9 ms·

I started boycotting food delivery services because the quality & service was just god awful. I found that if I drive, I actually don't spend that much time, an

by kache_ 4y ago

I started boycotting food delivery services because the quality & service was just god awful. I found that if I drive, I actually don't spend that much time, and I get wayyyy better service.

mr_cyborg 4y ago
What I've found is that normally, the consumer - restaurant contract is between two parties. I pay food, I get to eat. If there's a problem, I tell the restaurant, and they fix it. There's ample opportunity to find an amicable resolution to any issues that arise. When you add DoorDash or any other third party delivery service into the equation, you add two more parties to this - the service itself, and the driver, who is usually an independent contractor. What this has led to in my experience is that when something goes wrong, instead of me working it out with the restaurant, I am left frustrated, hungry, and hung out to dry by three parties - the restaurant, the platform, and the contractor. If you read enough of the DoorDash subreddit[1], you realize that a tip is not a gratuity for good service, it's a bid for an independent contractor to take up your delivery. However, you have no ability to choose which Dasher takes it, and they are under no obligation to represent you as your agent or look out for your interests. So if they show up and the food is cold, not their problem, they get the tip because they accepted the bid. When DoorDash had a major outage some time back, I had placed an order for about $70, generous tip (because I realize it's really a bid) and fees included. My order was prepared and ready for pick up just as the whole platform went down. It was impossible to cancel my order, because DoorDash was down, so I made alternate arrangements for dinner and figure I'll reach out for a refund when things are back up. About three hours later, I get a notification that my order is out for delivery. The optimist in me hoped that the restaurant saw that some food sat out in the "danger zone" for several hours and remade it, or that the Dasher realized that the containers weren't the slightest bit warm, or something like that, but nope. I got dropped off a lot of food that was beyond safe to eat, not even worth saving to have as leftovers for a later meal, and now I have to dispose of all of it. When I finally got through to support later that night, I asked for a refund, and they said they could only give me a credit for the meal, not the tip. I said I want the whole order refunded to my original payment, they said well, here's a credit and it will convert over to that later. One week and several phone calls later, they stopped telling me it was "too late to get a refund" and I got my refund and uninstalled the app. I don't need that negative energy in my life. 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/doordash/ https://www.reddit.com/r/doordash/
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > What this has led to in my experience is that when something goes wrong, instead of me working it out with the restaurant, I am left frustrated, hungry, and hung out to dry by three parties - the restaurant, the platform, and the contractor. My experience with delivery services (mostly, but not exclusively, Postmates) is that they are usually very good at giving refunds (your experience clearly sucked, though!), which is nice (but I’m guessing not for the drivers, who may or may not be at fault), but that restaurants with their own delivery services have been more willing to send out the missing food on an expedited basis, which is often a better resolution (if I didn’t want the food more than the money, I wouldn’t have ordered in the first place.) I’ve also noticed that wrong or missing food items are more common with third-party delivery services.
  - scarface_74 4y ago
    I've gotten plenty of certificates from restaurants who gave me "a bad delivery experience", without my asking. I didn't even consider the experience "bad". It was something like the driver had a flat tire, called me and said he was going to be late and then said he would have the food remade. I said don't worry about it, bring the food cold (pizza) and I would just heat it up. I didn't even think about it anymore. But I still got a free coupon.
  - rhino369 4y ago
    Doordash's refund algorithm is usually pretty fair, but sometimes it isn't. I order a lot, and once in a blue moon the order will be significantly messed up (missing entrees, for example) and they give a low ball offer.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    > My experience with delivery services (mostly, but not exclusively, Postmates) is that they are usually very good at giving refunds This has changed over time, though. For the first year or so of Postmates' existence, refunds were easy and near-automatic. It was trivial to get in touch with a support person, and their response to pretty much any complaint was either a refund or a (usually generous) credit. But after Postmates grew beyond a certain point, they got more stingy with refunds, and credit they offered -- if any! -- would be much lower. I remember the same thing happening with Uber when it was new. Rating a driver under 4 stars would win you an unsolicited email from support, asking what went wrong, with a credit or refund for the ride. That pretty much never happens anymore. Agree with you on restaurants, though. Restaurants that do their own first-party delivery are almost always better at customer experience and fixing things when something goes wrong. And it makes sense, too: DoorDash and the driver don't care if you end up with a negative impression of a restaurant because the food arrived cold. The consequences for DD are much less than the consequences for the restaurant. And even if you do call the restaurant, there's usually not much they can do, because they're not able to get DD to redo the delivery for free, and have no leverage over DD to give refunds.
