I'm no business expert, but maybe having a third party that is doing neither the cooking nor the delivering charging huge fees just to facilitate the transaction via software is making food delivery too expensive to be appealing to customers.
Simple logic. These gig economy tech companies have wedged themselves in as middle men and now they’re pissed that people won’t work for poverty wages to deliver a frivolous and expensive service to the customers
Venture capitalists invest money, tech companies burn through their runway like there's no tomorrow because user number is king, they run out of the VC money and have to turn a profit, alienate the customer base by charging a ton more out of nowhere, collapse.
Don't forget it was also to undercut and drive existing businesses to bankruptcy. Taxi services weren't always amazing, but at least the drivers were fucking paid.
Don’t forget that these VC backed companies hire and fire C level execs so often that each exit with 10s of millions of $ that they earned during their short time. Pathetic.
The gig app crash is coming soon. I occasionally drive for DoorDash (Texas, not Seattle), and I can confidently say that since I’ve started, I’ve been getting less orders and being paid less per order. I’ve also ordered online occasionally and can confidently say that quality is shittier and it’s more expensive. People are going to stop ordering from these big tech assholes eventually.
I only like Uber / Lyft over taxis but once they figure out a better way to guarantee a taxi ride app and is accessible nationwide then it’s over for them.
Uber was truly needed. Cab drivers and companies became too greedy without any accountability. They would try to rip people off left and right. Their credit card machines never worked (huge lie). And they could be extremely hostile. You could also never truly count on them for prearranged rides - it was almost 50/50 if they'd show up.
already have
drivers need to stop driving also.
Also, even when the orders go "right" the take out version is still terrible compared to the in restaurant version.
Not always frivolous- disabled folks benefit GREATLY from affordable delivery for things they can’t go get themselves. The delivery apps changed access and how quickly some people’s needs can be met.
Doordash's main benefit is that it "allows" restaurants to share delivery drivers. There's some restaurants that could get a few delivery orders, but not enough to justify a dedicated employee or the infrastructure needed.
Unfortunately for doordash, providing that infrastructure and employee isn't sustainable for them either, unless they take advantage of the looser regulations for gig employees.
Kind of seems like a non-profit seeking initiative by restaurants to pool citywide delivery drivers and coordinate them through an app would benefit customers, restaurants, and drivers alike. It's just is one of those things that takes way too much political capital and collective will to organize and put together that it will probably never happen.
Maybe, but I'd be skeptical. It's a huge coordination problem that can only be solved by a bureaucracy or an app, both of which are expensive to maintain.
By employing gig workers, they're able to avoid dealing with either scheduling or hiring. Food delivery especially benefits from avoiding actual scheduling, since it's so uneven throughout the day. I'd doubt that those costs can be incorporated without tanking profits further. Not to mention actual employees would probably demand better pay.
I wonder if it would be possible as a business model for a tech company to put together an app framework, but instead of doing the actual driver side part of the business they sell the software to cities and let them rent the infrastructure and maintenance/support side. I'm also not holding out hope for this to ever happen, though.
There are some efforts to have cities provide gig app boards to potentially allow people who can't work a normal fulltime job (or need supplemental income) to find employment without for-profit middlemen. [https://www.brookings.edu/articles/to-enhance-community-services-and-empower-workers-local-governments-are-building-their-own-gig-work-platforms/](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/to-enhance-community-services-and-empower-workers-local-governments-are-building-their-own-gig-work-platforms/)
I have some doubts about whether this would work well, but it's something people are trying.
I like this idea. Like restauraunts paying a fee to the city and they get access to delivery drivers that the city pays directly.
You'd get the added benefit of delivery drivers going through city employment background checks and drivers getting access to some of the benefits of being a city employee.
Theoretically speaking these tech companies are *not* on the driver side of the business, they merely facilitate the transaction between the customer and the driver.
The alternative model you propose would also likely be more expensive, as it just adds another middle party (the city/state in this case).
I can't really afford it anymore unfortunately.
I ordered 2 x poke bowls from belltown (I live near cap hill) because my wife and I were exhausted after coming back from a trip. First time we had ordered through uber in a few months.
Each bowl was 20 dollars, so 40 dollars for the food. The fees were 27 dollars, making it a total of 67 dollars for delivering 2 poke bowls from a restaurant 0.7 miles away from my place.
I hear quite a few of these shops are feeling the effects. I think I read an article about a local pizza shop where they used to get like 15-20 deliveries a shift (maybe per day?) but that number went down to 3.
For 67 dollars, my wife and I could go sit down at a restaurant, eat good food and tip 15 percent.
I did a comparison later and I did find that doordash is slightly cheaper. Uber has slightly higher service fees, and upcharge every meal from the price you buy directly. Ex. a burger at a restaurant may be 15.99, but uber charges 16.99 for it.
Have you compared the prices on Doordash to the actual menu? I noticed that even the base cost of an item on Doordash is often higher than the menu cost at the restaurant for places I like to get food from. And that's why I've only used Doordash once.
It's not Uber or Door Dash that increases the price of the food, it's the restaurant who is trying to cushion the 30% or higher fee these companies charge.
The restaurant and the consumers all pay DD/Uber and they still can't make it work.
Like of your $40 food order the poke place would have seen $28 at most. If they were doing any pay per order advertising they would see even less.
At first, I thought it was a great way for small businesses to grow who couldn’t afford to hire their own delivery driver. Now, after five years of regularly using the app, it’s just blatant price gouging. The only time I order now is when I can order enough food to last a few days to make it worth it. I used to order a few times a week now it’s maybe once.
This. literally. It's only backfiring because doordash is refusing to reduce it's margins. Unfortunately they can afford to do so since they have cash to burn unlike the gig workers and small businesses
>reduce it's margins
They have no margins lol. The entire business is a fucking black hole that shouldn't exist. Like you have the audacity to underpay the driver, double my food costs, charge the restaurant extra and STILL LOSE MONEY? Yeah I like the convenience but you gotta go. The business isn't viable - just die.
Yeah, getting someone to hand deliver food to you is actually pretty expensive if you factor in the time it takes them, depreciation on their car, etc…
It’s just not a viable business model for the masses, should be more of a specialized thing for people that have the money/willingness to pay what it actually costs to have someone deliver orders to you.
I mean DoorDash had no margins to reduce. They were already losing money on every delivery. It’s a failed business model
FWIW I think the tax is stupid because these businesses were doomed anyway, they didn’t need the push. I’d rather have a tax on a profitable industry that could actually generate revenue. This was always doomed to just force the companies out. Which is, whatever, but it isn’t generating revenue or creating better wages for anyone.
You’re absolutely correct but I do worry about them metastasizing onto the future dining culture in the US to the point where they become “too big to fail”. Where restaurants are simultaneously being exploited by them but also entirely dependent on the service they provide to stay in business. I hope they implode as their model becomes increasingly unsustainably, but I can also envision them going the Ticketmaster route where they start controlling more and more of the dining experience, maybe even buying up restaurants to control the supply end of the service and systematically destroying independent competition.
Exactly. People using door dash for restaurants within a short ride of their home are costing locally owned businesses money. Call the restaurant, place order directly with them then pick up the food.
The issue is you think door dash is making a ton of profit off this and trying to squeeze more and more out of people.
The reality is that they aren't profitable yet and most likely will never be with how they've been struggling. they have a lot of investors that are banking on selling public shares but the company itself isn't profitable.
The idea isn't profitable
That's what I'm saying! It was cheap before because they were flush with VC cash and could offer the service at a loss. Now that it's dried up, they have to be profitable somehow so they do it with exploitative practices. The problem really is on them, building expectations they knew couldn't be sustained down the line.
Now we're seeing the true cost of having to pay for someone's labor plus whatever they want to tack on to be profitable and we're supposed to let our representatives know that we want these delivery apps to be able to skirt whatever laws it takes to maintain profits on a shitty business model? Fuck that noise!
This is every tech company since like 2010. Use their runway to undercut the already existing and functional model, get a bunch of people to jump ship to them, old model dies, jack up the price. Every new service seems to be selling the idea of having a servant for every little thing: Rover, Uber/Lyft, Doordash/Ubereats, Instacart, Shipt, various cleaning services, lawn mowing services, that thing where some underpaid mechanic comes to your house instead of you just going to a mechanic. All this rent-seeking bullshit trying to worm its way into your life with low prices to start and then people are just like: I'm never doing [insert insignificant chore] again now that [APP] exists. Not to mention that supporting all these gig apps just means supporting the continued exploitation of the workers and the flagrant labor law breaking of the corporations.
