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Agreed. Not only is tipping a scourge but it doesn't even try to hide what it is, you paying the worker for doing the minimum. In a lot of apps/websites you hav

Agreed. Not only is tipping a scourge but it doesn't even try to hide what it is, you paying the worker for doing the minimum. In a lot of apps/websites you have to enter a tip before any service is rendered and you have no option to change it later if the service is bad. For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. Tipping has spread further and further into our economy and into areas it never should have existed (I'd argue it shouldn't exist at all but it's moved well past "traditional" and reasonable places). Services have the audacity to charge you a membership fee and then essentially require tips on top of that (Looking at you Kroger Boost, I've got a blog article worth of issues with that service).

gruez 4y ago
>For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. Honestly this is great, for two reasons: 1. You're letting the market figure out the right price for delivery service at any given moment, which reduces deadweight loss. For instance, if you're price sensitive you can order during off-peak times to get a discount. On the other hand, if it's peak hours and you need food urgently (impatient kids?), you can be assured that your order arrives ASAP rather than 1 hour later. 2. It strengthens the case for DSPs treating their delivery workers as contractors, because the price isn't set by the DSP. edit: To be clear, I'm for having prices for delivery services be set by the market (ie. people who want food delivered can put in bids and delivery drivers can put in asks). I'm not for the current state of affairs where your order is "accepted" but you have to put in some indeterminate amount of tips to get it actually serviced.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  That sounds like hell. Also as a consumer I have absolutely zero information on how busy drivers are, if my tip needs to be > $X to get picked up faster, if more drivers will login if I tip $X or greater, nor do I have a way to increase my tip if drivers aren’t “biting”. IF I had that information/ability I’d concede to part of your point but I don’t and even if I did I hate that idea with a fiery passion. If that’s the world we are going to live in then why am I paying a membership fee AND service fees? I’d say you don’t get to eat your cake and have it too but that’s absolutely what these companies are doing.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >Also as a consumer I have absolutely zero information on how busy drivers are, if my tip needs to be > $X to get picked up faster, if more drivers will login if I tip $X or greater, nor do I have a way to increase my tip if drivers aren’t “biting”. Why do you expect that the app won't have such information displayed? The UX isn't hard. It seems pretty trivial to show a bid/ask chart of delivery prices, along with stats like how many drivers are online and how many orders are coming in. You could even use those pieces of information to come up with an estimate for how much you have to bid to get a driver within n minutes. edit: I re-read my original comment and realized that it was worded in such a way that implied that I supported the state of affairs that the gp described. To be clear, I'm only advocating for letting the price be determined dynamically. >If that’s the world we are going to live in then why am I paying a membership fee AND service fees? I don't see how this is relevant to my proposal. It's already the case today that you can get charged a membership fee (eg. uber one) and get charged delivery/service fees.
    - lazyasciiart 4y ago
      > Why do you expect that the app won't have such information displayed? I've used them. They don't. You seem to be conflating a description of how things are today with how things could be run instead.
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      It isn’t obvious that you were making a proposal, it looked more like you were describing the current situation. As an idea… it might be neat to try at least. But I think you’d have to build the whole service around delivery bidding, there must be abuses in this sort of market, right? As a customer, make 10 accounts and “take” every bid higher than yours, that sort of thing.
      - gruez 4y ago
        > It isn’t obvious that you were making a proposal, it looked more like you were describing the current situation. I realized that after reading some of the replies. I made various edits accordingly. >As an idea… it might be neat to try at least. But I think you’d have to build the whole service around delivery bidding, there must be abuses in this sort of market, right? As a customer, make 10 accounts and “take” every bid higher than yours, that sort of thing. This is probably a non-issue. My impression is that it takes a non-trivial amount of work to get a driver account on such platforms. At the very least you need to give some sort of driver license scan and/or background/SSN check. That alone makes it fairly hard to set up fake accounts to take out competing bids, just so you can save $5 or whatever on your delivery.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jackmott 4y ago
  [dead]
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  I want food. I don’t want to find the intercept between curves. I don’t want to see how busy or not your workers are. I just want my food. If I don’t get my food, I’m blaming you. I stopped using Seamless and, after GrubHub bought them, Caviar, because of this B.S.
  - gruez 4y ago
