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I'm not sure I understand the suggestion. Why shouldn't a courier service be allowed to list a business to get something from. That's like saying "people can't

I'm not sure I understand the suggestion. Why shouldn't a courier service be allowed to list a business to get something from. That's like saying "people can't use mapping services". This doesn't feel like exploitation to me but maybe I don't understand your position fully.

danielheath 6y ago
A courier can still collect food. They can’t impersonate the restaurant anymore.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  The law prohibits a courier from being commissioned to place an order, collect it, and deliver it to you. It’s just criminalizing a perfectly legitimate form of arbitrage. The law isn’t about couriers impersonating restaurants either, because that’s just fraud and it’s already illegal. It’s just another example of a terrible law created at the behest of businesses that aren’t competent enough to keep up with changes in the market. But why would they bother when they can just seek a legislative solution?
  - ehnto 6y ago
    This is going to sound a bit curmudgeonly, but why should hospitality bend over to some tech middlemen? Not every industry needs to "innovate" their way into surviving the VC bubble's attempts to disrupt it. Hospitality is a fundamental service that's been provided for centuries, and is a cornerstone of the economy. Second to that, the law doesn't prohibit it, it just makes the delivery service seek an arrangement first. I am not terribly saddened by the fact that the delivery platforms have to do some groundwork instead of just web scraping a bunch of menus and making money off splitting all the risk between restaurants and customers.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      If these companies provide such a valuable service for people who can't get up from their computers to get or cook food, I'm sure restaurants will be lining up to sign up for their services.
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      > This is going to sound a bit curmudgeonly, but why should hospitality bend over to some tech middlemen? Because that’s what their customers want, and providing something that their customers want should probably be one of the most important things for a business to do. The only genuine harm that can be caused to these businesses by the delivery companies, is if the delivery company is legitimately impersonating the restaurant. Which as I said, would already be illegal. The actual “harm” that this law addresses is somebody making a profit of providing a service that the restaurants think they deserve a cut of (just because?...). Hilariously, this type of arrangement is the most beneficial thing the restaurants could have. Because they’ll find if they’d try and make one of the arrangements with a company like UberEats, that what actually happens is the delivery company will be demanding a cut of their revenue instead. Criminalizing a type of customer based on whether they intend to on sell the product after purchase is just entirely stupid. It’s one of the many stupid laws we have that only seek to protect dead business models that consumers no longer want. Just like the DMCA and all of the car dealership laws we have.
      - ehnto 6y ago
        Their customers want easy delivery options that's definitely true. But if you could ask them if they think restaurants deserve a chance at fair negotiations they would probably also say yes. All the bill is asking for is cooperation up front, not afterwards if at all. It's not criminalizing the business model of DoorDash and friends, it's just forcing them to treat their business partners like business partners. I think it's fair to say I have some bias here though. I am a little bit too cynical toward these companies to believe they're just out here trying to better the world. They're doing their best to spin a buck before going public and peacing out. Case in point, DoorDash just IPOd with no profit and no projection for profitability, even in it's best case scenario (massive increase in online ordering). So obviously the service is extremely useful, people find it useful while it's subsidized but no one has yet bared the full cost of these platforms. In my opinion we need to protect existing businesses who are profitable and thus have a proven place in the economy, while these disruptive companies flail about free from the shackles of actually fitting into the economy, just in case it turns out they wouldn't.
