7 ms·

Philly Restaurants Revolt over Unauthorized Food Delivery “Partnerships”

47 points by damontal 7y ago

a3n 7y ago
Move fast and break other people's things.
- yusef555 7y ago
  Love that.
blakesterz 7y ago
One of the restaurant owners has an interesting quote: " This is all going to blow up at some point, and customers are going to feel really confused because these companies have been lying about the cost of delivering food to them."
- hug 7y ago
  This statement is weird, though. Like: I have a menu from the local pizza place stuck to my fridge with a magnet. The prices on the menu are cheaper than on Uber Eats, and so is cost of delivery. The only quote-unquote "problem" is I have to pick up a phone and call my order in. (Sidenote: That turn of phrase is a touch odd, when in order to use Uber Eats I'm going to, I dunno, pick up my phone?) The point that I'm making really poorly is that I'm not confused about the cost of delivering food, I'm confused as to, generally, what the fuck it is that Uber Eats is doing and why. What value do they actually add, and why is that worth similar to or more than the actual cost of the raw ingredients to make my food?! Honestly, it's not likely to blow up as it's likely to just slowly deflate. Doordash or grubhub or whatever (y'know, the ones that are somehow even shadier than Uber) will just cease to operate in your area. At least one company (and honestly it doesn't matter which, because they'll be the de facto standard for everyone to partner with at this point) will stay afloat per region, though, because the idea of a centralised 'what the fuck do I want to eat tonight' portal is just too enticing to too many people for every restaurant to turn down. The real question I have about what happens if these places collapse is what happens to the virtual restaurants on the platform...
  - rincebrain 7y ago
    Not having to place a phone call, possibly to someone who can't hear you very well in a loud restaurant, is a value-add many people seem to like.
    - jghn 7y ago
      There was a local pizza shop which I quite liked. The problem was that every time I’d call in an order it’d be a stressful affair and I was never sure they actually understood what I wanted. Frequently they had not. Online ordering made that a much more sane process. Granted these days many places have their own online portal but I’d rather go through a single portal instead of handing my credit card information to a million dodgy sites
jghn 7y ago
A restaurant near me has complained about this frequently. Since then I've been noticing a lot of local spots appearing on my GrubHub list in a very suspicious manner. I keep wondering if these are "real" listings or one of these.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Call the restaurant and ask.
smelendez 7y ago
I'm curious about the legalities here. They're not just delivering food at the direction of a licensed restaurant. They're buying food from a restaurant and selling it to somebody else.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  That's not what the article says. The delivery companies are representing that the restaurants are on the platform, but charging the wrong price for the menu items, and refusing to pay the difference when the order amount is insufficient to cover the actual price.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - smelendez 7y ago
    Right, but they're doing so without any kind of permission. They're either taking orders and not delivering them or in some cases taking them, buying the item from the restaurant and selling it to the end consumer. I would think that might require a different kind of license, if it is legal at all, because the restaurant doesn't have any contractual control over what happens to the food after it leaves the premises in terms of storage time, temperatures, etc. If the menus are outdated, the delivery service may not even know what's in the food.
  - p1necone 7y ago
    Surely this is a problem that fixes itself. Unaffiliated delivery service advertises insufficient price, sends driver to restaurant, driver arrives at restaurant, doesn't have enough money to pay for food, either doesn't get food, or delivery service covers the difference. The delivery service would need to fix their price listings pretty quickly or they'd continuously lose money. I don't think we should stop ad hoc delivery services like this, but they should have to clearly advertise that that's what they are, not falsely claim to be actually affiliated with the restaraunt. Edit: I think these kinds of delivery services are valuable because of the layer of abstraction between them and the food business that allows them to deliver from anywhere rather than just the businesses that sign up with the service. I don't see why I shouldn't be able to pay for a proxy to drive to, order and deliver for me. If they are continually making this kind of pricing mistake, perhaps they should be charged with harassment or something though.
peteradio 7y ago
So they list the wrong (lower) price for a restaurant who is not even partnered with them. Then people order food through the app but end up stiffing the restaurant due to the price discrepancy. So how can a restaurant guard against this?
- wheelerwj 7y ago
  Sue.
- tyingq 7y ago
  File a couple of small claims court cases. Once they have to fly a lawyer out, they'll likely actually cease and desist.
- kazinator 7y ago
