5 ms·

But why do you think they’re harming “local infrastructure”? The food delivery services didn’t hurt anything but their investors in the end. And they kept the r

But why do you think they’re harming “local infrastructure”? The food delivery services didn’t hurt anything but their investors in the end. And they kept the restaurant industry alive during the pandemic, the fallout would have been so much worse. I work in the industry and know several bar/restaurant owners who will tell you DoorDash and competitors are the only reason they made it through 2020-21. Early on they stopped prohibiting restaurants from upcharging, so restaurants all did. They ended up with some extra sales and profits. The customer got VC funded free delivery. Enough alternatives kept the market place efficient. DoorDash can’t get too abusive when UberEats and Instacart are competing, restaurants have no switching cost. The whole thing worked for basically everyone involved except maybe the investors (DoorDash has significantly underperformed the S&P since it debuted on the market.)

horsawlarway 9mo ago
This has not been my experience. From my side, as someone old enough to remember Domino's running the "there in thirty minutes or it's free" promotions... These delivery services absolutely tanked the quality of delivery. Now you can basically only get slow delivery of over priced, cold food. Sure, you can get it from far more places, but it's a pyrrhic victory if I've ever seen one. Used to be if a restaurant offered delivery, it was ok food for delivery, at ok prices, and their drivers had gear to keep it warm and presentable. Now we basically only do pick up because these universal delivery companies suck at the one fucking thing they're supposed to do. But they've run all the local restaurants out of the delivery game.
- heavenlyblue 9mo ago
  Yard Sale Pizza in London does it's own delivery and it's great where it's available. I hated that I had to use their website but delivery is always good and still warm.
BobbyTables2 9mo ago
DoorDash finds a way to consistently screw up orders. Order A,B,C - receive only A+B, or A,B,D. No explanation. Tipped generously. For a long time, I myself drove and picked up my orders. The same restaurants rarely made mistakes. I never had to ask for missing item to be included. They always had everything in the bag. It’s happened so often, it has to be malice from one of the parties involved.
- drnick1 9mo ago
  > Tipped generously. You shouldn't tip delivery drivers, it's literally their job.
  - gaudystead 9mo ago
    While I would love to agree with you, in America restaurants of all sizes (and personal transportation companies) seemingly often rely on tips from customers to supplement the wages of their workers instead of just paying them fairly.
    - vasco 9mo ago
      Yeah so you shouldn't help them do that if you disagree with the practice
      - wizzwizz4 9mo ago
        It's a collective action problem: it can't be solved by individuals like this. All you'll achieve is complicity in wage theft. A viable approach might be to prefer doing business with companies who promise their workers a good wage, but this requires that your local businesses actually make that commitment. To get that, you'll have to go outside the abstraction of the market, and actually talk to decisionmakers within the businesses. (This is sometimes called "activism".)
        vasco 9mo ago
        No, I disagree that other peoples ethical failures spread to you if you don't participate in the ethical failure. If you disagree on ethical grounds with something, just don't do it. To the extent that you could simply not frequent those places.
  - fuzzer371 9mo ago
    Have fun when no one wants to deliver food to you.
tjchear 9mo ago
My understanding is food delivery companies take a huge cut (like 30%) so restaurants are forced to raise their prices significantly or risk losing customers. Even with that cut, food delivery customers still have to pay a significant delivery/service fee.
hattmall 9mo ago
Yeah, as someone else pointed out, the gig-delivery services killed the delivery industry. Sure I can get food from a bunch of shitty fast food places now, but deliveries are way more expensive and take forever. The only place that still does good delivery around me is Jimmy Johns and Dominoes. I used to have 15-20 good quality delivery places that were fast with free delivery. And I'm as talking on the phone averse as anyone but calling a delivery place was just easier than using an app and they could give you updates on when they were out of something or whatever. Uber eats / Door Dash suck so much I have no desire to order delivery food at all other than the two that run their own delivery and I know it will be a consistent experience. Anything else I either pick it or go without. It was also shady how they paid for ads to supplant the phone numbers on Google so you were calling Door dash instead of the food place.
- kergonath 9mo ago
  > Uber eats / Door Dash suck so much I have no desire to order delivery food at all other than the two that run their own delivery and I know it will be a consistent experience. Same. It’s about the only reason why I order from Dominos occasionally. But last week it got delivered by Uber even though I ordered directly on their website. It also took 45 minutes to get delivered instead of the usual 10. So now the only Uber-free delivery I can get is a Japanese restaurant.
  - mattmaroon 9mo ago
    Dominos lets people order from Uber Eats but still handles delivery itself. Maybe they fall back to Uber drivers when they are short staffed. I don’t know of any restaurants that previously had delivery of their own and switched. I’m sure they exist but it’s vanishingly small, for the reasons outlined. So all DoorDash does is give you the consumer more options. If you don’t like it, you don’t use it and nobody is harmed. Only a small percent of restaurants delivered in the first place outside of the ones like pizza that still do.
    - potato3732842 9mo ago
      >I don’t know of any restaurants that previously had delivery of their own and switched. I’m sure they exist but it’s vanishingly small, for the reasons outlined. Used to be that just about every chinese food and pizza place would deliver. Now it's all gig app BS unless it's a massive order.

