simply order early or hold off eating for 30 mins,
| while you for sure have other things to entertain yourself
| with. Or not, because you're busy doing work or whatever, and
| the exact time of the meal isn't the biggest concern. Neither
| is if food is hot. You eat 3 meals every day for an entire life
| time, not all of them needs to be amazing.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Pizza delivery has been ubiquitous in small town America for
| decades, and pizza has nothing uniquely suitable to delivery
| except perhaps standardized packaging. And takeout from all
| types of restaurants has been even more ubiquitous.
|
| So I'm not sure why you're so confused by the popularity of a
| service where someone else picks up your takeout order and
| brings it to you. Other than valid concerns about the labor
| practices of these delivery companies, and of course the
| occasional botched delivery (this also happened every so often
| with traditional pizza delivery in my small town growing up in
| the 90s), there's nothing to be confused about. It's just
| paying a bit extra for convenience, a tale as old as time.
| theshackleford wrote:
| > I never understood why these delivery services are popular.
|
| I don't understand this lack of ability to think beyond your
| own circumstance.
|
| None of what you wrote is applicable to my life or
| circumstances, plus I'm disabled to boot.
| ksynwa wrote:
| I wish these apps allowed ordering takeout.
| walthamstow wrote:
| You can do that on both Deliveroo and Uber Eats in the UK
|
| I'm not sure why anyone would pay a 30% markup vs restaurant
| menu + fees to pick it up themself though
| voidUpdate wrote:
| I've never understood why no delivery app driver can find my
| flat, despite me clearly marking its location with a pin, making
| a note of where I am, and making sure that when you put my
| address into google maps, it points directly at my flat. Every
| single delivery driver has to phone me and ask where I am while
| they stand on the other side of the road, looking at a house I
| don't live in. Are they seriously all this incompetent??
|
| </rant>
| doom2 wrote:
| My building is at the end of the block but all the delivery
| apps think it's in the middle or towards the other end even
| though when you put my address in Google Maps the location is
| correct. So I've taken to standing outside when the driver is
| close and flagging them down.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| That's what I have to do as well. I'm not sure what the
| purpose of the "here is exactly where I am" map thing on
| Deliveroo is if they just completely ignore it, as well as
| the delivery driver instructions
| okdood64 wrote:
| A lot of them just completely ignore the written instructions
| and map.
| Frieren wrote:
| These purchases only goal is to reduce competition and create
| monopolies. And the some people will defend the companies with
| "but if they are the best why should not be a monopoly?". The
| easy answer is that they are bad but just purchased their
| monopoly with investor money.
|
| Capitalism is dying.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Mergers and acquisitions working the way mergers and
| acquisitions have always worked is not "capitalism is dying".
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| In France we have still a bit of competition with a super small
| company called delicity.
|
| They have surprisingly survived the past few years by making
| drivers a priority. Basically, all drivers recommend delicity
| in my area because they pay more, and they tell restaurants to
| sign up.
|
| Don't know how they are going to compete now.
| techn00 wrote:
| I recently found out that Wolt (being available in lots of
| european countries) is also owned by DoorDash
| gregorvand wrote:
| Having lived in NYC, Hong Kong and Singapore, the best system
| around all of this is ..
|
| Singapore hawker center.
|
| Turn up to somewhere ~10 mins or less from your location. Have a
| great meal for $5 (US) or less.
|
| Continue
|
| No delivery fees, delivery emissions or waste. Talk to people...
| The list goes on.
| valzam wrote:
| Danish culture has the concept of a work canteen as a basic
| expectation in any work arrangement, no matter the size of the
| company. I don't know why this isn't more popular everywhere
| else. Even if I had to take a slightly lower pre-tax salary I'd
| love not having to get takeout all the time.
| kawsper wrote:
| I've worked several places, and it's only the bigger
| companies that have a canteen.
|
| Most smaller places it is "bring your food" or they get food
| in from a caterer to set up in the break room.
| ghaff wrote:
| Or, if they're in a reasonably dense area, people go out to
| a nearby restaurant. Bring your own lunch has almost
| certainly declined over time. During the 10 years or so I
| worked for smaller companies in cities, it seemed as if
| going out for lunch with coworkers or otherwise was pretty
| much the norm. (Otherwise there were company cafeterias at
| the larger firms.)