petrikapu 4y ago
Premium is that you get to do other things while waiting for delivery
krisroadruck 4y ago
You also pay way less. DoorDash and all the others don't just charge the fees and the tips and what not, they also inflate the food cost by a pretty hefty amount. A simple example: McDonalds has a 2 for $2 deal on sausage mcmuffins & hashbrowns - been around forever. Let's say you and the wife want a McMuffin & a hashbrown each - you're in for $4 dollars and a bit of change for tax. Here is the same meal via DoorDash: McMuffins: $2.87ea Hash browns: $1.91ea Subtotal: $9.56 (just below the 10 dollar minimum to wave the fee if you have DD+) Delivery fee: $1.99 Service fee: $3.00 Tax: $0.91 Dasher Tip: $5 (good luck getting your order on time if you tip less than this) Grand Total: $20.46 for $4 of food. You can "optimize" by ordering an additional hash brown to get over the $10 hump so you can wave the delivery fee and reduce the service fee - which will instead cost you a total of $17.91 for $5 worth of food. Either way it's a shit deal. Not included here are the costs associated with 1 in every 4-5 orders being incorrect, or delivered to the wrong house and the hassle that adds to your life. Obviously I went with low cost items to illustrate a point but often any food prices you see on DD are a good 50% markup vs going in person regardless of the restaurant before you even get into fees and tips.
- shyn3 4y ago
  UberEats in Canada inflates the regular menu price as well.
- scarface_74 4y ago
  But guess how much money I can save by not having a car?
  - krisroadruck 4y ago
    None. If you live in a city that has enough stuff nearby or public transit sufficient to be considered "walkable" your housing costs are 2-3x higher than they would be otherwise and your taxes are probably higher as well. Far more than the cost of a car.
    - scarface_74 4y ago
      You keep forgetting other scenarios - someone who works remotely and can just take Uber when he needs to go somewhere during the weekend. In fact, my son started working at a pizza place before he had his driver's license. It was cheaper to pay Uber $350 a month than his current car note + car insurance. Just to give you a hint about "affordability", we paid $335K in 2016 to have our house built - 3100 square feet - in the "good school system" in the burbs of a major metropolitan area.
scarface_74 4y ago
I found: 1. When I am on business trips and getting reimbursed, I don't care. It's "other people's money" 2. The food delivery services have made it possible for us to have one car off an on since 2020 and not have to pay for two cars. In fact, we just sold our newer car back to the dealer and are sharing one car now saving us $900+ a month in car insurance, car payments, gas, maintenance, etc. We don't plan to have a car for the next three years as we embark on our "digital nomad" existence. If I can get away without ever having a car again, I will. It just doesn't make sense for me as someone who works remotely and has grown kids and really only needs to get out on the weekend to deal with paying for a car just to sit in the garage most of the time.
- happyopossum 4y ago
  > $900+ a month in car insurance, car payments, gas, maintenance, etc. There's a huge gap between 'no car' and $900/mo in car expenses. Buy a used car, not too old, and do basic maintenance (oil/filter, brakes, etc) yourself where you can. It's trivial to own and operate a car for well under $200-$300/mo - millions of people do it.
  - scarface_74 4y ago
    Millions of people fix their own brakes? The average price people paid for a car is $27K https://www.statista.com/statistics/274928/used-vehicle-average-selling-price-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/274928/used-vehicle-aver... The average price of a new car is $47k. https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-tops-47000/ https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-tops-4700... The average cost of maintaining a car is between $7K - $10K https://www.thebalance.com/average-car-maintenance-cost-4775765 https://www.thebalance.com/average-car-maintenance-cost-4775... Even the IRS says the average cost of a car is now $0.63 a mile.
  - toast0 4y ago
    > do basic maintenance (oil/filter, brakes, etc) yourself Basic maintenance doesn't get you much of the way to $900/month anyway. An oil change is like $50-$100 depending on things, and most OEM service schedules have those once a year (unless you put on a lot of miles... but if you put on a lot of miles, it's unlikely that you can realistically forgo a car). Brakes cost more, but depending on how you drive, shouldn't be too frequent; and you really should be competent at brakes before maintaining them or you're likely to cause safety issues. An incompetent oil change my ruin your engine and as a result your pocketbook, but an incompetent brake servicing can result in no ability to stop which has much bigger life safety implications.
tomjakubowski 4y ago