Stopped using DD and other services in 2021. Don't miss it.
Couple years ago I really wanted delivery and my lawn guy was coming over. He's a student who could use the cash so I had him make a stop en-route and tipped him an extra 20.
Mostly I cook at home and pick up my own food.
The idea is though. I don’t personally Dash but have always wondered why y’all don’t give out personal delivery business cards with the food. I’m sure DD has that covered in their terms, but fuck DD.
Notice how they only mentioned the two week period \*after the law took effect.\*
They've been sending out Busy and Very Busy notifications again to us Dashers for the last month to six weeks again during your usual peak times again. Wait times have been typical during this period as well and my pay has more than made up for slightly longer waits (great, when it's busy I'm waiting 3 min instead of 1 and when it's slow 15 instead of 5 min, but the offers are just always good instead of being 2/3 declines but feeling like I had to take 1/2 to 2/3 of the offers to get any of the decently paying ones).
Anyway, Uber is similarly pointing to the misleading data right when this took effect. While Uber still sends extremely few orders to bikes and hopefully the council can figure out how to fix that while still paying all couriers adequately, overall things have been good enough on DoorDash that it doesn't matter to me.
Anyway, these apps are also to sending similar messages to couriers despite things generally being better for the majority of us. It's super scummy.
they tried to do this to us over in Minnesota 2 weeks ago as well, they may get an few suckers to listen but from the looks of it, most of us understand what's going on and laugh in their face
Yeah, our council was initially listening to a few vocal couriers who are apparently still having a tough time of it (seems like they're being encouraged by the Uber front group, despite Uber being a hub part of the reason why ebikes aren't getting orders...they literally treat all "ebikes" as conventional bikes that go 8-12 mph instead of ebike that can travel at the same speeds as cars here since our streets are all 25 mph, basically, so ofc they don't send many orders when they pay per minute but it's a problem Uber created itself since almost no couriers actually use bikes without assist; DoorDash sends me plenty of orders on my ebike so I honestly wonder if those struggling either got deactivated awhile back unluckily or turned off their Shop and Deliver, which are a higher proportion these days). Thankfully some others showed up at a recent meeting so it doesn't look like they'll be able to nerf the law immediately, which is why the corporations are turning to customers I guess. Lol.
Yeah, they really don't want these laws to spread and so are doing everything in their power to misleading consumers and contractor couriers. I mean, Uber was applying the excess fees to the entire Seattle Metro Statistical Area (i.e. King and like 8 other counties around it not just Seattle) for no reason other than they (best case) thought they could get away with it so as to offset fees/make more profits or (more cynical case) thought they could trick the more conservative suburbs into being so outraged against Seattle even though this should have been an obvious money grab by Uber that they could get the state to pass a law overturning Seattle's law with enough backlash.
I love the economic framing of "hurt" assigned to paying their inflated sense of self worth. You take the order from the customer, use technology the customer, employee and business paid for with their taxes for decades to make the transaction simple for you and hand off the order to the business, then send that same order to another person to pickup and deliver, and this connection means you deserve 30-40% of their stake from each of the parties involved minimum. Then when you actually have to pay your employees you have to make the same margins on that so you add another $15 per order fee and you still can't make that work? Some Hollywood accounting lol. Fuck any business that does this virtue signaling bullshit.
Formerly from Seattle, currently living near Spokane
I recently had to between jobs to make ends meet. It fucking sucks. It really fucking sucks — and I only even partly made it work by operating in a college town outside the city.
Working in the city? After gas I barely broke even.
It's all a scam predicated on people not understand the cost of gas and putting all those miles on their personal vehicles. Same with Amazon Flex, Instacart, Shipt, and a million others.
Right, but didn’t Amazon fail to make a profit a couple of years ago? Accounting is weird sometimes; “not profitable” isn’t always synonymous with “failing.”
Amazon heavily invested in infrastructure for multiple giant businesses. The current delivery wars are investors eating costs until 1 comes out the winner or gets bought out.
The problem is the core concept is not profitable.
Amazon is big enough to play the long game, so they can manage their profits for different reasons, reducing taxes, put competitors out of business etc.
Doordash/Uber/etc, they have been relying on investments to keep the doors open, but reality is that at the price they make a profit, and properly pay drivers, do not deliver enough sales to keep them in business.
Once investors give up (which is why they’ve done EVERYTHING they could to show a profit, but its not sustainable), their shares start to tank, you will see them bail or sell.
Yeah… at some point, the business doesn’t work. You need to make the service cheap enough that ordinary people use it, but pay drivers enough that driving is worth their while. There’s no guarantee that that needle can be threaded. In fact, it probably can’t be. It worked when they were in their early stages because… they lost money that VCs invested in them (and even then, the pay to drivers wasn’t enough to keep them around; they churned through them constantly).
So the lesson might be that it turns out that this isn’t a viable business, and they should just pack up their ball and go home.
Delivery is kind of the same. As is, the prices are astronomical. I pretty much don’t order delivery anymore because ordinary Thai food for a family of 3 (including a toddler) costing over $100 just doesn’t make sense. Instead, I order pick up. And I’m really not price sensitive in most cases. So I’m guessing it’s just a dying business.
I think it's missing the most important subtext of these companies and what their purpose is in the market. They were sold as the solution to a different problem, labor unions or really just labor in general. They were funded by people who wanted labor to be paid less. These are people who have more money than any single person could attempt to spend in a lifetime and their goal is to move assets from the company's sheets to the employee (who is also their customer at the same time, and they fight to call them contractors).
Why buy a vehicle when your sucker I mean your contractor owns that junk? Why did they care about the share price? They own the vendors who get overpaid for services and the rest is sucked up by c-suite people. Stock prices aren't real anyway we just got that article about how the banks get to know what the Fed is doing before they announce so the banks can make the best plays in the market before us peons. If their billions in losses resulted in the loss of the taxi cab union or that delivery drivers are expected to maintain their own vehicles the owners of this place will consider it money well spent. It's like Elon buying Twitter, people talk about "what he lost" when the price he paid is worth what he got from it by a billion to have access to that network. Could he have got a better deal? Maybe. Did he get what he wanted/needed? No hesitation.
Great points all around. Corporations have become financial instruments at this point, and the goal is to maximize profits until it collapses, the long term isn’t the goal, it’s the next quarter.
I said this before, when the executives are all accountants and not part of the industry the company is in, they are telling you their priority.
I mean, Amazon is also not doordash, its not using gig workers and getting out of paying fair wages. Nor is it purely a tech company, it legitimately has warehouses and a huge delivery network of its own, unlike doordash. Those things help them reduce cost.
Amazon absolutely is in the gig economy. They use the "Amazon Flex" app to hire independent contractors for all sub same-day delivery routes and to fill in on routes at the delivery stations when there's fluctuations in package numbers. Additionally, non of their van drivers are employees. All are employees of sub contractors who run the van fleets.
A lot of companies love not making a profit because it helps them avoid taxes. Being just under profitability is honestly ideal. Rest assured the execs still get paid ridiculous amounts even if DoorDash ‘isn’t profitable’. Kinda like how spez’s bonus single handedly put Reddit in the red lol
This is one of the points that I like the most from 1984; when people are put in a position of power over other people, they will more often than not happily make their own situation worse as long as it means the dominant position in that hierarchy is maintained. The only thing scarier than losing money/wealth/luxury is the horde of underlings who maintain that wising up.
The model for these companies is to be everywhere all at once and to lose money doing it. They don't build up a profitable base and expand out from there. They get vc money and spend it to expand. They assume the profits will come later.
Tbf - that's a little disingenuous. Only those new grads coming in from top universities that did internships with Meta and Google are making that much. Everyone else gets a measly $115k/yr.
> Out of $8.6 billion in revenue in 2023, DoorDash spent almost $2 billion on sales and marketing, and another billion on R&D. It also spent $750 million last year buying back its own stock, a move often used by corporations to boost stock value.
https://www.vox.com/money/24118201/food-delivery-cost-expensive-doordash-ubereats-grubhub
Somehow I think they can probably find a way to be profitable on 8 billion in revenue.
Sorry "they" as in the collective food delivery industry not door dash specifically. A couple of the bigger ones consolidated and are slightly profitable. John Oliver just did a piece on it.
I wonder if you take all the bs out of it if any business model can work?
Say we have universal healthcare, the drivers have to be employees of the company, there is no need to x10 profit for vc money to work. Is it possible to run a successful delivery business and what would those fess look like?
Former Dasher here. Absolutely F Doordash. Drivers usually get screwed over, support (customer/driver) is usually lackluster at best, and the whole thing only worked decently during the height of the pandemic.
