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DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

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Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#101

Post by JumpCrisscross »

digging wrote: post #100
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Customer behavior is driven by the tides of capital Source? The best argument against this is how elastic demand was when ZIRP ended. Customers responded to an underpriced product. When the price was raised to a profit-clearing level, it no longer cleared most of the market.

I don't understand your argument. It sounds like customers were reacting to their environment more than driving change.

> sounds like customers were reacting to their environment more than driving change

It sounds like customers had agency. Tides of capital gave them more or fewer options, and they chose them at their discretion when the terms were advantageous. When they weren't, ever or any longer, they didn't.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#102

Post by solarpunk »

RandallBrown wrote: post #68
madaxe_again wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because it’s a circular economy - at no point does that wealth reach workers, it just ends up in the hands of other plutocrats.

How exactly does the money that a company like DoorDash loses end up with other plutocrats? Isn't most of that money being paid to people working for those companies?

I think doordash drivers have to pay for things like gas and cars.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#103

Post by digging »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #101
digging wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your argument. It sounds like customers were reacting to their environment more than driving change.

> sounds like customers were reacting to their environment more than driving change It sounds like customers had agency. Tides of capital gave them more or fewer options, and they chose them at their discretion when the terms were advantageous. When they weren't, ever or any longer, they didn't.

...In other words, because DoorDash is convenient and advantageous for customers, they choose to get food delivered instead of go to the restaurant. And admonishing people for choosing the advantageous option is useless, at best. Does that not follow?

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#104

Post by josefresco »

colechristensen wrote: post #99
insane_dreamer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately it's driven by customer behavior. If people went to restaurants instead of expecting to be served hot food in their living room, this whole destructive business model wouldn't even exist or would be small enough as to not be negatively impactful. People are not forced to use DoorDash, UberEats, etc. We never do and are surviving just fine.

Food delivery has been a thing for a very very long time. The problem here is that there's a $45B company (doordash) in the middle of the person cooking the food and the person delivering the food instead of a high school kid in a funny hat. Exchanging the overhead of a dining room for the overhead of unskilled labor taking food to a place is an easy win for a restaurant. Doordash and the like are taking jobs that yo…

> Food delivery has been a thing for a very very long time. > The problem here is that there's a $45B company (doordash) in the middle of the person cooking the food and the person delivering the food instead of a high school kid in a funny hat > This is the kind of software that needs to be a small scale distributed

Related: a few years back before DoorDash and the like exploded in popularity there was a local company near me who tried to start a food delivery business. They lasted one summer (busy) season and then made a post on social media about how unsustainable it was. These services (Uber/DoorDash) are only seemingly viable because of the mountain of "investor cache".

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#105

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Alupis wrote: post #78
kortex wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This view of the world must be stamped out. It is a totally absurd viewpoint and I'm really tired of pretending it's not. This is very argumentative and shuts down the discourse before it even begins. It's not very in the spirit of HN.

> This is very argumentative and shuts down the discourse before it even begins. It's not very in the spirit of HN. There cannot be productive discourse where people advocate forcefully taking things from other people that worked hard to earn the things. The spirit of HN is entrepreneurship. It is literally run by a VC business - not for the goodness of their hearts or whatever, but to foster a community of thinkers…

> you'll have a ton of people wanting to tear you down just because you dared to be successful

The article describes DoorDash intentionally deceiving its customers to gain their money, and wilfully depriving the restaurant owner of control of their brand. That's fraud. It's perfectly fine and in the spirit of HN to debate how contributes to measures of success.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#106

Post by insane_dreamer »

digging wrote: post #86
insane_dreamer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately it's driven by customer behavior. If people went to restaurants instead of expecting to be served hot food in their living room, this whole destructive business model wouldn't even exist or would be small enough as to not be negatively impactful. People are not forced to use DoorDash, UberEats, etc. We never do and are surviving just fine.

> Ultimately it's driven by customer behavior. If people went to restaurants instead of expecting to be served hot food in their living room, this whole destructive business model wouldn't even exist or would be small enough as to not be negatively impactful. No, you've got that backward. Customer behavior is driven by the tides of capital. Advertising is a pretty clear example but it's not the limit. I mean, how man…

There is no doubt that advertising has a huge impact on customer behavior. But that doesn't mean that consumers are incapable of making choices that go against the grain of the market. It does take a conscious effort, and it's true that most consumers just don't care or can't be bothered with it, or are crushed by too many other things in our modern society to have the bandwidth to even consider their choices.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#107

Post by insane_dreamer »

colechristensen wrote: post #99
insane_dreamer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately it's driven by customer behavior. If people went to restaurants instead of expecting to be served hot food in their living room, this whole destructive business model wouldn't even exist or would be small enough as to not be negatively impactful. People are not forced to use DoorDash, UberEats, etc. We never do and are surviving just fine.

Food delivery has been a thing for a very very long time. The problem here is that there's a $45B company (doordash) in the middle of the person cooking the food and the person delivering the food instead of a high school kid in a funny hat. Exchanging the overhead of a dining room for the overhead of unskilled labor taking food to a place is an easy win for a restaurant. Doordash and the like are taking jobs that yo…

> Food delivery has been a thing for a very very long time.

But not at this scale; it was always a side offer from a more select number of restaurants catering more to pressing needs than an "immediate satisfaction" culture driven by same-day shipping.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#108

Post by JumpCrisscross »

astura wrote: post #46
phantom784 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There could be some truth to this based on the vehicle you drive. The IRS gives a flat per-mile deduction, which is an estimate of fuel, repair, maintenance, and depreciation costs. If your actual vehicle expenses are lower, then you are making more money than your taxable income.

Sure, you might be ahead a bit more than "on paper" but you still have significant expenses that were actually accrued. The context of this post was the person thought their "actual" salary didn't include their (significant) expenses and being eligible for deductions was just a bonus. They argued in the comments their salary was "really" their pre-deduction salary, I guess because that's what went into their bank acc…

> you still have significant expenses that were actually accrued

It really depends on the numbers. If you're savvy, 1099 income lets you deduct quite aggressively, and I can see the IRS not really caring about delivery drivers' income.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#109

Post by JumpCrisscross »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #21
robbyiq999 wrote: post #7

Would this be wire fraud?

If you leave out the toppings it's definitely fraud. Doordash doesn't get the pizza they paid for and want to resell.

> Doordash doesn't get the pizza they paid for and want to resell

Given the restaurant was receiving calls from customers, would it be okay if a customer who ordered from DoorDash called to change their order? If so, we can add an imaginary step where the person who "ordered" these pizzas had them changed to just dough without demanding a price change.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#110

Post by JumpCrisscross »

electrondood wrote: post #61

DoorDash is wonderful if you want to pay 30% more for the same item, and then add tax and tip on top of that. Restaurants pass on the platform fee to you. It's idiotic. Just phone it in directly and go pick it up.

> It's idiotic. Just phone it in directly and go pick it up.

It's often hot or rainy out, or I don't want to get dressed yet, or the restaurant is far away. Paying a premium for time and convenience is far from "idiotic."

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