this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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Voting with your wallet doesn't work when there aren't any alternatives. If all the services are bilking people, then there's no choice but to stop using an entire type of service. There's a similar argument in American tipping culture: you can just vote with your wallet by not going out to eat.
But that's austerity measures and those have been shown definitively to NOT work. People won't give up most of life's pleasures and conveniences unless they have to. No one wants to deprive themselves of most of society's benefits. And they shouldn't have to. There should be laws regulating how companies charge and introduce fees and what they can charge for to prevent abuse and industry-wide abuse.
Yes there is an alternative, you don't use delivery services. It is just a big dumb waste of money.
I pick up all my own food, have never used any of the 3rd party food delivery ripoffs
That's great. My time is worth less than theses crazy prices and I work better if I get something to eat and this is faster than getting the very limited and terrible food at work. Do I feel like the prices are insane? Yep. But it's a value call and since there isn't another option that allows for good quality food quickly, they get my money. This didn't used to exist and that sucked, so maybe we are just undervaluing how great this is. Would be greater not paying $60 for lunch though, so yeah, I'm gonna keep paying and grumbling about it at the same time. I really hope drone services take off soon and have better pricing.
Using drones would be cheaper, but the delivery companies won't be passing those savings on to you. They've already shown that people are willing to pay the prices they charge now. They'll just absorb the savings for themselves.
How much do you weight sir
What does how much they weigh have to do with literally anything
I've never met a skinny person using these delivery craps.
Nobody ever died if they had to wait a bit until their next meal
Chances are if you aren't in college anymore most people you meet are overweight.
😂 The drones carry the food to the people, not the other way around.
And you think restaurant staff is not exploited?
Good for you?
People not ordering food en masse would hurt small businesses the most. Plus there's a huge benefit to using an app to order food, which is why they're so popular. If the system were controlled by the restaurants and interoperable via an open API, we'd at least see some transparency.
The problem is exactly what OP stated: These things are owned by a small number of players, who can exercises control of the market from all sides. They've created a chokepoint where they can extract rents without needing to provide value in return.
But you can vote with your wallet and not use the third party delivery app. Order from the place directly or call and order for pickup depending on the venue. Almost any resteraunt will let you call and order for pickup (that's already what Uber/GrubHub/etc. do then charge you the fee for the convenience), and they'll prefer that over the app because they get 100% of the money you pay for that meal
I get that boycotts don't work, but who the fuck is still paying double/triple instead of picking it up themselves on their way home or just driving out to get it - I haven't ordered third party delivery since the pandemic since there's no way I can justify the stupid high cost.
I recently started delivering with DoorDash to add some cushion to my budget and this week I had someone buy a single two pound bag of spaghetti noodles from Safeway.
I got laid $6.75 for the delivery after tip (DoorDash paid me $4.75 and the customer gave me a $2 tip). The noodles cost 3.84 at Safeway, and $4.18 on the app, and Safeway is a zero dollar delivery fee shopping experience.
As far as I can tell, it cost DoorDash a dollar or two for me to make that delivery, and/or the customer paid a lot more than $6.75 for the noodles for it to make sense for DoorDash to take.
It was a sort of surreal experience.
"Voting with your wallet doesn't work when there aren't any alternatives."
Just cook your own food.
Yep, and that's why my family do not go out to eat anymore. Getting costly.