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Well, you live in a country with tipping culture, but you're free to not tip. If its mandatory, then include it with the price. Its very American to pull this k

by Fnoord 4y ago

Well, you live in a country with tipping culture, but you're free to not tip. If its mandatory, then include it with the price. Its very American to pull this kind of BS. They mention a price, and then say X is tax, Y is delivery, but then they come with all kind of 'additions' (Apple does it here too, about mentioning environmental taxes or something). I don't give a shit about any of these (they're your expenses), just tell me what it costs and I'll say 'yes' or 'no'. I mean, what on Earth why would you as customer be responsible for 'CA Driver Benefits fee'? That's on the employer. And 'service fee'? Which service? The service you get is a proper delivery.

BoorishBears 4y ago
Like I said, none of this includes tips, but decided to see if this happens in other countries, so I switched around my delivery location: UK: 10% "Service Charge" on top of delivery fees Spain: "Marketplace Fee" Canada (Montreàl): "Taxes and other fees" which when expanded shows "Service Fee" separate from. Doesn't seem to be tied at all to tipping culture, these companies are quite content taking extra money regardless of social norms
- Fnoord 4y ago
  In my country the market leader is TakeAway / Just Eat (Thuisbezorgd) and they just mention a price for the food and a price for the delivery. Nothing else, no bullshit. If you're a regular customer, you're better off ordering directly though, since they take a cut of about 10%. Websites of restaurants regularly mention this, and since Dutch like to be cheap I suppose it works. In a way its honest to mention the 'service fee', if they were also upfront that the cut is because they're a broker/middleman.
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    The problem is really that in total Uber Eats was asking for 300% what they claim delivery costs in exchange for what they provide as a broker. That's pretty absurd. - And I was skeptical seeing "no bullshit" in the same sentence as a gig economy app so I had to search, and of course the first result for "Thuisbezorgd service fee" was that they're hiding service costs by charging more than menu price... then turning around and claiming that's because it's the delivery menu. Which of course would mislead any reasonable person expecting to pay what the menu says... the one they'd hand you if you sat down. https://nltimes.nl/2022/05/29/meal-deliverers-misleading-clients-hidden-service-costs-unrealistic-offer https://nltimes.nl/2022/05/29/meal-deliverers-misleading-cli... - There's no way to make the current delivery app model work. The app needs to be small in scope and/or localized otherwise it seems without exception, "growth at all costs" leads to heavily subsidizing food and labor, then increasing costs drastically and decreasing pay once you have people hooked on the system.
    - listenallyall 4y ago
      > Uber Eats was asking for 300% what they claim delivery costs And most restaurants charge 300% of what the food costs.
      - BoorishBears 4y ago
        You have no idea how restaurants work if you actually think this. They get giddy if their margins are like 5%... or the equivalent of charging you 105% of what it cost them.
        listenallyall 4y ago
        There is a difference between gross margins on the food items in isolation vs the overall restaurant's profit margin. The point I was making to the OP, seemingly lost on you, is that there are plenty of costs that Uber (or a restaurant) must bear, such that earning a large gross margin on a specific item or service doesn't guarantee an overall profit.
        BoorishBears 4y ago
        The only thing I see lost is you. The complaint isn't that Uber is bearing costs, it's that they bare costs in the neighborhood of 3x what the delivery costs! For a restaurant food needs to compete with paying for actual humans to cook it, paying rent, etc. all things reasonably expensive and costs huge money to scale. For Uber owning a human's time for the next X minutes should be by far the largest expense because the other side of it is software! If you understand how software works this shouldn't be hard to grasp... software scales for relatively nothing compared to human labor and rent! The only way to break that equation is to squander your cut on overaggressive expansion. Overaggressive of course being defined as the point where you spend so much money drowning people who aren't using in perks and advertising that you end up having to squeeze restaurants drivers and existing users harder and harder to keep the ponzi scheme going...
        4y ago

by Fnoord 4y ago

BoorishBears 4y ago

Like I said, none of this includes tips, but decided to see if this happens in other countries, so I switched around my delivery location: UK: 10% "Service Charge" on top of delivery fees Spain: "Marketplace Fee" Canada (Montreàl): "Taxes and other fees" which when expanded shows "Service Fee" separate from. Doesn't seem to be tied at all to tipping culture, these companies are quite content taking extra money regardless of social norms

Fnoord 4y ago
In my country the market leader is TakeAway / Just Eat (Thuisbezorgd) and they just mention a price for the food and a price for the delivery. Nothing else, no bullshit. If you're a regular customer, you're better off ordering directly though, since they take a cut of about 10%. Websites of restaurants regularly mention this, and since Dutch like to be cheap I suppose it works. In a way its honest to mention the 'service fee', if they were also upfront that the cut is because they're a broker/middleman.
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  The problem is really that in total Uber Eats was asking for 300% what they claim delivery costs in exchange for what they provide as a broker. That's pretty absurd. - And I was skeptical seeing "no bullshit" in the same sentence as a gig economy app so I had to search, and of course the first result for "Thuisbezorgd service fee" was that they're hiding service costs by charging more than menu price... then turning around and claiming that's because it's the delivery menu. Which of course would mislead any reasonable person expecting to pay what the menu says... the one they'd hand you if you sat down. https://nltimes.nl/2022/05/29/meal-deliverers-misleading-clients-hidden-service-costs-unrealistic-offer https://nltimes.nl/2022/05/29/meal-deliverers-misleading-cli... - There's no way to make the current delivery app model work. The app needs to be small in scope and/or localized otherwise it seems without exception, "growth at all costs" leads to heavily subsidizing food and labor, then increasing costs drastically and decreasing pay once you have people hooked on the system.
  - listenallyall 4y ago
    > Uber Eats was asking for 300% what they claim delivery costs And most restaurants charge 300% of what the food costs.
    - BoorishBears 4y ago
      You have no idea how restaurants work if you actually think this. They get giddy if their margins are like 5%... or the equivalent of charging you 105% of what it cost them.
      - listenallyall 4y ago
        There is a difference between gross margins on the food items in isolation vs the overall restaurant's profit margin. The point I was making to the OP, seemingly lost on you, is that there are plenty of costs that Uber (or a restaurant) must bear, such that earning a large gross margin on a specific item or service doesn't guarantee an overall profit.
        BoorishBears 4y ago
        The only thing I see lost is you. The complaint isn't that Uber is bearing costs, it's that they bare costs in the neighborhood of 3x what the delivery costs! For a restaurant food needs to compete with paying for actual humans to cook it, paying rent, etc. all things reasonably expensive and costs huge money to scale. For Uber owning a human's time for the next X minutes should be by far the largest expense because the other side of it is software! If you understand how software works this shouldn't be hard to grasp... software scales for relatively nothing compared to human labor and rent! The only way to break that equation is to squander your cut on overaggressive expansion. Overaggressive of course being defined as the point where you spend so much money drowning people who aren't using in perks and advertising that you end up having to squeeze restaurants drivers and existing users harder and harder to keep the ponzi scheme going...
        4y ago