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Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

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Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#281

Post by whatarethembits »

doytch wrote: post #5

What's the "best" ordering app to use these days if I want to prioritize how well they treat restaurants? I've tried looking this up recently to no avail. I know at the end of the day, "call and pick-up directly" is going to be it but occasionally I just don't want to go pick it up.

None. Use the restaurant's own ordering system whenever possible. But I understand that often these systems tend to be not as good. My family recently started a small takeaway and currently we rely entirely on JustEat/Deliveroo for orders. They take a killer commission per order and you always have to have an offer running on top to compete with incumbents who are favoured in terms of listing order. In the end you end up getting barely 50% of your list price. They can barely make ends meet. Luckily they have me (software developer) as someone who can create an online experience that rivals these big companies but competing with billion dollar companies on marketing is always gonna be a losing battle.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#282

Post by sumtechguy »

Chris2048 wrote: post #262
sumtechguy wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a wasted opportunity. Drop a note into the bag with the food. 'hey cut out the middleman call us directly the prices are better!'

Don't bother with food, just put rocks in there.

1 star review 'they put rocks in my food'

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#283

Post by gangstead »

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?

They'd rather just run the last delivery step and suck up all the profits. Let the sucker restaurant owners assume all the cost of setting up operation and crafting a menu only to run it on no margins.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#285

Post by jjk166 »

freeone3000 wrote: post #260
jjk166 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fairly unreasonable assumption. Odds are the only thing a human at corporate will ever see is "Driver John Doe could not complete delivery, customer complained" Unless purely by chance the same person just so happens to see the same issue with the same restaurant a few times, it's very unlikely that they'ed notice a trend, nonetheless correctly deduce its cause. The person in charge of making sure deliveries…

I'm going to start showing up at your house and ringing the doorbell once a day until you follow my opt-out procedure.

If you hire a different kid everyday to ring my doorbell and don't tell them you've been pestering me for weeks, I'm not going to take it out on the kid.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#286

Post by codysan »

Spivak wrote: post #261
codysan wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean it's not fraud to blame your suppliers for problems that are the supplier's fault. It doesn't magically mean you're representing them. My local grocery store was out of tempeh because the factory they buy it from shut down due to a COVID scare. It doesn't mean that I suddenly think my grocery store is speaking as the supplier.

It certainly feels like fraud if that so-called supplier never agreed to be a vendor in the first place. If the line to check out at the grocery store was 2 hours long, you wouldn't blame the company who packaged the tempeh. If a mobile food order takes 2 hours because it requires someone to act as a proxy for the customer, then the blame should fall on the middleman service.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#287

Post by Spivak »

codysan wrote: post #286
Spivak wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it's not fraud to blame your suppliers for problems that are the supplier's fault. It doesn't magically mean you're representing them. My local grocery store was out of tempeh because the factory they buy it from shut down due to a COVID scare. It doesn't mean that I suddenly think my grocery store is speaking as the supplier.

It certainly feels like fraud if that so-called supplier never agreed to be a vendor in the first place. If the line to check out at the grocery store was 2 hours long, you wouldn't blame the company who packaged the tempeh. If a mobile food order takes 2 hours because it requires someone to act as a proxy for the customer, then the blame should fall on the middleman service.

So I don’t really get the issue then. If my business is making custom computers and I buy parts from Microcenter then they’re my supplier whether there’s a business agreement or not. And telling my client that a part they asked for is sold out and so there will be a delay isn’t fraud.

It’s not at all my issue if my client is frustrated at Microcenter because of the delay and it’s not my job to protect their reputation so long as I’m truthful.

If my order is delayed because the driver is stuck at the restaurant waiting for my order because the restaurant hadn’t stated yet then that’s on them. Had I driven there myself I would be just as annoyed.

If my order is delayed because they can’t find a driver or there’s a problem with the ordering then that’s on the delivery company.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#288

Post by codysan »

Spivak wrote: post #287
codysan wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly feels like fraud if that so-called supplier never agreed to be a vendor in the first place. If the line to check out at the grocery store was 2 hours long, you wouldn't blame the company who packaged the tempeh. If a mobile food order takes 2 hours because it requires someone to act as a proxy for the customer, then the blame should fall on the middleman service.

So I don’t really get the issue then. If my business is making custom computers and I buy parts from Microcenter then they’re my supplier whether there’s a business agreement or not. And telling my client that a part they asked for is sold out and so there will be a delay isn’t fraud. It’s not at all my issue if my client is frustrated at Microcenter because of the delay and it’s not my job to protect their reputatio…

Apologies for the 2 day late reply, I forget to check my comments on HN far too often.

The issue isn't when a restaurant drags their feet with an order, it's when they don't know the order even exists until the courier shows up. So not only do you have to play a game of telephone with your delivery driver placing your order, but that order is only paid for & made once that driver get there.

None of this is clear from the apps I've used. There's no indication whether you're ordering from a restaurant that has a backend receiving orders in realtime or if it's a "place and pay" order. Customers will reasonably think the restaurant is to blame, when it could've very well been the fault of the driver.

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