I avoid them too. Delivery apps: - Give hilariously bad estimates for delivery time. Dan Luu tracked this. https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1469755162004582400?s=20&t=ZRs5ZzDtZVdK5zXlLTt3mA https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1469755162004582400?s=20&t... - Cause huge pileups for restaurant workers, who in pre-delivery app times were shielded by the presence of "a line", which puts a natural limit on order throughput (people drop out of line or don't enter when it's too long) - Generally aren't good at giving prompt notifications, which sucks for both the driver and the order maker I'm starting to believe two sided marketplaces tend to be worse for everyone except for the intermediary
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  People who do not understand the role of balking and price information act at their own peril. This economic backpressure is something that executives hate - it keeps line from going up - but people who actually do the work love, because it keeps workloads manageable. If you ever wanted a feature-length explanation of queueing theory and how ignoring it makes everything worse, well... here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE . The context is Disney parks and Fastpass, but the lessons are applicable to basically any business. Everything is a queue.
- kelnos 4y ago
  > Give hilariously bad estimates for delivery time. Huh, I wonder how universal this is. I agree with this take for Lyft and Uber (for rides), but for Uber Eats, at least, it's been incredibly rare for it to take longer than the estimate, and in the majority of cases the food arrives 5-10 minutes faster than the estimate suggests.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    If the majority of time the delivery happens 5-10 minutes faster than the estimate, then either the delivery was scheduled to take a huge amount of time (50 minutes) and we are looking at a small error, or indeed, the estimates are hilariously bad.
  - deleted 4y ago
mywittyname 4y ago
DD drivers definitely take their frustration out on both restaurants and DD customers. I've seen a lot of drama from DD drivers at restaurants, one thing that sticks in my mine was during a midnight run to White Castle. The place was packed and the workers kept asking about this huge bag of food for DD. The bag was easily 2 foot tall and completely packed full of food. The entire time I'm waiting on my food, people keep asking "any word on this door dash?" Then some lady comes in screaming, "f- y'all, I've been waiting 20 f- minutes for a f- order and y'all slow mfers won't do shit!" The manager tells her the order is here and has been ready for 15 minutes. She goes up to the counter, takes the food, then throws the drink at the manager, screaming "f- you", throws the bag of food back at them yelling, "f- door dash" and "f- this $4 tip!" So, not only did the person not get their food (and probably didn't find out for a long time afterwards), the restaurant had to cover the costs of all of it, and the delivery driver was out like her time and gas.
- fundad 4y ago
  She was out her mind if she was waiting but not checking inside and then abused people and didn't realize most people are bad tippers.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  I sure hope the restaurant didn't have to cover the cost. If they did, they need to sign a less abusive deal with DD.
harles 4y ago
Interestingly, I found tipping less will get you way better service and quicker food. I did some experiments after I found food always comes quicker when my wife orders - turns out she doesn’t overtip like I do. I tried a bunch more times and found this to be true, at least with Uber Eats. What I’m guessing happens is that if you tip high, less scrupulous but tech savvy drivers will snag the delivery. These folks have multiple accounts and work for multiple services at once, so your order is way down on their list. It frequently comes with location spoofing, where the driver is supposedly waiting at the restaurant for nearly an hour, and once they’re actually on their way, they’ll teleport miles away (having unlocked their location). When I tip less, I don’t see this behavior. It’s probably folks not gaming the system that will take whatever delivery pops up.
- kelnos 4y ago
  It's bonkers to me that the drivers can see the tip before they accept the delivery. Hell, weird that they can see it before the delivery is completed, even. Tips are supposed to be for good service! I know they've been perverted into more than that by a combination of unscrupulous business owners and the US's broken tax code, but... c'mon. These services shouldn't even ask for a tip until the delivery is complete, let alone show the amount to the driver before they accept the job. (I'm fine with them asking for the tip as a part of the initial checkout, though, since I imagine many people won't remember to revisit the app post-delivery within the tipping window, even if they did want to leave a tip, and that alone would unfairly take money out of drivers' pockets. But the tip should be adjustable for some amount of time after the delivery completes, and the driver shouldn't see it until that time expires. Amazon's grocery delivery has this right.) If drivers can see the tip before accepting the job, then it's not a tip: it's a competitive bid that the customer makes for delivery drivers... though if your theory is correct, it's already gamed into uselessness.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Sounds like the best deal would be to “tip” normal like OPs wife does, and then add cash on hand at the door. But even better would get to know the local dasher and contract directly. Heh.

