I highly doubt it’s a “huge boon” to any small restaurant/business. With fees attached and drivers who really don’t give 2 shits, anything bad gets reflected on the restaurant. When in reality it could be the over worked driver that made a mistake, droppped off 4 orders at once so most of it is cold, rough handling, etc… Every place I have worked maybe came out even on good days from 3rd party orders. But you need extra kitchen staff (hard to find) extra host staff (parce and final prep on orders, plus regular duties). Maney way better spent ensuring people actually attend your restaurant in person and have a good experience
Comment on Uber Eats undercover: Delivering your food for $1.74 an hour
bassomitron@lemmy.world 4 days agoBut tons of restaurants didn’t offer delivery before. That’s what the other commenter was saying. For many places, especially smaller, locally owned restaurants, a 3rd party enabling delivery for them is a huge boon. But like the other commenter said, it needs to be implemented well and fairly, which it currently is not.
Also, comparing 3rd party food delivery to health insurance is definitely something…
Samsonreturns@lemmy.world 4 days ago
bassomitron@lemmy.world 4 days ago
[deleted]ascense@lemm.ee 4 days ago
One issue I’ve heard is if a restaurant chooses not to use the service someone else can set up a page in their name without permission, and the platforms often won’t do anything to prevent it. Then confused delivery drivers start to show up, and customers complain to the restaurant about the markups/high pricing even when the restaurant is not actually involved at all.
On top of all that, many people just use delivery apps to find local restaurants, so you lose a lot of visibility if you aren’t listed, but for that one you can argue it’s in fact paying for the service you get (i.e. marketing).
TheFriar@lemm.ee 4 days ago
In my experience, plenty of local shops delivered. And when Uber eats came about, they had to fire their own delivery people because so many would check Uber eats first. Not to mention the restaurants get less on the food, when small, locally owned restaurants are already surviving on razor thin margins.
So the idea for these services is basically “I don’t want to go to my local restaurant to pick up food, so I’m going to financially hurt them so a middleman can profit by forcing them to deliver to me (which plenty were doing already).”
My point is it’s such a uniquely stupid, uniquely American concept that hurts everyone involved, and makes a ton of money for one large company—who completely inserted themselves into it unnecessarily.
If the argument is whether or not there should be a moral dilemma when ordering from them, I say yes. We can’t absolve ourselves of our laziness on this one, I don’t think.
And the likening it to insurance companies was strictly for the purpose of a meaningless middleman who changed the structure of the system they exist in, in order to profit unnecessarily. I tried to make it clear the likeness stopped there, but maybe I wasn’t.