Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission • Hacker News Board

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#181

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

nogabebop23 wrote: post #160

shadowgovt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a first approximation, I can't really see why Place and Pay should be illegal. It's basically paying the neighbor kid to go pick up some dinner for you, writ large. It "competes" with any delivery service a restaurant runs, but if the restaurant offers takeout at all, it's hard for me to see why the market should care who is doing the taking out.

Hey, if it's just fast food why does the market even care who prepares it? How long till these food "delivery" services just capture all the addressable market masquerading as a bunch of uninformed, non-participating restaurants and make the food they deliver? Why are they leaving all this extra margin on the table?

Pizza is not fast food. And every pizza place makes their pies differently. They're not completely commodified, at least not for people ordering regularly.

As for actual fast food, while the process is optimized to the extent possible, that optimization usually involves the restaurants having their own supply chain of specific ingredients. Grubhub would have to gain access to the same ingredients to successfully impersonate chain restaurants.

What I can see them doing is just launching 100 different fast food brands selling the same food cooked in the same dark megakitchen, because why not, DDoSing consumer choice with fake brands is par for the course these days.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#182

Post by freewilly1040 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #101

jartelt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> But that may lead to unfairly low ratings for the restaurant. > If (say) 30% of the restaurant's patrons choose to get the food via food delivery, why shouldn't those folks' ratings of the food be factored into the restaurant's rating? If the restaurant has chosen to focus on dine in service because that generates the much of their revenue (alcohol sales, desserts, etc.), it would be a shame if their ratings were…

This seems like a problem that the review companies are responsible for—coalescing reviews into a single, no-context scalar—moreso than it is the intermediaries' fault. The original comment stands. If a substantial portion of people are ordering takeout from intermediaries, it's reasonable that when one of those customers checks the reviews, they contain relevant info from others who've ordered the same way and share…

GrubHub is a review company though. Part of their supposed value proposition is that they act as a marketing platform, and the restaurant reviews are a large part of this.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#183

Post by nobody9999 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

ciarannolan wrote: post #164

nobody9999 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How many mom and pop restaurants do you know of who have the extra financial capital to find a lawyer to sue over an issue like this against a company as well-funded as grubhub or doordash? It's much, much worse than that. many of those restaurants thrived for years on 5-10% profit margins. Grubhub comes along and charges them 12-30% "commissions" just for forwarding orders and processing credit cards. Forget about…

What's the mechanism that forces restaurants to partner with these food delivery services? Threat of competition if they don't?

>What's the mechanism that forces restaurants to partner with these food delivery services? Threat of competition if they don't?

The mechanism is the ubiquity of folks using "apps" instead of contacting restaurants directly.

It used to be in NYC that every time a restaurant made a delivery, they'd leave paper menus for the residents.

Now, you either go through an "app" (read: an inferior interface to a website) or a search engine to find restaurants.

Aside from the fact that a low/mid-priced restaurant likely doesn't have the tech expertise to set up an online ordering platform, or the financial resources to purchase a point-of-sale system that includes such functionality or to contract with a developer/hosting provider to do so, getting on these sites may seem to be the only way they can maintain their business.

And since GrubHub, et. al use SEO spam to get themselves at the top of search listings, have contracts that forbid restaurants from charging less if orders don't use them, and then take all the profit (and then some) from the bulk of transactions, the deck is stacked against such restaurants.

I suppose you could argue that if a restaurant can't compete in the market, it should fail. And most do. The average lifespan of a restaurant is just five years, and the vast majority fail within one year[0].

But those aren't the restaurants I'm talking about. I'm talking about neighborhood institutions that have been open for decades being forced to close because all their profit and then some is being taken by services like GrubHub that aren't even providing delivery services, just listing on their site (which runs from ~12-30% on every single order).

The insertion of the middle man here, taking up to a third of the revenue on every single order which provides just a listing service (they actually charge the customer for delivery service if the restaurant doesn't provide it -- not the norm here in NYC), has put many wonderful restaurants out of business.

This increases prices, reduces the diversity and choice of cuisine and quality, without providing any value, except in listings and credit card processing.

[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/restaurants/2018/08/09/...

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#184

Post by codysan » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #111

shadowgovt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a first approximation, I can't really see why Place and Pay should be illegal. It's basically paying the neighbor kid to go pick up some dinner for you, writ large. It "competes" with any delivery service a restaurant runs, but if the restaurant offers takeout at all, it's hard for me to see why the market should care who is doing the taking out.

The possibly fraudulent part is that the customers is led to believe they're dealing with the restaurant.

