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Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online
- sjg007 9y agoThis is what sliceline should’ve been in Silicon Valley.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Sicp 9y agoa real life SliceLine, nice going Silicon Valley episode 2!
- ardit33 9y agoFun fact, some of the best "italian" pizzeria's in NYC are actually owned and/or run by Albanians. There is a whole generation of Albanians that moved in Italy (after the 90s), learned the trade there and eventually moved in NYC and opened their places. Fun fact number 2: A lot of greek places in NYC are actually operated by albanians. (for the same reasons as above). The main reason is marketing: People in the US know italian and greek food very well, but they are not familiar with Albanian food (which is just as good), so it is much easier for Albanians to market/open a italian/greek restaurant.
- whitepoplar 9y agoAny recommendations?
- artursapek 9y agoIf you want good Italian in NYC go to Celeste, owner is actually Italian too
- ardit33 9y agoFor pizza I usually go by the slice, (eg. some pizza places have one or two type of slices that are the best, and the rest might be ok). I almost never go at sit down pizzeria. Usually the "by the slice" places are better than sit down restaurants (which usually cater to tourists). My favorite slice by far is the marinara and sausage/meatball (the pizza on the background): https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipP3K30cRMfe41WljFJPaSP955YAFzQlWrVwALCj=s1088-k-no https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipP3K30cRMfe41WljFJP... The place is called "Stromboli Pizza" and is in the middle of East Village. When the weather is great is just grab a slice and sit down at the stools outside "The Bean", which is next door on 9th st. http://www.strombolipizzanewyork.com/menu.aspx http://www.strombolipizzanewyork.com/menu.aspx
- Waterluvian 9y agoSounds like a feedback loop. They ought to slowly introduce "Albanian" options to their Italian and Greek menus.
- iambateman 9y agoAsk the Cambodian guy who runs a Chinese restaurant how that’s workin out ;)
- PMan74 9y agoAsk Babu Bhatt
- yellowstuff 9y ago[Elephant Walk](https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-elephant-walk-boston-2 https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-elephant-walk-boston-2), one of the best restaurants in Boston, is French Cambodian.
- jonaswi 9y agoInteresting. Here in Switzerland this is also true. A lot of Pizzerias are operated and owned by Albanians. I always thought that this only „happened“ here.
- geon 9y agoIn Sweden, pizzerias are generally run by Turks or Syrians.
- tru3_power 9y agoI’m Albanian and can confirm. Numerous people in my family are in the pizza business. Most the Albanians I know in general are either in tech or the restuarant industry (more so restaurant industry).
- scottie_m 9y agoI want to preface by saying that I have no issues with Albanians, this is just based on what I know of how some Greeks fell about Albanians. Given that plenty of Greeks are, to put it mildly, less than fond of Albanians, is there a lot of tension in the Greek Diner/Pizzaria run by Greeks, and those run by Albanians? I hope not, but I’d guess that there is.
- ardit33 9y agoNo, not that I know off... Sure, there will be some greeks that don't like Albanians, for x or y reason, but it is not universal. Also, there substantial number of greeks with Albanian origins: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvanites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvanites ) and Albanian and greek food is very similar as there has been a lot of cross cultural pollination. Both Albania and Greece were part of the "same empires" for millennia. First the Roman Empire, then Byzantine Empire, then eventually the Ottoman Empire. Even before that they were either in alliances, or fought each other. Alexander's the great mother was of Illyrian origins.
- scottie_m 9y agoThat’s good to hear, I always found the antipathy between culturally similar groups tragic and weird. Good link too, thanks.
- Swizec 9y agoJust like the best Pizza is actually across the border from Italy in Slovenia. We even have a common pizza variation with caviar. Most pizzerias offer 10+ types of pizza. Pizza life is pretty boring in the US by comparison.
- benatkin 9y agoIn SF the only pizza place I ate at over a six-month period was owned by jwz, and the only pizza slices I ate were vegan ones. I'm not vegan, but I'm slightly lactose intolerant (or something). I think that pizza is probably a blind spot for many SF/SV startup people. Not surprised this startup is based in NYC. Is there an avocado toast startup? Edit: come to think of it I had vegan pizza in NYC a year and a half ago (and on other days while I was visiting, I had some non-vegan pizza). I wonder if it was at a pizza place run by Albanians.