| umeshunni wrote:
| Isn't that both unhealthier and more expensive ($ and
| time) than the alternatives?
| jsnider3 wrote:
| Yes.
| pdpi wrote:
| Can be, but e.g. in London all the major office space
| hubs also have a bunch of places that cater to office
| worker lunches. They tend to be comparatively cheap
| (emphasis on "comparatively", mind you), and healthier
| than restaurant food.
| ghaff wrote:
| When I worked downtown a number of years back a lunch
| special in Chinatown was about $6 and a nice break in the
| middle of the day. Not sure there was even a microwave in
| the office. Another company did have a lunch room but
| there were a number of good soup and/or sandwich places
| within a few minutes walk. Meals in any case were pretty
| similar to what I'd make at home and maybe a few dollars
| more expensive.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| > work canteen
|
| I had a job through a temp agency back in 2019, and we were
| occupying a rather spacious and well-equipped office building
| belonging to our client. One of the perks was free sodas and
| well-appointed break rooms, with fridge, microwave oven and
| all. However, there was no cafeteria nor canteen. Worse yet,
| there was no restaurant or deli within any reasonable walking
| distance to the site. It was a vast and dedicated office park
| with very large corporations as tenants, and evidently most
| of them did typically have cafeterias, or their actual
| employees had other arrangements.
|
| Therefore I found myself preparing something at home to bring
| as "lunch" every day, and it was difficult because I am not
| good at preparing food at all. We were only alotted 30
| minutes total to eat, and I found that barely enough time to
| put it together, heat something, and wolf it down. It was the
| most distasteful aspect of working there, having no other
| choice for breaks. We were working "swing shift" into the
| night (off at 10pm or so) and so the choices for meals after
| work were quite slim, and I was riding the bus anyway.
|
| There are many office parks and corporate centers around here
| that feature at least one little deli or sandwich shop on the
| corner, that is walking distance for employees. I really
| don't think I'd accept work on-site at a place that lacked a
| cafeteria or a nearby restaurant.
| oefrha wrote:
| > One of the perks was free sodas
|
| Really bad for health, especially for people working into
| the night and presumably don't get enough exercise.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Whenever I have a situation like this I get fat. I'd rather
| not have food from the company...
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| Hawker centers, like many other nice features of Singapore, is
| powered by immigrants paid much less than other citizens, while
| being strictly regulated in a way that only a wealthy yet tiny
| country can do.
|
| I'm not saying it's necessarily all bad, just that it's not
| something we can replicate in western countries.
| daseiner1 wrote:
| Who do you think is delivering food?
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| That's just part of it. Anyone can deliver food, but
| effectively being a small food stand is completely
| different.
|
| Now having enough small food stands to create a hawker
| center is even more difficult. But having a hawker center
| 10 minutes from anywhere, ran exclusively by immigrants but
| somehow still properly regulated?
| AntiqueFig wrote:
| > is powered by immigrants paid much less than other citizens
|
| I mean, that's how Deliveroo and other delivery services
| (Uber eats and equivalents) works (at least here in Europe).
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| It was a mistake from my part to write a quick comment,
| there's much more than having a low pay that makes it
| impossible to have a similar hawker culture in other
| countries.
|
| Singapore is effectively a big city, just the difference in
| geometry between it and pretty much any country you're
| thinking of makes it impossible to have a "hawker center 10
| minutes of walk away from anybody".
| JimDabell wrote:
| Until this year, only citizens / PRs were eligible to work at
| hawker centres. Even today, it's quite restricted.
|
| https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/hawker-stalls-
| can-...
| kccqzy wrote:
| There are food courts elsewhere too. The main difference is
| government subsidized rent, and an older generation of people
| who are willing to work very hard for low overall income. The
| former can be solved by politics but the latter cannot. It is
| simply not sustainable. Look at the people who are working in
| these hawker centers: they are almost always old, and they are
| willing to work hard so that their children can work less hard
| in a nice air conditioned office. When these people retire,
| there will be no one to occupy these hawker centers at this
| price of food.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| FWIW, Door Dash drivers aren't making much either.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Food preparation is harder work than driving, especially
| the kind of Asian food in hawker centers.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| American mall food courts make me sad. Do you like Sbarro?
| What is Sbarro?