  They can: 1. Always quote the right price to whoever places the order; don't let them hang up without being informed. Don't assume that it's a regular patron who knows the prices, or the direct consumer who has checked the correct website. 2. Learn to identify unauthorized delivery agents (caller ID, voice, etc) and insist that they pay up-front before the meal is prepared. 3. Call people back on their apparent numbers to take their orders. That will eliminate most caller ID spoofing. "Hang on; what is your first name? I will call you back at xxx-yyy-zzzz, is that okay?" Failure to reach a person of that first name with the same voice and and all -> no service. Voice verification! I did this when operating dial-up BBSes in the 1980's! Account applicants had to leave their name and phone number; I'd call them back and then activate their account after exchanging a few words. That got rid of a lot of the "anklebyters".
- p1necone 7y ago
  Why can't the restaurant guard against this by just not giving food away until the right price is paid?
  - rescripting 7y ago
    Because their reputation is what suffers. Customers think the restaurant is partnered with DoorDash or whoever because why wouldn't they. All the restaurant's IP (menu, photos, logos) was stolen from their website and used without permission. The customer then thinks "this restaurant is trying to rip me off! They have one price on the website and then ask for more after I've placed my order." Cue the Twitter outrage, complaint calls, bad mouthing to friends, etc... DoorDash is controlling the narrative because they're the interface the customer has with the restaurant.
travisoneill1 7y ago
Can't figure out why they would do this. Seems like a no win situation.
- monadic2 7y ago
  Idk about you, but the surface level value of these apps to me is the number of restaurants they deliver. Presumably they have an incentive to oversell because there’s no real remediation route when they mess up.
- kazinator 7y ago
  Probably because (1) mostly it works; they have the right prices a lot of the time (or, shall we say, correctly marked-up prices relative to the real prices) and (2) as for the remaining situations, they are just your usual tech sociopaths who like disrupting for its own sake. The site operators doesn't care about the restaurant, or the ground-level courier who has to deal with a tense situation, or the customer.
- wpietri 7y ago
  In the long term, perhaps. But all of these companies are burning VC money in hopes of getting enough market share that they can dictate terms. Or at least justify yet more VC investment. In the short term they are getting away with quite a bit. E.g., once you take expenses and lost time into account, many DoorDash workers are losing money: https://www.salon.com/2020/01/19/doordash-drivers-make-an-average-of-145-an-hour-analysis-finds/ https://www.salon.com/2020/01/19/doordash-drivers-make-an-av...
  - LeftHandPath 7y ago
    You're exactly right. It's even in the article: > Postmates told the team at Hardena that the only way to change the prices would be to become a member, which meant accepting delivery orders and paying the company a percent of their profit. The listing is still live, and still reflects the 2001 menu prices. Grubhub, Doordash, and Postmates did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (In this case "a percent of their profit" is actually 30% of each delivery order's total revenue.)
majos 7y ago
It seems like it shouldn’t be legal to misrepresent another business’ prices like this. If it is legal, then what’s to prevent competitor x from circulating fake ads with fake sales from competitor y, getting competitor y a bunch of angry would-be customers, and then collecting the disgruntled customers later? Presumably there’s a general law preventing this. Is there?
- mysterydip 7y ago
  Would this be covered under libel?
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Publishing materially false information (price) about someone resulting in harm (loss of customers) would seem to check the required boxes for libel.
  - threatofrain 7y ago
    The information isn't false. If you want the food delivered with X service it's available at Y price. Uber is mis-representing a driver's rates if in fact Lyft is cheaper for the same driver, and for all I know the driver personally offers rides at their own price. I expect a world where it's increasingly hard to figure out the price of things due to discounts, memberships, and "abstracted" pricing.
- BoiledCabbage 7y ago
  Someone needs to class action them
- staticautomatic 7y ago
  Closest I can think of is tortious interference. They're interfering with a contract btw the restaurant and a third party, although the contract part could be tricky.
  - chii 7y ago
    it's a verbal contract between the restaurant and the patron. I dont it'd be that tricky to prove such a contract!
kazinator 7y ago
> At Baology, which partners exclusively with the delivery service Caviar, owner Judy Ni says the restaurant has struggled with being listed on Doordash and Grubhub. So you'd think Judy would have her web people make this loud and clear on the website: https://www.baology.com/menu https://www.baology.com/menu While it is clear that for delivery, it partners with Caviar (and no other option), maybe there should be some decently visible blurb about that partnership being exclusive, and not being involved in any manner with Doordash and Grubhub, or any provider besides Caviar. > Sate Kampar takes to-go orders over the phone, regularly — but unknowingly — accepting Doordash orders that way. When the couriers arrive to pick up the orders and the restaurant’s listed menu prices turn out to be higher than those listed on Doordash, guests refuse to pay the correct charge. This means lost money for Sate Kampar, as well as wasted time and angry customers. That's pretty crummy behavior! What can you try to do is is ask callers whether they are delivery agents. Also, monitor caller ID and keep a list. Always quote the correct price to whoever is calling, whether it's the consumer or a delivery agent. If there is reasonable suspicion that the person on the other end is an agent, insist on pre-payment with credit card before preparing the meal.