- jdlyga 9y agovegan pizza? you must be from San Francisco :)
- avree 9y agoThere's plenty of tremendous pizza in San Francisco. Hell, we even have Zante's, which makes quite unique Indian Pizza. The stuff at DNA Lounge is frankly crap compared to some of what you can get from the lesser known places. With that said, we're still nowhere on the level of NYC.
- mrbombastic 9y agoPlease share some, i have had a few decent slices but they are few and far between. Arinell in mission is closest I’ve gotten to an NY slice.
- becho 9y agoThe only slice worth a damn in SF is Golden Boy.
- et-al 9y agoYeah, if you're looking for New York style, you're pretty much limited to Arinell. For Neopolitan, you've got Tony's (actual restaurant, not the takeout shop), Il Casaro, and Carmel Pizza Co. in the North Beach area. Elsewhere, you have A16. Golden Boy is good pizza, but it's in its own category of American pizza.
- hunter23 9y agoIn a similar way, most Indian restaurants have Bangladeshi or Nepali cooks.
- radley 9y agoVery common to have cross-culture interests these days. In my neighborhood, Koreans run a sushi restaurant, Irish a Sicilian restaurant, and Indians a burger joint.
- shiftoutbox 9y agoJersey city in the late 90’s had a few places like this . For starters we had the Turkish / Egyptian pizza ( Prince of pizza on Montgomery) joints , Chinese Mexican spots ( who’s food was neither very Mexican , texmex or westernized Chinese one on Newark ave and grove street) a polish restaurants run by Czech and Italians (up by the courthouse on Newark ave ) a Cuban restaurant run by actual Cubans From Cuba( who also owned the stoned pony in asbury park ) and my favorite a Greek diner owned by a Lebanese of Greek descents who had a family of women from cetuna ( Spanish Morocco) who ran everything. They were memorable for speaking English, proper Spanish , Arabic and getting a burger in under 5 mins ( the vip on sip )
- exelius 9y agoSame thing happened in Philadelphia with Italian communities / restaurants being replaced by Mexican immigrants. This has led to a few pretty righteous Mexican pizza joints. Pizza al pastor is surprisingly good. Its also changed the flavor of many historic areas. In the 9th Street Italian Market, many of the shops have painted the eagle, snake and cactus on top of the ubiquitous Italian flags.
- lambda 9y agoPizza is pretty universal these days. There was one pizza place near me in college owned by an Indian family; they also sold Indian food. They didn't appreciate it when we tried to order a chicken tikka pizza, though. Another pizza place near where I used to work was run by an Irish guy, who then later sold it to a Chinese guy. Oh, and my favorite pizza place near where I used to live was run by a Dominican guy. I think that pizza place food is not really connected with Italians in the US any more; it's pretty much just become mainstream American. Though there is still a trend for them to have Italian names.
- philsnow 9y agoOh man, their loss! It may be sacrilege but I'm a huge fan of "desi pizza", and there are a lot of places like that in Fremont CA near where I used to live. One place: http://www.bombaypizzahouse.com/ http://www.bombaypizzahouse.com/
- inferiorhuman 9y ago> Pizza is pretty universal these days. There was one pizza place near me in college owned by an Indian family; they also sold Indian food. They didn't appreciate it when we tried to order a chicken tikka pizza, though. Oh that's too bad. There are a few Indian pizza places out here. Some are mostly Indian food on pizza dough, and some have embraced the hybrid (mozz + chicken tikka masala on dough). It's a great combination.
- cpeterso 9y agoZante in the SF Mission District serves Indian pizza: http://zantepizza.com/ http://zantepizza.com/
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ebikelaw 9y agoAlbania and Italy are only as far apart as New York and Philadelphia, and Albania and Greece are adjacent. Americans are not inclined to draw a distinction between regions separated by so little distance. It would be like you saying that you have a favorite Mission-style taqueria in Tirana, and I countered that it's actually run by people from Sacramento. There is no difference!
- lainga 9y ago>No distinction between Albania and Italy Il Duce ha sempre ragione!
- CPLX 9y agoBy this same logic there is little difference between food from southern England and northern France.
- ebikelaw 9y agoNo, im saying it's no surprise that someone can learn to cook the cuisine of the next town over. In California all cuisines at every restaurant are cooked by Mexicans. Or maybe Salvadorans but again you can't expect Americans to make that distinction.
- yazan94 9y agoIt seems you forgot about the little obstacle called the English Channel
- CPLX 9y agoA mere inconvenience when compared to the obstacle that is the English kitchen.