by kache_ 4y ago

I started boycotting food delivery services because the quality & service was just god awful. I found that if I drive, I actually don't spend that much time, and I get wayyyy better service.

mr_cyborg 4y ago

What I've found is that normally, the consumer - restaurant contract is between two parties. I pay food, I get to eat. If there's a problem, I tell the restaurant, and they fix it. There's ample opportunity to find an amicable resolution to any issues that arise. When you add DoorDash or any other third party delivery service into the equation, you add two more parties to this - the service itself, and the driver, who is usually an independent contractor. What this has led to in my experience is that when something goes wrong, instead of me working it out with the restaurant, I am left frustrated, hungry, and hung out to dry by three parties - the restaurant, the platform, and the contractor. If you read enough of the DoorDash subreddit[1], you realize that a tip is not a gratuity for good service, it's a bid for an independent contractor to take up your delivery. However, you have no ability to choose which Dasher takes it, and they are under no obligation to represent you as your agent or look out for your interests. So if they show up and the food is cold, not their problem, they get the tip because they accepted the bid. When DoorDash had a major outage some time back, I had placed an order for about $70, generous tip (because I realize it's really a bid) and fees included. My order was prepared and ready for pick up just as the whole platform went down. It was impossible to cancel my order, because DoorDash was down, so I made alternate arrangements for dinner and figure I'll reach out for a refund when things are back up. About three hours later, I get a notification that my order is out for delivery. The optimist in me hoped that the restaurant saw that some food sat out in the "danger zone" for several hours and remade it, or that the Dasher realized that the containers weren't the slightest bit warm, or something like that, but nope. I got dropped off a lot of food that was beyond safe to eat, not even worth saving to have as leftovers for a later meal, and now I have to dispose of all of it. When I finally got through to support later that night, I asked for a refund, and they said they could only give me a credit for the meal, not the tip. I said I want the whole order refunded to my original payment, they said well, here's a credit and it will convert over to that later. One week and several phone calls later, they stopped telling me it was "too late to get a refund" and I got my refund and uninstalled the app. I don't need that negative energy in my life. 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/doordash/ https://www.reddit.com/r/doordash/

dragonwriter 4y ago
> What this has led to in my experience is that when something goes wrong, instead of me working it out with the restaurant, I am left frustrated, hungry, and hung out to dry by three parties - the restaurant, the platform, and the contractor. My experience with delivery services (mostly, but not exclusively, Postmates) is that they are usually very good at giving refunds (your experience clearly sucked, though!), which is nice (but I’m guessing not for the drivers, who may or may not be at fault), but that restaurants with their own delivery services have been more willing to send out the missing food on an expedited basis, which is often a better resolution (if I didn’t want the food more than the money, I wouldn’t have ordered in the first place.) I’ve also noticed that wrong or missing food items are more common with third-party delivery services.
- scarface_74 4y ago
  I've gotten plenty of certificates from restaurants who gave me "a bad delivery experience", without my asking. I didn't even consider the experience "bad". It was something like the driver had a flat tire, called me and said he was going to be late and then said he would have the food remade. I said don't worry about it, bring the food cold (pizza) and I would just heat it up. I didn't even think about it anymore. But I still got a free coupon.
- rhino369 4y ago
  Doordash's refund algorithm is usually pretty fair, but sometimes it isn't. I order a lot, and once in a blue moon the order will be significantly messed up (missing entrees, for example) and they give a low ball offer.
- kelnos 4y ago
  > My experience with delivery services (mostly, but not exclusively, Postmates) is that they are usually very good at giving refunds This has changed over time, though. For the first year or so of Postmates' existence, refunds were easy and near-automatic. It was trivial to get in touch with a support person, and their response to pretty much any complaint was either a refund or a (usually generous) credit. But after Postmates grew beyond a certain point, they got more stingy with refunds, and credit they offered -- if any! -- would be much lower. I remember the same thing happening with Uber when it was new. Rating a driver under 4 stars would win you an unsolicited email from support, asking what went wrong, with a credit or refund for the ride. That pretty much never happens anymore. Agree with you on restaurants, though. Restaurants that do their own first-party delivery are almost always better at customer experience and fixing things when something goes wrong. And it makes sense, too: DoorDash and the driver don't care if you end up with a negative impression of a restaurant because the food arrived cold. The consequences for DD are much less than the consequences for the restaurant. And even if you do call the restaurant, there's usually not much they can do, because they're not able to get DD to redo the delivery for free, and have no leverage over DD to give refunds.

