Thank you, this was a fun rabbit hole to dive down. That blog also has a well-argued article about Zero Interest Rate Policy which relates to the doordash story: https://www.readmargins.com/p/zirp-explains-the-world
They could have made another $5 per 10 pizzas after order #1 by just delivering the pizza to themselves and sending the same boxes back out in the next delivery, and so on.
Maybe that's my EU mindset, but I'm baffled how it's even legal to add a company to your public listing - complete with fake phone number - and just declare they're taking deliveries, all against the explicit wishes of the company.
(Complete with "chill bro, I was just <s>joking</s>demand testing you" at the end)
The blogger calls this being "tricked" to sign up for DoorDash. Seems to me, this is the same way a burglar "tricks" you into giving them your valuables.
It could be a trademark violation, even in the US, under the argument that DoorDash was “passing itself off” as the infringed-upon company. However, DoorDash would then argue that it was being honest – it was genuinely delivering authentic goods. It could violate trademark no more than a convenience store violates a trademark by correctly claiming it sells Coca-Cola.
Well, you can probably add some fine print somewhere that listings are just for educational purposes or something and may not represent the actual company.
If you want to fight the VCs, you have to pull stunts like this. If they want to destroy local infrastructure because "free market", in an attempt to secure monopolies for themselves, then let them operate in a free market.
I said what I meant: most VC-backed startups could not survive in a real-world environment. Thank you for highlighting the distinction. Note that a free market isn't necessarily an unregulated market (see: Adam Smith).
Personally, I don't believe that free markets are a sensible way to manage local affairs. They work well on a medium scale, where goods are fungible and efficiency matters: but for something like the local pizza place, customer behaviour doesn't match that of a market participant. I don't think it's sensible to expect the local pizza place to be free of arbitrage opportunities. Someone who identifies and exploits such opportunities (e.g. "free meals available on request") would be taking advantage of goodwill, and the reason we can't have nice things. However, if a large corpo comes along and starts trying to undercut the locals, absolutely mug them for all they're worth: they're playing a different game, and it's not one you should want them to win.
> for something like the local pizza place, customer behaviour doesn't match that of a market participant.
I'm not sure why you think that. "Market participant" doesn't mean "always takes the lowest priced deal". People are willing to pay higher prices for food from local restaurants, as opposed to chains, fast food, etc., because they feel that the extra value they are getting (better quality, knowing the people who make the food, the atmosphere of the restaurant, etc.) is worth it. That's a free market.
What is not a free market is large corporations who get all kinds of government favors to prop them up coming in and taking advantage of arbitrage opportunities that the locals don't have the time or the energy to protect against--still more if such opportunities involve "marketing" the locals' products in ways the locals didn't agree to, and would not agree to if they were given the opportunity to make a choice. I completely agree with you that such things should be shut down.
A bit of a tangent, but price transparency is another factor.
At least when economists publish their "it's the bestest and most efficient option" analyses their definition involves perfect information: No secret prices, no non-disclosure agreements, everybody knows what was paid for inputs and labor, etc.
I bring this up because there is an unavoidable conflict between "the market that moves freely as a whole" version versus "the market where I'm free to keep secrets."
When the market does something I consider good, I call it free. When the market does something I consider bad, I call it not free [and it’s the government’s fault].
Feels tangentially related to the No True Scotsman fallacy, but with the premise flipped?
The funny thing about truth is that a lot of different, mutually-incompatible philosophical perspectives reach the same conclusions about it. https://existentialcomics.com/comic/258
But why do you think they’re harming “local infrastructure”? The food delivery services didn’t hurt anything but their investors in the end. And they kept the restaurant industry alive during the pandemic, the fallout would have been so much worse. I work in the industry and know several bar/restaurant owners who will tell you DoorDash and competitors are the only reason they made it through 2020-21.
Early on they stopped prohibiting restaurants from upcharging, so restaurants all did. They ended up with some extra sales and profits. The customer got VC funded free delivery.
Enough alternatives kept the market place efficient. DoorDash can’t get too abusive when UberEats and Instacart are competing, restaurants have no switching cost.
The whole thing worked for basically everyone involved except maybe the investors (DoorDash has significantly underperformed the S&P since it debuted on the market.)
From my side, as someone old enough to remember Domino's running the "there in thirty minutes or it's free" promotions... These delivery services absolutely tanked the quality of delivery.
Now you can basically only get slow delivery of over priced, cold food. Sure, you can get it from far more places, but it's a pyrrhic victory if I've ever seen one.
Used to be if a restaurant offered delivery, it was ok food for delivery, at ok prices, and their drivers had gear to keep it warm and presentable.
Now we basically only do pick up because these universal delivery companies suck at the one fucking thing they're supposed to do. But they've run all the local restaurants out of the delivery game.