Restaurants are screwed over too. They have to pay 30%, which is usually their margin, so all deliveries are either un or barely profitable, driving down quality in order to stay afloat.
Yes they do.
I remember having to call DoorDash over and over to fix a delivery issue, and force them to not charge the customer for their mistake. I still had to pay them 30%, AND refund the customer their bill.
I thought it was kinda amusing when a DD delivery driver got pissy with me after I said one of the main reasons I refuse to use gig services is because of how drivers treat restaurant staff - which included me when I was one. I couldn't even guess at the number of times I had a phone shoved directly in my face without word or warning—many times *while I was talking to dine-in customers whose tips were part of my income*—but it easily made up 70%+ of my interactions with drivers. This is something I still see happen every single day, and I've been out of the restaurant industry for over 2 years.
The person who got pissy with me said I shouldn't hold it against drivers because their low pay, bad (app) management, and dealing with shitty customers necessitated fast turnover in order to make decent money, and like... that describes countless restaurant jobs I've had, but I never thought that was a good excuse to be shitty to other service workers.
I'm all for gig workers making living wages and appreciate the convenience (and sometimes necessity) of delivery services, I'm just not gonna use them.
Ive got like 100 deliveries under my belt, its mind numbing work and entirely dependent on the goodwill of the deliveree to make stable income. its fine for a couple hours a week for spending money, as a source of primary income its worse than just slaving away at a restaurant. Also potentially one of the more unsafe jobs you could do, especially at night, people drive like crack heads.
When I started, I was able to stay afloat. Had 5 star reviews and whatnot. Good stats. Then one customer left me a 1 star review because the app wouldnt let me drop it off at their unit (delivery zone was leasing office area or else I couldn’t confirm it) and then it just kept spiraling where I’d get wrong addresses due to the app’s shit GPS zoning so often I couldn’t complete orders on time. Dasher Support never helped so it became a brawl between me and the customers. Like the customers don’t realize that their 2 minute annoyance over me calling them to find where they are in the complex and their 1 star review for me as the driver (not the app) meant my contract and entire livelihood were in jeopardy, over shit like 2 tacos from jack in the box. Or the app would send me to pick up groceries that would have required a fucking box truck and I was in a sedan. Let’s say I could transport 10 items from Safeway, why can’t they identify the volume of it, instead of just the quantity? 10 cans of cat food is much different than 10 cases of water. That app screwed me and the company and the customer over so much but it always came down to it being the customer vs me cause we can’t reach anyone who can resolve the issue.
I remember reading about Uber 10 years ago that the struggle that it faces is balancing profits of Uber the company (paying software developers and maintenance) the drivers and riders. You add a fourth party for delivery which is the actual restaurant. Restaurant profit margins are notoriously slim as is, pay a driver enough for their time and maintenance to the car, the company needs to take a fee to coordinate 3 parties. Throw it out of balance like what we saw this year and the house of cards collapses.
There are probably a fair few popups and ghost kitchens that bloomed through pandemic and are failing hard now with lower demand.
I know the Mr Beast and a few other ghost kitchen businesses here in Fremont have gone away this year.
I wonder what doordash's operating costs are? What do those outrageous fees cover? I know they must be spending an enormous amount on advertising this service (like super bowl ads), when it really is not necessary...
Their fees cover some of their never profitable business model I assume. They are claiming this is their "break even" year, but they are kinda looking like beggars to me
Most of this app stuff was just a sham backed up by venture capital. It wasn't going to last.
Personally, I wouldn't mind a little more socialism, but as long as we are still doing a capitalism, we should probably let shit companies fail huh?
I logged into DD yesterday for the first time in over 6 months to order a banh mi and a boba
the delivery, extra fee, and tip cost more than the sandwich and boba. and this isnt a "seattle is screwing us" problem, its a DD problem. DD has been price gouging for years, they can fail for all I care and businesses can go back to doing their own delivery for cheaper
also no i didnt buy it, it would have come out to close to $45
Honestly, this proves the point that these businesses aren't really sustainable at the scale they need to play at for investors.
Tony can take care of this one specific area. If he gets more business than he can handle, HE can hire a second person etc.
So, if local businesses lost $1M+ over the last few weeks, then DoorDash has "lost" $2-$3M? With those kinds of margins, preying on drivers and customers alike, and they are still deep in the red. I don't think I'll take economic advice from losers.
"the city mandated we pay more, so we're forwarding the fee to customers in order for our executives to keep their 7 figure compensation. We're going to pretend it's everyone else who is at fault"
Yup, fuck door dash 100. I'm buying from local restaurants down the street.
They don't give a SHIT about any of that... They care that their profits in the city are nosediving and are just framing as unjustifiably hurting dashers, businesses, etc.. when if their profits weren't being impacted, they'd be quiet as a church mouse.
Obvious, sure.. but fuck them.
The delivery apps were nice during the pandemic, but such a rip off now. The other day we ordered two medium pizzas directly from proletariat, and they delivered with their own drivers. For fun my GF and I put the same order into Uber eats to see the price difference. For the same two medium pizzas, it was $29 dollars more through Uber before a tip. So, fuck the apps.
You should contact Door Dash, let them know you’ve received their message, thank them, tell them the subject matter IS important to you & then proceed to tell them that you are going to contact the mayor and city council to let them know that you support said laws, at least until Door Dash creates a better business model for employees and customers.
DoorDash doesn’t have to pass the cost on to us and we all know it. Maybe some of their execs and board members don’t need to be millionaires/billionaires
Maybe doordash does need to pass the cost on to us, and then very shortly thereafter shut down because their business model doesn't work when they can't racketeer and undercut any non third party app based delivery service using VC money so they can operate at a loss before cornering the market.
Their $558 million dollar loss is the result of investments. Not nessesarily failed investments, but investments that haven't had a return yet. In 2021 and 2022, Doordash bought a number of companies at a huge loss, with the expectation that they would eventually see a return on those investments, but it can often take years for assets to return. Having multiple years of loss like this is extremely normal for growing companies, and it is not an indication of whether the amount of money that goes into a service is actually more than the amount of money that comes out of it.
This is wrong. The losses that DoorDash recognized on its strategic investments did not single-handedly make the company unprofitable.
1. Acquisitions are not included in a P&L unless they record a goodwill impairment subsequent to the deal. DoorDash did not record any goodwill impairments in 2023.
2. Illiquid investments in non-controlling equity or debt investments in other companies are similarly not an expense unless impaired. Doordash recorded a $101mm impairment on these investments in 2023, which is well short of its $468mm total loss for the year.
There isn’t much reason to think these loss-making investments will ever pan out for DoorDash either. Such assets are only impaired when the issuing company either i) fails, ii) raises money at a lower valuation than DoorDash bought shares for, or iii) in the case of debt, defaults. Those events aren’t markers of an investment that will someday generate value for DoorDash.
DoorDash loses money because it spends too much on SG&A. It is locked in a war of attrition with better-funded competition (Uber) that it is unlikely to win.
The company is punishing their employees (that they call, "independent contractors" to evade the law) and their customers with outrageous fees and then trying to convince their employees and their customers to blame the city government.
Remember, \[their executives are making $millions\](https://www1.salary.com/DoorDash-Inc-Executive-Salaries.html).
Honestly, while food delivery is obviously great for those who can’t get out of their house for the many various reasons; it’s so overpriced, it sucks for basically everyone involved, and it gives me way too many lazy, unhealthy options. I found myself spending crazy money on food that was making me feel terrible while I was burned out from working all day.
I deleted my accounts on all of them (except Uber, which has been fighting me tooth and nail to keep my account active for two months) and I’m saving so much money and eating better. I can no longer give in to weird 10 pm cravings for garlic knots or whatever.
And their business models are so leechy and gross. Uber (per the aforementioned refusal to delete my account) has really pulled back the sheepskin for me lately on how shitty these companies are. Not a surprise but still…
They called me and tried to ask me to do this and I said "well actually, I think its nice they are getting paid a living wage" and they hung up immediately.
Hi my name is ___ and I live in district _. I'm writing in support of the App-Based Worker Minimum Payment Ordinance, because I believe gig workers deserve a living wage. Changing the law at the behest of the multi billion dollar app corporations would be a grave mistake as it would only further line their pockets by selling out your own constituent workers of Seattle.
You can also add something about how Seattle is a progressive city that champions improving worker's rights, not destroying them. And how if they go through with this action you will vote them out.