- ISL 7y ago
  I'm not sure I understand yet: 1) Restaurant takes order over the phone (and may quote the total price to the ordering party). 2) Restaurant makes food. 3) Courier arrives to deliver food. 4) Courier pays restaurant for food. 5) Courier delivers food to customer. If there is a mispricing problem, shouldn't that get solved in Step 4, where the restaurant doesn't give the courier the food until they are made whole?
  - patrickyeon 7y ago
    It sounds like, in one case: 1) Doordash takes order on their site 2) Courier shows up to pick it up 3) Order never got to the restaurant, customer is confused, customer blames restaurant. In the phone example: 1) Doordash connects the customer to the restaurant 2) Customer tries to place an order based on outdated info 3) Restaurant is now trying to convince the customer that the menu they are looking at is wrong. And restaurant looks like a fool because they can't even publish a menu. In both of these cases, Doordash is damaging the restaurant (at least their reputation and wasting their time) and doesn't sound like they're making any good-faith effort to be a good actor here. Also, in your example, if it gets to food being made and then an argument about price, what happens to the restaurant if someone refuses to pay? They don't really get to put that cooked meal into a fridge and wait for someone else to order it. It's garbage (straight up lost money) now.
catalogia 7y ago
> “Imagine traditional restaurant pricing,” Aranita explains. “30 percent labor, 30 percent food cost — not to mention all the other fees of running a restaurant. If 30 percent also goes to delivery, that can negate any profit. We have these services because we sell more food through them, obviously, but the system is such that profits through them are low.” The profits are so thin that Poi Dog no longer offers fresh ahi tuna or salmon poke on their catering and delivery menus. Very interesting. I never considered that the economic dynamics of food delivery might suppress the quality of restaurant food, but it seems obvious in retrospect.
- a3n 7y ago
  These delivery services are inserted middlemen. More friction.
  - m_ke 7y ago
    They're pimps.
jellicle 7y ago
Slimy anticompetitive behavior from Doordash, Postmates, Grubhub, and whoever else SHOULD be punished with extremely large fines from regulators. It won't, because the USA doesn't do regulation any more, but it should.
Keverw 7y ago
I wonder if these food delivery and ride sharing companies are even sustainable. Then reports they use VC money to subsidize things. Also mailers where you can get so much free credit too for the service. Seems convenience though as a customer but sounds like some of these people aren't even making that much money with all the waiting and stuff in between, maintenance, increased insurance, fuel, etc and then some apps I don't think it starts paying until you are there to pickup. Then again though truck drivers aren't paid while waiting to load and unload, and flight attendants aren't paid until the plane is in the air. Plus I feel like they are taking short cuts, I don't think i'd want to publish other peoples prices because they could change, items removed from the menu, etc. I guess they scrap the website or send someone in to take notes of the menu? I rather it be an agreement where businesses themselves opt-in and update their menu and prices. Wonder how these apps handle things when stuff is out of stock (ran out of wings, but has chicken tenders still) or the ice cream machine happens to be broken? Just seems not as deeply integrated as I'd hope. but even if businesses updated menus, with being on 3 apps and their own site I'm sure something would be missed due to human error unless some sort of API with a central UI to update everything. Plus some fast food places are understaffed too, because some people rather work in another field other than fast food or just don't work at all. Reports that less teenagers are working in fast food too. Then I guess putting growth and stuff first is some business models for these apps, grow fast and figure out things later when you are a bigger company. But even before internet ordering, businesses we're doing shady things too. Like pizza delivery drivers are required to have commercial insurance, but many don't so if found out and got in an accident, claim could be denied. Was reading that happen to some teenager using the family car for a part time job, and the state decided to take his license away because claim got denied and wasn't able to pay out of his own pocket. Sounds like the employers mention it, but don't really enforce what type of insurance you have. So many are using personal insurance, some forums discus this and some pizza drivers said they'd put their roof topper in the trunk before the police come if in an accident. So sounds like faceless huge corporations are shifting their liability to teenagers and other people just starting out and more vulnerable people. Then ride sharing, the companies say you are covered by their million dollar insurance policy but some people still have been dropped as result of ride sharing... Do they even give you a insurance policy number or card? Sounds like most people exchange their own insurance in that case or these apps are misleading. Then some even report insurance company dropping them just for asking about ride sharing insurance, even if they haven't signed up.