Yard Sale Pizza in London does it's own delivery and it's great where it's available. I hated that I had to use their website but delivery is always good and still warm.
Yeah, as someone else pointed out, the gig-delivery services killed the delivery industry. Sure I can get food from a bunch of shitty fast food places now, but deliveries are way more expensive and take forever. The only place that still does good delivery around me is Jimmy Johns and Dominoes. I used to have 15-20 good quality delivery places that were fast with free delivery. And I'm as talking on the phone averse as anyone but calling a delivery place was just easier than using an app and they could give you updates on when they were out of something or whatever.
Uber eats / Door Dash suck so much I have no desire to order delivery food at all other than the two that run their own delivery and I know it will be a consistent experience. Anything else I either pick it or go without.
It was also shady how they paid for ads to supplant the phone numbers on Google so you were calling Door dash instead of the food place.
> Uber eats / Door Dash suck so much I have no desire to order delivery food at all other than the two that run their own delivery and I know it will be a consistent experience.
Same. It’s about the only reason why I order from Dominos occasionally. But last week it got delivered by Uber even though I ordered directly on their website. It also took 45 minutes to get delivered instead of the usual 10. So now the only Uber-free delivery I can get is a Japanese restaurant.
Dominos lets people order from Uber Eats but still handles delivery itself. Maybe they fall back to Uber drivers when they are short staffed.
I don’t know of any restaurants that previously had delivery of their own and switched. I’m sure they exist but it’s vanishingly small, for the reasons outlined.
So all DoorDash does is give you the consumer more options. If you don’t like it, you don’t use it and nobody is harmed.
Only a small percent of restaurants delivered in the first place outside of the ones like pizza that still do.
> Dominos lets people order from Uber Eats but still handles delivery itself. Maybe they fall back to Uber drivers when they are short staffed.
Yes, I assume that this is what happened.
> I don’t know of any restaurants that previously had delivery of their own and switched. I’m sure they exist but it’s vanishingly small, for the reasons outlined.
I know a couple. But the reason why none of the pizza places around here do delivery (apart from Domino's, usually) is not that they stopped doing it. It's that these businesses have a relatively short life expectancy, and the ones that open don't have drivers and instead rely on Uber or equivalent. And I really mean that no pizza place handles delivery themselves. I checked. Quite thoroughly. Some Asian restaurants do have drivers but even then, it's not a given.
> So all DoorDash does is give you the consumer more options. If you don’t like it, you don’t use it and nobody is harmed.
The option is Uber, Deliveroo, or walking to the place (driving there is not practical because of the limited parking space). The result is that we do it less often and when we do it it's more expensive or cumbersome. I am willing to accept that it's different where you live but here the days of free delivery are mostly over.
>I don’t know of any restaurants that previously had delivery of their own and switched. I’m sure they exist but it’s vanishingly small, for the reasons outlined.
Used to be that just about every chinese food and pizza place would deliver. Now it's all gig app BS unless it's a massive order.
> calling a delivery place was just easier than using an app
This is so much the polar opposite for me.
First of all: restaurant discovery. With a phone interface you have to somehow out of band learn that there is a place who delivers to you, that they are open and obtain their menu. With an app no matter where you are it gives you a list of places which are open and deliver to you.
Second is that you have all the time to browse the menu, do your research, contemplate, hand a phone around among many people, see your order, check your order, change your order, change your mind mid order. With a phone call a fast talking rushed person who often doesn’t speak the language natively talks to you from a noisy kitchen. And they expect you to get on with it fast because you are holding up the line. You better already know what you are ordering and be ready to make decisions about any substitutions as they come up.
Then comes the payment. With apps I’m only trusting my payment details to a large company who has the engineering resources to make the transaction secure. With a phone order you either pay to the delivery driver (does he accept card? Do i have enough cash if not?) or you read in your card details to the phone. Which is just bonkers unsecure on so many levels.
Then comes the tracking: with the app i see when the food is ready, and where the driver is in the delivery with a continously updated ETA. With a phone? You can call them again if the food does not show up I guess. Good luck.
Then comes the handover. With the phone if the food was pre-paid the delivery driver just gives the food to whomever. If it is paid on delivery they give it to whomever pays them. Hope it reaches you. With the apps i’m using the app displays a one time code which the driver ask for to check that you are who ordered.
Every element of the experience is better with an app in my opinion.
> and they could give you updates on when they were out of something
So can they through the app. But instead of telling every single costumer about what they are out of they just click it once on their admin and the items in question are stricken through in the menu. I see that all the time.
DoorDash finds a way to consistently screw up orders.
Order A,B,C - receive only A+B, or A,B,D. No explanation. Tipped generously.
For a long time, I myself drove and picked up my orders. The same restaurants rarely made mistakes. I never had to ask for missing item to be included. They always had everything in the bag.
