[wutbrodo]

The claim is not that you have to be dumb to want a suboptimal burger over optimal Chinese food. It's that it doesn't make sense to do so and then blame the restaurant for the burger not being as fresh as it would be if you got it in-person.

Also note that I'm not claiming that this is simply due to people being dumb. It's just my experience that, in the absence of an explanation for why someone does something "obviously" dumb, it makes more sense to accept that they're dumb than it does to be "perplexed". There's a cultural barrier against communicating openly about differences in intelligence, and it can lead to blindspots if you rely on it too much tk explain people's behavior. But it's my observation that the pendulum has swung so far to one side that many people don't even like to consider that others may be reasoning poorly.

[behnamoh]

I know people have different degrees of intelligent judgment, but you should also consider the fact that people who order online have already accepted the absurd fees and taxes imposed by the app (19% fee on Doordash, 16% on Grubhub, + tips + taxes). If you're willing to pay extra money in order to get your desired food while you're busy doing your own work, isn't it reasonable to get mad at the restaurant and the app for handling the food poorly?

[oarsinsync]

> If you're willing to pay extra money in order to get your desired food while you're busy doing your own work, isn't it reasonable to get mad at the restaurant and the app for handling the food poorly?

Depends. If the restaurant doesn’t offer delivery, and some third party is charging you to perform delivery services for you, why is the restaurant at fault?

Invariably, the restaurant gets the blame for the failed delivery experience, regardless of whether or not they’re responsible.

As the snickers advert correctly notes: you’re not you when you’re hungry. Reason and rational thought are difficult when blood sugar is low.

[wutbrodo]

> people who order online have already accepted the absurd fees and taxes imposed by the app (19% fee on Doordash, 16% on Grubhub, + tips + taxes).

Is this absurd? You have to balance it against the service you want, which is having someone drive to an arbitrary burger joint, wait for your order, and then drive it to your door. That's such an inefficient use of someone else's time that I'd expect to pay a lot for it. It's not clear to me that 15-20% is somehow "absurd". I get mild sticker shock on the few occasions I order delivery, but the sticker shock is directed at my own laziness, not price-gouging. Wasn't there an article on HN just yesterday calling these companies "parasites" for screwing investors, drivers, and restaurants, all in the name of delivering unreasonably low consumer prices?

> If you're willing to pay extra money in order to get your desired food while you're busy doing your own work, isn't it reasonable to get mad at the restaurant and the app for handling the food poorly?

Those standards don't extend infinitely. As the original comment I replied to says, some foods don't deliver well. If you get a burger delivered, it's probably not going to be as good as in the restaurant. This isn't just common sense; it's the type of common sense that a sufficiently intelligent person is usually not going to be able to avoid thinking about. As an upthread comment says, it's fine if you want a soggy burger, but expecting it to taste fresh off the grill is almost physically impossible.

The only way for the restaurant to get around this is by leaving items off of their delivery menu. But this would be a terrible idea: if I felt like a delivery burger, I wouldn't want a restuarant deciding for me that it's too low-quality to even be an option.

Fundamentally,the act we're talking about is complaining in a review that a (subsidized) delivered burger tastes like a delivered burger. It seems pretty irreducibly dumb to me.