[pwinnski]

That is fundamentally not what Doordash says.

Doordash or whatever says 'for $x we will put a $y WhateverBurger burger into your hand,' but $y is already higher than a WhateverBurger costs. People are left thinking that $x isn't that high a cost for delivering a $y burger, but the actual delivery cost is $x plus some percentage of $y, so both the numerator and denominator are falsified.

They're lying about their value proposition.

[chrisseaton]

> Doordash or whatever says 'for $x we will put a $y WhateverBurger burger into your hand,' but $y is already higher than a WhateverBurger costs.

So add $x and $y together. If that price works for you go for it, if not, don't.

A markup plus a fee is already a common thing. It's done so that there is a minimum to cover expenses plus something that can vary with higher value items because you can get more profit from people who are willing to pay for more luxury items. It's not strange or unusual or a foreign concept to anyone already living in a Western economy.

I don't see why you'd care how they arrive at the final price. Just look at the final price.

[pwinnski]

What I think you're missing is that price is (or has been) an incredibly valuable input signal when determining the value of a previously-unknown restaurant. if I'm in the mood for a $20 meal, I know to avoid places that offer $40 meals, and vice-versa. My expectations for a $15 lunch are different than my expectations for a $25 lunch. Most people use price as an important signal, communicating something about the restaurant or meal.

These vendors are distorting that signal by misrepresenting the price. If it were clean-cut, and the original price were still visible, and the delivery as a separate 15-20% fee, then fine, I could do exactly what you suggest. Is it or is it not worth it to have this delivered right now?

But it's not. Let's say I see an arbitrary restaurant serving the kind of food I'm in the mood for, say Vietnamese food. I can then look and see the price to know roughly what quality of food to expect: Is it closer to $10 or $30 for an entree, since those are two very different things.

The total price might not even matter to me. But if I order a $20 entree with an extra delivery fee, and what shows up is a $10 entree, then that's a problem and most people will believe that the restaurant offers terrible value, because they were lied to by the intermediary.

That's the issue. It's not "am I will to have my In-N-Out burger delivered for $6 extra," it's "with Doordash lying to me about these restaurants I've never been to, I have no idea whether this is worth doing or not until I've already paid and accepted delivery."