Posted by vrganj 1 day ago
I've used one of these delivery services directly only once since they've all existed. They have been pretty blatant scum since the rip.
It was never determined to be fraud. Keep in mind that what they were accused of was never actually tested in courts.
Also keep in mind that this practice is explicitly enshrined in the laws of many states for restaurant workers. If the worker got a tip, the restaurant owner was allowed to pay below minimum wage for that hour to that worker (as long as wage + tip met the federal minimum wage).
Which is why I was asking. If you're in one of those (many) states, chances are high that most restaurants are doing what people find so despicable of Doordash. So yes, it is "at scale".
Are we supposed to just say "welp, that's ok Walmart, keep doing it, because we can't stop every other mom and pop store in the nation from potentially doing this."
It's an absurd position to take.
No, you're supposed to say "Let's stop everyone from doing this" and stop making it legal for mom and pop stores from doing it.
And this has strayed from my original comment. I'm not asking about legality. The person I responded to found it so terrible he refused to use them. I'm merely suggesting they keep the same moral high ground when they go to eat at a restaurant.
In this instance, for constructed example, one might present a straightforward claim that we should not direct moral outrage towards DoorDash for those behaviors they voluntarily paid money an apology for. I’m certain that’s not the correct phrasing of the argument intended, but since that claim hasn’t been made yet to us, of course my constructed example is wrong! That’s why it’s so essential to present one’s views as sentences, rather than through leading questions.
Above, no claim is presented for why discussing local restaurant behaviors has any bearing on how we interpret, moralize, and respond to the behavior of the faceless megacorp DoorDash. Without that connection having been drawn, this is a functionally irrelevant tangent into businesses not comparable to DoorDash in either scale or function.
Nothing related to any of my comments was meant to excuse DoorDash. What gave people that idea? It was meant for people to question their views on tipping to begin with.
And these people are always so smug about it, like they're Columbo at the end of an episode doing the big reveal of your moral hypocrisy or whatever.
(One benefit of being nameblind at HN’s community size is that it’s easy for me to treat everyone the same, because I lack any recognition for whether I’ve spoken with someone previously or not. I acknowledge it’s not that easy for other people, but certainly it has the upside of forcing this ‘method, not person’ approach I describe into every interaction I have here :)
Additionally, when I make comments like the above, I don't think the person I'm responding to is actually persuadable. It's not some sort of good faith socratic debate.
Tipping is problematic no matter how you look at it. Rather than getting outraged, how about focusing on discontinuing this pointless practice? I've yet to find a single pro-tipping person who is consistent in their views on tipping. They'll happily support one tipping practice in one scenario, and be against the exact same practice in a different sphere.
BTW, what Doordash was accused of was not tip sharing, but using it to pay less than minimum wage. Which is standard practice for restaurants in the majority of states. That's why I was asking.
If the entire economic model hinges on the majority of people tipping variable amounts then the model seems broken. Charge proportionately more and don’t rely tips, everyone will have a better experience.
Regardless, every tip is a savings to the business owner.
DoorDash was following this exact same fine print.
which means the company sees both the delivery worker and the person who ordered as suckers. no wonder ride-share companies jumped onto food-delivery.
I’ve never used DoorDash (and am pretty unlikely to), but if I did, I would look at as paying someone for a service they provided rather than simply “paying more for the item” (and expecting someone to wait on me personally for free?).
I'd rather the price of goods be fixed, and they tell me what the delivery fee is.
And have a small delivery fee.
And have a small “city wants DoorDash to pay its workers fairly, so it’ll charge you an arbitrary amount extra” fee
And a bag fee.
And sales tax.
And a tip
Oh and don’t forget the service fee.
I’m not kidding, this is from a recent receipt. There are 6 fees PLUS the cost of the actual food.
Other delivery platforms are similar
Now, the part where they use tips to offset driver pay is evil and people should be in prison for it.
I'm not sure why DoorDash should be responsible for disclosing that; DoorDash may not even know what the regular in-person menu prices are in the first place.
The solution to this is to stop allowing delivery services to take a cut of the restaurant's revenue. Instead they should be required to raise their delivery/service fees charged to the customer. Of course, this will likely result in fewer customers, so they don't want to do that, but it's the only honest thing to do.