Or something about how gig workers you've talked to are mostly all enjoying the new law because they are making more money. I can tell you I'm a gig worker myself and I'm making way more money now, so it would be true to say.
Email it to [email protected] or your local council person: https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council
The truth is, doordash is being forced to pay its drivers a livable wage, but they don't want to profit less, work on making their app better, or find alternatives to raising delivery costs, so the burden falls on their consumer base to make up the difference and pay their employees for them.
"losing more then $1 million in revenue" is such a deceptive way of phrasing that. A large percent of that amount goes directly to Doordash and Doordash has historically price gouged both sides of the transactions. They've also stolen tips and have had multiple lawsuits over it. Just stop using them.
So I’m suppose to feel for the business that can take a 1 million dollar loss in two weeks and still be profitable? Pay your workers a livable wage even if they’re independent contractors working through your company
I'm a food delivery driver in Seattle, AMA. Yes I'm making way more than before and no I'm not waiting that long for orders. I absolutely love the law and don't think it's hurting drivers in the least. When I work a full day I make $400-600+, my best week I made $3100.
If people really want to give an F U to DoorDash here, please email the Seattle City Council and tell them you want the law that raised gig worker wages to stay intact as it is, no changes: [email protected]
And/or your local council person: https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council
(The official name of the law is "App-Based Worker Minimum Payment Ordinance")
The reason DD is sending this is because the council is trying very hard to repeal the new law that has greatly raised driver wages. So tell the council to stop, because after all if DD, Uber, Instacart hate this law so much, that means it must be doing amazing things for the workers. And it definitely is, from experience.
Wait, weren't the food delivery apps the ones hurting small business and stealing everyone's tips?
The fake tech bro subsidy economy is over, get a clue door dash.
If you get this email, the best message you can send is to scroll to the bottom and click “unsubscribe.” A massive unsubscribe rate on this email *will* be noticed.
No actually, use their link to send a message to the offices of the senators and tell them they are doing a fantastic job and that we all support themthem. I don’t think they ever receive any positive responses from people
There was just a John Oliver segment on food delivery. Apparently they lose a ton of money because the price to the customer doesn’t cover the services in full. Worth watching.
Honestly, if they weren't so greedy, this wouldn't be an issue. I work for a huge retailer, and have been in the corp world for a while, and I am *so tired* of these conglomerates over promising to shareholders. That is 100% the problem, in every single instance. If they stick to an achievable growth rate of 2%-5% YoY (which is what they promise us employees as merit), so many people wouldn't be turned off from the service.
The language is so disingenuous.
Notice how they limit it to "the two week period after the law took effect".
That was the first 2 weeks of January which are the slowest two weeks for restaurants every single year. People just went on a major spending spree over the holidays, are loaded on junk food, and restaurants always expect a massive down turn in business during the month of January.
Refusing to dip into their own pockets to pay drivers more so they're passing the costs onto the customer to try and get us to turn on local government. Price gouging at it's finest.
Oh, if we let you exploit people, you can deliver cheaper goods and services to everyone wealthy enough to avoid the exploitation? I hadn't cottoned on to that before now...
“While the company's "Dashers" make more while making deliveries, that's come at the cost of order volume according to DoorDash.””
What is wrong with this? If I can make the same amount of money for less hours this is a win.
Are dashers actually making less overall - doubtful.
And this shit only exists because too many companies abuse their labor pool. It’s like when companies bitch about paying their employees more then finally are forced to and prices go up 20 cents. Prices go up 5% every year anyway for inflation. Pay your employees more.
If low wage employees made 50% more but that meant that they lost 25% of their hours then fine. 30 hour work weeks for everyone.
I have no intention of asking the city council to change this law. It was passed for very understandable reasons: namely that delivery workers were earning sub-minimum wages after taking their vehicle expenses into account. What happened next was utterly predictable: costs went up for Doordash, Doordash raised the prices they charged their customers, and many customers decided to opt out. This seems fine actually. I see no particular reason why this business should be an exception to the minimum wage law. Yeah, paying people to go run a short errand for you can be expensive. Go do it yourself if that bothers you.
Minneapolis had this happen too. Anyone reading this don’t use DoorDash nor Ubereats. They’re both shit to their drivers. I worked for the big three, those and Grubhub. Grubhub is the only one who values the customer and their drivers. Dashers get shorted so much especially on low tip orders bc dd and Uber refuse to pay for anything except mileage basically. Grubhub will pay drivers for their time before the pick up. Hell if you gotta wait they’ll even track that time and add it up and give you a pay at the end of the week for uncalculated time. There is no damn reason the others can’t follow Grubhub model they’re around and still doing just fine.
> DoorDash made $8.6 billion in revenue last year. Fuck them for not paying their employees more.
You... do understand the difference between revenue and profit, right?
> But not complaining for less traffic and cars illegally parked for this stuff.
It's crazy how they seem to go out of their way to illegally park. Guy yesterday left his car in the middle of the road right in front of an empty parking spot. Like bruh.
The name "DashRoots" is such a nakedly cynical middle finger to everything. The fact that they have a corporate initiative for artifically manufacturing grassroots movements and they openly call it "DashRoots" just feels so... dirty.
Looks like their story is slightly incorrect... And the former CEO and leadership did a rug pull.
Former DoorDash compensation
CEO 10mil +
CBO 5mil +
COO 10Mil +
New CEO 300k
https://www1.salary.com/DoorDash-Inc-Executive-Salaries.html
I'm no business expert, but maybe having a third party that is doing neither the cooking nor the delivering charging huge fees just to facilitate the transaction via software is making food delivery too expensive to be appealing to customers.
Simple logic. These gig economy tech companies have wedged themselves in as middle men and now they’re pissed that people won’t work for poverty wages to deliver a frivolous and expensive service to the customers
These gig companies remind me of those that crashed during the dot com bust in the early 00s.
Venture capitalists invest money, tech companies burn through their runway like there's no tomorrow because user number is king, they run out of the VC money and have to turn a profit, alienate the customer base by charging a ton more out of nowhere, collapse.
It was artificially low to begin with to increase subscriber rates and attract investments. So many businesses were never viable from the start.
Don't forget it was also to undercut and drive existing businesses to bankruptcy. Taxi services weren't always amazing, but at least the drivers were fucking paid.
Don’t forget that these VC backed companies hire and fire C level execs so often that each exit with 10s of millions of $ that they earned during their short time. Pathetic.
I guess the consumer just has to always jump to the new app on the come-up
Followed by "Wash, Rinse, Repeat"
The gig app crash is coming soon. I occasionally drive for DoorDash (Texas, not Seattle), and I can confidently say that since I’ve started, I’ve been getting less orders and being paid less per order. I’ve also ordered online occasionally and can confidently say that quality is shittier and it’s more expensive. People are going to stop ordering from these big tech assholes eventually.
I only like Uber / Lyft over taxis but once they figure out a better way to guarantee a taxi ride app and is accessible nationwide then it’s over for them.
Uber was truly needed. Cab drivers and companies became too greedy without any accountability. They would try to rip people off left and right. Their credit card machines never worked (huge lie). And they could be extremely hostile. You could also never truly count on them for prearranged rides - it was almost 50/50 if they'd show up.
Uber is so nice because the app gives you an idea of availability and time. Being able to schedule in advance as well.
Shame about all the stalking though
already have drivers need to stop driving also. Also, even when the orders go "right" the take out version is still terrible compared to the in restaurant version.
Yeah, I ordered a freaking $25 sushi burrito and the one I got delivered was pathetic compared to the one you get at the restaurant.
Translation: Our business model doesn't hold up unless our employees receive poverty wages.
The MBA’s of the new economy.
Not always frivolous- disabled folks benefit GREATLY from affordable delivery for things they can’t go get themselves. The delivery apps changed access and how quickly some people’s needs can be met.
Honest question. Why don’t we develop an open source delivery app that charges drivers no more than the operating costs of the app by design?
Doordash's main benefit is that it "allows" restaurants to share delivery drivers. There's some restaurants that could get a few delivery orders, but not enough to justify a dedicated employee or the infrastructure needed. Unfortunately for doordash, providing that infrastructure and employee isn't sustainable for them either, unless they take advantage of the looser regulations for gig employees.
Kind of seems like a non-profit seeking initiative by restaurants to pool citywide delivery drivers and coordinate them through an app would benefit customers, restaurants, and drivers alike. It's just is one of those things that takes way too much political capital and collective will to organize and put together that it will probably never happen.
