Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

themargins.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 124 posts

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#91

Post by waylandsmithers »

fxtentacle wrote: post #51

"We know restaurant ‘partners’ are a flight risk because this is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive." In my area, there's a pizza shop that is doing well. They also sell on Takeaway.com. But if you order through that - like I initially did - they'll give you a small business card that says "Did you know that our prices on Takeaway.com are 15% higher to compensate for the fees that they charge us?" And on the…

Doesn't it always make sense to check if the restaurant offers delivery outside of the delivery apps? Otherwise as a customer you're just paying more money for no reason

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#92

Post by sithlord »

randrews543 wrote: post #67

A big ? for DoorDash is how big can they really be as a company. Too many people are making a big deal about their profitability as a whole. But if you look at customers at a cohort level once customers get to years 2,3,4 they are actually profitable. The big question is what is the average lifespan of a customer for them, do they make it to years 2,3,4, how far in do they make it and at scale how much profit can the…

I think the better question is, how loyal are the customers, personally - I am going to go for the cheaper of the platforms. Especially knowing that the drivers are basically all the same.

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#93

Post by deeblering4 »

Heliosmaster wrote: post #42
lacker wrote: post #9

To me, this is the key claim of the article: This is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive. Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value? To me, the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era. Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the rest…

Incentive are not aligned anymore. Example: I order a pizza through Deliveroo. The driver doesn't care about either the restaurant or me, so he chucks the pizza vertically in his box, ruining it. I get a shitty pizza, I won't order anymore from the restaurant. Compare this with me calling up the restaurant and having one of their employees delivering the pizza: the restaurant has all the incentives for me to enjoy th…

If you notify them of the issue typically they will credit you. Then you’d be eating mediocre pizza for free.

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#94

Post by mytailorisrich »

Heliosmaster wrote: post #42
lacker wrote: post #9

To me, this is the key claim of the article: This is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive. Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value? To me, the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era. Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the rest…

Incentive are not aligned anymore. Example: I order a pizza through Deliveroo. The driver doesn't care about either the restaurant or me, so he chucks the pizza vertically in his box, ruining it. I get a shitty pizza, I won't order anymore from the restaurant. Compare this with me calling up the restaurant and having one of their employees delivering the pizza: the restaurant has all the incentives for me to enjoy th…

> Example: I order a pizza through Deliveroo. The driver doesn't care about either the restaurant or me, so he chucks the pizza vertically in his box, ruining it. I get a shitty pizza, I won't order anymore from the restaurant.

As someone who sometimes orders from Deliveroo and who has had this exact experience I agree with your premise but not your conclusion.

When this happens I understand that this is the delivery guy's responsibility and I don't blame the restaurant for it. This may put me off using Deliveroo but not the restaurant if there is another way I can order from them.

Now if this happens with an in-house delivery guy then yes, that would put me off ordering from the restaurant again.

Interestingly when this happened to me it was partly because the Deliveroo guy was riding a bike. Thus I put the 'blame' on Deliveroo and their organisation and process because trying to deliver a pizza by strapping it on the back of a bike can only end badly...

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#95

Post by SilasX »

unishark wrote: post #48
HNthrow22 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'California voters absolutely own voting for proposition 22' To be fair they set a new record for money spent on supporting a ballot measure in state history ($225m) and it still only passed with 58%. If you divide the $225m spent lobbying this by the 9,339,069 votes for it comes out to $23.98 per vote. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based... https://www.latimes.com/projects/props-california-2…

58 percent (closer to 59 percent in fact) can only be described as a blowout. Maybe if they spent less it would simply have been closer. Meg Whitman spent something like $180M for the governor's race, and still lost badly. You can't sell voters something they don't want to buy.

Okay but the less of a difference (you're claiming) it made, the more (it means) they had to pay per vote. So like, if it was going to be 55% in-favor regardless, then they only "bought" 3% of voters, which would mean having paid $23.98 * 58/(58-55)= $463/vote.

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#96

Post by mytailorisrich »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78
Heliosmaster wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentive are not aligned anymore. Example: I order a pizza through Deliveroo. The driver doesn't care about either the restaurant or me, so he chucks the pizza vertically in his box, ruining it. I get a shitty pizza, I won't order anymore from the restaurant. Compare this with me calling up the restaurant and having one of their employees delivering the pizza: the restaurant has all the incentives for me to enjoy th…

> I order a pizza through Deliveroo I used Deliveroo for the first time in London a few months ago. It was the worst delivery experience I have ever had. Deleted after two tries. My experience with Caviar, UberEats and ChowNow have been immeasurably better. As evidenced by their having live chat and phone support to Deliveroo’s e-mail only two-day turnaround support.

