California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement • Hacker News Board

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

#621

Post by sandworm101 » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

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…

>> were pizza joints and Chinese food

Don't forget indian food. Much of that cuisine was specifically developed for delivery. The multitude of cultures and eating habits (vegetation, Muslim etc) in modernizing india meant that housewives would prepare hot lunches for their husbands away at work, food which was delivered by the famed Dabbawala network. Some modern restaurants are so proud of this that they deliver food to the table in metal dabba boxes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala

"In the late 1800's, an increasing number of migrants were moving to Bombay from different parts of the country, and fast food and canteens were not prevalent. All these people left early in the morning for offices, and often had to go hungry for lunch. They belonged to different communities, and therefore had different types of tastes, which could only be satisfied by their own home-cooked meals. So, in 1890, Mahadeo Havaji Bachche started a lunch delivery service in Bombay with about a hundred men."

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

#622

Post by astura » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

wolco2 wrote: post #285

newman8r wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an old roommate try to sue in-n-out after getting severe food poisoning. It actually went to court - the in-n-out attorney completely destroyed him, he was outgunned. They showed receipts for thousands of people who ate there that day and that there weren't any other cases reported. Reporting food poisoning if it ever happens to you (even if minor) could be the difference between someone else being believed of…

Advice I wish I could give myself. Don't eat out if you can avoid it and if you do go in person, never order in. In secret someone who cares less about your health than anyone you know prepares hundreds of meals a day and if they don't come in because they are sick they lose money. If they don't try to hide mistakes it will cost them. If they don't save the company money by picking up food off the ground or using yes…

WTF?

Nothing of what you claim is normal or typical in food service.

Source: I've worked in food service. Everyone takes health, safety, and quality very seriously.

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

#623

Post by watwut » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

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…

There are definitely good delivery burgers. Not every restaurant makes them good for delivery, but we have few around and they are our favorite delivery.

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

#624

Post by TedDoesntTalk » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #595

colejohnson66 wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If DoorDash can’t be arsed to ask for permission from whoever to deliver, then maybe it’s for the better that they don’t deliver that place. Sure, it costs more than just adding the place to their site, but the restaurant is having their image harmed by soggy food. If that restaurant doesn’t want to allow delivery, they should have that option.

It's bad for the restaurant to be harmed this way, of course. But it's not a choice between "do nothing" and "force them to ask permission". Under this law, a restaurant might refuse permission for other reasons. And some of those reasons would be bad for consumers. If a similar rule was applied to non-food items, it could be a very harmful blow to the first sale doctrine.

> And some of those reasons would be bad for consumers.

Can you give an example?

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

#625

Post by thaumasiotes » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

souprock wrote: post #618

DangitBobby wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is pretty strange given that you see can see clearly a vast spectrum of different mental capabilities (from handicap to genius) your entire life. I guess it flies in the face of cultural virtues about how hard work will set you free.

People are kept separate. In first grade, I was in the "green" reading group, with just 4 or 5 out of about 30 kids. Nothing was ever said about abilities. I just assumed that the groups were random. I was the best in the green group by far, so it seemed that I was experiencing the other extreme of mental abilities. Late in the year, something inadvertently revealed to me that "green" was the best. To this day, I hav…

> I don't have much of an idea of what their science classes might have been like.

Class "adjustment" is usually simpler than you might think. Expect the following differences as the class gets dumber:

- Less material is covered by the instructor.

- There is less of an expectation that any given material will be remembered more than a week after it was covered.

- Hints for questions asked of students in class will be more direct.

- More time is spent on watching movies with themes notionally related to the class, and on playing games (think "chemistry bingo") during class.

Note that all of these are pretty smooth continuous scales; there's lots of room for tuning.

