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California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

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Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#461

Post by travisjungroth »

rsync wrote: post #442
ramphastidae wrote: post #105

This is undeniably a good thing if you put yourself in the shoes of the restaurant. Imagine if someone went around impersonating your business online, leveraging the good name you have built for yourself over the decades. They create ads offering your expert development services, ostensibly competing with your existing website, but with intentionally slashed pricing and a ‘creatively’ misrepresented offering (aka gro…

"This is undeniably a good thing if you put yourself in the shoes of the restaurant." Maybe. I have no idea. What I do know is, the following statement is 1A protected free speech: If you pay me enough money, I will drive to the Novato In'N'Out and buy a cheeseburger and deliver it to you. I offer this delivery service to anyone who wishes to negotiate my (extremely high) delivery rates. This is posted in a public pl…

Then you’ll be breaking the law, as I understand it. Not every statement is protected under free speech.

If a private pilot asks his friend if she wants to go on a trip and split costs, that’s legal. If he posts the offer in a public place, it’s illegal. There is a ton of precedent for this type of restriction of speech.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#462

Post by jakelazaroff »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #430
jakelazaroff wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re phrasing it as if requiring all food delivery platforms to get permission from restaurants is an unintended side effect, but again, it’s the entire point of the law. As to the problem this solves, there are plenty of links on HN alone detailing the harm that these delivery platforms have done to consumers and restaurants both.

Consumers clearly don't think that these platforms are doing them any harm considering how popular they are. Consumers like to be able to order from home through an app from a wide range of restaurants. This is actually the problem restaurants are facing: How to adapt to change technology and consumers habits? A bit like traditional taxis were blown out of the water by Uber. Restaurants don't have to offer delivery/t…

I'd like to focus on this particular argument, because it's a fallacy I see a lot:

> This is actually the problem restaurants are facing: How to adapt to change technology and consumers habits?

The implication is that technology is an inevitable, uncontrollable force. But of course that's not true: we create technology and the laws around it. Restaurants only need to adapt because GrubHub, et al. have decided they want to shape technology and consumer habits in a way that makes their VC investors money. It makes no more sense to ask restaurants to adapt than it does to tell tech companies that they can't change technology like this.

Put another way: delivery platforms are pissing on restaurants and telling them that it's raining. We can either tell restaurants to suck it up and carry umbrellas now, or we can tell delivery platforms to stop pissing on them. I'd prefer the latter.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#463

Post by throw_m239339 »

akrymski wrote: post #458

Yet another law to reduce competition in the delivery space and help existing monopolies. I'm sure GrubHub and DoorDash are cheering. Indexing and aggregating data is already covered by numerous laws. If Google can aggregate restaurant listings without permission then why can't others? Linking is ok, showing a call button is ok, but delivering isn't? The law around copyright is clear: you can't copy a restaurants men…

> Why don't restaurants want delivery companies doing this?

Why can't delivery services ask for permission before listing food from restaurants first? Why do they feel the need to impersonate restaurants, steal their menu, their trademark while never disclosing to the client that the restaurant has absolutely no part in that deal? Why can't delivery services behave in an ethical fashion that doesn't involve fraud?

When your business model is so rotten you need to lie on both ends to make money (restaurants and clients), well you shouldn't be in business at all.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#464

Post by imtringued »

rattray wrote: post #274
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not to mention, of course, any new entrants! This law will make it much harder to compete with "the next Doordash". Well of course the law will make it much harder to compete to be the next predatory, deceitful company that pretends to be small businesses! That’s the whole point of this law. Some business practices are unethical and relying on them to grow should be made illegal.

Yeah, like I said, restaurants should absolutely have easy and fast recourse against predatory platforms. The heuristic, "but will restaurant owners ask to be delisted because of this?" should be a powerful force for keeping overly aggressive product managers in check. I worry that the bill misses the point that these platforms can also be a free or low-cost source of new business. As a small business owner myself (a…

>The heuristic, "but will restaurant owners ask to be delisted because of this?" should be a powerful force for keeping overly aggressive product managers in check.

