
San Francisco Mayor orders cap on fees restaurants pay to food delivery apps - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2020/04/10/san-francisco-mayor-orders-cap-on-fees-restaurants.html
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floatingatoll
Previously on HN (3 days ago, 19 comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22838727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22838727)

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systemvoltage
IMO this is a good move. The counter arguments are:

\- Delivery apps are struggling and they have to charge 30% to survive in a
cut-throat market (many delivery services competing).

\- Why not charge the consumer? Restaurants are struggling and take the fees
off of them and charge consumers.

I feel like delivery companies are "double dipping", they charge delivery fee
and they charge 30% to the restaurants as commission. That's unsustainable.
Charge the consumer not the restaurant. It has all kinds of nasty
disincentives - "We won't list your restaurant on our super popular delivery
app because you didn't agree to pay 30% commission to us." Fuck that.

Delivery services should just charge by the mile/time of the delivery it
takes. That's kind of like Uber but instead of driving around a human, they're
driving around food.

\+ 10.99 sandwich \+ 1.99 chips \+ 5.50 delivery charge

5.50 delivery charge is based on the time/distance of the restaurant to the
house. If they pool multiple orders, they it should be amortized and split.
Personally, I tip because _I have to_ but not because _I want to_. Tipping is
a shitty culture and needs to be abolished like Japan. Just pay the employees
enough. There should be laws that protect service workers and guarantee their
wage. I am happy to know that $8.00 is the delivery fee upfront because of
increased salary for service workers than having to "voluntarily" tip $2.50.
That's the job of the delivery company to pay, not for the consumers to pony
up atop $5.50 delivery fee.

~~~
gumby
Companies like DoorDash are _triple_ dipping as they also steal the tips from
the delivery folks.

~~~
kadoban
Do they still do this? Last time I ordered I believe I saw text that 100% of
the tip goes to the driver.

Wouldn't put it past them to lie, but I'd have thought one so blatant would
get at least one state AG on them, or someone.

~~~
gumby
That is what they have always said, even before they came under fire for tip
stealing. Which they did not stop doing:
[https://www.businessinsider.com/doordash-still-be-
pocketing-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/doordash-still-be-pocketing-
tips-despite-pay-model-change-2019-8)

Anecdotally I have asked my delivery people. Most won't say anything (perhaps
they are afraid I'm a "secret shopper"?) but the few who have have confirmed
they don't get the same amount from DoorDash. There is one regular delivery
person with whom I have a good rapport who has showed up from instacart,
doordash and postmates; he says doordash and instacart continue to steal tips
but postmates stopped.

~~~
kadoban
Ugh, that's scummy. I wonder if I can give cash tips instead. Sucks to not be
able to do non-contact though.

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dmurray
There are multiple competing delivery services and at least some of them have
a history of charging below cost. It would initially appear that this is a
good problem to leave to the free market: in the absence of regulation, the
price charged will get pretty close to the delivery company's cost of doing
business.

Why did the market fail here?

~~~
jarjoura
I guess because it's a double sided market with exclusivity deals. Consumers
aren't going to have multiple service accounts just to get access to delivery.
So if you want to reach the most people, you need to make deals with the
devil. In this case, DoorDash, Caviar, or GrubHub.

It made sense from a brand/marketing cost back when things were normal, but
now that it's the primary way to fund your operation, the cost-benefit doesn't
make sense anymore, but you're still locked in.

~~~
nerfhammer
> Consumers aren't going to have multiple service accounts just to get access
> to delivery

I think that's a pretty questionable assumption