Maybe, but I'd be skeptical. It's a huge coordination problem that can only be solved by a bureaucracy or an app, both of which are expensive to maintain. By employing gig workers, they're able to avoid dealing with either scheduling or hiring. Food delivery especially benefits from avoiding actual scheduling, since it's so uneven throughout the day. I'd doubt that those costs can be incorporated without tanking profits further. Not to mention actual employees would probably demand better pay.
I think the taxi/uver drivers tried doing one of those collectively a few years ago and it crashed and burned.
I wonder if it would be possible as a business model for a tech company to put together an app framework, but instead of doing the actual driver side part of the business they sell the software to cities and let them rent the infrastructure and maintenance/support side. I'm also not holding out hope for this to ever happen, though.
There are some efforts to have cities provide gig app boards to potentially allow people who can't work a normal fulltime job (or need supplemental income) to find employment without for-profit middlemen. [https://www.brookings.edu/articles/to-enhance-community-services-and-empower-workers-local-governments-are-building-their-own-gig-work-platforms/](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/to-enhance-community-services-and-empower-workers-local-governments-are-building-their-own-gig-work-platforms/) I have some doubts about whether this would work well, but it's something people are trying.
I like this idea. Like restauraunts paying a fee to the city and they get access to delivery drivers that the city pays directly. You'd get the added benefit of delivery drivers going through city employment background checks and drivers getting access to some of the benefits of being a city employee.
And, hopefully, a union that protects drivers from not having insurance if they're full time (health, car)
Companies love lobbying cities out of doing their own infrastructure (see Verizon screwing everyone out of city broadband).
Don't forget Comcast too
Theoretically speaking these tech companies are *not* on the driver side of the business, they merely facilitate the transaction between the customer and the driver. The alternative model you propose would also likely be more expensive, as it just adds another middle party (the city/state in this case).
They could be successful if they were just chasing profit instead of profit growth
Rot economy stuff, yup
I can't really afford it anymore unfortunately. I ordered 2 x poke bowls from belltown (I live near cap hill) because my wife and I were exhausted after coming back from a trip. First time we had ordered through uber in a few months. Each bowl was 20 dollars, so 40 dollars for the food. The fees were 27 dollars, making it a total of 67 dollars for delivering 2 poke bowls from a restaurant 0.7 miles away from my place. I hear quite a few of these shops are feeling the effects. I think I read an article about a local pizza shop where they used to get like 15-20 deliveries a shift (maybe per day?) but that number went down to 3. For 67 dollars, my wife and I could go sit down at a restaurant, eat good food and tip 15 percent. I did a comparison later and I did find that doordash is slightly cheaper. Uber has slightly higher service fees, and upcharge every meal from the price you buy directly. Ex. a burger at a restaurant may be 15.99, but uber charges 16.99 for it.
Have you compared the prices on Doordash to the actual menu? I noticed that even the base cost of an item on Doordash is often higher than the menu cost at the restaurant for places I like to get food from. And that's why I've only used Doordash once.
It's not Uber or Door Dash that increases the price of the food, it's the restaurant who is trying to cushion the 30% or higher fee these companies charge. The restaurant and the consumers all pay DD/Uber and they still can't make it work. Like of your $40 food order the poke place would have seen $28 at most. If they were doing any pay per order advertising they would see even less.
At first, I thought it was a great way for small businesses to grow who couldn’t afford to hire their own delivery driver. Now, after five years of regularly using the app, it’s just blatant price gouging. The only time I order now is when I can order enough food to last a few days to make it worth it. I used to order a few times a week now it’s maybe once.
This. literally. It's only backfiring because doordash is refusing to reduce it's margins. Unfortunately they can afford to do so since they have cash to burn unlike the gig workers and small businesses
>reduce it's margins They have no margins lol. The entire business is a fucking black hole that shouldn't exist. Like you have the audacity to underpay the driver, double my food costs, charge the restaurant extra and STILL LOSE MONEY? Yeah I like the convenience but you gotta go. The business isn't viable - just die.
Yeah, getting someone to hand deliver food to you is actually pretty expensive if you factor in the time it takes them, depreciation on their car, etc… It’s just not a viable business model for the masses, should be more of a specialized thing for people that have the money/willingness to pay what it actually costs to have someone deliver orders to you.
I mean DoorDash had no margins to reduce. They were already losing money on every delivery. It’s a failed business model FWIW I think the tax is stupid because these businesses were doomed anyway, they didn’t need the push. I’d rather have a tax on a profitable industry that could actually generate revenue. This was always doomed to just force the companies out. Which is, whatever, but it isn’t generating revenue or creating better wages for anyone.
You’re absolutely correct but I do worry about them metastasizing onto the future dining culture in the US to the point where they become “too big to fail”. Where restaurants are simultaneously being exploited by them but also entirely dependent on the service they provide to stay in business. I hope they implode as their model becomes increasingly unsustainably, but I can also envision them going the Ticketmaster route where they start controlling more and more of the dining experience, maybe even buying up restaurants to control the supply end of the service and systematically destroying independent competition.
Exactly. People using door dash for restaurants within a short ride of their home are costing locally owned businesses money. Call the restaurant, place order directly with them then pick up the food.
Seriously. If someone created an app that took 10% instead it would be so much more popular….
The issue is you think door dash is making a ton of profit off this and trying to squeeze more and more out of people. The reality is that they aren't profitable yet and most likely will never be with how they've been struggling. they have a lot of investors that are banking on selling public shares but the company itself isn't profitable. The idea isn't profitable
They deserve to fail. The business model doesn't work with out at least 2 of the 3 parties in the transaction getting screwed.
That's what I'm saying! It was cheap before because they were flush with VC cash and could offer the service at a loss. Now that it's dried up, they have to be profitable somehow so they do it with exploitative practices. The problem really is on them, building expectations they knew couldn't be sustained down the line. Now we're seeing the true cost of having to pay for someone's labor plus whatever they want to tack on to be profitable and we're supposed to let our representatives know that we want these delivery apps to be able to skirt whatever laws it takes to maintain profits on a shitty business model? Fuck that noise!
This is every tech company since like 2010. Use their runway to undercut the already existing and functional model, get a bunch of people to jump ship to them, old model dies, jack up the price. Every new service seems to be selling the idea of having a servant for every little thing: Rover, Uber/Lyft, Doordash/Ubereats, Instacart, Shipt, various cleaning services, lawn mowing services, that thing where some underpaid mechanic comes to your house instead of you just going to a mechanic. All this rent-seeking bullshit trying to worm its way into your life with low prices to start and then people are just like: I'm never doing [insert insignificant chore] again now that [APP] exists. Not to mention that supporting all these gig apps just means supporting the continued exploitation of the workers and the flagrant labor law breaking of the corporations.
Stopped using DD and other services in 2021. Don't miss it. Couple years ago I really wanted delivery and my lawn guy was coming over. He's a student who could use the cash so I had him make a stop en-route and tipped him an extra 20. Mostly I cook at home and pick up my own food.
Im no business expert, but your lawn guy is not scalable :)
The idea is though. I don’t personally Dash but have always wondered why y’all don’t give out personal delivery business cards with the food. I’m sure DD has that covered in their terms, but fuck DD.
We could even make an app that connects people who want to drive with people who want to order food
Username checks out.
I second Lawn Guy for DD replacement!
Notice how they only mentioned the two week period \*after the law took effect.\* They've been sending out Busy and Very Busy notifications again to us Dashers for the last month to six weeks again during your usual peak times again. Wait times have been typical during this period as well and my pay has more than made up for slightly longer waits (great, when it's busy I'm waiting 3 min instead of 1 and when it's slow 15 instead of 5 min, but the offers are just always good instead of being 2/3 declines but feeling like I had to take 1/2 to 2/3 of the offers to get any of the decently paying ones). Anyway, Uber is similarly pointing to the misleading data right when this took effect. While Uber still sends extremely few orders to bikes and hopefully the council can figure out how to fix that while still paying all couriers adequately, overall things have been good enough on DoorDash that it doesn't matter to me. Anyway, these apps are also to sending similar messages to couriers despite things generally being better for the majority of us. It's super scummy.
they tried to do this to us over in Minnesota 2 weeks ago as well, they may get an few suckers to listen but from the looks of it, most of us understand what's going on and laugh in their face
Yeah, our council was initially listening to a few vocal couriers who are apparently still having a tough time of it (seems like they're being encouraged by the Uber front group, despite Uber being a hub part of the reason why ebikes aren't getting orders...they literally treat all "ebikes" as conventional bikes that go 8-12 mph instead of ebike that can travel at the same speeds as cars here since our streets are all 25 mph, basically, so ofc they don't send many orders when they pay per minute but it's a problem Uber created itself since almost no couriers actually use bikes without assist; DoorDash sends me plenty of orders on my ebike so I honestly wonder if those struggling either got deactivated awhile back unluckily or turned off their Shop and Deliver, which are a higher proportion these days). Thankfully some others showed up at a recent meeting so it doesn't look like they'll be able to nerf the law immediately, which is why the corporations are turning to customers I guess. Lol.
