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DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

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Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#71

Post by RandallBrown »

codetrotter wrote: post #27
boomboomsubban wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DoorDash created the shop portal with no input from the store, and then put up incorrect prices. If that scenario still exists, they could still do this, but most of the time the store has some kind of deal with DoorDash so they would be responsible for pricing. As for why fill the boxes, technically DoorDash would be the store's customer, so if you didn't give them what was ordered they could press the issue. It'd b…

Doesn’t the driver notice that the boxes weigh almost nothing? Doesn’t he say anything? If I was driver and the pizzeria handed me empty boxes I’d refuse to deliver and I’d call DoorDash. Ain’t no way I’d take empty boxes to a customer and then have the customer potentially accuse me of removing all of the food they paid for.

The DoorDash drivers don't care at all. I got an empty cup with my order recently. The guy just handed it to me, smiled, and walked away.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#72

Post by Spivak »

b3lvedere wrote: post #8

The driver argued the amount of time it would take to come back to return the bag would mean he couldn’t make enough deliveries to “pay my rent”. There you have it. The actual “business model” of Doordash.

Is this not how every decision is make at a business? Yes it's more personal because of the word rent but "no we can't do this because the in the slowdown we wouldn't make enough sales to pay our employees."

I'm surprised people are siding with the restaurant owner here who's a millimeter away from just being a dick and making demands of a rando who he's not the boss of. Making "damaging my reputation" a thing just invents the very worst of copyright but for restaurants. The only thing objectionable about the interaction was the delivery app giving the impression they have a relationship with the restaurant when they don't.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#74

Post by astura »

lvspiff wrote: post #24
ceejayoz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber made a profit for the first time ever this year after torching billions to accrue market share for fifteen years. https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/8/24065999/uber-earnings-pro... Having to do it via huge price hikes and screwing drivers makes me dubious about their ability to do so more than a few times.

how are they not making more money off of data? the trip data alone has to be worth millions right? All I see when discussing Ubers profits is the cost of trips and the cost of drivers and how much they spend on marketing and politicians. It seems like theres gaping black hole of all the data they are collecting and it being put to use/sale.

>the trip data alone has to be worth millions right?

Who is going to pay anything, let alone millions, for Uber trip data?

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#75

Post by Spivak »

RandallBrown wrote: post #71
codetrotter wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t the driver notice that the boxes weigh almost nothing? Doesn’t he say anything? If I was driver and the pizzeria handed me empty boxes I’d refuse to deliver and I’d call DoorDash. Ain’t no way I’d take empty boxes to a customer and then have the customer potentially accuse me of removing all of the food they paid for.

The DoorDash drivers don't care at all . I got an empty cup with my order recently. The guy just handed it to me, smiled, and walked away.

And they shouldn't, they're couriers. It's crazy to me to blame FedEx for delivering an empty shoe box that was shipped by Nike. I bet that dasher was so damn excited to give you that cup. I would have been laughing my ass off.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#76

Post by jjmarr »

nicbou wrote: post #65
bko wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a problem that fixes itself? People have lots of money and throw it at stupid businesses and lose it.

They aren't building libraries with it, but sustaining an underpaid workforce. Someone loses a million, a million gets a few cents.

So, direct wealth transfer is happening from the rich to the poor.

The only flaw with this is that people have to work economically inefficient jobs delivering food, instead of the wealth transfer occurring through taxes on the rich and funding something like basic sciences.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#77

Post by insane_dreamer »

forinti wrote: post #42

> You have insanely large pools of capital creating an incredibly inefficient money-losing business model. It's used to subsidize an untenable customer expectation. You leverage a broken workforce to minimize your genuine labor expenses. The companies unload their capital cannons on customer acquisition, while this week’s Uber-Grubhub news reminds us, the only viable endgame is a promise of monopoly concentration and…

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.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#78

Post by Alupis »

kortex wrote: post #69
Alupis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> 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 and doers. This line of thought is toxic and antithetical to everything YCombinator stands for. It's just a shame it's being coopted into such an anti-entrepreneur place largely by those who think so little of themselves as-to believe they'll never be capable of being thinkers or doers.

You don't need to be the next Bill Gates, or next Uber to be successful and build things of value. But if you ever do, you'll have a ton of people wanting to tear you down just because you dared to be successful.

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#79

Post by kragen »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #62
wpm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The money they’re spending didn’t poof into existence, it’s coming from private equity and investors that accumulated it.

Right, they must have accumulated the money beforehand. But what they are doing right now with it is the opposite of accumulating it. They are taking the money that they previously accumulated and spending it on lots of random bullshit. Suppose you were to discourage accumulation, with a tax for example. Wouldn't that lead to investors investing in even more random bullshit?

plausibly the money was just printed rather than being accumulated. the article is from the zero interest rate epoch

Re: DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)

#80

Post by _DeadFred_ »

SoftTalker wrote: post #44

I'm surprised more restaurants aren't suing DoorDash for damage to their reputation. Inserting themselves unrequested into the ordering process, then delivering cold food, the wrong food, etc. the customers just blame the restaurant ultimately.

I'm surprised health departments aren't shutting down doordash. There are actual food safety rules to ensure food has been kept properly, kept at proper temps, kept in sanitary condition, etc.
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