petrikapu 4y ago

Premium is that you get to do other things while waiting for delivery

krisroadruck 4y ago

You also pay way less. DoorDash and all the others don't just charge the fees and the tips and what not, they also inflate the food cost by a pretty hefty amount. A simple example: McDonalds has a 2 for $2 deal on sausage mcmuffins & hashbrowns - been around forever. Let's say you and the wife want a McMuffin & a hashbrown each - you're in for $4 dollars and a bit of change for tax. Here is the same meal via DoorDash: McMuffins: $2.87ea Hash browns: $1.91ea Subtotal: $9.56 (just below the 10 dollar minimum to wave the fee if you have DD+) Delivery fee: $1.99 Service fee: $3.00 Tax: $0.91 Dasher Tip: $5 (good luck getting your order on time if you tip less than this) Grand Total: $20.46 for $4 of food. You can "optimize" by ordering an additional hash brown to get over the $10 hump so you can wave the delivery fee and reduce the service fee - which will instead cost you a total of $17.91 for $5 worth of food. Either way it's a shit deal. Not included here are the costs associated with 1 in every 4-5 orders being incorrect, or delivered to the wrong house and the hassle that adds to your life. Obviously I went with low cost items to illustrate a point but often any food prices you see on DD are a good 50% markup vs going in person regardless of the restaurant before you even get into fees and tips.

shyn3 4y ago
UberEats in Canada inflates the regular menu price as well.
scarface_74 4y ago
But guess how much money I can save by not having a car?
- krisroadruck 4y ago
  None. If you live in a city that has enough stuff nearby or public transit sufficient to be considered "walkable" your housing costs are 2-3x higher than they would be otherwise and your taxes are probably higher as well. Far more than the cost of a car.
  - scarface_74 4y ago
    You keep forgetting other scenarios - someone who works remotely and can just take Uber when he needs to go somewhere during the weekend. In fact, my son started working at a pizza place before he had his driver's license. It was cheaper to pay Uber $350 a month than his current car note + car insurance. Just to give you a hint about "affordability", we paid $335K in 2016 to have our house built - 3100 square feet - in the "good school system" in the burbs of a major metropolitan area.

scarface_74 4y ago

I found: 1. When I am on business trips and getting reimbursed, I don't care. It's "other people's money" 2. The food delivery services have made it possible for us to have one car off an on since 2020 and not have to pay for two cars. In fact, we just sold our newer car back to the dealer and are sharing one car now saving us $900+ a month in car insurance, car payments, gas, maintenance, etc. We don't plan to have a car for the next three years as we embark on our "digital nomad" existence. If I can get away without ever having a car again, I will. It just doesn't make sense for me as someone who works remotely and has grown kids and really only needs to get out on the weekend to deal with paying for a car just to sit in the garage most of the time.

happyopossum 4y ago
> $900+ a month in car insurance, car payments, gas, maintenance, etc. There's a huge gap between 'no car' and $900/mo in car expenses. Buy a used car, not too old, and do basic maintenance (oil/filter, brakes, etc) yourself where you can. It's trivial to own and operate a car for well under $200-$300/mo - millions of people do it.
- scarface_74 4y ago
  Millions of people fix their own brakes? The average price people paid for a car is $27K https://www.statista.com/statistics/274928/used-vehicle-average-selling-price-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/274928/used-vehicle-aver... The average price of a new car is $47k. https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-tops-47000/ https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-tops-4700... The average cost of maintaining a car is between $7K - $10K https://www.thebalance.com/average-car-maintenance-cost-4775765 https://www.thebalance.com/average-car-maintenance-cost-4775... Even the IRS says the average cost of a car is now $0.63 a mile.
- toast0 4y ago
  > do basic maintenance (oil/filter, brakes, etc) yourself Basic maintenance doesn't get you much of the way to $900/month anyway. An oil change is like $50-$100 depending on things, and most OEM service schedules have those once a year (unless you put on a lot of miles... but if you put on a lot of miles, it's unlikely that you can realistically forgo a car). Brakes cost more, but depending on how you drive, shouldn't be too frequent; and you really should be competent at brakes before maintaining them or you're likely to cause safety issues. An incompetent oil change my ruin your engine and as a result your pocketbook, but an incompetent brake servicing can result in no ability to stop which has much bigger life safety implications.