horsawlarway 9mo ago

This has not been my experience. From my side, as someone old enough to remember Domino's running the "there in thirty minutes or it's free" promotions... These delivery services absolutely tanked the quality of delivery. Now you can basically only get slow delivery of over priced, cold food. Sure, you can get it from far more places, but it's a pyrrhic victory if I've ever seen one. Used to be if a restaurant offered delivery, it was ok food for delivery, at ok prices, and their drivers had gear to keep it warm and presentable. Now we basically only do pick up because these universal delivery companies suck at the one fucking thing they're supposed to do. But they've run all the local restaurants out of the delivery game.

heavenlyblue 9mo ago
Yard Sale Pizza in London does it's own delivery and it's great where it's available. I hated that I had to use their website but delivery is always good and still warm.

BobbyTables2 9mo ago

DoorDash finds a way to consistently screw up orders. Order A,B,C - receive only A+B, or A,B,D. No explanation. Tipped generously. For a long time, I myself drove and picked up my orders. The same restaurants rarely made mistakes. I never had to ask for missing item to be included. They always had everything in the bag. It’s happened so often, it has to be malice from one of the parties involved.

drnick1 9mo ago
> Tipped generously. You shouldn't tip delivery drivers, it's literally their job.
- gaudystead 9mo ago
  While I would love to agree with you, in America restaurants of all sizes (and personal transportation companies) seemingly often rely on tips from customers to supplement the wages of their workers instead of just paying them fairly.
  - vasco 9mo ago
    Yeah so you shouldn't help them do that if you disagree with the practice
    - wizzwizz4 9mo ago
      It's a collective action problem: it can't be solved by individuals like this. All you'll achieve is complicity in wage theft. A viable approach might be to prefer doing business with companies who promise their workers a good wage, but this requires that your local businesses actually make that commitment. To get that, you'll have to go outside the abstraction of the market, and actually talk to decisionmakers within the businesses. (This is sometimes called "activism".)
      - vasco 9mo ago
        No, I disagree that other peoples ethical failures spread to you if you don't participate in the ethical failure. If you disagree on ethical grounds with something, just don't do it. To the extent that you could simply not frequent those places.
- fuzzer371 9mo ago
  Have fun when no one wants to deliver food to you.

tjchear 9mo ago

My understanding is food delivery companies take a huge cut (like 30%) so restaurants are forced to raise their prices significantly or risk losing customers. Even with that cut, food delivery customers still have to pay a significant delivery/service fee.

hattmall 9mo ago

Yeah, as someone else pointed out, the gig-delivery services killed the delivery industry. Sure I can get food from a bunch of shitty fast food places now, but deliveries are way more expensive and take forever. The only place that still does good delivery around me is Jimmy Johns and Dominoes. I used to have 15-20 good quality delivery places that were fast with free delivery. And I'm as talking on the phone averse as anyone but calling a delivery place was just easier than using an app and they could give you updates on when they were out of something or whatever. Uber eats / Door Dash suck so much I have no desire to order delivery food at all other than the two that run their own delivery and I know it will be a consistent experience. Anything else I either pick it or go without. It was also shady how they paid for ads to supplant the phone numbers on Google so you were calling Door dash instead of the food place.

kergonath 9mo ago
> Uber eats / Door Dash suck so much I have no desire to order delivery food at all other than the two that run their own delivery and I know it will be a consistent experience. Same. It’s about the only reason why I order from Dominos occasionally. But last week it got delivered by Uber even though I ordered directly on their website. It also took 45 minutes to get delivered instead of the usual 10. So now the only Uber-free delivery I can get is a Japanese restaurant.
- mattmaroon 9mo ago
  Dominos lets people order from Uber Eats but still handles delivery itself. Maybe they fall back to Uber drivers when they are short staffed. I don’t know of any restaurants that previously had delivery of their own and switched. I’m sure they exist but it’s vanishingly small, for the reasons outlined. So all DoorDash does is give you the consumer more options. If you don’t like it, you don’t use it and nobody is harmed. Only a small percent of restaurants delivered in the first place outside of the ones like pizza that still do.
  - potato3732842 9mo ago
    >I don’t know of any restaurants that previously had delivery of their own and switched. I’m sure they exist but it’s vanishingly small, for the reasons outlined. Used to be that just about every chinese food and pizza place would deliver. Now it's all gig app BS unless it's a massive order.