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> I’m incredibly perplexed why people do this. Even pre pandemic it was patently obvious to anyone who paid attention that certain foods just don’t deliver well

> I’m incredibly perplexed why people do this. Even pre pandemic it was patently obvious to anyone who paid attention that certain foods just don’t deliver well. I don't say this with any malice, but a lot of people are just not that bright. Things that you think are "perplexingly obvious", to the point that you can't conceive of not thinking about them, just aren't to them.

ghaff 6y ago
More charitably. A lot of people really wanted food delivery in the pandemic who had never use it much before. And discovered, to their disappointment, that a lot of food deliveries were pretty bad.
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  I don't think there's any indication that this issue is new to the pandemic, is there? I also don't have any strong opinions about this particular topic, and there could very well be some other explanation. I'm just generally remarking on the common expression of such confusion at other people acting suboptimally; sometimes it's just because most people aren't all that smart or thoughtful.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  There’s certainly something to that. Before the pandemic, I would have never thought to order a burger for delivery because that’s just not what one does. If I wanted delivery, I’d go for pizza or Thai food. But during the pandemic I wanted a burger, and getting my car out sucked (yay city living), so I ordered a delivery burger. Immediately after that subpar experience I thought “oh, that’s why ordering delivery burgers isn’t the norm” and went back to ordering noodles and pizza instead. It’s the leap from “culturally this isn’t a common thing to do (order a delivery burger), so obviously it’s the restaurants fault that my experience wasn’t as good as it would be in store” that I don’t get.
cutemonster 6y ago
> Things that you think are "perplexingly obvious", to the point that you can't conceive of not thinking about it, just aren't to them. And it can take almost half a lifetime to realize this That other people can have so vastly different brains.
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  Which is pretty strange given that you see can see clearly a vast spectrum of different mental capabilities (from handicap to genius) your entire life. I guess it flies in the face of cultural virtues about how hard work will set you free.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    There are plenty of people who aren't very bright or capable and yet have very "free" (in the financial sense) lives and live comfortably. Of course there are plenty of people, both bright and dull, who could live comfortably and yet stay mired in debt and distress.
  - souprock 6y ago
    People are kept separate. In first grade, I was in the "green" reading group, with just 4 or 5 out of about 30 kids. Nothing was ever said about abilities. I just assumed that the groups were random. I was the best in the green group by far, so it seemed that I was experiencing the other extreme of mental abilities. Late in the year, something inadvertently revealed to me that "green" was the best. To this day, I have no idea how bad the other groups could have been. I remember being the best in AP Chemistry too. I set the 15-year record for the final exam score, permanently changing the grade scaling for the class by 3 points out of 100. (old scaling would have given me a 103 but that became a 100, and even years later all the grades would be lower by 3 points) That class was about 15 out of 350 students who started as freshmen. There were other students, about 50 out of the 350, who dropped out. I don't have much of an idea of what their science classes might have been like.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
traceddd 6y ago
I don’t think delivery choices really have anything to do with someone’s intelligence. Some of the most intelligent people I know have horrible diets, some to the point of nearly refusing to eat anything but a few select dishes, others just extreme laziness when it comes to food. It’s a total afterthought. In this situation, I think it’s more that when you really want a burger, Chinese food just isn’t going to cut it. A kinda soggy burger is still better because it’s what you want.
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  The claim is not that you have to be dumb to want a suboptimal burger over optimal Chinese food. It's that it doesn't make sense to do so and then blame the restaurant for the burger not being as fresh as it would be if you got it in-person. Also note that I'm not claiming that this is simply due to people being dumb. It's just my experience that, in the absence of an explanation for why someone does something "obviously" dumb, it makes more sense to accept that they're dumb than it does to be "perplexed". There's a cultural barrier against communicating openly about differences in intelligence, and it can lead to blindspots if you rely on it too much tk explain people's behavior. But it's my observation that the pendulum has swung so far to one side that many people don't even like to consider that others may be reasoning poorly.
  - behnamoh 6y ago
    I know people have different degrees of intelligent judgment, but you should also consider the fact that people who order online have already accepted the absurd fees and taxes imposed by the app (19% fee on Doordash, 16% on Grubhub, + tips + taxes). If you're willing to pay extra money in order to get your desired food while you're busy doing your own work, isn't it reasonable to get mad at the restaurant and the app for handling the food poorly?
    - wutbrodo 6y ago
      > people who order online have already accepted the absurd fees and taxes imposed by the app (19% fee on Doordash, 16% on Grubhub, + tips + taxes). Is this absurd? You have to balance it against the service you want, which is having someone drive to an arbitrary burger joint, wait for your order, and then drive it to your door. That's such an inefficient use of someone else's time that I'd expect to pay a lot for it. It's not clear to me that 15-20% is somehow "absurd". I get mild sticker shock on the few occasions I order delivery, but the sticker shock is directed at my own laziness, not price-gouging. Wasn't there an article on HN just yesterday calling these companies "parasites" for screwing investors, drivers, and restaurants, all in the name of delivering unreasonably low consumer prices? > If you're willing to pay extra money in order to get your desired food while you're busy doing your own work, isn't it reasonable to get mad at the restaurant and the app for handling the food poorly? Those standards don't extend infinitely. As the original comment I replied to says, some foods don't deliver well. If you get a burger delivered, it's probably not going to be as good as in the restaurant. This isn't just common sense; it's the type of common sense that a sufficiently intelligent person is usually not going to be able to avoid thinking about. As an upthread comment says, it's fine if you want a soggy burger, but expecting it to taste fresh off the grill is almost physically impossible. The only way for the restaurant to get around this is by leaving items off of their delivery menu. But this would be a terrible idea: if I felt like a delivery burger, I wouldn't want a restuarant deciding for me that it's too low-quality to even be an option. Fundamentally,the act we're talking about is complaining in a review that a (subsidized) delivered burger tastes like a delivered burger. It seems pretty irreducibly dumb to me.
latexr 6y ago
> a lot of people are just not that bright. From anecdotal observation, I wouldn’t say intelligence is the deciding factor, but impatience. People don’t pause to evaluate. I have a friend who lashes out or gives up at mundane life problems (why is this hamburger soggy and how to avoid it) without pondering a solution or cause. Her immediate reaction is to find blame (even if herself), not to consider if and how the issue can be fixed. But I’m confident she has the ability and intelligence to find solutions, because from what she tells me of her work—including customer and management reviews—she does it in professional settings.