I get that the delivery services do provide value to the restaurants in many cases, but ultimately the customer pays for it either way, so that cost should be made explicit to the customer.
If it's worth it to me at the price offered, I'll buy it. If it's not, I won't.
For a DoorDash delivery driver, the problem is transparency. Consider a $7 delivery with a customer tip of $5, and the difference between being told:
"This delivery offers you $7", or
"This delivery offers you $7, the customer has added a $5 tip; we have reduced the delivery offer to $2, so the total you receive is still $7."
In both cases the customer behavior and end result for the driver is the same, but in the first case DoorDash doesn't even mention the tip, and quietly pockets it. Another example, with a driver tip of $10 instead:
"This delivery offers you $7, and the customer added a tip of $3", or
"This delivery offers you $7, the customer has added a $10 tip; we have reduced the delivery offer to $0, so the total you receive is $10."
The 2nd statement in both cases is the honest one, but of course that would make drivers feel cheated, so DD says the 1st thing, and completely hides that they offset "wages" with tips.
Regardless, I personally think this practice (for regular hourly employees or delivery drivers) is garbage; in my state, the tipped minimum wage is set to the same value as the non-tipped minimum wage, so employers don't get to pull that crap.
So like $1 per driver?
Also it's not like the tips they earn correlate with service drivers can provide. At most you can be a bit faster, but generally bound to traffic? (I haven't used them tbh).
Does the theft of $16mm become worse if DoorDash was half the size?
If I steal $16mm I’d go to jail but it’s no big deal because a corporation did it? The apologia for this is baffling to me.
Not sure why you seem to think that the company only matters here, and the workers are irrelevant.
(And no, it's not $1 per driver, way to argue in bad faith.)
Or they're built on the idea that they can sell convenience to people and make a lot of money doing so.
It's not so different from a lot of other businesses. First class and main cabin in a flight gets you the same airplane, the same destination the same travel, but slightly different chairs and some food. Is anyone paying for first class suckers? What about if I buy a skip the line pass at a theme park? Am I a sucker because I paid more than the base admission price? Or is it a trade that I'm willing to make because I have excess income and want to actually ride the rides instead of standing in line all day in the heat?
Why do executives have executive assistants? Are businesses all suckers?
I know I'm getting ripped off by doordash, but I'm hungry and I'm busy and the harm of getting ripped off just a bit is way lesser than the time it'd take me to get or prepare food myself. That $10 hamburger that I just paid $25 for is outrageous, but the 30 minutes I saved is worth the $15. If you make mid-six figure income like most of big tech, that's a small small price to pay for time.
It's quite different and that's the point.
The issues beyond 'apparent value creation are':
1) asymmetries in power between different actors that induces some to make ill advised actions - passing off hidden costs and especially risks
2) externalisations - aka damaging the environment, labour regs (which exist due to 1)
3) misrepresntations in value to end customer - dark patterns, hidden fees, risks not apparent in the transaction.
Entire industries would not work if we had to properly account for a lot of things.
"I know I'm getting ripped off by doordash, but I'm hungry and I'm busy and the harm of getting ri" <- it's not just the 'price' that is high and you're 'willing to pay' - that's fine.
That's definitely not 'rip off' because you're not coerced in any way for that - that's just 'high prices.
The $10 bottle of water at an event <- that is a 'rip off'.
It's all the other things in the system that make it problematic.
Last mile delivery by poor people almost should not exist as a business because it depends on externalizing too many things.
If they provided healthcare, vacation, job security, didn't force people to run around, all that stuff that removes the 'power and information asymmetry' - and then - it still works as a business, fine but it generally wont.
Some businesses are structurally unsound, and people invest in them to take advantage of broken systems (social, regulatory) at the margins. Gambling, day trading. A lot of zero-sum stuff.
Now 'Robot Delivery' - that's an entirely different prospect.
That's an attempt at real value creation. If we got our act together, everything could be delivered by little robots - today - already in 2026. It would reuire a lot of coordination.
I really dislike the unreliable delivery times. 99% of the time I just use the apps, or more likely the restaurant's site, to place the order and pick it up myself.
