131–140 of 172 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They weren't "defrauding the drivers of tip money" they were normalizing the variance in payments across deliveries by not directly paying the drivers tips and instead guaranteeing a minimum payment amount which was above the delivery fee. Once they modify their system and move to a system where drivers get 100% of the tips the drivers will probably see approximately the same payouts on average, just with higher vari…
Tip pooling makes sense because a restaurant experience is composed of the work of multiple players in the front/back of the house. DoorDash drivers don’t rely on other drivers. So why should a good driver compensate for the poor tips of a bad one?
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Personally: having learned of their scummy practices, I will not be supporting DoorDash or Instacart ever again, regardless of whether they change policy now in response to being exposed. Why so unforgiving? Because you can't deter unethical behavior by merely asking for a perpetrator to discontinue the unethical behavior if/when exposed. The expected value of a penalty needs to exceed the financial reward of the beh…
I just did the same with Amazon since they have the same tip practices as DoorDash. That and reading about the Ring Alarm system being sold by law enforcement it just put me over the edge. Can I avoid AWS? No, but I can certainly not spend my own money directly on any of their services.
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> 1) Ghost kitchens that only serve via delivery apps. You can save on rent by setting it up in an area with no foot-traffic. You can also get economies of scale. You can't. This is the kind of a mistake that all first time entrepreneurs make. Delivery costs too much money. Logistics of getting your labor force to your kitchen is a nightmare. > 2) Restaurants with dedicated entrances for delivery drivers. Baar Baar i…
Dismissing things in 2019 by referencing that they were tried in the dotcom bubble ... Two decades ago ... Is not a very powerful argument
The price seems high for something Square presumably needed to unload. Who else would have been bidding it up? And why are food delivery businesses still in a bubble? That's not a slam on businesses in a bubble phase, either. Many industries go through one before settling into a steady, sustainable state. Just surprised that delivery is still in one, while related industries, like ride-share are cooling off.
It's probably a mostly equity deal, i.e. most of the $410M is not real money. They recently raised $600M and I doubt they'd spend $410M of that on an acquisition. It would be more interesting if we knew how much they actually paid in hard cash; the rest is effectively just promises of money in the form of a valuation that hasn't materialized in liquid form yet.
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You don't feel upset about how they were, in my opinion, defrauding you and the driver of the tip money? After I learned about what they were doing with tips I decided not to use them again, and considering how much competition there is I really haven't lost anything of value. This isn't meant to be a triggering comment. I'm genuinely curious to learn about other people's reactions to DoorDash's former tipping system…
Personally: having learned of their scummy practices, I will not be supporting DoorDash or Instacart ever again, regardless of whether they change policy now in response to being exposed. Why so unforgiving? Because you can't deter unethical behavior by merely asking for a perpetrator to discontinue the unethical behavior if/when exposed. The expected value of a penalty needs to exceed the financial reward of the beh…
I'm not sure I fully understand the backlash. Yes, the tipping policy didn't meet people's expectations ... but it seems almost exactly the same s how tipping + wages work for wait staff in restaurants (where restaurants are allowed to pay them less than minimum wage, as long as the difference is offset by tips).
Why are we okay with this policy, which is enshrined in law, for restaurant wait staff but not for delivery drivers?
A reasonable argument is that tips should always go direct to the staff and they should also at least make minimum wage, but that'd represent a huge change from the status quo and people aren't freaking out about how restaurant staff are compensated, so it seems like this hits a different emotional chord for some reason. Maybe it's more evil-seeming coming from a large tech-ish company rather than SMBs?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They weren't "defrauding the drivers of tip money" they were normalizing the variance in payments across deliveries by not directly paying the drivers tips and instead guaranteeing a minimum payment amount which was above the delivery fee. Once they modify their system and move to a system where drivers get 100% of the tips the drivers will probably see approximately the same payouts on average, just with higher vari…
Tip pooling makes sense because a restaurant experience is composed of the work of multiple players in the front/back of the house. DoorDash drivers don’t rely on other drivers. So why should a good driver compensate for the poor tips of a bad one?
Tipping frequently matters more about the tippers mood, the tip-receiver's race and gender, and (of course) order size.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in a building that has a confusing relationship with it's name vs. the street its on. Uber (and Uber Eats) has never worked for me properly, and I always have to meet the courier at the door. Caviar always delivers directly to my door.
I hear you. It was so difficult for couriers to deliver where I live that I literally developed a single page website with pics and instructions. Now I just text them the url and access code.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally: having learned of their scummy practices, I will not be supporting DoorDash or Instacart ever again, regardless of whether they change policy now in response to being exposed. Why so unforgiving? Because you can't deter unethical behavior by merely asking for a perpetrator to discontinue the unethical behavior if/when exposed. The expected value of a penalty needs to exceed the financial reward of the beh…
By their scummy practices, are you referring to their tipping policy? I'm not sure I fully understand the backlash. Yes, the tipping policy didn't meet people's expectations ... but it seems almost exactly the same s how tipping + wages work for wait staff in restaurants (where restaurants are allowed to pay them less than minimum wage, as long as the difference is offset by tips). Why are we okay with this policy, w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
New types of restaurants are popping up: 1) Ghost kitchens that only serve via delivery apps. You can save on rent by setting it up in an area with no foot-traffic. You can also get economies of scale. 2) Restaurants with dedicated entrances for delivery drivers. Baar Baar in NYC has a separate place where delivery workers can wait. In other restaurants, they have to wait in the limited dining area. One hopes that th…
> 1) Ghost kitchens that only serve via delivery apps. You can save on rent by setting it up in an area with no foot-traffic. You can also get economies of scale. You can't. This is the kind of a mistake that all first time entrepreneurs make. Delivery costs too much money. Logistics of getting your labor force to your kitchen is a nightmare. > 2) Restaurants with dedicated entrances for delivery drivers. Baar Baar i…
Your commission is also a bit off, perhaps you speak from full service experience?
While true that base comm is 20-30, those numbers are always negotiated down. Grub/Seamless will take as low as 12 from high vol regional leaders while UberEats made some deals that are supposedly really low (McDonalds). I don’t have exact numbers but from my recollection they mentioned it in their S1.
While Danny Myers is quite smart, USH isn’t a barometer for the entire industry as his focus is more on full service.