  - danielheath 6y ago
    In practice, every single one of these services has impersonated restaurants and harmed many of their reputations by doing so. Perhaps the law is poorly written. That happens sometimes; more often when you behave in a way that invites regulation.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ghaff 6y ago
    None of these Uber-for-X things are an issue at small scale, like a courier or other type of shared assistant ordering and delivering a pizza for you. Absolutely no one cares no matter what the letter of the law is. (And it's not really a food delivery platform at that point anyway.) The problem is when it's a growth-oriented SV company.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      Oh boy I love selective enforcement.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        Scale does matter. There are a ton of things that people can and do do for a bit of cash under the table like give a haircut even though they don't have a license, rent out an apartment to a friend of a friend for a few weeks because you'll be traveling, etc. And those same things would probably be a problem if they were pursued as an ongoing business. Which, the general silliness of some occupational licensing aside, I don't really have a problem with.
        AmericanChopper 6y ago
        The silliness of haircut licenses existing seems like a very reasonable thing to have a problem with.
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      Do you have a reason for why you think that is the problem?
Lucasoato 6y ago
Well, it should be clear that the restaurant has nothing to do with the delivery service. You shouldn't be able to exploit the restaurant brand, logo and reputation without their consent, otherwise they wouldn't have any mean to protect themselves from bad reviews that would damage their image even in other platforms.
- sumthinprofound 6y ago
  This happened to a friend of mine who is a restaurant owner. One day he gets a call for take out, for "Jeff" lets say $60. A DoorDash courier shows up (nothing indicating they are from DoorDash, restaurant assumes this is the customer) and attempts to pay with a credit card. Credit card comes back declined. Courier mentions he's going to step outside to get the issue resolved and will be right back. Half an hour goes by, another call comes in for the exact same order, $60. Another courier comes in, acts like he placed the order, tries to pay with a similar looking credit card, gets declined. 2nd courier leaves without the food. The owner thinks its some time of scam. When the third exact same order comes in via phone, the owner starts asking questions. All three were for the same DoorDash customer, all called in on the phone by DoorDash assuming the identity of the customer who placed the order via the DoorDash website using a menu that DoorDash just found online and posted on their website. It was an outdated menu with outdated prices. Apparently DoorDash would load their credit cards with the exact amount for the purchase (based on outdated prices) so both couriers cards were declined for the purchases. Meanwhile, the actual customer is waiting over an hour and a half for their order to be delivered and the restaurant owner has to eat 2 $60 sales because the food is no longer presentable. Owner was never contacted in advance by DoorDash regarding any business relationship, they just found a menu and included it on their site. Ultimately I believe they covered the cost of their screwup, and the restaurant owner required they pay over the phone when calling in the order before any food was made. I would absolutely consider this exploiting the restaurant brand and reputation without consent.
ljm 6y ago
They've been known to go as far as buying domains for the restaurants and hosting the menus on them, basically inserting themselves as a middleman, then threatening the restaurant with consequences if they don't pay up for the favour. This might be accompanied by the service taking their cut out of every meal ordered through the site, forcing the restaurant to lose money on the orders. That's not just listing, it's a racket. GrubHub was caught doing this, I believe.