I have the time to do this though, so maybe it's more valuable to busier people, like parents.
fast-rise sugar infested bun, non-organic antibiotic infested horrendous animal welfare beef, etc. - the BOM is well under $5, i'd think $3 at best. So, you pay $25 for sub-$5 bill of low quality materials (not good to your health with thus additional expenses down the road). Who is the sucker?
Also use exploitation of regulation (e.g. leveraging contractors via 1099s to access cheap labor and indemnification from liability) to your advantage .
this was the model of like 2/3 of the 'startups' in the 2010s.
Edit: Spelling. “right” to “sick”.
Well, if you value an hour of your sleep or entertainment less than $15 dollars (if, for instance, you like to cook), then sure, spend it on cooking instead. Many of people would rather not, and their revealed preferences show it pretty clearly.
You might say "going home from the office 30 minutes earlier is absolutely worth $15" to me, but that has little to do with what your effective hourly wage is.
If you can't pay the wage you're required to then the whole house of cards starts coming down because now you can't create a large enough network to meet demand, which shrinks demand, which increases costs, which makes it accessible to fewer and fewer high paid consumers.
Like a lot of capitalism "it's better than starving to death in the streets" is the appeal of the job and nothing more. Anything else is a paid message brought to you by UberDoorHub.
Not sure where you're getting your numbers, but when I use these services, the price comes out to something like 20%-30% more than the in-restaurant cost (yes, including the common practice of restaurants increasing menu prices on delivery sites to offset the delivery company's cut of their revenue).
Sure, it's often not cheap, but when I use these services it's because I do not want to go and do the pickup myself. I'm paying for that convenience, and I'm fine with it. If you're not, that's fine; no one is forcing you to use delivery services.
In any cases where they are actually violating labor laws or being deceptive with their pricing or practices, yes, they should absolutely be punished and stop doing that. But that doesn't change the fact that they provide a service -- delivering food to your door -- and businesses generally charge you when they provide a service. You can argue that the charge on offer is too high for you, but that's a personal decision for everyone to make.
And even if it does cost $15 to deliver a $10 burger in some scenarios, there are times when I am happy to do that to save myself 30-45 minutes of driving somewhere, finding parking, waiting, and driving home. My time has value to me, and sometimes I'd rather spend it sitting on my ass at home than driving around town. Lazy? Maybe. But it's my choice.
You're definitely a sucker too, probably multiple times over.
I'm not paying for the food. I'm paying for them to bring me the food. Those are two different products.
I think the delivery charge is totally worth it, especially if you order multiple meals and make any amount of money at your job. You're just paying for convenience and I'm not convinced you're getting ripped off at all. Having some dude drive around town with your burger is expensive. If anything if the allegation is he is underpaid, it should be even more expensive.
I can pay a bit extra for food and $10 in tips and fees to have it delivered to me instead of spending half an hour driving to go get it myself. I know what I’m paying for and value the service they provide.
And that in turn gives doordash, uber eats and whatnot access to a lot of data - who orders what and lives where or which restaurant is doing good and which is struggling - that can be sold to third parties. Governments (ICE and other agencies have been caught to just buy data from aggregators), advertisers, credit reporting agencies, political parties, you name it.
Sure. As a customer the value that doordash et al provide is hard to understate. A single point of contact, a single set of credentials, a unified UI compared to what used to be a ton of never-updated garbage wordpress installs, reliable tracking... but as a whole, we all lose.
You should run that experiment. Get two identical meals, one via delivery the other at the restaurant. Pay close attention to menu prices.
First they exploit their own gig workers, to make an unsustainably cheap product and corner users. Then they exploit users, to monopolize distribution and corner restaurants. Then they exploit restaurants, threatening to cut off distribution entirely if they don't get an increasingly large share of profits.
Strongly disagree with your entire narrative, one that it demonstrably disconnected from reality.
Nobody is forcing anyone --at all-- to use these services. Not one person. Not one company. Not a single law or mandate. If I want to use it and you don't, that's perfectly fine. If I, for whatever reason, want to pay a premium and you think it's stupid, that's fine too. Don't use it. I will. Simple as that.
