[nabilhat]

> Sounds like a win to absolutely everyone involved.

Let's pare it down to only you and the unsolicited service - You come home from work and the neighbor kid from six blocks down you've never met bills you for mowing your lawn while you were away.

Let's pare it down to only the unsolicited service and the business - Hi, we put out a bunch of ads that say we're you and have a bunch of customers lined up ready to order. We'll tell you who they are for a 10% service fee. Also we lied to your customers about your prices.

Imagine you bought a new car two months ago, then find out the sales person was just some guy who hangs out on the lot, told you he works for the dealership, and charged you a 10% markup over the dealership's actual price. Imagine your elderly neighbors fell for a door-to-door roofing scam that works the same way.

[chrisseaton]

But Doordash don't charge for an unsolicited service. They aren't charging the restaurant at all in this case. They're paying the restaurant's full price for food. Like anyone could.

Then they charge the customer for an additional service actually rendered - the delivery. They charge this as a delivery fee and a markup that they can vary on more expensive items. This is pretty normal for a retail business to do.

[ceejayoz]

The Grubhub UX makes a specific claim, though: "Restaurant X charges $10 for a burger, and we will deliver it for $5".

When they're marking the item price up, that claim is false. Given these apps' SEO juice and ubiquity, users are left with the false impression that Restaurant X sells a pretty expensive burger.

[chrisseaton]

Do they really specifically say 'Restaurant X charges $10 for a burger'? Or do they just say 'the burger costs $10'?

Like when you shop on Amazon - they say 'the TV is $x and our delivery fee is $y' - really the manufacturer charged them < $y but they mark up and then also charge a delivery fee, don't they?

Nobody looses their mind at this.

[ceejayoz]

Grubhub positions themselves as a delivery service, not a reseller. Receipts list the price for the item, Grubhub's fee, and Grubhub's delivery fee. I'm sure they're quite careful with exactly how they word it to avoid legal issues, but the implicit claim is pretty clear: "here's the restaurant cost, and here's our cost".

I would be upset if Amazon had brick-and-mortar stores and they sold me a $100 TV with a $10 delivery fee online, but that same product was available for pick-up at $90. I'd be fine with it sold in-store for $100.

We do flip out when these sorts of pricing tricks are used. One I can recall: Best Buy ran a bestbuy.com intranet in-store to wiggle out of online deals. https://www.engadget.com/2007-03-03-best-buys-secret-intrane...