- Spooky23 9y agoIts a generational thing. The children of Italian pizza guys grew up middle class and got homogenized into standard issue Americans. Who wants to toil in a pizza shop when you can be a banker, project manager, IT guy, etc. Ditto with Jewish delis. One of my dad’s good friends shut a very successful deli down because the family wanted nothing to do with it.
- muse900 9y agoThe other reason is that the Italians and Greeks that were running those restaurants made a lot of money and their kids (next gen) went off to college. Having noone to operate those stores, they had to sell or find people that would operate them.
- lordnacho 9y agoA lot of Far Eastern cuisines are not made by the people you think. My parents ran a Thai/Viet mix place for a while, after having run a Chinese place. If you go to one of my favorite sushi shops in London you'll find people speaking Cantonese. I think what happens is the restaurateurs see what's popular and figure they can pass for whatever other group it is. And the food is like software, you can learn another framework reasonably well if you have the fundamentals and a little experience.
- hangonhn 9y agoMy parents' Chinese restaurant sold sushi. The Thai restaurant in our town sold both Chinese food and sushi and was run by Laotians. In a small town like mine, Asians are pretty interchangeable and sometimes it can be to ones' advantage.
- nasredin 9y agoFun Fact #3: There's always a Mercedes Benz in the parking lot.
- et-al 9y agoThe exact same thing happened with Indian restaurants in New York: > "We give our restaurants Indian names," the Bangladeshi manager of another Indian restaurant said, "because people in America know about India, and maybe they wouldn't come if we said we were from Bangladesh." https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/07/nyregion/the-star-of-bangladesh-in-new-york-don-t-take-indian-food-too-literally.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/07/nyregion/the-star-of-bang...
- gowld 9y agoThis is part of the plot of The Internship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k__jmmSIUEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k__jmmSIUEE
- jasonjei 9y agoI’ve always joked that Domino’s is the original food delivery “tech” company. Reading this article confirms it, as well as watching the Netflix Ugly Delicious “Pizza” episode where they show how as much of the Dominos’ process is automated.
- ahallock 9y agoDominos put more money into their ordering system bells and whistles than the actual food, if you can call it food. I couldn't even finish a slice it was so bad.
- Fifer82 9y agoAbsolutely the same here and I am Scottish. I will eat pretty much anything, but even with a beer in Me, I can't handle Dominos. Fake cheese, Fake chicken, Fake mushrooms (I was amazed at fake mushrooms) all put together onto a tasteless base. Gives me the boke.
- Tade0 9y agoFake as in "these aren't mushrooms" or "these used to be mushrooms"?
- paulcole 9y ago> Fake cheese, Fake chicken, Fake mushrooms What exactly do you think is on their pizza?
- Fifer82 9y agoIn the UK? Analog Cheese, Water Pumped Chicken, Ultra Hydrated mushrooms. If I am paying 3 pound for a pizza, I expect it to be shit. If I am paying 10 pound, I expect it to be reasonable.
- whalesalad 9y agoLife imitates art. https://sf.eater.com/2018/3/26/17165314/hbo-silicon-valley-sliceline-pizza-promo https://sf.eater.com/2018/3/26/17165314/hbo-silicon-valley-s...
- gfosco 9y agoSlice has been around a lot longer than the Sliceline episode, but the business model questions raised are still pretty relevant.
- tjmehta 9y agoSliceline?
- philfrasty 9y agorelevant https://www.reddit.com/r/SiliconValleyHBO/comments/88048t/what_exactly_did_slice_line_do/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SiliconValleyHBO/comments/88048t/wh...
- jmuguy 9y agoFirst thing I thought of. Its just Dominos!
- halfjoking 9y agoIf only this company could get $100 million in funding so venture capitalists can subsidize my pizzas. That's what I was thinking when I saw Sliceline... because venture capitalists already subsidize my transportation (cheap Uber) and movie tickets (Moviepass) why not subsidize my pizza?
- chiefalchemist 9y agoSomewhat off topic but the majority of the indie pizza joints near me (central NJ, 60ish mins from NYC and PHL) have gone bottom market. That is, flavorless and mediocre. If Domino's is winning from convenience then perhaps the M&P product needs more help than their technology?
- whateveracct 9y agoI use Slice all the time to order from A Pizza Mart in Seattle.