What's the opposite of that? Obamacare. Mandated and forced on everyone. It's shit. It's three times the cost of the insurance we were all promised we could keep if we wanted to (and we could not, because Obamacare killed those plans). Etc.
See the difference there?
You know, tariffs and gas prices going up have the effect of raising taxes. When the things you buy and the gas you buy costs more, you have to pay more in real dollars in sales and gas tax on those items. The tariffs and the gas prices also have the effect of killing industries locally, which might be more impactful nationally than predatory insurance plans that basically only cover going to the doctor's office for checkups. If you have an objection to things being forced on people, do make sure you're thorough.
They stole through denying claims, denying coverage, and more. The reality is that if Obamacare didn’t exist, I would be uninsurable. Yes that might bring your price down. For a bit, until you also become uninsurable, then you’re also fucked.
Yes insurance can be very cheap if you only take on fit, healthy clientele who will never use your insurance. But yeah, for society that sucks so we stopped doing that.
In a sense, I agree with this assessment, and I think it should be corrected. We should allow people to have the older, less expensive plans with their lifetime caps and preexisting condition exclusion. We'd need to work out the details on whether or not we would allow someone choosing those plans from coming back to the ACA plans in the future, though. Maybe for the right price it could work out. Definitely adds complexity, however.
But your comparison is wrong, because you can...elect to not use the service. You could pay less for less coverage (so like, buying food without paying for a delivery fee because you don't need the convenience). Also, the individual mandate was killed (sucking funding out of the whole program), so you could opt out of the service entirely.
Nobody is forcing you to have insurance (at a federal level).
See the difference there?
Nope. It's a marketplace. Your above argument is perfectly applicable to it as well.
Adams was "indicted in September 2024 on federal charges including bribery and wire fraud, accused of accepting over $100,000" from Turkey. He's now an Albanian citizen, because "he loves travel."
I don't really agree that this judgement would have happened with anyone as mayor. That road is long and paved with gold distractions.
How did you arrive to this conclusion?
Better than about him like the rest of it, I suppose.
Didn't read - too expensive.
Guess never got a chance to learn empathy.
(⌐_⌐)ノ Empathy
(•ᴗ•)つ Apathy
1790224159 | DoorDash's $131.5M Settlement with the City of New York | https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/dcwp | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49826260 | 1 comment
But delivery sushi? Delivery pasta? Delivery tapas? Delivery burritos? Delivery Korean fried chicken? Delivery acai bowls? Delivery kebab?
DoorDash etc. gives us a variety of options that we mostly didn't really have before.
I do agree with you on the bullshit of turning employment into disposable contractors. But maybe we should change our laws to make that not possible, instead of condemning the idea that it's actually neat to be able to get nearly any kind of food from nearly any restaurant delivered to your door. We didn't used to have that.
One word: variety.
My local sushi place isn't going to have enough delivery orders to justify having delivery drivers on staff.
Heck, I remember years ago (Was it the late 90s?) when McDonald's tried to do delivery.
The problem of course is that a restaurant that refuses to work with deliveries then ends up getting significantly fewer orders than ones that do. It creates a bit of a racket. Restaurants feel forced to cooperate, or lose significant business.
As a customer, I get around a lot of the extra costs because my credit card gives me the Dash Pass for free as a little bonus, and Costco sells $100 DD gift cards for $80, so I'm effectively getting every deliver at 20% off.
But yes, their business practices suck, and that's our fault as a society for yet again allowing capitalism to run amok.
Now, everyone is offloading their deliveries to DoorDash. Wendy's first-party delivery is just a wrapper for DoorDash. Pizza Hut used DoorDash if they don't have enough drivers available. Even PetSmart or Petco uses DoorDash for delivery now.
Not saying it's right or good, but you could order from Pizza Hut and still get a gig worker if their driver called out stick today.
> In a public statement about the settlement, DoorDash said, “Simply put, we screwed up. Our mistakes meant some Dashers were underpaid or paid late. While these mistakes weren’t intentional, that doesn’t make them okay.” (DoorDash did not respond to a request for comment on its campaign contributions.)
This is villain shit.