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| Doordash and the Pizza arbitrage is a mandatory read on the
| economics of the delivery apps.
|
| https://www.readmargins.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
| Havoc wrote:
| Ugh. Deliveroo is a pretty borderline proposition as is already.
| Can't imagine this will improve it
|
| If it wasn't for Amex discounts I wouldn't use it at all
| affalytics wrote:
| Probably a needed move (and timely with the recent upsurge in
| Reform UK wins). Deliveroo has been running on a regulatory
| arbitrage -- it got to decent size in the UK due to lax laws on
| low quality/illegal immigration. If that has an expiry date
| approaching (it looks like it does), to maintain its scale it has
| to plan for a technological shift in the way it operates -- it is
| too small to do that by itself. DoorDash isn't.
| sefrost wrote:
| Maybe the reason your comment has been downvoted is because
| people on HN aren't aware of the intersection between UK
| employment law, specifically independent contractors
| substitution rules, delivery apps and modern slavery.
|
| An easy to follow starting point here for people interested:
|
| https://archive.ph/2024.03.15-193026/https://inews.co.uk/new...
| macsparrow wrote:
| Interested to see how this plays out.
|
| Deliveroo has been on a downslope for a while; exiting
| international markets and losing home market share. And despite
| DoorDash's US dominance, they still haven't made significant
| growth with their international operations.
| dagw wrote:
| _still haven 't made significant growth with their
| international operations_
|
| DoorDash operates under the brand Wolt in Europe, and based
| just on how much I see their branding on delivery people around
| town, they seem to have grown quite a bit and the past couple
| of years.
| macsparrow wrote:
| That's fair, and I understand their international dynamics,
| though brand <> growth.
|
| They've been active outside of N.America for >5 years and
| aside from expanding their geo footprint, they're still far
| from winning in most/ all markets. Which is surely the aim.
| antonyh wrote:
| Here in London, we've already boycotted all the services except
| Dominoes. Poor practices, delivery to wrong addresses, cold food,
| worse quality compared to eat-out, and items often missing. It's
| quicker and better for me to hike up the hill and eat the same
| food than to deal with all the nonsense. Deliveroo was
| particularly bad. On top of that, it's restaurant prices for take
| away food. There's no advantage for me.
| tnel77 wrote:
| My neighbor has delivery (sometimes two separate drivers/services
| at a time when him and his wife want different types of food) at
| least 3 times a week. To each their own with their finances, but
| I just can't bring myself to pay all of the extra fees. Also, the
| food is usually listed at a higher price to make up for the cut
| the various apps take.
|
| I'd rather just call the restaurant directly and get it myself.
| For some of these restaurants, the savings is 20-35% by just
| grabbing it rather than using a delivery app.
| precommunicator wrote:
| So your time has no value (not just going there and back, but
| preparing to leave, dressing, undressing etc.)?
|
| Your car/other transport is completely free? I wonder what's
| the difference, but I've calculated for myself a while back and
| going to a restaurant just isn't worth it.
|
| For me often even if I literally drive by a shopping centre
| when this restaurant is, I would just order on my phone instead
| and have it delivered to my home. It takes so much time to park
| in multi-story garage, then go like 200+m from my car to this
| restaurant (the only Burger King in my city) and back, wait for
| the order... Doesn't make sense for me, I hate this time
| wasting system.
|
| But now Uber Eats announced the One will only cover half of the
| delivery fee, so looking at the trend of enshittification from
| now in it soon might be just worth it...
| Sander_Marechal wrote:
| Not OP, but when I order take out, I usually pick it up on my
| way from work. It hardly takes any extra time or mileage.
| It's often faster than ordering delivery. Also, somehow with
| delivery the food is always colder than when I pick it up
| myself.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Time? I cook a lot. I'd argue time spent showering, shaving,
| cooking, etc. can be useful and relaxing "thinking" time.
| These are only a chore if you have the wrong mindset.
| precommunicator wrote:
| Well, time enjoyed spending isn't time wasted. For me I
| don't like cooking, showering, shaving (or especially
| picking up deliveries), I do it as least as I can. On the
| other hand I do walk for like 1-1.5h every day, and this
| time I do enjoy.