- scrooched_moose 9y ago> Yet Sela believes consumers have been abandoning local shops--even those with fresher ingredients, better flavors and ties to their communities--mostly because they lack the ability to take mobile orders. That may be part of it, but among people I know the majority of it is cost. A 16" pizza at most of our favorite spots ends up around $25. I can get a 14" 3 topping pizza at Dominos for $7.99. The local pizza is great and we get it a couple times a month, but it's not 3 times better.
- mprev 9y agoInteresting. Dominos in the uk is horribly expensive in comparison.
- twic 9y agoThis is something i don't get. There's a Papa John near me, on Green Lanes, N4. They charge 18 pounds for a large pizza. On either side of it, there are Turkish restaurants and bakeries where that will buy you an excellent three-course meal with a beer (okay, so the dessert might be the single piece of baklava they throw in at the end). How do they survive?
- akshat_h 9y agoI think a large pizza is 2-3 meals easily, so per meal cost is 6-9 pounds. It might be worth it in that sense, as compared to the Turkish places.
- twic 9y agoI did the maths, and a large American Hot is 1500 calories. Two meals, perhaps. A few doors down at Harran, you can get a large lamb shish kebab in a box, with rice, salad, bread, chilli sauce, and cacik, for £6.50. And the salad and bread are both really good!
- khedoros1 9y agoAbout 5 years ago, my wife and I were in London on vacation. We'd just gotten to our hotel from the airport, the rain was really coming down, and we opted to stay in. We ordered pizza from...well, I don't remember where, but the quality of the product was certainly chain-like. And the price was several times what I would've paid at home, even for something of a better quality. I think expensive food was just one of the defining traits of London, though.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- iosDrone 9y agoActually it's called SliceLine
- dgritsko 9y ago> "the opportunity to build a business that could compete with Big Pizza by uniting tens of thousands of mom-and-pop shops" This summary of Slice's business feels like it ought to be generalizable to other industries. Anyone have other examples of companies trying to do something similar in different verticals? (s/Big Pizza/Big Floral, or something?)
- CleanCoder 9y agoI've been exploring this for close to 10 years now and the biggest barrier is not lack of companies that can provide platforms to "unite" other verticals but rather an outright resistance to make what seems like big changes to those moms and pops businesses. It's quite difficult to find the right balance between the bare minimum each of these businesses needs to change/update to make it viable to create the platform and what seems like too tall of an order for them - instead they will just print more flyers, work double shifts, come up with nearly "at cost promos", etc.
- gowld 9y agoBig Floral does this, for many years already: https://www.ftd.com/ https://www.ftd.com/
- kalleboo 9y agoFor over 100 years apparently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interflora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interflora
- matrix 9y agoWhy would a small business want to be part of some marketplace that just reduces their margins, commoditizes their business and and forces them into a race to the bottom? Marketplaces are often a terrible deal for small businesses and small business owners know it, so there has to be some incredibly compelling benefit to being part of it for them to want to do it.
- covercash 9y agoI hate Slice. They basically came in and registered similar domains to existing pizza shops but because they are better at SEO than the mom & pop places, their results out rank the real sites. They even went in and updated unclaimed listings on yelp, google, Foursquare, etc. and put their site. That would be fine if the pizza shops were on board with this. But none of the shops I order from had any clue their orders were being hijacked. Oh, and Slice charges more than if you ordered directly from the shop.
- jiveturkey 9y agoThe download.cnet.com of the pizza world.
- adamqureshi 9y agoI spoke to the my local pizza shop in NYC. He said between grubhub, uberRush, yelp and now slice, they are eating his pizza profit margins. He said he has to deal with 3-4 software / hardware POS products for EACH service. They are sucking him dry. He can't make money BUT needs them to bring the business. Slice takes a 20% "slice" per order / of his business. Flour costs going up, he makes his own mozzerella. UberRush takes 33%. I don't know about grubhub / yelp % but its not good for him. His pizza is authentic neopolitina with homemade ingredients. You Actually taste the marinara sauce and fresh mozzerella. Dominos goal is to "squeeze" out and maximize profits using the cheapest possible ingredients they find! Then tell you its good!
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago>UberRush takes 33%. // Man, that is terrible. This is a major problem with capitalism, the optimisation doesn't work when it gets corrupted with marketing - in theory these frontends would compete until they were making practically nothing above their costs, in practice the one(s) with the most capital behind them (or best marketing department) will win and leech the money away from the producers and to the people who commissioned a clever app. It all seems pretty evil to me.