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

#626

Post by aidenn0 » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #621

ashtonkem wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> were pizza joints and Chinese food Don't forget indian food. Much of that cuisine was specifically developed for delivery. The multitude of cultures and eating habits (vegetation, Muslim etc) in modernizing india meant that housewives would prepare hot lunches for their husbands away at work, food which was delivered by the famed Dabbawala network. Some modern restaurants are so proud of this that they deliver foo…

No clue about the history. All I know is: The longer it takes them to deliver my vindaloo, the better it tastes.

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

#627

Post by cannaceo » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #621

ashtonkem wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> were pizza joints and Chinese food Don't forget indian food. Much of that cuisine was specifically developed for delivery. The multitude of cultures and eating habits (vegetation, Muslim etc) in modernizing india meant that housewives would prepare hot lunches for their husbands away at work, food which was delivered by the famed Dabbawala network. Some modern restaurants are so proud of this that they deliver foo…

Amusingly, Indian food isn’t well suited for restaurant-style eating. The meal prep takes too long forcing restaurants to cut corners. It only works well with a limited, set menu.

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

#628

Post by wutbrodo » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

traceddd wrote: post #597

wutbrodo wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I don't say this with any malice, but a lot of people are just not that bright. Things that you think are "perplexingly obvious", to the point that you can't conceive of not thinking about them, just aren't to them.

I don’t think delivery choices really have anything to do with someone’s intelligence. Some of the most intelligent people I know have horrible diets, some to the point of nearly refusing to eat anything but a few select dishes, others just extreme laziness when it comes to food. It’s a total afterthought. In this situation, I think it’s more that when you really want a burger, Chinese food just isn’t going to cut it…

The claim is not that you have to be dumb to want a suboptimal burger over optimal Chinese food. It's that it doesn't make sense to do so and then blame the restaurant for the burger not being as fresh as it would be if you got it in-person.

Also note that I'm not claiming that this is simply due to people being dumb. It's just my experience that, in the absence of an explanation for why someone does something "obviously" dumb, it makes more sense to accept that they're dumb than it does to be "perplexed". There's a cultural barrier against communicating openly about differences in intelligence, and it can lead to blindspots if you rely on it too much tk explain people's behavior. But it's my observation that the pendulum has swung so far to one side that many people don't even like to consider that others may be reasoning poorly.

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

#629

Post by reddog » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

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…

I seem to remember that back in the sweet usetobe before the internet one of the big catsup companies (Heinz? Hunts?) started suing restaurants for the common practice of watering down their catsup bottles that sat at the customer table. The catsup company was worried about people forming a negative intial impression of their product based on the watered down bottles. The restraunts argument was that once they bought the catsup bottle they were free to do what they wanted with it.

Don't know how that suit came out but this seems like the same deal here.

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

#630

Post by ddingus » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #608

ddingus wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seperate route for A transaction, not THE transaction. The difference is setting expectations and how they are managed. The restaurant is able to set and manage expectations when people deal with them. They are not able to do that with other agents, unless that relationship has been established and mutually agreed to. If doing that came along with the outside service, such as what one might experience with a general…

Unless you think GrubHub are forcing themselves in the middle of a transaction that was going to take place anyway, I don't think we disagree. GrubHub are offering a service where they go and pick up your food for you from a place that offers takeaway but not home delivery. That sounds fine, I can't imagine anyone having an objection with that service, even if the restaurant hasn't signed up for it. The problem is th…

As long as they are completely up front about being a courier, and they are doing something to insure food safety, and they deal with the establishment as any other customer, I am sure some people would use the service.

People did it with TaskRabbit, and one could get more than food done that way.

The resturaunt charges xx.xx

You are paying service yy.yy

For a total of zz.zz

Personally, I won't. Unless I talk with the restuarant, I have no idea about availability, time to prepare, etc...

And frankly, I can get my food. I know what it costs for someone to do that and not be way underpaid, and would rather not see people underpaid.

And let's be honest: they will do everything they can to capture traffic, and will end up handling deals that would have gone to the resturaunt and will then leverage all of that. Hell, I would!

So, no. Not interested. Perfectly happy to support my locals directly.