| SirMaster wrote:
| I don't really understand the appeal of these delivery services.
|
| Whenever I try them my food usually arrives cold and more than
| once has apparently gotten stolen and then I have to spend a
| bunch of time with delivery people messaging me saying the food
| is not there, and then have to talk to customer service to get a
| refund.
|
| On top of that they practically double the cost of the already
| expensive food it seems to me.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I'm with you. Maybe the appeal on the restaurant side.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| That's my 2c. I've used it only twice in the past several
| years:
|
| - one when I had the flu recently and was literally, non-
| hyperbolically barely well enough to operate the app enough to
| get food (for my family, too - not for me)
|
| - once when i was out of town on business, and my previously-
| arranged food for my family back home fell through one day.
|
| All your points are why I don't use it: it's already barely
| food (fast food), arrives cold, delivery issues, and EXTREMELY
| expensive. And in an era where, despite multiple raises, due to
| inflation I am STILL not making more CPI-adjusted income than I
| was in 2019, I'm not about to be lifestyle creeping for shitty
| cold wendy's.
| bombcar wrote:
| My experience is similar. Unless it's something that delivery
| was solved for (e.g., literally Dominos or Chinese) it
| arrives in just an embarrassingly bad condition.
| extr wrote:
| If you live in a metro area it's really not like that. Prices
| are higher but my credit card gives me free Uber One, so fees +
| tip are managable. Plus Uber/Postmates offer (at least for me)
| extremely aggressive coupons pretty often, 20-40% off. Food
| arrives in 20-40 minutes. Don't order things that don't travel
| well (eg: fried food). Order enough that you'll have leftovers
| and can amortize the delivery cost over multiple meals.
|
| We probably order delivery at least once a week. Usually a big
| batch of indian, chinese, a ton of tacos/rice/beans, etc. Stuff
| that keeps well. Then we'll have it for at least 2 meals each.
| I don't feel like it's that ridiculous honestly.
| thoughtpalette wrote:
| This right here. I'm in Chicago and this echo's true.
|
| I'd also add that I've almost never needed to interact with
| the driver in the app. In the case there's a missing item or
| issue, support sorts it out quick enough.
| rkuykendall-com wrote:
| My son has had been sick 10 days, our fridge has been emptied
| because it's been so hard to fit groceries into balancing work
| and childcare, my wife had the car on a playdate with my
| daughter, and for $25 someone brought a hot burrito to my door.
| It was worth every penny.
| leosanchez wrote:
| I hope your son is fine now.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Most grocery stores do curbside pick up and delivery these
| days.
| david2ndaccount wrote:
| Don't ignore food addiction, the app turns into a button you
| can press on your phone and in a bit you'll have a dopamine hit
| from the food. You don't have to get dressed or confront the
| reality of your situation.
| jfoster wrote:
| You're focusing on the downsides & potential downsides. They
| might not be a good option, but they sure are (usually) a very
| convenient one.
| pwthornton wrote:
| This is probably very location dependent. I live in an urban
| area and my food comes hot.
|
| However, since I live in an urban area I have been just doing
| takeout and picking it up myself. The cost of these delivery
| apps went up radically over the last few years.
|
| It's so much cheaper to do takeout. I just do delivery when I
| have a huge time crunch.
| matthewmorgan wrote:
| Last time I used deliveroo I got a spam/scam phone call 20
| minutes later. I presume the drivers sell customer names,
| addresses, and phone numbers.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| These apps don't usually give the driver or restaurant access
| to the customer's phone number.
|
| They use a proxy system where the driver has to call a standard
| number provided by the app and then input a code to identify
| the specific customer.
|
| That's typically only available while the order is in progress.
| matthewmorgan wrote:
| Do you know for sure that's the case for deliveroo?
| p1dda wrote:
| It's junk food people, don't eat it!
| olelele wrote:
| I rode for deliveroo for about a month and a half before they got
| out of Dodge in Europe due to breaking employment rules. The good
| riders who joined early were making ridiculous amounts of money
| in the beginning. When I came on the rider pool was diluted and
| it just got worse.
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