- RandomInteger4 9y agoHuh, interesting. I never considered pizza to be one of those markets that could be threatened by a franchise corporation. I mean, I know there's Little Caesars that has their super cheap medium pizzas, but they're super cheap for a reason and pizza seems like one of those things people are willing to pay a little more for, because quality can vary quite significantly.
- DrScump 9y agoI think part of it is that people often buy pizza out of their neighborhood, so they want a name they know with menu items they can just recite... hence not only national chains but regional chains (e.g. Round Table in CA). I would never have a chain food app on my phone just from a privacy-suck standpoint. For example, here are the permissions the Dominos app wants on Android: This app has access to: Location - precise location (GPS and network-based) Phone - directly call phone numbers - read phone status and identity Photos/Media/Files - read the contents of your USB storage - modify or delete the contents of your USB storage Storage - read the contents of your USB storage - modify or delete the contents of your USB storage Camera - take pictures and videos Microphone - record audio Device ID & call information - phone status and identity Other - receive data from Internet - view network connections - pair with Bluetooth devices - access Bluetooth settings - full network access - control vibration - prevent device from sleeping
- nathanaldensr 9y agoThat's incredible. I feel sorry for anyone installing apps like that. They get what they deserve, IMO.
- kalleboo 9y agoI thought Android let you deny permissions now?
- jedberg 9y agoBack about six years ago now, we had a new guy come on board my team at Netflix as an SRE. He had come from Dominoes. He told us stories about how Dominos saw the writing on the wall and reinvented itself as a tech company, how every step in the pizza making process had an API. He showed us command line tools that you could use to order and track your pizza, so you could set it up in cron and then have it tell you when the pizza is about to show up. He told us about all the load testing they had to do before the Superbowl, because unlike any regular weekend, where there is a burst of order activity around dinner, the orders weren't spread across time zones. During the Superbowl, everyone ordered their pizza to show up at halftime, regardless of their time zone. So yeah, Dominoes has been working on this for a long time, and they are way ahead. Their only real disadvantage is that their HQ is in Detroit, so all their best engineers get pulled away to the coasts for better paying jobs (like my friend did).
- rrdharan 9y agoYes but do they make their own hardware? http://blog.pizzahut.com/dont-miss-a-second-of-march-madness-pizza-hut-unveils-the-pie-tops-ii-sneakers-that-order-pizza-and-pause-the-game-with-the-push-of-a-button/ http://blog.pizzahut.com/dont-miss-a-second-of-march-madness...
- itomato 9y ago"What if we replace the pump with a Dash button?" "Genius!"
- sharkweek 9y agoHang on, what? People order pizza to show up at half time? I have only been at Super Bowl parties where the pizza is there before the game starts, normally part of a giant spread of other heart attack foods.
- kbar13 9y agofood beforehand then when half time comes around you need more food
- seba_dos1 9y agoInteresting. In Poland there are two well-known for years online food ordering services, where small local pizzerias and bistros can offer their dishes and take your orders - PizzaPortal and Pyszne.pl. Only recently they got some competition in form of Uber Eats, which also handles the delivery for the restaurant; however, Uber's catalog of restaurants and supported cities is still very limited when compared to those other two.
- pramodzion 9y agoSliceline !
- petetnt 9y agoIn Finland a site called PizzaOnline is doing the same and many (most?) whom offer delivery is on it (I'd assume) with 400 000 registered users at least (with a population of 5,5 million). Insanely popular.
- lifeisstillgood 9y agoMy default advice to workers getting rough end of the stick is "unionise". here companies with SEO skills are stiffing smaller shops and i cannot think of any better advice. It is of course hard to do - basically the Teamsters were the only effective ones at it and they used ... unethical approaches - but i do think it's feasible. Also this is the essence of the open source critical mass problem. Proprietary houses can afford the initial upfront investment to say make a pizza site but which non profit union exists to run an SEO operation to compete here? Is this just a failing of small shops who are destined to be beaten if they don't grow? is this a failing of SEO at google who cannot distinguish between a local shop and a chain?
- ghostbrainalpha 9y agoThe last time I ordered Domino's the delivery person brought me a completely empty box. It was so light when they handed it over, I immediately opened it before signing the check. I remember the driver just looked at me, like Dang, that's a weird order. He didn't jump in with an apology or anything. When I said I wouldn't pay for the pizza, he asked me to sign the receipt and said he would go back and bring me another pizza. I said that's not what a receipt is for... a receipt means you RECEIVED the product. I am pretty sure that guy ate my pizza, and after I signed the receipt he would never have came back. I called the store to complain and they offered to send me a free pizza the next day, but it never came.