It's very difficult to compare based on individual experiences.

For example I had the opposite experience as you have and have deleted UberEats to stick with Deliveroo.

There is probably not much difference between them.

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#97

Post by labcomputer »

lacker wrote: post #9

To me, this is the key claim of the article: This is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive. Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value? To me, the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era. Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the rest…

I don't know how driver pay compares pre- and post-appshare, but on the consumer side, my experience differs from yours.

To me, it seems that DoorDash et. al. are delivering negative value to the consumer.

My recollection is that most restaurants with takeout also had a delivery option, usually at a smaller percentage cost than DoorDash takes. But, more than that, delivery worked better.

Restaurants typically only offered delivery within a few miles of the store. So there was a "critical mass" effect that drivers could learn the territory, and usually had fewer problems finding an address (especially after you ordered more than once). That is especially true if Google maps has the location or entrance pin wrong for your address.

Practically, that few mile radius isn't a big limitation for most take-out food because the food will get cold if driven a longer distance than that. Kitchens were also better able to prevent cold food by batching orders to have all of a driver's orders ready at one time.

I think these are solvable issues, but, to date, for me as a consumer, DoorDash/Grub Hub/Uber Eats do not deliver positive value compared to restaurants with captive drivers.

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#98

Post by labcomputer »

thrav wrote: post #70
Heliosmaster wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentive are not aligned anymore. Example: I order a pizza through Deliveroo. The driver doesn't care about either the restaurant or me, so he chucks the pizza vertically in his box, ruining it. I get a shitty pizza, I won't order anymore from the restaurant. Compare this with me calling up the restaurant and having one of their employees delivering the pizza: the restaurant has all the incentives for me to enjoy th…

If a delivery driver gets a series of 1-star reviews, you can bet they’re getting kicked off the platform. + DoorDash actually does refund quite frequently for food issues.

The problem is that appshare all have fairly high turnover, even of "good" drivers. Just look at how much Uber spends attracting new drivers.

The end result is that there is a constant stream of new, unrated drivers, who can ruin your pizza.

With drivers paid by the restaurant, you tended to get the same delivery guy (or a small set of delivery guys) for years at a time.

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#99

Post by bravura »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78
Heliosmaster wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentive are not aligned anymore. Example: I order a pizza through Deliveroo. The driver doesn't care about either the restaurant or me, so he chucks the pizza vertically in his box, ruining it. I get a shitty pizza, I won't order anymore from the restaurant. Compare this with me calling up the restaurant and having one of their employees delivering the pizza: the restaurant has all the incentives for me to enjoy th…

> I order a pizza through Deliveroo I used Deliveroo for the first time in London a few months ago. It was the worst delivery experience I have ever had. Deleted after two tries. My experience with Caviar, UberEats and ChowNow have been immeasurably better. As evidenced by their having live chat and phone support to Deliveroo’s e-mail only two-day turnaround support.

Meanwhile, deliveroo was the only decent option in Germany and has now exited to market. Lieferando is pure garbage as a product on the restaurants they list.

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#100

Post by labcomputer »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #94
Heliosmaster wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentive are not aligned anymore. Example: I order a pizza through Deliveroo. The driver doesn't care about either the restaurant or me, so he chucks the pizza vertically in his box, ruining it. I get a shitty pizza, I won't order anymore from the restaurant. Compare this with me calling up the restaurant and having one of their employees delivering the pizza: the restaurant has all the incentives for me to enjoy th…

> Example: I order a pizza through Deliveroo. The driver doesn't care about either the restaurant or me, so he chucks the pizza vertically in his box, ruining it. I get a shitty pizza, I won't order anymore from the restaurant. As someone who sometimes orders from Deliveroo and who has had this exact experience I agree with your premise but not your conclusion. When this happens I understand that this is the delivery…

> When this happen I understand that this is the delivery guy's responsibility and I don't blame the restaurant for it.

I agree with this up to a point: At the end of the day, I want my pizza intact. If the only delivery option is appshare, and if appshare does vertical pizza more than once, I'm going to stop using that restaurant for delivery.

Not because I don't like the restaurant or because I want send them a message or something silly like that. Simply because I will have learned that I can't get the food I want from that channel. And if I haven't eaten from that restaurant recently, they're not top of mind. Which means I'm less likely to dine in or do takeout.

I may try a different appshare in this scenario. However, drivers usually work for multiple companies, so you're not necessarily getting a different driver by using Uber Eats instead of Door Dash.

Post reply on HN