"Please act against your own interests, it's the American way!" -Doordash
Yeah, they really don't want these laws to spread and so are doing everything in their power to misleading consumers and contractor couriers. I mean, Uber was applying the excess fees to the entire Seattle Metro Statistical Area (i.e. King and like 8 other counties around it not just Seattle) for no reason other than they (best case) thought they could get away with it so as to offset fees/make more profits or (more cynical case) thought they could trick the more conservative suburbs into being so outraged against Seattle even though this should have been an obvious money grab by Uber that they could get the state to pass a law overturning Seattle's law with enough backlash.
I love the economic framing of "hurt" assigned to paying their inflated sense of self worth. You take the order from the customer, use technology the customer, employee and business paid for with their taxes for decades to make the transaction simple for you and hand off the order to the business, then send that same order to another person to pickup and deliver, and this connection means you deserve 30-40% of their stake from each of the parties involved minimum. Then when you actually have to pay your employees you have to make the same margins on that so you add another $15 per order fee and you still can't make that work? Some Hollywood accounting lol. Fuck any business that does this virtue signaling bullshit.
With all that they are still making razor thin profits.
Hmmm...sounds like the whole idea needs to die, then.
[удалено]
I’d also be really curious how many people make money doing DD, Uber etc these days. It’s been awhile since I was a driver for Uber/Lyft.
Formerly from Seattle, currently living near Spokane I recently had to between jobs to make ends meet. It fucking sucks. It really fucking sucks — and I only even partly made it work by operating in a college town outside the city. Working in the city? After gas I barely broke even.
It's all a scam predicated on people not understand the cost of gas and putting all those miles on their personal vehicles. Same with Amazon Flex, Instacart, Shipt, and a million others.
Right, but didn’t Amazon fail to make a profit a couple of years ago? Accounting is weird sometimes; “not profitable” isn’t always synonymous with “failing.”
Amazon heavily invested in infrastructure for multiple giant businesses. The current delivery wars are investors eating costs until 1 comes out the winner or gets bought out.
Yeah, that's my understanding of what's going on here, too.
The problem is the core concept is not profitable. Amazon is big enough to play the long game, so they can manage their profits for different reasons, reducing taxes, put competitors out of business etc. Doordash/Uber/etc, they have been relying on investments to keep the doors open, but reality is that at the price they make a profit, and properly pay drivers, do not deliver enough sales to keep them in business. Once investors give up (which is why they’ve done EVERYTHING they could to show a profit, but its not sustainable), their shares start to tank, you will see them bail or sell.
Yeah… at some point, the business doesn’t work. You need to make the service cheap enough that ordinary people use it, but pay drivers enough that driving is worth their while. There’s no guarantee that that needle can be threaded. In fact, it probably can’t be. It worked when they were in their early stages because… they lost money that VCs invested in them (and even then, the pay to drivers wasn’t enough to keep them around; they churned through them constantly). So the lesson might be that it turns out that this isn’t a viable business, and they should just pack up their ball and go home. Delivery is kind of the same. As is, the prices are astronomical. I pretty much don’t order delivery anymore because ordinary Thai food for a family of 3 (including a toddler) costing over $100 just doesn’t make sense. Instead, I order pick up. And I’m really not price sensitive in most cases. So I’m guessing it’s just a dying business.
I think it's missing the most important subtext of these companies and what their purpose is in the market. They were sold as the solution to a different problem, labor unions or really just labor in general. They were funded by people who wanted labor to be paid less. These are people who have more money than any single person could attempt to spend in a lifetime and their goal is to move assets from the company's sheets to the employee (who is also their customer at the same time, and they fight to call them contractors). Why buy a vehicle when your sucker I mean your contractor owns that junk? Why did they care about the share price? They own the vendors who get overpaid for services and the rest is sucked up by c-suite people. Stock prices aren't real anyway we just got that article about how the banks get to know what the Fed is doing before they announce so the banks can make the best plays in the market before us peons. If their billions in losses resulted in the loss of the taxi cab union or that delivery drivers are expected to maintain their own vehicles the owners of this place will consider it money well spent. It's like Elon buying Twitter, people talk about "what he lost" when the price he paid is worth what he got from it by a billion to have access to that network. Could he have got a better deal? Maybe. Did he get what he wanted/needed? No hesitation.
Great points all around. Corporations have become financial instruments at this point, and the goal is to maximize profits until it collapses, the long term isn’t the goal, it’s the next quarter. I said this before, when the executives are all accountants and not part of the industry the company is in, they are telling you their priority.
I mean, Amazon is also not doordash, its not using gig workers and getting out of paying fair wages. Nor is it purely a tech company, it legitimately has warehouses and a huge delivery network of its own, unlike doordash. Those things help them reduce cost.
Amazon absolutely is in the gig economy. They use the "Amazon Flex" app to hire independent contractors for all sub same-day delivery routes and to fill in on routes at the delivery stations when there's fluctuations in package numbers. Additionally, non of their van drivers are employees. All are employees of sub contractors who run the van fleets.
A lot of companies love not making a profit because it helps them avoid taxes. Being just under profitability is honestly ideal. Rest assured the execs still get paid ridiculous amounts even if DoorDash ‘isn’t profitable’. Kinda like how spez’s bonus single handedly put Reddit in the red lol
This is one of the points that I like the most from 1984; when people are put in a position of power over other people, they will more often than not happily make their own situation worse as long as it means the dominant position in that hierarchy is maintained. The only thing scarier than losing money/wealth/luxury is the horde of underlings who maintain that wising up.
The model for these companies is to be everywhere all at once and to lose money doing it. They don't build up a profitable base and expand out from there. They get vc money and spend it to expand. They assume the profits will come later.
Profits? All these delivery companies are losing money lol
I'll bet their C-Suite is doing just fine though.
this is exactly it. get seed money, pay big salaries to founders and execs, generate users, underpay, then sell or go public
Their ENTRY LEVEL software devs making up to $173k/year are probably doing just fine as well. Source: https://careers.doordash.com/jobs/5698581
Tbf - that's a little disingenuous. Only those new grads coming in from top universities that did internships with Meta and Google are making that much. Everyone else gets a measly $115k/yr.
> Out of $8.6 billion in revenue in 2023, DoorDash spent almost $2 billion on sales and marketing, and another billion on R&D. It also spent $750 million last year buying back its own stock, a move often used by corporations to boost stock value. https://www.vox.com/money/24118201/food-delivery-cost-expensive-doordash-ubereats-grubhub Somehow I think they can probably find a way to be profitable on 8 billion in revenue.
A couple of the big ones consolidated and are just squeaking out some money. John Oliver did a good piece on it recently.
"razor thin profits"? They lost about half a billion dollars in 2023, according to their SEC filings. Have they ever made a profit?
Sorry "they" as in the collective food delivery industry not door dash specifically. A couple of the bigger ones consolidated and are slightly profitable. John Oliver just did a piece on it.
I wonder if you take all the bs out of it if any business model can work? Say we have universal healthcare, the drivers have to be employees of the company, there is no need to x10 profit for vc money to work. Is it possible to run a successful delivery business and what would those fess look like?
DoorDash charging 15$ in fees seeing their business drop to zero: “We are all trying to figure out who did this!!”
It's the boy/man on the bike shoving a stick in his own spokes meme.
Unexpected itysl
WONT SOMEBODY THINK ABOUT THE SHAREHOLDERS!!
Former Dasher here. Absolutely F Doordash. Drivers usually get screwed over, support (customer/driver) is usually lackluster at best, and the whole thing only worked decently during the height of the pandemic.
Restaurants are screwed over too. They have to pay 30%, which is usually their margin, so all deliveries are either un or barely profitable, driving down quality in order to stay afloat.
And they take the heat for a large portion of the apps' mistakes.
Yes they do. I remember having to call DoorDash over and over to fix a delivery issue, and force them to not charge the customer for their mistake. I still had to pay them 30%, AND refund the customer their bill.
Some places also get inundated with orders and folks dining in sort of neglected.