ghaff 6y ago

More charitably. A lot of people really wanted food delivery in the pandemic who had never use it much before. And discovered, to their disappointment, that a lot of food deliveries were pretty bad.

wutbrodo 6y ago
I don't think there's any indication that this issue is new to the pandemic, is there? I also don't have any strong opinions about this particular topic, and there could very well be some other explanation. I'm just generally remarking on the common expression of such confusion at other people acting suboptimally; sometimes it's just because most people aren't all that smart or thoughtful.
ashtonkem 6y ago
There’s certainly something to that. Before the pandemic, I would have never thought to order a burger for delivery because that’s just not what one does. If I wanted delivery, I’d go for pizza or Thai food. But during the pandemic I wanted a burger, and getting my car out sucked (yay city living), so I ordered a delivery burger. Immediately after that subpar experience I thought “oh, that’s why ordering delivery burgers isn’t the norm” and went back to ordering noodles and pizza instead. It’s the leap from “culturally this isn’t a common thing to do (order a delivery burger), so obviously it’s the restaurants fault that my experience wasn’t as good as it would be in store” that I don’t get.

cutemonster 6y ago

> Things that you think are "perplexingly obvious", to the point that you can't conceive of not thinking about it, just aren't to them. And it can take almost half a lifetime to realize this That other people can have so vastly different brains.