47 points by damontal 7y ago

a3n 7y ago

Move fast and break other people's things.

yusef555 7y ago
Love that.

blakesterz 7y ago

One of the restaurant owners has an interesting quote: " This is all going to blow up at some point, and customers are going to feel really confused because these companies have been lying about the cost of delivering food to them."

hug 7y ago
This statement is weird, though. Like: I have a menu from the local pizza place stuck to my fridge with a magnet. The prices on the menu are cheaper than on Uber Eats, and so is cost of delivery. The only quote-unquote "problem" is I have to pick up a phone and call my order in. (Sidenote: That turn of phrase is a touch odd, when in order to use Uber Eats I'm going to, I dunno, pick up my phone?) The point that I'm making really poorly is that I'm not confused about the cost of delivering food, I'm confused as to, generally, what the fuck it is that Uber Eats is doing and why. What value do they actually add, and why is that worth similar to or more than the actual cost of the raw ingredients to make my food?! Honestly, it's not likely to blow up as it's likely to just slowly deflate. Doordash or grubhub or whatever (y'know, the ones that are somehow even shadier than Uber) will just cease to operate in your area. At least one company (and honestly it doesn't matter which, because they'll be the de facto standard for everyone to partner with at this point) will stay afloat per region, though, because the idea of a centralised 'what the fuck do I want to eat tonight' portal is just too enticing to too many people for every restaurant to turn down. The real question I have about what happens if these places collapse is what happens to the virtual restaurants on the platform...
- rincebrain 7y ago
  Not having to place a phone call, possibly to someone who can't hear you very well in a loud restaurant, is a value-add many people seem to like.
  - jghn 7y ago
    There was a local pizza shop which I quite liked. The problem was that every time I’d call in an order it’d be a stressful affair and I was never sure they actually understood what I wanted. Frequently they had not. Online ordering made that a much more sane process. Granted these days many places have their own online portal but I’d rather go through a single portal instead of handing my credit card information to a million dodgy sites

jghn 7y ago

A restaurant near me has complained about this frequently. Since then I've been noticing a lot of local spots appearing on my GrubHub list in a very suspicious manner. I keep wondering if these are "real" listings or one of these.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Call the restaurant and ask.