- JackCh 9y agoMaybe I'm just out of touch, but the appeal of online pizza ordering is something I can't wrap my mind around. Calling and placing an order using the traditional telephone method seems far easier to me. I do it often, more often than I should. Furthermore it seems better for the business since presumably the phone company takes a much smaller cut of the sale than whatever web platform they may be using. Is it because people are growing more adverse to the brief limited social interaction of a phonecall? Is it because people are placing very large and complex orders that are difficult to convey over the phone? (admittedly most of my orders are for a single pizza with two or three topping specified..) Is it because websites have more pictures that people find attractive?
- nxc18 9y ago1) having to talk over the other restaurant staff; receiver can't hear you. 2) reading my credit card number over the phone 3) explaining the details of the order. The human always messes it up. 4) getting surprised by the cost, or having to calculate the cost for all the items ahead of time. I'd rather negotiate my order with a machine in the privacy of my own home than with a person on the phone.
- wand3r 9y agointeresting, i have never had this experience. i can hear the staff, explicitly order what I want, confirm the price with the person and then pick it up paying with card or cash. also, most delivery places have square-type pos services or i just pay cash so i don't give a card over the phone. i love online ordering of products but i think ordering food is a bad experience. Typically my orders are uncomplicated and small though and usually for pickup.
- JackCh 9y agoI see. I typically pay with cash, however whenever my trip to an ATM is overdue I pay with credit and they have my number (and delivery address, and typical pizza order) on file, correlated with my phone number. The pizzeria I most frequently order from is a loud bar and I hear the din of the bar noise in the background quite clearly, but I've never had to repeat myself when talking with them over the phone. Often times I can order a pizza over the phone using nothing more than three words "yes ... yes ... yes", in response to the questions "are you still at [address]", "same order as last time?", "cash?". Certainly a website can remember such details as well, but poking around at a webpage that remembers such details isn't nearly as straight forward in my mind as simply talking to a person for a few seconds.
- andjd 9y agoI can appreciate that Slice is trying to undercut competitors like seamless, but their app is little more than a minimum viable product. It lacks any user-generated content, such as reviews or photos, so there's really nothing to make your choice on, unless you already know the place you're ordering from. The menus have no standardization, so you don't even have a reliable indicator of how much food you are ordering. I have trouble seeing how they can compete when their many competitors provide a much better UX.
- ibdf 9y agoMy goodness it's getting harder and harder to get to the news. https://ibb.co/idSye7 https://ibb.co/idSye7
- Reedx 9y agoHeh, they have an ad if you search for Sliceline. https://www.google.com/search?q=Sliceline https://www.google.com/search?q=Sliceline "The Slice App taking over, the real Pied Piper of Pizza!"
- DrScump 9y agoFYI, here are the permissions the Slice app requires on Android: "This app has access to: Identity: find accounts on the device, add or remove accounts Contacts: (are you kidding me?!?!) Location: precise location (GPS and network-based) Photos/Media/Files: read the contents of your USB storage, modify or delete the contents of your USB storage Storage: read the contents of your USB storage, modify or delete the contents of your USB storage Camera: take pictures and videos Wi-Fi connection information: view Wi-Fi connections Other: - receive data from Internet - view network connections - create accounts and set passwords - full network access - use accounts on the device - control vibration - prevent device from sleeping" So, what they don't make on taking a slice of providers, they can make on selling marketing/demographic data.
- rahimnathwani 9y agoI'm surprised to see no mention of Open Table in the article or here in the comments. It sounds from the comments that Slice is creating an intermediary where none existed before, by providing a service (acquire g and processing online orders) that's hard for any single restaurant to build at small scale. So when the first few restaurants sign up, it's incremental revenue for them. Over time, though, as every pizza place uses Slice, it's no longer a competitive advantage but expected. I imagine that, at the early stages, those restaurants that adopt the model win at the expense of laggards. Over time the gains probably accrue to the middle man, with some gains going to consumers (who have a wider range of places to order from) and some losses to the restaurants (who end up competing with the whole extended neighbourhood, and giving margin to Slice for both incremental customers, and customers who would have bought direct before this whole thing started).