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Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

oregonlive.com

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Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#571

Post by scarface74 »

nybble41 wrote: post #567
scarface74 wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that still doesn’t have anything to do with the original thesis - “if I make $50/hour when I am working. That means I should value my time at $50/hour”. The opportunity cost is not $50/hour if you wouldn’t have been using that hour to work.

> The opportunity cost is not $50/hour if you wouldn’t have been using that hour to work. It is at least $50 per hour if you could have been using that time to work. Anything else that you choose to do instead of working is prima facie worth more to you than the $50 you could have been earning. The opportunity cost—the next best alternative—is either working and earning $50 or else something you value even more than…

If I am a salaried employee, no matter how much time I work, over 40 hours a week, it would not earn me more money.

The only reason that I would work around 40 hours a week instead of slacking off is because ethically, that’s what I agreed to do.

Most people aren’t in a position where they could put in every waking hour into pursuits that generate money.

What percentage of people that post on HN are working hourly billable jobs?

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#572

Post by Kiro »

randycupertino wrote: post #524
Kiro wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best part about the app is able to see where the driver is on the map. I hate being in the unknown and not knowing what's going on with my delivery.

I think sometimes those maps are faked. We've seen drivers from apps pick up multiple orders for delivery, but the map doesn't show them stopping at multiple houses, it just slows down the icon of the car.

I'm using Foodora in Sweden and sometimes I see the courier go to other places and they've even told me they had to do other drops (when I said "I saw you took the wrong way on the map"), so yes but I don't think they fake it here.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#573

Post by princevegeta89 »

carlmr wrote: post #277
princevegeta89 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already 12.5$ with delivery. And even worse, a ton of other fees get added on top of it, making your order total close to 18$. Consumers are already paying enough, so they don't want to pay more. This is the reason why the Apps turn to restaurants instead. Even with that, they aren't still profitable.

Then they should cease being in business.

Sadly they don't.. Not as of yet. They got tons of VC money to burn before they have to answer to anyone.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#574

Post by crazygringo »

grumple wrote: post #503
crazygringo wrote: post #192

There are legitimate abuses of market power. But this is not one of them. Nobody's forcing restaurants to enter these partnerships, there's competition, and delivery people still need to be paid. There are two obvious outcomes here: either food delivery apps will restrict delivery to profitable orders only (stop working for some restaurants, require higher order minimums, etc.), or they'll stay to avoid bad press but…

> There are legitimate abuses of market power. But this is not one of them. I’m curious. How long does a company need to lose money on each unit of work they do, funded by endless foreign vc money, before it’s clearly an abuse of their financial power and destructive for the market? No company can compete fairly against people willing to lose billions just for market share.

Except money is never endless. And consumers are benefiting in the process from cheap prices.

So as long as consumers are benefiting, and the situation can't go on forever, where's the abuse?

Abuse is generally a characteristic of natural monopolies, etc. Not merely a competitor with deep pockets. That's just healthy competition for the good of consumers.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#575

Post by nybble41 »

scarface74 wrote: post #571
nybble41 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The opportunity cost is not $50/hour if you wouldn’t have been using that hour to work. It is at least $50 per hour if you could have been using that time to work. Anything else that you choose to do instead of working is prima facie worth more to you than the $50 you could have been earning. The opportunity cost—the next best alternative—is either working and earning $50 or else something you value even more than…

If I am a salaried employee, no matter how much time I work, over 40 hours a week, it would not earn me more money. The only reason that I would work around 40 hours a week instead of slacking off is because ethically, that’s what I agreed to do. Most people aren’t in a position where they could put in every waking hour into pursuits that generate money. What percentage of people that post on HN are working hourly bi…

Overtime pay exists, even for many salaried positions. Short of that, if you routinely put in extra productive hours you should expect a higher salary. And you could always take on a second job, switch jobs, or do some work around the home yourself instead of paying someone else to do it for you. There is no shortage of opportunities to trade some leisure time for extra cash.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#576

Post by scarface74 »

nybble41 wrote: post #575
scarface74 wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I am a salaried employee, no matter how much time I work, over 40 hours a week, it would not earn me more money. The only reason that I would work around 40 hours a week instead of slacking off is because ethically, that’s what I agreed to do. Most people aren’t in a position where they could put in every waking hour into pursuits that generate money. What percentage of people that post on HN are working hourly bi…

Overtime pay exists, even for many salaried positions. Short of that, if you routinely put in extra productive hours you should expect a higher salary. And you could always take on a second job, switch jobs, or do some work around the home yourself instead of paying someone else to do it for you. There is no shortage of opportunities to trade some leisure time for extra cash.