    You realize that absent this, you still have the issue of not getting your food? If there are more people wanting deliveries than there are drivers, you'll still be left waiting. This merely gives you more options (eg. "delivery within 10 minutes for $15, delivery within 60 minutes for $5), compared to the alternative of the platform trying to make a one-size-fits-all price for everyone (eg. some sort of surge pricing system).
    - BigRedDog1669 4y ago
      I interpreted them to mean that if they are going to use the app instead of cooking or eating out, they just want to pay to get food. If there is uncertainty about whether the food is coming or not, there is no reason to use the service.
      - gruez 4y ago
        > If there is uncertainty about whether the food is coming or not, there is no reason to use the service. And what I'm saying is that there's already uncertainty. The current interface of DSPs showing that it'll arrive within 30 minutes or whatever, is a leaky abstraction of how the underlying system (ie. restaurants and delivery drivers) work. Just as how DSPs likely have some sort of system to estimate delivery times based on current supply and demand, they can build a system that also factors in price, and give consumers various price options and their associated estimates.
  - yellow_postit 4y ago
    This seems to echo and reinforce a point in the article. The apps aren’t replacing the delivery person they’re replacing the logistics management with you the consumer and letting you be mad at yourself, the driver, the restaurant, and the app in some set of proportions when net the balance of ire should fall on the app for the state of affairs.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > You're letting the market figure out the right price for delivery service at any given moment No, you aren’t, because there is no clear signal to the buyer about acceptable price (except, the outright fraudulent, if one accepts that the tip is actually part of the delivery charge, membership + delivery free charged by the intermediary). > It strengthens the case for DSPs treating their delivery workers as contractors, because the price isn't set by the DSP. Unless you are a shareholder of the DSP, this isn’t a benefit.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >No, you aren’t, because there is no clear signal to the buyer about acceptable price (except, the outright fraudulent, if one accepts that the tip is actually part of the delivery charge, membership + delivery free charged by the intermediary). See my edits. >Unless you are a shareholder of the DSP, this isn’t a benefit. The existence of gig jobs is a benefit for people who can't work regular hours, and therefore can't get jobs as "employees" (delivery or otherwise).
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > The existence of gig jobs is a benefit for people who can't work regular hours, and therefore can't get jobs as "employees" Employees with irregular hours are a thing, and were even moreso before the trend of forcing them into more precarious designated-as-contractor-roles (often contrary to labor law) became popular with the “gig economy”.
      - gruez 4y ago
        >Employees with irregular hours are a thing, and were even moreso before the trend of forcing them into more precarious designated-as-contractor-roles (often contrary to labor law) became popular with the “gig economy”. Note that I never made any claims about whether it's actually better for every employee, or even the average employee. I was only responding to your claim that "Unless you are a shareholder of the DSP, this isn’t a benefit". Moreover, I'm skeptical your claim that people are being "forced" from being employees to being contractors. At least when it comes to restaurants, the DSPs were basically servicing restaurants that didn't do deliveries before. Therefore it's highly unlikely that anyone who was previously a delivery employee was forced to switch to being contractors, because those jobs didn't even exist before.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. On the other hand, I was recently doing searches for "food near me" and the UberEats / DoorDash delivery fees were under $1. I'm not really pleased that useful search results about what is where have been replaced by useless ads for UberEats, but there's no argument to be made that you're getting charged twice when you're asked to tip. As far as the pricing goes, delivery appears to be priced at "pay what you want".
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Where are you based? Here in SV I've never seen delivery fees like that. They always tack on at least $5 in mandatory fees, to say nothing of their inflated pricing (versus ordering direct from the restaurant).
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    This would have happened somewhere between Vacaville and Davis, inclusive. I'm reporting the itemized delivery fee advertised by the services. I did no investigation at all, because I wasn't looking for delivery.
    - gnicholas 4y ago
      Ah, I was including all of the delivery-related fees, which seem to be spread across three or four separate charges. The "delivery fee" is often waived, since they make plenty of money on their other delivery-related fees. In my experience, anything less than a 50% off coupon for DD or UE is not worth it. Their markup and delivery fees really add up.
- QIYGT 4y ago
  > UberEats / DoorDash delivery fees were under $1 They have a low fixed "delivery fee" that they advertise heavily and then add a 15% "service fee" for the customer and also charge the restaurant a percentage.
grogenaut 4y ago
If my order doesn't get delivered, uber eats or door dash eat the cost... or I get refunded and their metrics go down. Feels like punishing them for their bad economics.