smelendez 7y ago

I'm curious about the legalities here. They're not just delivering food at the direction of a licensed restaurant. They're buying food from a restaurant and selling it to somebody else.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
That's not what the article says. The delivery companies are representing that the restaurants are on the platform, but charging the wrong price for the menu items, and refusing to pay the difference when the order amount is insufficient to cover the actual price.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- smelendez 7y ago
  Right, but they're doing so without any kind of permission. They're either taking orders and not delivering them or in some cases taking them, buying the item from the restaurant and selling it to the end consumer. I would think that might require a different kind of license, if it is legal at all, because the restaurant doesn't have any contractual control over what happens to the food after it leaves the premises in terms of storage time, temperatures, etc. If the menus are outdated, the delivery service may not even know what's in the food.
- p1necone 7y ago
  Surely this is a problem that fixes itself. Unaffiliated delivery service advertises insufficient price, sends driver to restaurant, driver arrives at restaurant, doesn't have enough money to pay for food, either doesn't get food, or delivery service covers the difference. The delivery service would need to fix their price listings pretty quickly or they'd continuously lose money. I don't think we should stop ad hoc delivery services like this, but they should have to clearly advertise that that's what they are, not falsely claim to be actually affiliated with the restaraunt. Edit: I think these kinds of delivery services are valuable because of the layer of abstraction between them and the food business that allows them to deliver from anywhere rather than just the businesses that sign up with the service. I don't see why I shouldn't be able to pay for a proxy to drive to, order and deliver for me. If they are continually making this kind of pricing mistake, perhaps they should be charged with harassment or something though.

peteradio 7y ago

So they list the wrong (lower) price for a restaurant who is not even partnered with them. Then people order food through the app but end up stiffing the restaurant due to the price discrepancy. So how can a restaurant guard against this?

wheelerwj 7y ago
Sue.
tyingq 7y ago
File a couple of small claims court cases. Once they have to fly a lawyer out, they'll likely actually cease and desist.
kazinator 7y ago
They can: 1. Always quote the right price to whoever places the order; don't let them hang up without being informed. Don't assume that it's a regular patron who knows the prices, or the direct consumer who has checked the correct website. 2. Learn to identify unauthorized delivery agents (caller ID, voice, etc) and insist that they pay up-front before the meal is prepared. 3. Call people back on their apparent numbers to take their orders. That will eliminate most caller ID spoofing. "Hang on; what is your first name? I will call you back at xxx-yyy-zzzz, is that okay?" Failure to reach a person of that first name with the same voice and and all -> no service. Voice verification! I did this when operating dial-up BBSes in the 1980's! Account applicants had to leave their name and phone number; I'd call them back and then activate their account after exchanging a few words. That got rid of a lot of the "anklebyters".
p1necone 7y ago
Why can't the restaurant guard against this by just not giving food away until the right price is paid?
- rescripting 7y ago
  Because their reputation is what suffers. Customers think the restaurant is partnered with DoorDash or whoever because why wouldn't they. All the restaurant's IP (menu, photos, logos) was stolen from their website and used without permission. The customer then thinks "this restaurant is trying to rip me off! They have one price on the website and then ask for more after I've placed my order." Cue the Twitter outrage, complaint calls, bad mouthing to friends, etc... DoorDash is controlling the narrative because they're the interface the customer has with the restaurant.

travisoneill1 7y ago

Can't figure out why they would do this. Seems like a no win situation.

