Seriously.

>> On cue, news stories started popping up of $26 coffees, $32 sandwiches, and $35 Wingstop orders in which taxes and the new fee comprised nearly 30 percent of the total.

If people aren't leveraging below-minimum wage labor to get a single coffee delivered by a driver, whatever will we do?

There was a time before food delivery apps, and it was better.

> There was a time before food delivery apps, and it was better.

This is such weird revisionist history. Was it really better to always have to walk to the restaurant, place an order, wait 15-30 minutes, and then walk home with cold food? Were people magically unexploited in 2010 because apps didnt exist yet?

It used to be uncontroversial to expect people to look up the phone number of a restaurant and call it, then leave their house for a short time. That people won't take the initiative to complete a task more complicated than clicking on an app anymore isn't great. That people don't want to leave their houses and are starting to resemble the Wall-E society isn't great.

I still do this. Lately though I've noticed more and more places I call have an automated prompt directing me to order online. While I can still pick it up, this flow invariably means I can't use cash, have to decide on the tip upfront, before I receive service, and removes all of my privacy and anonymity. In practice, the sphere of resturaunts I can get takeout from is steadily shrinking.

Yeah I'm a little worried about a future where I can't show up at a place unannounced and just order and eat there or take it home.

You could order a proper loaf of groceries and pop something in the microwave or toaster. Doordash isn't serving lifesaving food emergencies.

That sounds disgusting and unhealthy

Conflating multiple issues here.

Apps to order food efficiently are fine. Everyone wins. It's easier for the restaurant, it's easier for you.

Having food delivered to your door, however, is incredibly expensive. A lot of the cost has been masked: for a while paid-in-part by VC-style below-cost funding hoping to for winner-take-all success, and by giving drivers no benefits & terrible pay.

> “A lot of the cost has been masked: for a while paid-in-part by VC-style below-cost funding hoping to for winner-take-all success…”

Thank you for reminding me about the browser wars 25 years ago. People were scratching their heads at the time about how internet companies like Yahoo and Google were making money, despite not having clear income streams. In the end, what? Advertising and our data.

I’ve been working in the food service industry for the past 15 years. Back in the day I was scratching my head at the rise of delivery apps, mostly wondering how a business can be making money with 20-25% of the sale price as cost to participate. Now, we see it’s volume and low income delivery.

Indeed. These food delivery apps/services don't seem to be able to survive without screwing over outlets, drivers/riders, and customers... which says to me that they're not real businesses, they aren't a benefit to society, and the sooner they disappear, the better.

Not following. Restaurant wanted the deal flow. Drivers wanted the business. Customers bought in app.

It seems like everyone was in on the take otherwise someone would have put an end to it vokuntarily

How were they getting screwed exactly?

Apps don't create deal flow, they hijacked it.

I didn't see in the article or anything was properly priced. It looks like the price is so high now that there is little demand so little income to the drivers who clearly thought they were getting a good deal.

Yep, I’m ok to see businesses fail if they can’t make a profit without everyone else subsidizing their model

I can totally survive without a $35 fast food order. Can they?

Food delivery has existed for a long time at much lower cost than today. What recent developments has made it so much less efficient?

It only existed for pizza -- easy to deliver to many recipients on a run -- or local bike courier in dense cities.

When every restsurant delivers separately, and the delivery agent isn't based at that restaurant, the economy of scale vanishes.

This isn’t a mystery: we inserted a middle-middle man who extracts their own chunk of change.

Very very expensive middle man. Which for long time was only concern about minimizing costs in the delivery, but not at any other part of business.

We stopped exploiting high school kids?

Why is it exploitation for a high school kid to have a part time job? Teaching youngsters the value of a dollar and giving them some life/work experience seems like a good thing to me.

By paying them prison wages?

They didn’t make any less than any other service industry worker.

The scam was getting them to use their own vehicle without mileage fees for depreciation. But even that’s gone now with lots of pizza places having a fleet of delivery vehicles for the drivers.

To your snarky meta-point, yes, having people learn the market rates for labor is a good lesson. It’s really good for teenagers who don’t actually need the money because it’s about the lowest risk hands-on way to figure out that life is harsh to people who have limited skills for where society pours its money.

Because teenagers are much better off staring zombie like at a screen, instead of earning money providing a service for people in a task that requires at least a little social interaction.

Expiry of near zero interest rate.