You can just build a second or third site and relist the restaurant thereby avoiding the opt out law. Finally you can build an aggregator that allows customers to search all of your sites at once. The room for loopholes is too big.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#465

Post by nojvek »

When I saw the YC post about praising DoorDash and Airbnb, it was clear that YC endorses doing borderline illegal things in the name of growth. Same with Pg’s posts of how to create billionaires.

In a way he’s not wrong, about hacking taken to a whole new level of messing with entire cities and industries.

But as a greater society, without proper regulation, we’ll have a dystopia. The rich are insanely rich while the median has barely gone up. The pie is much larger compared to 10 years ago, but most of it is captured by a fair few.

It is not a great world to be in if it continues for the next 100 years, which it’ll likely be as technology divides us into haves and have -nots.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#466

Post by supernova87a »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #361
mbesto wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The courier price (in the app) isn't the same price as the one when you physically go into the restaurant. IIRC its 25~35% higher. Source - good friend is a restaurant owner.

If I buy something from you for $10 and then sell it to someone else for $15, I haven't taken anything away from you. You have your price and I have mine.

Yeah, but if my marked up $15 thing you sell to someone else is crappy because of your handling, and now the customer associates my name with expensive, crappy product, my brand has been spoiled by you.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#467

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

ashtonkem wrote: post #316
wpietri wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some consumers will still tend to blame Sally's Piping Hot Burgers when their burger arrives soggy and cold A friend who manages an excellent restaurant says that this is indeed a problem. One of their signature dishes is fried chicken, and it is glorious. They optimize everything about the meal with the understanding that it's 15-30 seconds from the kitchen to the table. But those are the wrong choices for 15-30 m…

I’m incredibly perplexed why people do this. Even pre pandemic it was patently obvious to anyone who paid attention that certain foods just don’t deliver well. Before the internet became a thing, the only places that regularly offered delivery were pizza joints and Chinese food, because both of those survive delivery well! I ordered delivery burgers once, from a restaurant close by, and learned my lesson that burgers…

A local (actual, not American) Chinese joint makes by far the best soup dumplings in town. During the pandemic they’ve understandably switched to takeout only, but now their reviews are filled with people that are disappointed by dumplings that aren’t steaming hot inside and have holes because they stick to the takeout containers. I feel really bad for the owners - they’re forced to choose between endangering the lives of their workers or offering a subpar product.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#468

Post by amluto »

bonzini wrote: post #384
amluto wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food poisoning has much slower onset than most people think, and, as I understand it, it’s very common to blame the wrong food. I think it would be good to encourage everyone with food poisoning to notify a central authority to collect statistics, but blaming a specific restaurant from a single case is dicey at best. It’s also worth noting that most people expect meat to be the riskiest type of food. In fact, lettuce…

Food poisoning usually takes 10-15 hours from meal to symptoms. That gives you only a couple of meals to consider. About ten years ago one third of the office (50 people out of 150) called in sick, it was pretty clear which meal and which restaurant was the culprit.

Except when the food poisoning is due to toxins and not pathogens, e.g. scombroid poisoning.

Identifying the culprit is certainly easier when you have a whole group of victims.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#469

Post by cleak »

jiofih wrote: post #455
cleak wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused. How is GrubHub getting a 30% commission out of restaurants that don’t actively partner with them?

They only do this ruse for a while, then after controlling a good chunk of the business they “sell” their services officially to the restaurant, including commission. It’s not a charity.

But it's up to the individual restaurants to agree to this. There's no automatic 30% commission. If a delivery company wants to burn their capital offering discounts, why stop them? The restaurant is under no obligation to sign a contract taking on the burden of kreping those discounts.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#470

Post by [deleted] »

travisjungroth wrote: post #461
rsync wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is undeniably a good thing if you put yourself in the shoes of the restaurant." Maybe. I have no idea. What I do know is, the following statement is 1A protected free speech: If you pay me enough money, I will drive to the Novato In'N'Out and buy a cheeseburger and deliver it to you. I offer this delivery service to anyone who wishes to negotiate my (extremely high) delivery rates. This is posted in a public pl…

Then you’ll be breaking the law, as I understand it. Not every statement is protected under free speech. If a private pilot asks his friend if she wants to go on a trip and split costs, that’s legal. If he posts the offer in a public place, it’s illegal. There is a ton of precedent for this type of restriction of speech.

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