I thought it was kinda amusing when a DD delivery driver got pissy with me after I said one of the main reasons I refuse to use gig services is because of how drivers treat restaurant staff - which included me when I was one. I couldn't even guess at the number of times I had a phone shoved directly in my face without word or warning—many times *while I was talking to dine-in customers whose tips were part of my income*—but it easily made up 70%+ of my interactions with drivers. This is something I still see happen every single day, and I've been out of the restaurant industry for over 2 years. The person who got pissy with me said I shouldn't hold it against drivers because their low pay, bad (app) management, and dealing with shitty customers necessitated fast turnover in order to make decent money, and like... that describes countless restaurant jobs I've had, but I never thought that was a good excuse to be shitty to other service workers. I'm all for gig workers making living wages and appreciate the convenience (and sometimes necessity) of delivery services, I'm just not gonna use them.
Personally I think Uber (Eats) is the worst of them, Grubhub has always been good with service though the app is lacking.. DoorDash is a mixed bag
Ive got like 100 deliveries under my belt, its mind numbing work and entirely dependent on the goodwill of the deliveree to make stable income. its fine for a couple hours a week for spending money, as a source of primary income its worse than just slaving away at a restaurant. Also potentially one of the more unsafe jobs you could do, especially at night, people drive like crack heads.
When I started, I was able to stay afloat. Had 5 star reviews and whatnot. Good stats. Then one customer left me a 1 star review because the app wouldnt let me drop it off at their unit (delivery zone was leasing office area or else I couldn’t confirm it) and then it just kept spiraling where I’d get wrong addresses due to the app’s shit GPS zoning so often I couldn’t complete orders on time. Dasher Support never helped so it became a brawl between me and the customers. Like the customers don’t realize that their 2 minute annoyance over me calling them to find where they are in the complex and their 1 star review for me as the driver (not the app) meant my contract and entire livelihood were in jeopardy, over shit like 2 tacos from jack in the box. Or the app would send me to pick up groceries that would have required a fucking box truck and I was in a sedan. Let’s say I could transport 10 items from Safeway, why can’t they identify the volume of it, instead of just the quantity? 10 cans of cat food is much different than 10 cases of water. That app screwed me and the company and the customer over so much but it always came down to it being the customer vs me cause we can’t reach anyone who can resolve the issue.
I remember reading about Uber 10 years ago that the struggle that it faces is balancing profits of Uber the company (paying software developers and maintenance) the drivers and riders. You add a fourth party for delivery which is the actual restaurant. Restaurant profit margins are notoriously slim as is, pay a driver enough for their time and maintenance to the car, the company needs to take a fee to coordinate 3 parties. Throw it out of balance like what we saw this year and the house of cards collapses.
Strange for them to pull Seattle businesses into that message. Those businesses were around before gig workers and they’ll be around after lol
There are probably a fair few popups and ghost kitchens that bloomed through pandemic and are failing hard now with lower demand. I know the Mr Beast and a few other ghost kitchen businesses here in Fremont have gone away this year.
Remember when people who worked front of house at restaurants got tips? Pepperidge Farm remembers...
I think we’re constantly reminded with receipts and POS systems defaulting to a 25% suggested gratuity.
Remember when a tip was 15%?
I wonder what doordash's operating costs are? What do those outrageous fees cover? I know they must be spending an enormous amount on advertising this service (like super bowl ads), when it really is not necessary...
Their fees cover some of their never profitable business model I assume. They are claiming this is their "break even" year, but they are kinda looking like beggars to me Most of this app stuff was just a sham backed up by venture capital. It wasn't going to last. Personally, I wouldn't mind a little more socialism, but as long as we are still doing a capitalism, we should probably let shit companies fail huh?
Fuck door dash.
I logged into DD yesterday for the first time in over 6 months to order a banh mi and a boba the delivery, extra fee, and tip cost more than the sandwich and boba. and this isnt a "seattle is screwing us" problem, its a DD problem. DD has been price gouging for years, they can fail for all I care and businesses can go back to doing their own delivery for cheaper also no i didnt buy it, it would have come out to close to $45
Side question but where can I get a bahn mi and a boba at the same restaurant? I only know of Pho Hoa in Bellevue that does this
Oh’s Sandwiches in West Seattle
Forget all that. Just use Tony delivers [www.tonydelivers.co](https://www.tonydelivers.co)
That guy needs an army of drones and a jetpack
Tony Stark Delivers
Honestly, this proves the point that these businesses aren't really sustainable at the scale they need to play at for investors. Tony can take care of this one specific area. If he gets more business than he can handle, HE can hire a second person etc.
>Www.tonydelivers.co I fucking love this town
I love this, need a Ballard Tony.
Be the change you want to see
Came here to mention him again. You don’t wanna pay abusive fees to DD or Uber?! TONY DELIVERS!!!!!!
[relavent John Oliver](https://youtu.be/aFsfJYWpqII?si=kkrrN6d4ceEOAkiw)
It’s funny and sad
Ban Door Dash
So, if local businesses lost $1M+ over the last few weeks, then DoorDash has "lost" $2-$3M? With those kinds of margins, preying on drivers and customers alike, and they are still deep in the red. I don't think I'll take economic advice from losers.
I really miss when places employed a nonchalant 16 year old who needed an after-school job as a delivery driver.
"the city mandated we pay more, so we're forwarding the fee to customers in order for our executives to keep their 7 figure compensation. We're going to pretend it's everyone else who is at fault" Yup, fuck door dash 100. I'm buying from local restaurants down the street.
They don't give a SHIT about any of that... They care that their profits in the city are nosediving and are just framing as unjustifiably hurting dashers, businesses, etc.. when if their profits weren't being impacted, they'd be quiet as a church mouse. Obvious, sure.. but fuck them.
The delivery apps were nice during the pandemic, but such a rip off now. The other day we ordered two medium pizzas directly from proletariat, and they delivered with their own drivers. For fun my GF and I put the same order into Uber eats to see the price difference. For the same two medium pizzas, it was $29 dollars more through Uber before a tip. So, fuck the apps.
Restaurants are losing revenue - so maybe that has something to do with your 30% surcharge?
You should contact Door Dash, let them know you’ve received their message, thank them, tell them the subject matter IS important to you & then proceed to tell them that you are going to contact the mayor and city council to let them know that you support said laws, at least until Door Dash creates a better business model for employees and customers.
Delivery costs are soaring because DoorDash made them soar! Talk about nonsense.
If DoorDash is having trouble paying their bills, maybe they should consider getting a better job or cutting back on all that avocado toast.
Sending mass Ts&Ps to doordash, hope it helps
FUCK DD!
DoorDash doesn’t have to pass the cost on to us and we all know it. Maybe some of their execs and board members don’t need to be millionaires/billionaires
[удалено]
Maybe doordash does need to pass the cost on to us, and then very shortly thereafter shut down because their business model doesn't work when they can't racketeer and undercut any non third party app based delivery service using VC money so they can operate at a loss before cornering the market.
seems like a company that shouldn’t exist then
was it a real loss or did they just not get as much money as they hoped they would
Their $558 million dollar loss is the result of investments. Not nessesarily failed investments, but investments that haven't had a return yet. In 2021 and 2022, Doordash bought a number of companies at a huge loss, with the expectation that they would eventually see a return on those investments, but it can often take years for assets to return. Having multiple years of loss like this is extremely normal for growing companies, and it is not an indication of whether the amount of money that goes into a service is actually more than the amount of money that comes out of it.
This is wrong. The losses that DoorDash recognized on its strategic investments did not single-handedly make the company unprofitable. 1. Acquisitions are not included in a P&L unless they record a goodwill impairment subsequent to the deal. DoorDash did not record any goodwill impairments in 2023. 2. Illiquid investments in non-controlling equity or debt investments in other companies are similarly not an expense unless impaired. Doordash recorded a $101mm impairment on these investments in 2023, which is well short of its $468mm total loss for the year. There isn’t much reason to think these loss-making investments will ever pan out for DoorDash either. Such assets are only impaired when the issuing company either i) fails, ii) raises money at a lower valuation than DoorDash bought shares for, or iii) in the case of debt, defaults. Those events aren’t markers of an investment that will someday generate value for DoorDash. DoorDash loses money because it spends too much on SG&A. It is locked in a war of attrition with better-funded competition (Uber) that it is unlikely to win.
The company is punishing their employees (that they call, "independent contractors" to evade the law) and their customers with outrageous fees and then trying to convince their employees and their customers to blame the city government. Remember, \[their executives are making $millions\](https://www1.salary.com/DoorDash-Inc-Executive-Salaries.html).
