Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants • Hacker News Board

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#351

Post by TylerE » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #123

maltelandwehr wrote: post #71

Next week there will be complaints that food delivery services are no longer catering to certain areas. Instead of accepting that it is just not profitable for them, journalists will label it as backslash or an act of punishment. Same thing happened in others states/cities that implemented similar rules. The winners are people living in central areas of the city with lots of restaurants. The losers are the poorer out…

I don't understand why people in central areas of the city order delivery. There are 10 amazing restaurants within easy walking distance of me, why order delivery when I can walk for 5 minutes instead?

Because my time is worth more to me than that. It's not so much the travel... it's the waiting once you get there for the food to actually be ready (or conversely, waiting at home first and risking it not being hot when you get there).

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#352

Post by reaperducer » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE wrote: post #349

If delivery costs the same as an average Uber ride, say, $10, it makes every order under $100 unprofitable. An average food order is way below that, I think. So the math doesn't add up.

If delivery costs the same as an average Uber ride, say, $10, it makes every order under $100 unprofitable.

What you pay as an Uber passenger is not even remotely close to what Uber pays its drivers. So a $10 cost for a food delivery may not be realistic.

How much an Uber trip costs Uber depends on a lot of factors, but I can tell you from experience that very often if a passenger paid $10 for a trip, the driver saw far less than $5 of it. That's why they're always angling for tips.

When I drove for Uber, a very common run was from the airport to a specific large convention hotel. The trip was maybe five miles. The passengers often complained about having to pay $25-$40 or more for the short trip. As a driver, I got maybe $3.50 out of it.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#353

Post by uedue828e » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

pwinnski wrote: post #299

uedue828e wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a single food delivery or ride hailing service in the world that is very very hard to avoid.

In the middle of a pandemic, that's simply not true. Otherwise, sure, you just go get the food yourself in your ca--oh wait, ride hailing. In a taxi? On a bike? Within walking distance? But yes, just go to the restaurant, unless there's a global pandemic that requires many people to not leave their homes.

Did take out or kitchens stop existing in your world? Do you really think grubhub or uber is even a rounding error in terms of how the majority of people get their food? There's being out of touch but your comment is a whole new level of reality disconnect. And your comment doesn't even make sense internally. You can't avoid ridesharing but you can't leave your house? LOL okay.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#354

Post by cromka » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

slugiscool99 wrote: post #267

obibring wrote: post #39

This is the right move - local restaurants are hurting and, sadly, the internet is a place where big corps with large budgets have leverage over passionate little guys working their butts off. For those who want to help, I built a chrome extension similar to Honey that shows a local restaurant's direct ordering website as you're about to order from that restaurant thru a third party service. If direct ordering isn't…

Fantastic idea! If a restaurant offers delivery themselves, it's a no brainer to order directly from them. Usually it's cheaper and faster than ordering through an app. Hope this gains traction.

I dont agree on the "faster" part. Uber or Doordash manage their own delivery people and they're vastly more efficient than the restaurants' own. If you look at Yelp or Seamlesss negative reviews, you'll notice that most of them complaint about delivery service. If there's one thing that the restaurants can benefit from when using Uber or Doordash is having their reviews on those platforms based solely on the quality of food itself.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#355

Post by mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

spacephysics wrote: post #8

albntomat0 wrote: post #2

Seems like a solid move, given the capture of the market by the food delivery apps, and their shady business practices (like the thread from a while ago where a delivery service was making fake websites for restaurants, without their knowledge or consent). Why have this expire post COVID though?

On paper it looks good, and given the players in the arena, there’s not much competition, especially since there’s a high bar of entry for new competition. Perhaps the idea behind not imposing such regulations is a free market argument, in which the most efficient price won’t be selected for, thereby not producing the optimal supply/demand. I would argue against this point that we would be assuming perfect competitio…

How is that in the US there are always monopolies everywhere? Where I live, there are at least 10 different car sharing apps, and there is an app that lets you see which app offers better rates for a given destination. I think it has something to do with regulatory culture.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#356

Post by mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #352

mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE wrote: post #349

If delivery costs the same as an average Uber ride, say, $10, it makes every order under $100 unprofitable. An average food order is way below that, I think. So the math doesn't add up.