tomjakubowski 4y ago

I avoid them too. Delivery apps: - Give hilariously bad estimates for delivery time. Dan Luu tracked this. https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1469755162004582400?s=20&t=ZRs5ZzDtZVdK5zXlLTt3mA https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1469755162004582400?s=20&t... - Cause huge pileups for restaurant workers, who in pre-delivery app times were shielded by the presence of "a line", which puts a natural limit on order throughput (people drop out of line or don't enter when it's too long) - Generally aren't good at giving prompt notifications, which sucks for both the driver and the order maker I'm starting to believe two sided marketplaces tend to be worse for everyone except for the intermediary

kmeisthax 4y ago
People who do not understand the role of balking and price information act at their own peril. This economic backpressure is something that executives hate - it keeps line from going up - but people who actually do the work love, because it keeps workloads manageable. If you ever wanted a feature-length explanation of queueing theory and how ignoring it makes everything worse, well... here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE . The context is Disney parks and Fastpass, but the lessons are applicable to basically any business. Everything is a queue.
kelnos 4y ago
> Give hilariously bad estimates for delivery time. Huh, I wonder how universal this is. I agree with this take for Lyft and Uber (for rides), but for Uber Eats, at least, it's been incredibly rare for it to take longer than the estimate, and in the majority of cases the food arrives 5-10 minutes faster than the estimate suggests.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  If the majority of time the delivery happens 5-10 minutes faster than the estimate, then either the delivery was scheduled to take a huge amount of time (50 minutes) and we are looking at a small error, or indeed, the estimates are hilariously bad.
- deleted 4y ago

mywittyname 4y ago

DD drivers definitely take their frustration out on both restaurants and DD customers. I've seen a lot of drama from DD drivers at restaurants, one thing that sticks in my mine was during a midnight run to White Castle. The place was packed and the workers kept asking about this huge bag of food for DD. The bag was easily 2 foot tall and completely packed full of food. The entire time I'm waiting on my food, people keep asking "any word on this door dash?" Then some lady comes in screaming, "f- y'all, I've been waiting 20 f- minutes for a f- order and y'all slow mfers won't do shit!" The manager tells her the order is here and has been ready for 15 minutes. She goes up to the counter, takes the food, then throws the drink at the manager, screaming "f- you", throws the bag of food back at them yelling, "f- door dash" and "f- this $4 tip!" So, not only did the person not get their food (and probably didn't find out for a long time afterwards), the restaurant had to cover the costs of all of it, and the delivery driver was out like her time and gas.

fundad 4y ago
She was out her mind if she was waiting but not checking inside and then abused people and didn't realize most people are bad tippers.
Dylan16807 4y ago
I sure hope the restaurant didn't have to cover the cost. If they did, they need to sign a less abusive deal with DD.

harles 4y ago

Interestingly, I found tipping less will get you way better service and quicker food. I did some experiments after I found food always comes quicker when my wife orders - turns out she doesn’t overtip like I do. I tried a bunch more times and found this to be true, at least with Uber Eats. What I’m guessing happens is that if you tip high, less scrupulous but tech savvy drivers will snag the delivery. These folks have multiple accounts and work for multiple services at once, so your order is way down on their list. It frequently comes with location spoofing, where the driver is supposedly waiting at the restaurant for nearly an hour, and once they’re actually on their way, they’ll teleport miles away (having unlocked their location). When I tip less, I don’t see this behavior. It’s probably folks not gaming the system that will take whatever delivery pops up.

kelnos 4y ago
It's bonkers to me that the drivers can see the tip before they accept the delivery. Hell, weird that they can see it before the delivery is completed, even. Tips are supposed to be for good service! I know they've been perverted into more than that by a combination of unscrupulous business owners and the US's broken tax code, but... c'mon. These services shouldn't even ask for a tip until the delivery is complete, let alone show the amount to the driver before they accept the job. (I'm fine with them asking for the tip as a part of the initial checkout, though, since I imagine many people won't remember to revisit the app post-delivery within the tipping window, even if they did want to leave a tip, and that alone would unfairly take money out of drivers' pockets. But the tip should be adjustable for some amount of time after the delivery completes, and the driver shouldn't see it until that time expires. Amazon's grocery delivery has this right.) If drivers can see the tip before accepting the job, then it's not a tip: it's a competitive bid that the customer makes for delivery drivers... though if your theory is correct, it's already gamed into uselessness.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Sounds like the best deal would be to “tip” normal like OPs wife does, and then add cash on hand at the door. But even better would get to know the local dasher and contract directly. Heh.