gruez 4y ago

>For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. Honestly this is great, for two reasons: 1. You're letting the market figure out the right price for delivery service at any given moment, which reduces deadweight loss. For instance, if you're price sensitive you can order during off-peak times to get a discount. On the other hand, if it's peak hours and you need food urgently (impatient kids?), you can be assured that your order arrives ASAP rather than 1 hour later. 2. It strengthens the case for DSPs treating their delivery workers as contractors, because the price isn't set by the DSP. edit: To be clear, I'm for having prices for delivery services be set by the market (ie. people who want food delivered can put in bids and delivery drivers can put in asks). I'm not for the current state of affairs where your order is "accepted" but you have to put in some indeterminate amount of tips to get it actually serviced.

joshstrange 4y ago
That sounds like hell. Also as a consumer I have absolutely zero information on how busy drivers are, if my tip needs to be > $X to get picked up faster, if more drivers will login if I tip $X or greater, nor do I have a way to increase my tip if drivers aren’t “biting”. IF I had that information/ability I’d concede to part of your point but I don’t and even if I did I hate that idea with a fiery passion. If that’s the world we are going to live in then why am I paying a membership fee AND service fees? I’d say you don’t get to eat your cake and have it too but that’s absolutely what these companies are doing.
- gruez 4y ago
  >Also as a consumer I have absolutely zero information on how busy drivers are, if my tip needs to be > $X to get picked up faster, if more drivers will login if I tip $X or greater, nor do I have a way to increase my tip if drivers aren’t “biting”. Why do you expect that the app won't have such information displayed? The UX isn't hard. It seems pretty trivial to show a bid/ask chart of delivery prices, along with stats like how many drivers are online and how many orders are coming in. You could even use those pieces of information to come up with an estimate for how much you have to bid to get a driver within n minutes. edit: I re-read my original comment and realized that it was worded in such a way that implied that I supported the state of affairs that the gp described. To be clear, I'm only advocating for letting the price be determined dynamically. >If that’s the world we are going to live in then why am I paying a membership fee AND service fees? I don't see how this is relevant to my proposal. It's already the case today that you can get charged a membership fee (eg. uber one) and get charged delivery/service fees.
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    > Why do you expect that the app won't have such information displayed? I've used them. They don't. You seem to be conflating a description of how things are today with how things could be run instead.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    It isn’t obvious that you were making a proposal, it looked more like you were describing the current situation. As an idea… it might be neat to try at least. But I think you’d have to build the whole service around delivery bidding, there must be abuses in this sort of market, right? As a customer, make 10 accounts and “take” every bid higher than yours, that sort of thing.
    - gruez 4y ago
      > It isn’t obvious that you were making a proposal, it looked more like you were describing the current situation. I realized that after reading some of the replies. I made various edits accordingly. >As an idea… it might be neat to try at least. But I think you’d have to build the whole service around delivery bidding, there must be abuses in this sort of market, right? As a customer, make 10 accounts and “take” every bid higher than yours, that sort of thing. This is probably a non-issue. My impression is that it takes a non-trivial amount of work to get a driver account on such platforms. At the very least you need to give some sort of driver license scan and/or background/SSN check. That alone makes it fairly hard to set up fake accounts to take out competing bids, just so you can save $5 or whatever on your delivery.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jackmott 4y ago
[dead]
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
I want food. I don’t want to find the intercept between curves. I don’t want to see how busy or not your workers are. I just want my food. If I don’t get my food, I’m blaming you. I stopped using Seamless and, after GrubHub bought them, Caviar, because of this B.S.
- gruez 4y ago
  You realize that absent this, you still have the issue of not getting your food? If there are more people wanting deliveries than there are drivers, you'll still be left waiting. This merely gives you more options (eg. "delivery within 10 minutes for $15, delivery within 60 minutes for $5), compared to the alternative of the platform trying to make a one-size-fits-all price for everyone (eg. some sort of surge pricing system).
  - BigRedDog1669 4y ago
