Live data from Hacker News

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

oregonlive.com

381–390 of 580 posts

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

#381
post #93

I disagree with this move. Why should we force a cap rather than let market competition improve prices? I believe it's better to fix shady practices. If I pay 25% to Uber, I want to know I paid 25% to them and not the restaurant. Then I can decide if the time savings is worth that 25% or not.

When I take a flight, I don't demand to know how much the airline is paying the pilots and flight attendants. When I buy food from a restaurant, I don't demand to know how much the restaurant is paying the waiters and cashiers. I also don't know how much the restaurant paid for the food they cooked.

That's true of any company/workers/suppliers. People only know and care about how much they end up paying. As long as there's a minimum wage, people don't know, and usually don't care how much a company pays their workers/suppliers.

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

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

Don't you see? My time is too valuable to do anything vaguely unpleasant. The entire economy would suffer if I had to pick up my own food.

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

#383

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?

We're moving from an age of consumers going to the good/service and to the good/service going to the consumer. In particular younger generations see delivery as a norm. It's less about being lazy or having high expectations and more a case of it being baked into the culture of younger generations now. I work for a takewaway / food delivery company and it's facinating listening to what our customers are saying. I hear…

Sounds incredibly wasteful, no matter the economics involved.

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

#385
post #330
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 330,000,000 people in the USA. 1% of that is 3,300,000 people. Therefore, the Portland-Vancouver MSA (only 2.2 million people) does not exist for any nationwide consideration. Congratulations.

I fail to grasp what you are implying. Please explain.

You announced that below some percentage of the population, people don't matter and shouldn't be accommodated. By your logic, I showed that Portland doesn't matter.

I hope we can all agree that this is a very stupid conclusion, and therefore you should rethink your argument.

We accommodate disability because it is the right thing to do. We require businesses to spend extra money, lowering their profits, in order to put in ramps and openable doors, in the name of our common humanity. Not everything is done for a profit motive; not everything should be done for profit motives. In conclusion, Ayn Rand can spin in her grave but it would still be wrong to wrap her in wires and use her to generate electricity.

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

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The End game is to be the dominant food ordering platform in any given town where you get to dictate rates like 25%. You fight back by calling your order in and having them deliver it or pick it up yourself. I do this 99%* of the time as I refuse to pay a web server $8+ order+delivery fee for a meal that costs the same. It's absurd to think that people are so lazy that they cant pick up a phone or walk a few blocks…

I really hate this sort of argument... that people who use the newer, more convenient, technology are just lazy and should keep using the old way of doing things. Why stop at delivery apps? Why are lazy people driving cars instead of just riding horses? Why are you ordering things online instead of just going to the store? Why are you farming using that tractor instead of a horse drawn plow? Small conveniences add up…

That's fine, just pay a fair price for the service.

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

#387
post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When I order delivery from a restaurant, an employee (maybe the owner’s kid) comes and delivers the food directly to my house when it’s done. It‘s generally faster than the app model where you need to wait for the driver to go to the restaurant to pick up the food, then come to your house while possibly stopping at other restaurants and/or houses on the way.

I could see how the restaurant delivery would be worse if that particular restaurant is bad at delivering. Also, the app model does seem like it should be cheaper at scale by using the deliverer’s labor more efficiently.

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

#388

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 mean by this logic the food delivery services are also proven not to work based on the ridiculous fees for a commodity service.

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

#389
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.

Deliveroo already does something a little like that:

https://foodscene.deliveroo.co.uk/promotions/deliveroo-editi...

They take existing, established chefs or restaurants and clone the cuisine so that the food can be produced in a larger kitchen, potentially reaching a wider delivery area.

Post reply on HN