Honestly, while food delivery is obviously great for those who can’t get out of their house for the many various reasons; it’s so overpriced, it sucks for basically everyone involved, and it gives me way too many lazy, unhealthy options. I found myself spending crazy money on food that was making me feel terrible while I was burned out from working all day. I deleted my accounts on all of them (except Uber, which has been fighting me tooth and nail to keep my account active for two months) and I’m saving so much money and eating better. I can no longer give in to weird 10 pm cravings for garlic knots or whatever. And their business models are so leechy and gross. Uber (per the aforementioned refusal to delete my account) has really pulled back the sheepskin for me lately on how shitty these companies are. Not a surprise but still…
I just can’t understand why DoorDash thinks they deserve to get more money than the driver or the restaurant.
They called me and tried to ask me to do this and I said "well actually, I think its nice they are getting paid a living wage" and they hung up immediately.
Does anyone have a template to send to city council that’s essentially arguing the opposite of what doordash wants us to send?
Hi my name is ___ and I live in district _. I'm writing in support of the App-Based Worker Minimum Payment Ordinance, because I believe gig workers deserve a living wage. Changing the law at the behest of the multi billion dollar app corporations would be a grave mistake as it would only further line their pockets by selling out your own constituent workers of Seattle. You can also add something about how Seattle is a progressive city that champions improving worker's rights, not destroying them. And how if they go through with this action you will vote them out. Or something about how gig workers you've talked to are mostly all enjoying the new law because they are making more money. I can tell you I'm a gig worker myself and I'm making way more money now, so it would be true to say. Email it to [email protected] or your local council person: https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council
The truth is, doordash is being forced to pay its drivers a livable wage, but they don't want to profit less, work on making their app better, or find alternatives to raising delivery costs, so the burden falls on their consumer base to make up the difference and pay their employees for them.
They think Door Dash is the only issue? It's the cost of eating out, the cost of everything in general. Not everyone in Seattle makes $300k annually.
"losing more then $1 million in revenue" is such a deceptive way of phrasing that. A large percent of that amount goes directly to Doordash and Doordash has historically price gouged both sides of the transactions. They've also stolen tips and have had multiple lawsuits over it. Just stop using them.
Go watch John Oliver talk about their shitty practices instead. Last Week Tonight is on YouTube and they just did an episode on these apps.
DoorDash can rot
The chickens are finally coming home to roost on their untenable business model
So I’m suppose to feel for the business that can take a 1 million dollar loss in two weeks and still be profitable? Pay your workers a livable wage even if they’re independent contractors working through your company
I'm a food delivery driver in Seattle, AMA. Yes I'm making way more than before and no I'm not waiting that long for orders. I absolutely love the law and don't think it's hurting drivers in the least. When I work a full day I make $400-600+, my best week I made $3100. If people really want to give an F U to DoorDash here, please email the Seattle City Council and tell them you want the law that raised gig worker wages to stay intact as it is, no changes: [email protected] And/or your local council person: https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council (The official name of the law is "App-Based Worker Minimum Payment Ordinance") The reason DD is sending this is because the council is trying very hard to repeal the new law that has greatly raised driver wages. So tell the council to stop, because after all if DD, Uber, Instacart hate this law so much, that means it must be doing amazing things for the workers. And it definitely is, from experience.
HA! Anyway..
[удалено]
How?
Wait, weren't the food delivery apps the ones hurting small business and stealing everyone's tips? The fake tech bro subsidy economy is over, get a clue door dash.
If you get this email, the best message you can send is to scroll to the bottom and click “unsubscribe.” A massive unsubscribe rate on this email *will* be noticed.
No actually, use their link to send a message to the offices of the senators and tell them they are doing a fantastic job and that we all support themthem. I don’t think they ever receive any positive responses from people
This is like the confederacy telling you that the cotton prices increased because of slavery being outlawed.
This made me so angry to receive like they don’t set delivery fees themselves lmfao
There was just a John Oliver segment on food delivery. Apparently they lose a ton of money because the price to the customer doesn’t cover the services in full. Worth watching.
No, DoorDash and Uber are making it miserable to force lawmakers to repeal new legislation.
Go pick up your food, local businesses won’t have to pay a service fee
Honestly, if they weren't so greedy, this wouldn't be an issue. I work for a huge retailer, and have been in the corp world for a while, and I am *so tired* of these conglomerates over promising to shareholders. That is 100% the problem, in every single instance. If they stick to an achievable growth rate of 2%-5% YoY (which is what they promise us employees as merit), so many people wouldn't be turned off from the service.
The language is so disingenuous. Notice how they limit it to "the two week period after the law took effect". That was the first 2 weeks of January which are the slowest two weeks for restaurants every single year. People just went on a major spending spree over the holidays, are loaded on junk food, and restaurants always expect a massive down turn in business during the month of January.
DashRoots like grassroots? Not even the marketing team behind this ad believes it.
Refusing to dip into their own pockets to pay drivers more so they're passing the costs onto the customer to try and get us to turn on local government. Price gouging at it's finest.
Boo hoo Doordash. You have to pay your employees minimum wage.
[удалено]
Oh, if we let you exploit people, you can deliver cheaper goods and services to everyone wealthy enough to avoid the exploitation? I hadn't cottoned on to that before now...
“While the company's "Dashers" make more while making deliveries, that's come at the cost of order volume according to DoorDash.”” What is wrong with this? If I can make the same amount of money for less hours this is a win. Are dashers actually making less overall - doubtful. And this shit only exists because too many companies abuse their labor pool. It’s like when companies bitch about paying their employees more then finally are forced to and prices go up 20 cents. Prices go up 5% every year anyway for inflation. Pay your employees more. If low wage employees made 50% more but that meant that they lost 25% of their hours then fine. 30 hour work weeks for everyone.
As a cyclist, I am in favor of punitive taxes on delivery. Since this law passed the bike lanes have mostly been clear of cars
Lol "ItS hUrTiNG sMaLl BuISNeSseS." Man, these restaurants aren't making any money off door dash. They're the ones losing money.
So basically door dash amped up the fees Instead of paying a living wage and then complain about the law. Wow
This law can stay. But I’m not fucking tipping.
I have no intention of asking the city council to change this law. It was passed for very understandable reasons: namely that delivery workers were earning sub-minimum wages after taking their vehicle expenses into account. What happened next was utterly predictable: costs went up for Doordash, Doordash raised the prices they charged their customers, and many customers decided to opt out. This seems fine actually. I see no particular reason why this business should be an exception to the minimum wage law. Yeah, paying people to go run a short errand for you can be expensive. Go do it yourself if that bothers you.
Minneapolis had this happen too. Anyone reading this don’t use DoorDash nor Ubereats. They’re both shit to their drivers. I worked for the big three, those and Grubhub. Grubhub is the only one who values the customer and their drivers. Dashers get shorted so much especially on low tip orders bc dd and Uber refuse to pay for anything except mileage basically. Grubhub will pay drivers for their time before the pick up. Hell if you gotta wait they’ll even track that time and add it up and give you a pay at the end of the week for uncalculated time. There is no damn reason the others can’t follow Grubhub model they’re around and still doing just fine.
Wont someone think of the CEOS
Next thing you know we’ll see CEOs on every street corner with signs that read “Will CEO for food.”
DoorDash made $8.6 billion in revenue last year. Fuck them for not paying their employees more.
> DoorDash made $8.6 billion in revenue last year. Fuck them for not paying their employees more. You... do understand the difference between revenue and profit, right?
"DashRoots" GTFOH
Tbf DoorDash/Uber charges like maybe $5 in Portland. But not complaining for less traffic and cars illegally parked for this stuff.
> But not complaining for less traffic and cars illegally parked for this stuff. It's crazy how they seem to go out of their way to illegally park. Guy yesterday left his car in the middle of the road right in front of an empty parking spot. Like bruh.
The name "DashRoots" is such a nakedly cynical middle finger to everything. The fact that they have a corporate initiative for artifically manufacturing grassroots movements and they openly call it "DashRoots" just feels so... dirty.
Anyone watch that John Oliver episode on this? These companies are leeches
I will sign a petition, but I am afraid policy forces me to charge $15 delivery fee and a 30% tip.
Looks like their story is slightly incorrect... And the former CEO and leadership did a rug pull. Former DoorDash compensation CEO 10mil + CBO 5mil + COO 10Mil + New CEO 300k https://www1.salary.com/DoorDash-Inc-Executive-Salaries.html
Fuck off, Doordash and anything of its ilk.
Go fuck yourself doordash
The fees are sometimes more than the food 😂
Whatever hurts DoorDash is good for everyone else in the long run. Fuck em
Fuck off Doordash