This is the crux of the issue, especially when these services are happy to pass the buck when the delivery falls short and blame the restaurant.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#185

Post by okprod » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

rossjudson wrote: post #75

okprod wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if there's a best one. I've been using online ordering since Foodler days, and they seem to all be getting worse. Grubhub almost always sticks to a $5 credit even if the problem with the other is much more than $5. I routinely place an order on Postmates thinking everything's fine, and then they cancel due to not having someone go pick it up. Why list the restaurant at all? Just last week, my Uber Eats o…

There is definitely somebody out to get you.

No, it's a pattern of incompetent restaurants combined with money-losing VC-funded companies like Uber who don't know how to run a business. But thanks for your helpful comment.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#186

Post by fbelzile » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

ghthrowaway99 wrote: post #165

doc_gunthrop wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The restaurant can opt out of this, but they never asked for the service in the first place so it's kinda shitty. That's what this article is about. If the driver places the order without making it clear to the restauranteur that they are the middleman company (UberEats, Doordash, etc.) then the opt-out clause is meaningless. You can't opt out of something you're never aware of.

While I agree, restaurants do tend to pick up on this over time because (more issues with Place & Pay) people will complain to the restaurant about food being cold/slow not realizing that the restaurant isn't even involved in the delivery. Sometimes the delivery people make it quite obvious (e.g. drivers are given GH branded credit cards to pay with)

> restaurants do tend to pick up on this [fraud] over time

Fixed that for you.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#187

Post by pwinnski » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #19

I hope there's a strong precedent set here. Companies like Grubhub list restaurants on their site/app, but put the wrong phone number on it- one that goes to their own people instead. That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. Makes me feel like I should setup a phone number and a website called something like "GrubhubHelp.com", and list a help number for assistance with GrubHub orders. Then when custome…

This is a tough issue in the abstract, because information wants to be free, right?

But there seems to clearly be something like fraud going on, and the involuntary nature of restaurants perceived to be participating is... weird.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#188

Post by an_opabinia » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

ghthrowaway99 wrote: post #174

icebraining wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it, how would the restaurant be losing money from this behaviour? Isn't Grubhub paying the regular takeout price, same as if you order it yourself?

At face value non-partnered restaurants dont lose money, they simply get more customers (essentially, getting some of the services that partnered restaurants get, but for free since partnered restaurants pay fees for each order that goes through the platform) However, in truth they pay damage in reputation. If the delivery company delivers food slow, or lets it get cold, then the customer will blame the restaurant. O…

People order every day from non Amazon, non Amazon Prime sellers on Amazon. My feeling is end users know what they’re getting into as long as they’re informed the restaurant is non partnered, and your bosses just need to take the 5m to come up with a brand.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#189

Post by jberryman » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:02 PM UTC

ghthrowaway99 wrote: post #82

mabbo wrote: post #19

I hope there's a strong precedent set here. Companies like Grubhub list restaurants on their site/app, but put the wrong phone number on it- one that goes to their own people instead. That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. Makes me feel like I should setup a phone number and a website called something like "GrubhubHelp.com", and list a help number for assistance with GrubHub orders. Then when custome…

[ Disclaimer: GH employee but speaking independently & not representing the company in this message ] You're mixing up controversies - there was a separate "feature" Grubhub did years ago where grubhub would stand up online presence for restaurants to bring in web search traffic (branded websites, search results on grubhub.com, etc) and list a grubhub phone number instead of the real phone number so that grubhub coul…

> The restaurant can opt out of this

I was at the bar of a local restaurant when some delivery driver (not sure if GH) came in to pick up an order. The (super busy) server said "we told you we don't want to participate in this...", clearly exasperated at this happening over and over. This is a restaurant that does a lot of catering, where they set the terms/fees.

The driver started trying to "explain" how it's just the same as if he were a real customer and how would she know, etc. It was just gross.

This was a couple years ago.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#190

Post by ska » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #181

nogabebop23 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, if it's just fast food why does the market even care who prepares it? How long till these food "delivery" services just capture all the addressable market masquerading as a bunch of uninformed, non-participating restaurants and make the food they deliver? Why are they leaving all this extra margin on the table?

Pizza is not fast food. And every pizza place makes their pies differently. They're not completely commodified, at least not for people ordering regularly. As for actual fast food, while the process is optimized to the extent possible, that optimization usually involves the restaurants having their own supply chain of specific ingredients. Grubhub would have to gain access to the same ingredients to successfully impe…

> Pizza is not fast food.

Some pizza is not fast food.