danielheath 6y ago

A courier can still collect food. They can’t impersonate the restaurant anymore.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
The law prohibits a courier from being commissioned to place an order, collect it, and deliver it to you. It’s just criminalizing a perfectly legitimate form of arbitrage. The law isn’t about couriers impersonating restaurants either, because that’s just fraud and it’s already illegal. It’s just another example of a terrible law created at the behest of businesses that aren’t competent enough to keep up with changes in the market. But why would they bother when they can just seek a legislative solution?
- ehnto 6y ago
  This is going to sound a bit curmudgeonly, but why should hospitality bend over to some tech middlemen? Not every industry needs to "innovate" their way into surviving the VC bubble's attempts to disrupt it. Hospitality is a fundamental service that's been provided for centuries, and is a cornerstone of the economy. Second to that, the law doesn't prohibit it, it just makes the delivery service seek an arrangement first. I am not terribly saddened by the fact that the delivery platforms have to do some groundwork instead of just web scraping a bunch of menus and making money off splitting all the risk between restaurants and customers.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    If these companies provide such a valuable service for people who can't get up from their computers to get or cook food, I'm sure restaurants will be lining up to sign up for their services.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    > This is going to sound a bit curmudgeonly, but why should hospitality bend over to some tech middlemen? Because that’s what their customers want, and providing something that their customers want should probably be one of the most important things for a business to do. The only genuine harm that can be caused to these businesses by the delivery companies, is if the delivery company is legitimately impersonating the restaurant. Which as I said, would already be illegal. The actual “harm” that this law addresses is somebody making a profit of providing a service that the restaurants think they deserve a cut of (just because?...). Hilariously, this type of arrangement is the most beneficial thing the restaurants could have. Because they’ll find if they’d try and make one of the arrangements with a company like UberEats, that what actually happens is the delivery company will be demanding a cut of their revenue instead. Criminalizing a type of customer based on whether they intend to on sell the product after purchase is just entirely stupid. It’s one of the many stupid laws we have that only seek to protect dead business models that consumers no longer want. Just like the DMCA and all of the car dealership laws we have.
    - ehnto 6y ago
      Their customers want easy delivery options that's definitely true. But if you could ask them if they think restaurants deserve a chance at fair negotiations they would probably also say yes. All the bill is asking for is cooperation up front, not afterwards if at all. It's not criminalizing the business model of DoorDash and friends, it's just forcing them to treat their business partners like business partners. I think it's fair to say I have some bias here though. I am a little bit too cynical toward these companies to believe they're just out here trying to better the world. They're doing their best to spin a buck before going public and peacing out. Case in point, DoorDash just IPOd with no profit and no projection for profitability, even in it's best case scenario (massive increase in online ordering). So obviously the service is extremely useful, people find it useful while it's subsidized but no one has yet bared the full cost of these platforms. In my opinion we need to protect existing businesses who are profitable and thus have a proven place in the economy, while these disruptive companies flail about free from the shackles of actually fitting into the economy, just in case it turns out they wouldn't.
- danielheath 6y ago
  In practice, every single one of these services has impersonated restaurants and harmed many of their reputations by doing so. Perhaps the law is poorly written. That happens sometimes; more often when you behave in a way that invites regulation.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ghaff 6y ago
  None of these Uber-for-X things are an issue at small scale, like a courier or other type of shared assistant ordering and delivering a pizza for you. Absolutely no one cares no matter what the letter of the law is. (And it's not really a food delivery platform at that point anyway.) The problem is when it's a growth-oriented SV company.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    Oh boy I love selective enforcement.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Scale does matter. There are a ton of things that people can and do do for a bit of cash under the table like give a haircut even though they don't have a license, rent out an apartment to a friend of a friend for a few weeks because you'll be traveling, etc. And those same things would probably be a problem if they were pursued as an ongoing business. Which, the general silliness of some occupational licensing aside, I don't really have a problem with.
      - AmericanChopper 6y ago
        The silliness of haircut licenses existing seems like a very reasonable thing to have a problem with.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    Do you have a reason for why you think that is the problem?

Lucasoato 6y ago

Well, it should be clear that the restaurant has nothing to do with the delivery service. You shouldn't be able to exploit the restaurant brand, logo and reputation without their consent, otherwise they wouldn't have any mean to protect themselves from bad reviews that would damage their image even in other platforms.

sumthinprofound 6y ago
This happened to a friend of mine who is a restaurant owner. One day he gets a call for take out, for "Jeff" lets say $60. A DoorDash courier shows up (nothing indicating they are from DoorDash, restaurant assumes this is the customer) and attempts to pay with a credit card. Credit card comes back declined. Courier mentions he's going to step outside to get the issue resolved and will be right back. Half an hour goes by, another call comes in for the exact same order, $60. Another courier comes in, acts like he placed the order, tries to pay with a similar looking credit card, gets declined. 2nd courier leaves without the food. The owner thinks its some time of scam. When the third exact same order comes in via phone, the owner starts asking questions. All three were for the same DoorDash customer, all called in on the phone by DoorDash assuming the identity of the customer who placed the order via the DoorDash website using a menu that DoorDash just found online and posted on their website. It was an outdated menu with outdated prices. Apparently DoorDash would load their credit cards with the exact amount for the purchase (based on outdated prices) so both couriers cards were declined for the purchases. Meanwhile, the actual customer is waiting over an hour and a half for their order to be delivered and the restaurant owner has to eat 2 $60 sales because the food is no longer presentable. Owner was never contacted in advance by DoorDash regarding any business relationship, they just found a menu and included it on their site. Ultimately I believe they covered the cost of their screwup, and the restaurant owner required they pay over the phone when calling in the order before any food was made. I would absolutely consider this exploiting the restaurant brand and reputation without consent.

ljm 6y ago

They've been known to go as far as buying domains for the restaurants and hosting the menus on them, basically inserting themselves as a middleman, then threatening the restaurant with consequences if they don't pay up for the favour. This might be accompanied by the service taking their cut out of every meal ordered through the site, forcing the restaurant to lose money on the orders. That's not just listing, it's a racket. GrubHub was caught doing this, I believe.