6 ms·

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.
      - AmericanChopper 6y ago
        If you’ve sold something, why would you expect to have any right to negotiate what the buyer plans to do with it? The delivery businesses have simply found some value that customers are willing to pay for. If the restaurants want to capture that value for themselves they have every right to attempt to do so. It’s also silly to say that these delivery apps are trying to make the world a better place. They’re just providing a service to consumers. They’ve certainly changed the takeout food market significantly (and in a way that is very beneficial to consumers). But they’ve also made it harder for takeout food businesses to operate, because they’ve massively increased the competition they face. Takeout restaurants used to only compete with other nearby take out restaurants, for the business of customers within a convenient distance from their location. Now they have to compete with businesses from miles away too. This is fantastic for consumers, which is generally who should benefit most from these sort of regulations. This law is an absolute affront to consumers, and serves only to protect bad businesses from having to address innovation. It’s understandable that these businesses want a slice of that value, and I’m sure you could tell a very sympathetic story about them. But they did nothing to create this value, and the law shouldn’t exist to shield them from competition.
- 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?

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.
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      If you’ve sold something, why would you expect to have any right to negotiate what the buyer plans to do with it? The delivery businesses have simply found some value that customers are willing to pay for. If the restaurants want to capture that value for themselves they have every right to attempt to do so. It’s also silly to say that these delivery apps are trying to make the world a better place. They’re just providing a service to consumers. They’ve certainly changed the takeout food market significantly (and in a way that is very beneficial to consumers). But they’ve also made it harder for takeout food businesses to operate, because they’ve massively increased the competition they face. Takeout restaurants used to only compete with other nearby take out restaurants, for the business of customers within a convenient distance from their location. Now they have to compete with businesses from miles away too. This is fantastic for consumers, which is generally who should benefit most from these sort of regulations. This law is an absolute affront to consumers, and serves only to protect bad businesses from having to address innovation. It’s understandable that these businesses want a slice of that value, and I’m sure you could tell a very sympathetic story about them. But they did nothing to create this value, and the law shouldn’t exist to shield them from competition.
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?