alt Hacker NewsBut why do you think they’re harming “local infrastructure”? The food delivery services didn’t hurt anything but their investors in the end. And they kept the restaurant industry alive during the pandemic, the fallout would have been so much worse. I work in the industry and know several bar/restaurant owners who will tell you DoorDash and competitors are the only reason they made it through 2020-21.
Early on they stopped prohibiting restaurants from upcharging, so restaurants all did. They ended up with some extra sales and profits. The customer got VC funded free delivery.
Enough alternatives kept the market place efficient. DoorDash can’t get too abusive when UberEats and Instacart are competing, restaurants have no switching cost.
The whole thing worked for basically everyone involved except maybe the investors (DoorDash has significantly underperformed the S&P since it debuted on the market.)
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DoorDash finds a way to consistently screw up orders.
Order A,B,C - receive only A+B, or A,B,D. No explanation. Tipped generously.
For a long time, I myself drove and picked up my orders. The same restaurants rarely made mistakes. I never had to ask for missing item to be included. They always had everything in the bag.
It’s happened so often, it has to be malice from one of the parties involved.
This has not been my experience.
From my side, as someone old enough to remember Domino's running the "there in thirty minutes or it's free" promotions... These delivery services absolutely tanked the quality of delivery.
Now you can basically only get slow delivery of over priced, cold food. Sure, you can get it from far more places, but it's a pyrrhic victory if I've ever seen one.
Used to be if a restaurant offered delivery, it was ok food for delivery, at ok prices, and their drivers had gear to keep it warm and presentable.
Now we basically only do pick up because these universal delivery companies suck at the one fucking thing they're supposed to do. But they've run all the local restaurants out of the delivery game.