That is so highly unethical. No matter if they only did this in the past or still doing, doing something like this should be illegal or at least a big pr fuckup.

I don't think ethics are the top priority of these companies: food delivery businesses traditionally take 30% from the food, take additional delivery fee from the user, and sometimes even a couple of dollars from the tips.

It might sound naive, but as a user of these services for the last couple years, I only just recently learned this. Eg that they take a cut of each food item on top of their delivery fee. I always assumed the delivery fee was their cut. It was only when my wife mentioned she chatted to a local store who we ordered regularly from, that they mentioned they make crap all money on Uber/Deliveroo/etc orders.

We’ve deleted their apps and now just call ahead for pickup and go grab it ourselves. I feel shit for not looking into it sooner.

Drove a Grubhub sales rep around. Usually between 15-30% depending on the package they picked. Which would also determine where they ranked on the site when someone searched for their cuisine. This was when they were just starting out their delivery program.

I'm down to use an alternative. All it needs is an iOS app, a website, a support line for order issues and to remove restaurants that repeatedly have issues, and secure payment methods. One app to aggregate all the restaurants that don't want to get screwed by the Ubers and Grubhubs. Since 2014 I haven't seen such an app. If one exists, please let me know, and the millions of restaurants as well. Perhaps a non-profit intermediary or collective could exist here.

It's difficult without digging into the topic that these commissions exist because those kickbacks are fundamentally unjustified (and largely contested by restaurants). The current situation has caused restaurants to be more and more dependant to this revenue stream and are not in a position to negotiate.

Which is why it's so important for restaurants to organize and defend themselves.

https://www.protectourrestaurants.com/

I've also noticed the food prices are marked up by $1-2 on uber eats, even if doing pickup; Im not sure if its uber or the restaurant doing it, but I've verified the markup exists on multiple shops

The rule against wage and tip theft of hourly and tipped workers was revoked a couple of years ago.

Can you give more context to this?

Actually the revocation is still under way though the Department of Labor announced that they had stopped enforcement in mid 2017.

In 2012 the DoL required that tips given to workers earning less than minimum wage are property of the worker. Until the, some restaurants had pooled all the tips, giving some to dishwashers and such (rather than paying them minimum wage) and even some to restaurant managers and owners, where that “some” for managers can even be the majority of tips paid.

California allows this under strict rules (involving the amount earned by the workers making tips, and very strictly who qualifies for a share). However at the federal level managers are once again free to keep some or all of tips. Supposedly “market forces” are adequate to restrain this. Note that the federal minimum wage for restaurant workers is different from the regular minimum wage: 2.13/hr rather than $7.30/hr — because they supposedly get tips!

They did change it: https://blog.doordash.com/working-to-strike-a-better-balance...

Wait, are you saying when I use "tip my dasher", that does not go to my delivery person?

I'd like to get this picture straight because I will never tip again if they are being stiffed...

It's word games. The delivery pay is normally, say, $10 without tips. If you tip $5, that goes to your delivery person, but they also reduce the delivery pay to $5. So in practice, DoorDash always pays the driver $10, and your tip is to the company, just with some sleight of hand for them to say "your tip is to the dasher"

I honestly can't comprehend the lunacy of this policy. This is very eye opening and incredibly deceptive.

I think this was revoked a year ago after a major outcry.

Still doesn't excuse them though.

I never tip through the app, i always give them cash

Doesn’t work if you’re trying to do contactless delivery in a pandemic.

Couldn’t you just leave the tip in an envelope on your doorstep?