monadic2 7y ago
Idk about you, but the surface level value of these apps to me is the number of restaurants they deliver. Presumably they have an incentive to oversell because there’s no real remediation route when they mess up.
kazinator 7y ago
Probably because (1) mostly it works; they have the right prices a lot of the time (or, shall we say, correctly marked-up prices relative to the real prices) and (2) as for the remaining situations, they are just your usual tech sociopaths who like disrupting for its own sake. The site operators doesn't care about the restaurant, or the ground-level courier who has to deal with a tense situation, or the customer.
wpietri 7y ago
In the long term, perhaps. But all of these companies are burning VC money in hopes of getting enough market share that they can dictate terms. Or at least justify yet more VC investment. In the short term they are getting away with quite a bit. E.g., once you take expenses and lost time into account, many DoorDash workers are losing money: https://www.salon.com/2020/01/19/doordash-drivers-make-an-average-of-145-an-hour-analysis-finds/ https://www.salon.com/2020/01/19/doordash-drivers-make-an-av...
- LeftHandPath 7y ago
  You're exactly right. It's even in the article: > Postmates told the team at Hardena that the only way to change the prices would be to become a member, which meant accepting delivery orders and paying the company a percent of their profit. The listing is still live, and still reflects the 2001 menu prices. Grubhub, Doordash, and Postmates did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (In this case "a percent of their profit" is actually 30% of each delivery order's total revenue.)

majos 7y ago

It seems like it shouldn’t be legal to misrepresent another business’ prices like this. If it is legal, then what’s to prevent competitor x from circulating fake ads with fake sales from competitor y, getting competitor y a bunch of angry would-be customers, and then collecting the disgruntled customers later? Presumably there’s a general law preventing this. Is there?

mysterydip 7y ago
Would this be covered under libel?
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Publishing materially false information (price) about someone resulting in harm (loss of customers) would seem to check the required boxes for libel.
- threatofrain 7y ago
  The information isn't false. If you want the food delivered with X service it's available at Y price. Uber is mis-representing a driver's rates if in fact Lyft is cheaper for the same driver, and for all I know the driver personally offers rides at their own price. I expect a world where it's increasingly hard to figure out the price of things due to discounts, memberships, and "abstracted" pricing.
BoiledCabbage 7y ago
Someone needs to class action them
staticautomatic 7y ago
Closest I can think of is tortious interference. They're interfering with a contract btw the restaurant and a third party, although the contract part could be tricky.
- chii 7y ago
  it's a verbal contract between the restaurant and the patron. I dont it'd be that tricky to prove such a contract!

kazinator 7y ago

> At Baology, which partners exclusively with the delivery service Caviar, owner Judy Ni says the restaurant has struggled with being listed on Doordash and Grubhub. So you'd think Judy would have her web people make this loud and clear on the website: https://www.baology.com/menu https://www.baology.com/menu While it is clear that for delivery, it partners with Caviar (and no other option), maybe there should be some decently visible blurb about that partnership being exclusive, and not being involved in any manner with Doordash and Grubhub, or any provider besides Caviar. > Sate Kampar takes to-go orders over the phone, regularly — but unknowingly — accepting Doordash orders that way. When the couriers arrive to pick up the orders and the restaurant’s listed menu prices turn out to be higher than those listed on Doordash, guests refuse to pay the correct charge. This means lost money for Sate Kampar, as well as wasted time and angry customers. That's pretty crummy behavior! What can you try to do is is ask callers whether they are delivery agents. Also, monitor caller ID and keep a list. Always quote the correct price to whoever is calling, whether it's the consumer or a delivery agent. If there is reasonable suspicion that the person on the other end is an agent, insist on pre-payment with credit card before preparing the meal.