DangitBobby 6y ago
Which is pretty strange given that you see can see clearly a vast spectrum of different mental capabilities (from handicap to genius) your entire life. I guess it flies in the face of cultural virtues about how hard work will set you free.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  There are plenty of people who aren't very bright or capable and yet have very "free" (in the financial sense) lives and live comfortably. Of course there are plenty of people, both bright and dull, who could live comfortably and yet stay mired in debt and distress.
- souprock 6y ago
  People are kept separate. In first grade, I was in the "green" reading group, with just 4 or 5 out of about 30 kids. Nothing was ever said about abilities. I just assumed that the groups were random. I was the best in the green group by far, so it seemed that I was experiencing the other extreme of mental abilities. Late in the year, something inadvertently revealed to me that "green" was the best. To this day, I have no idea how bad the other groups could have been. I remember being the best in AP Chemistry too. I set the 15-year record for the final exam score, permanently changing the grade scaling for the class by 3 points out of 100. (old scaling would have given me a 103 but that became a 100, and even years later all the grades would be lower by 3 points) That class was about 15 out of 350 students who started as freshmen. There were other students, about 50 out of the 350, who dropped out. I don't have much of an idea of what their science classes might have been like.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago

traceddd 6y ago

I don’t think delivery choices really have anything to do with someone’s intelligence. Some of the most intelligent people I know have horrible diets, some to the point of nearly refusing to eat anything but a few select dishes, others just extreme laziness when it comes to food. It’s a total afterthought. In this situation, I think it’s more that when you really want a burger, Chinese food just isn’t going to cut it. A kinda soggy burger is still better because it’s what you want.

wutbrodo 6y ago
The claim is not that you have to be dumb to want a suboptimal burger over optimal Chinese food. It's that it doesn't make sense to do so and then blame the restaurant for the burger not being as fresh as it would be if you got it in-person. Also note that I'm not claiming that this is simply due to people being dumb. It's just my experience that, in the absence of an explanation for why someone does something "obviously" dumb, it makes more sense to accept that they're dumb than it does to be "perplexed". There's a cultural barrier against communicating openly about differences in intelligence, and it can lead to blindspots if you rely on it too much tk explain people's behavior. But it's my observation that the pendulum has swung so far to one side that many people don't even like to consider that others may be reasoning poorly.
- behnamoh 6y ago
  I know people have different degrees of intelligent judgment, but you should also consider the fact that people who order online have already accepted the absurd fees and taxes imposed by the app (19% fee on Doordash, 16% on Grubhub, + tips + taxes). If you're willing to pay extra money in order to get your desired food while you're busy doing your own work, isn't it reasonable to get mad at the restaurant and the app for handling the food poorly?
  - wutbrodo 6y ago
    > people who order online have already accepted the absurd fees and taxes imposed by the app (19% fee on Doordash, 16% on Grubhub, + tips + taxes). Is this absurd? You have to balance it against the service you want, which is having someone drive to an arbitrary burger joint, wait for your order, and then drive it to your door. That's such an inefficient use of someone else's time that I'd expect to pay a lot for it. It's not clear to me that 15-20% is somehow "absurd". I get mild sticker shock on the few occasions I order delivery, but the sticker shock is directed at my own laziness, not price-gouging. Wasn't there an article on HN just yesterday calling these companies "parasites" for screwing investors, drivers, and restaurants, all in the name of delivering unreasonably low consumer prices? > If you're willing to pay extra money in order to get your desired food while you're busy doing your own work, isn't it reasonable to get mad at the restaurant and the app for handling the food poorly? Those standards don't extend infinitely. As the original comment I replied to says, some foods don't deliver well. If you get a burger delivered, it's probably not going to be as good as in the restaurant. This isn't just common sense; it's the type of common sense that a sufficiently intelligent person is usually not going to be able to avoid thinking about. As an upthread comment says, it's fine if you want a soggy burger, but expecting it to taste fresh off the grill is almost physically impossible. The only way for the restaurant to get around this is by leaving items off of their delivery menu. But this would be a terrible idea: if I felt like a delivery burger, I wouldn't want a restuarant deciding for me that it's too low-quality to even be an option. Fundamentally,the act we're talking about is complaining in a review that a (subsidized) delivered burger tastes like a delivered burger. It seems pretty irreducibly dumb to me.

latexr 6y ago

> a lot of people are just not that bright. From anecdotal observation, I wouldn’t say intelligence is the deciding factor, but impatience. People don’t pause to evaluate. I have a friend who lashes out or gives up at mundane life problems (why is this hamburger soggy and how to avoid it) without pondering a solution or cause. Her immediate reaction is to find blame (even if herself), not to consider if and how the issue can be fixed. But I’m confident she has the ability and intelligence to find solutions, because from what she tells me of her work—including customer and management reviews—she does it in professional settings.