    I interpreted them to mean that if they are going to use the app instead of cooking or eating out, they just want to pay to get food. If there is uncertainty about whether the food is coming or not, there is no reason to use the service.
    - gruez 4y ago
      > If there is uncertainty about whether the food is coming or not, there is no reason to use the service. And what I'm saying is that there's already uncertainty. The current interface of DSPs showing that it'll arrive within 30 minutes or whatever, is a leaky abstraction of how the underlying system (ie. restaurants and delivery drivers) work. Just as how DSPs likely have some sort of system to estimate delivery times based on current supply and demand, they can build a system that also factors in price, and give consumers various price options and their associated estimates.
- yellow_postit 4y ago
  This seems to echo and reinforce a point in the article. The apps aren’t replacing the delivery person they’re replacing the logistics management with you the consumer and letting you be mad at yourself, the driver, the restaurant, and the app in some set of proportions when net the balance of ire should fall on the app for the state of affairs.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> You're letting the market figure out the right price for delivery service at any given moment No, you aren’t, because there is no clear signal to the buyer about acceptable price (except, the outright fraudulent, if one accepts that the tip is actually part of the delivery charge, membership + delivery free charged by the intermediary). > It strengthens the case for DSPs treating their delivery workers as contractors, because the price isn't set by the DSP. Unless you are a shareholder of the DSP, this isn’t a benefit.
- gruez 4y ago
  >No, you aren’t, because there is no clear signal to the buyer about acceptable price (except, the outright fraudulent, if one accepts that the tip is actually part of the delivery charge, membership + delivery free charged by the intermediary). See my edits. >Unless you are a shareholder of the DSP, this isn’t a benefit. The existence of gig jobs is a benefit for people who can't work regular hours, and therefore can't get jobs as "employees" (delivery or otherwise).
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > The existence of gig jobs is a benefit for people who can't work regular hours, and therefore can't get jobs as "employees" Employees with irregular hours are a thing, and were even moreso before the trend of forcing them into more precarious designated-as-contractor-roles (often contrary to labor law) became popular with the “gig economy”.
    - gruez 4y ago
      >Employees with irregular hours are a thing, and were even moreso before the trend of forcing them into more precarious designated-as-contractor-roles (often contrary to labor law) became popular with the “gig economy”. Note that I never made any claims about whether it's actually better for every employee, or even the average employee. I was only responding to your claim that "Unless you are a shareholder of the DSP, this isn’t a benefit". Moreover, I'm skeptical your claim that people are being "forced" from being employees to being contractors. At least when it comes to restaurants, the DSPs were basically servicing restaurants that didn't do deliveries before. Therefore it's highly unlikely that anyone who was previously a delivery employee was forced to switch to being contractors, because those jobs didn't even exist before.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. On the other hand, I was recently doing searches for "food near me" and the UberEats / DoorDash delivery fees were under $1. I'm not really pleased that useful search results about what is where have been replaced by useless ads for UberEats, but there's no argument to be made that you're getting charged twice when you're asked to tip. As far as the pricing goes, delivery appears to be priced at "pay what you want".

gnicholas 4y ago
Where are you based? Here in SV I've never seen delivery fees like that. They always tack on at least $5 in mandatory fees, to say nothing of their inflated pricing (versus ordering direct from the restaurant).
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  This would have happened somewhere between Vacaville and Davis, inclusive. I'm reporting the itemized delivery fee advertised by the services. I did no investigation at all, because I wasn't looking for delivery.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    Ah, I was including all of the delivery-related fees, which seem to be spread across three or four separate charges. The "delivery fee" is often waived, since they make plenty of money on their other delivery-related fees. In my experience, anything less than a 50% off coupon for DD or UE is not worth it. Their markup and delivery fees really add up.
QIYGT 4y ago
> UberEats / DoorDash delivery fees were under $1 They have a low fixed "delivery fee" that they advertise heavily and then add a 15% "service fee" for the customer and also charge the restaurant a percentage.

grogenaut 4y ago

If my order doesn't get delivered, uber eats or door dash eat the cost... or I get refunded and their metrics go down. Feels like punishing them for their bad economics.