If delivery costs the same as an average Uber ride, say, $10, it makes every order under $100 unprofitable. What you pay as an Uber passenger is not even remotely close to what Uber pays its drivers. So a $10 cost for a food delivery may not be realistic. How much an Uber trip costs Uber depends on a lot of factors, but I can tell you from experience that very often if a passenger paid $10 for a trip, the driver saw…

What's the big difference for a driver? It's still the same time, same gas and miles put on the car. True, the food won't throw up in his car, but he should get out of the car to pick up the order, often has to wait at the counter.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#357

Post by OkGoDoIt » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

austhrow743 wrote: post #221

colinmhayes wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people in central areas of the city order delivery. There are 10 amazing restaurants within easy walking distance of me, why order delivery when I can walk for 5 minutes instead?

5 minute walk then 20 minute wait then 5 minute walk back. When you're earning $50+ an hour, which many in cities are easily clearing, it starts to make a lot of sense to pay someone else to do your waiting for you.

This is maybe a reasonable argument for lunch on a workday, but doesn’t really apply for dinner or on weekends. There’s a counter argument to be made that for many people their productivity and creativity increases when interspersed with a bit of walking, change of environment, sunlight, etc. Anyway it’s largely a matter of preference. There’s are certainly occasions where it’s nice to relax and order door-to-door delivery regardless, although I’m never personally willing to pay the insane fees that apps like Uber Eats charge.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#358

Post by chrisseaton » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #348

jiofih wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of “proxy shipping” services that operate under this model. They don’t conceal the fact that they are a third party unaffiliated with the provider. In addition, most restaurants will not just accept takeout orders from a random person that shows up on a bike, it’s an organized partnership. I wonder how they even achieve that.

> most restaurants will not just accept takeout orders from a random person that shows up on a bike Why not?

I don't think most restaurants have a takeout service in the first place.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#359

Post by mattmcknight » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

ajphdiv wrote: post #342

waheoo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realise free shipping on ebay and amazon is.. anything but free right?

Maybe that's whats next -- online only restaurants. Food made in a warehouse.

Or in the vehicle that delivers it to you, like Zume Pizza.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#360

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #343

crazygringo wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's misleading to say that the pizza costs $20 when $6 of that is actually a hidden delivery fee. No it's not. While some delivery sites do list higher prices than in-restaurant (arguably misleading), that's not the norm. And as long as they don't, then if a pizza is $20, then if you're eating in-house $6 of that is going to dining space, tables and chairs, plates and utensils, dishwashing, etc. If it's delivery,…

Yet take-out is also the same price and doesn't require any of that overhead. Although you are saving on a "tip", which is yet another weird fee attributed to a third party rather than waitstaff just earning straightforward wages - cost-responsibility-dodging is rampant in this industry. What's probably driving this dispute over commissions is that restaurants still need to pay for that dining space during Covid, so…

I mean, shipping prices when shopping online also aren't the exact cost of shipping your package. "Free" shipping when you hit a minimum order is still being paid for in the price you pay per-item. Pretty much no prices magically reflect true costs anywhere. Delivery is no different. I don't know why you think delivery deserves to be super-transparently-related-to-costs when literally nothing else is in business except sales tax. (Pizzerias also make a tiny or no profit on cheese pizza but waaaay more on toppings, and cinemas make most of their profit from popcorn and sugar water, not your movie ticket. By your logic, all these are equally misleading.)

And your idea that competition results in "reasonable terms" is just wrong, I'm afraid. You're stating this as fact when it's not. There's tons of competition in airfares and in signing up for credit cards, but they're full of scummy terms. And restaurants objectively have lots of choices of delivery services to sign up with. In fact, there has never been a time in human history when they had more choices for delivery. Those are facts.