ISL 7y ago
I'm not sure I understand yet: 1) Restaurant takes order over the phone (and may quote the total price to the ordering party). 2) Restaurant makes food. 3) Courier arrives to deliver food. 4) Courier pays restaurant for food. 5) Courier delivers food to customer. If there is a mispricing problem, shouldn't that get solved in Step 4, where the restaurant doesn't give the courier the food until they are made whole?
- patrickyeon 7y ago
  It sounds like, in one case: 1) Doordash takes order on their site 2) Courier shows up to pick it up 3) Order never got to the restaurant, customer is confused, customer blames restaurant. In the phone example: 1) Doordash connects the customer to the restaurant 2) Customer tries to place an order based on outdated info 3) Restaurant is now trying to convince the customer that the menu they are looking at is wrong. And restaurant looks like a fool because they can't even publish a menu. In both of these cases, Doordash is damaging the restaurant (at least their reputation and wasting their time) and doesn't sound like they're making any good-faith effort to be a good actor here. Also, in your example, if it gets to food being made and then an argument about price, what happens to the restaurant if someone refuses to pay? They don't really get to put that cooked meal into a fridge and wait for someone else to order it. It's garbage (straight up lost money) now.

catalogia 7y ago

> “Imagine traditional restaurant pricing,” Aranita explains. “30 percent labor, 30 percent food cost — not to mention all the other fees of running a restaurant. If 30 percent also goes to delivery, that can negate any profit. We have these services because we sell more food through them, obviously, but the system is such that profits through them are low.” The profits are so thin that Poi Dog no longer offers fresh ahi tuna or salmon poke on their catering and delivery menus. Very interesting. I never considered that the economic dynamics of food delivery might suppress the quality of restaurant food, but it seems obvious in retrospect.

a3n 7y ago
These delivery services are inserted middlemen. More friction.
- m_ke 7y ago
  They're pimps.

jellicle 7y ago

Slimy anticompetitive behavior from Doordash, Postmates, Grubhub, and whoever else SHOULD be punished with extremely large fines from regulators. It won't, because the USA doesn't do regulation any more, but it should.

Keverw 7y ago

I wonder if these food delivery and ride sharing companies are even sustainable. Then reports they use VC money to subsidize things. Also mailers where you can get so much free credit too for the service. Seems convenience though as a customer but sounds like some of these people aren't even making that much money with all the waiting and stuff in between, maintenance, increased insurance, fuel, etc and then some apps I don't think it starts paying until you are there to pickup. Then again though truck drivers aren't paid while waiting to load and unload, and flight attendants aren't paid until the plane is in the air. Plus I feel like they are taking short cuts, I don't think i'd want to publish other peoples prices because they could change, items removed from the menu, etc. I guess they scrap the website or send someone in to take notes of the menu? I rather it be an agreement where businesses themselves opt-in and update their menu and prices. Wonder how these apps handle things when stuff is out of stock (ran out of wings, but has chicken tenders still) or the ice cream machine happens to be broken? Just seems not as deeply integrated as I'd hope. but even if businesses updated menus, with being on 3 apps and their own site I'm sure something would be missed due to human error unless some sort of API with a central UI to update everything. Plus some fast food places are understaffed too, because some people rather work in another field other than fast food or just don't work at all. Reports that less teenagers are working in fast food too. Then I guess putting growth and stuff first is some business models for these apps, grow fast and figure out things later when you are a bigger company. But even before internet ordering, businesses we're doing shady things too. Like pizza delivery drivers are required to have commercial insurance, but many don't so if found out and got in an accident, claim could be denied. Was reading that happen to some teenager using the family car for a part time job, and the state decided to take his license away because claim got denied and wasn't able to pay out of his own pocket. Sounds like the employers mention it, but don't really enforce what type of insurance you have. So many are using personal insurance, some forums discus this and some pizza drivers said they'd put their roof topper in the trunk before the police come if in an accident. So sounds like faceless huge corporations are shifting their liability to teenagers and other people just starting out and more vulnerable people. Then ride sharing, the companies say you are covered by their million dollar insurance policy but some people still have been dropped as result of ride sharing... Do they even give you a insurance policy number or card? Sounds like most people exchange their own insurance in that case or these apps are misleading. Then some even report insurance company dropping them just for asking about ride sharing insurance, even if they haven't signed up.