For tech workers who dominate HN and are the first to say that their free time is worth whatever their total comp is, how many get overtime pay?

How many people who put in extra time actually get recognized by their company for doing so at their equivalent hourly rate?

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#577

Post by ByteJockey »

scarface74 wrote: post #542
ByteJockey wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to make sure I'm following your train of thought correctly regarding this object. So, say, an hourly contractor who orders delivery so they can get back to work sooner still makes sense to you, right?

If he would get more hours in during that time instead of going home earlier, then you could value the time saved against how much it would cost. If he makes $50 an hour and he can get an extra hour in working, if it is cheaper for him to order food then yes it makes economic sense. On the other hand if he were at home watching Netflix and he spent the money set aside for his utility bill to eat out and his lights go…

Alright. Just wanted to make sure I was following your train of thought.

Thanks for taking the time to elaborate. You have a good one.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#578

Post by dangus »

fpgaminer wrote: post #450
obibring wrote: post #39

This is the right move - local restaurants are hurting and, sadly, the internet is a place where big corps with large budgets have leverage over passionate little guys working their butts off. For those who want to help, I built a chrome extension similar to Honey that shows a local restaurant's direct ordering website as you're about to order from that restaurant thru a third party service. If direct ordering isn't…

(Preface: I'm sure your app filters for stuff like this) I got kinda burned when I tried to order direct from a restaurant. The last time we ate there they included a little "order online" card with a link to their website. So the next time, in the spirit of supporting businesses directly, I went to their site and ordered. They did use a third-party handler (ChowNow I think?), but I figured it was a kind of order man…

Off topic, but your comment made me think of the way my view toward restaurants has changed.

If the pandemic has taught me anything, it’s that restaurants as a concept are just kind of terrible and unnecessary, at least for the bulk of the world’s unremarkable places.

If a perfect vaccine was distributed to every person on the planet right now I wouldn’t be back to visit 95% of restaurants out there.

During “lockdown” I learned to make all kinds of food and way more interesting, higher quality cocktails than 95% of bars and restaurants have, for a fraction of the price.

I learned that my restaurant visits were there to satisfy an emotional desire, and they didn’t even do a great job of that.

I learned that the desire for a “quick meal” is a farce, that homemade food isn’t really a time sink for someone deep into the habit.

My future restaurant visits will be way more sparse and deliberate. I’m going to be holding restaurants to the standard of making something that I literally can’t make at home without going to culinary school and apprenticing under a master chef.

It isn’t a noble act to support your local business if the business isn’t meeting your needs, and at this point I’m not sure how my local dive is going to be able to adapt to my modified needs.

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#579

Post by pcvarmint »

Expect longer wait times for food delivery in Portland.

Price caps, fee caps, rent caps, and "price gouging" bans produce shortages. [0]

This is an economic fact as strong as the law of gravity.

[0] https://fee.org/shows/audio/words-numbers/the-law-of-demandi...

Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants

#580

Post by _sbrk »

dang wrote: post #548
_sbrk wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Although the FTC examines claims of predatory pricing carefully, courts, including the Supreme Court, have been skeptical of such claims." Which means that predatory pricing rarely, if ever, exists. If you don't like the 25% delivery fee, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GO GET YOUR OWN FOOD.

Would you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly, including in this thread, and it's not what HN is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

It's good to see that cancel culture is alive and well on HN. You're free to ignore my comments, and I encourage you to do so, if you're not swayed by my arguments. However, if there's one thing I _won't_ do, it is to go along blindly with the gaping-mouth masses. I pride myself in being a free thinker, both behind the keyboard and in person. Not everyone expresses opinions the same way, and to tell me that my comments are unsubstantial is definitely a violation of the guidelines you posed. In the immortal words of Bob and Doug McKenzie: "Take off, eh?"
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