It’s happened so often, it has to be malice from one of the parties involved.
While I would love to agree with you, in America restaurants of all sizes (and personal transportation companies) seemingly often rely on tips from customers to supplement the wages of their workers instead of just paying them fairly.
It's a collective action problem: it can't be solved by individuals like this. All you'll achieve is complicity in wage theft. A viable approach might be to prefer doing business with companies who promise their workers a good wage, but this requires that your local businesses actually make that commitment. To get that, you'll have to go outside the abstraction of the market, and actually talk to decisionmakers within the businesses. (This is sometimes called "activism".)
No, I disagree that other peoples ethical failures spread to you if you don't participate in the ethical failure. If you disagree on ethical grounds with something, just don't do it. To the extent that you could simply not frequent those places.
The army of faceless delivery gig workers can’t exactly pick and choose. They deliver the food or they get banned from the platform and replaced by the next guy.
My understanding is food delivery companies take a huge cut (like 30%) so restaurants are forced to raise their prices significantly or risk losing customers. Even with that cut, food delivery customers still have to pay a significant delivery/service fee.
At least the malware does already run on the coders machine. Fun starts, when malware just start to run on users machine and the coders are not coders anymore, just prompters and have no idea how such a thing can happen.
Isn't that already the case? Coders already think composer and node are great, an ecosystem predicated upon running thousands of untrusted pieces of code without any review or oversight.
Take a shoe like the Nike Free. The first shoes looked so slim and like EVERYBODY whore these all the time. Look at todays model. Never in 1000 years would my mom wear these shoes again. It might be, the new model is performing better. But most people don't used the early models for performance.
That might be all true, but is also true, 10 years ago people wore sport shirts everywhere. Today not anymore. More the opposite, if there is a big logo, people don't want it. Luxury brands have a kind the same problem at moment. Also all, special young people, can spend money just once. An expensive phone, best mobile abo, Netflix, ..., for girls daily MakeUp .., also people tend do sport just for themself. All kind Superstars are gone, in film, in sport, in music. Everyone knew people like Federer, Nadal, Bolt, Lance Armstrong. Today even the top athletes are just a kind of faceless winners.
Anecdotally I also noticed a shift in shoe buying among my peer group (25-39 year olds) in that they take foot health and comfort more seriously and do more research on that front.
My podiatrist has seen a huge uptick in younger patients since 2022. Generally he’s surprised at the age influx is mostly younger.
He only sells 3 brands of shoe depending on fit, need, size etc. Brooks, Hoka, and New Balance. These were traditionally seen as “older persons” shoe brands, especially Brooks.
I have been buying Brooks Adrenaline GTS shoes for 20 years.
My first pair, they were just on sale, so I bought them. When they wore out, I bought a different brand/design. And I noticed that I was wearing the completely worn out old pair of Adrenalines more than my new ones - they were just better.
And it makes it easy to buy a replacement - I've just buy another GTS shoe of the same size when the previous one wears out.
I see a lot of kids just wearing throw away Temu shirts with weird slogans or funny graphics. They get them for a few bucks and wear them through their paces because they will last as long as Teens need them to last, which is one school year.
American clothes stores got caught in a trap. They decrease quality a lot and decreased the price some to get more sales. People started associating clothes with throw away items. Now those same stores are competing on price alone which is a losing game for them.
I don't think they got caught in a trap, they followed their customer's preferences and decreased purchasing power.
It costs a lot of money to make quality garments, and a smaller proportion of people can afford them. On top of that, online sales have lower cost of goods sold than sales at physical stores, so it takes some time for all those real estate leases and staffing models to adjust to the new market.
In the past shared media like TV and radio had kind of a forced shared social reality that covered large areas, but typically up to the size of nation states and maybe their allies.
The internet eventually broke that. Social media allows people that don't like sports, for example, to cut their exposure to sports dramatically. At the same time it increases exposure to more random things. There is still big name advertising, but it's not the same as my youth where a stadium would be covered in the same 4 ads.
> According to BMW, the problem is tied to the steering system software, which “may not be sufficiently robust.” The concern involves the steering torque sensor, which has two channels. If one of those channels malfunctions while the vehicle is at a standstill—either during startup, or while in drive mode but not moving—the software diagnostics may not detect the condition correctly.
Seems they use data from sensors before the init is completed.
Hm, I don't know. If an automatic car drives over a person, or you can't just write any text to books or the internet. If writing is automated, the company who writes it, has to check for everything is ok.
> Probably because AI appears to work, more or less
All nondeterministic AI is a demo. They only vary in the duration until you realize it’s a demo.
AI makes a hell of a demo. And management eats up slick demos. And some demos are so good it takes months before you find out how that particular demo gets stuck and can’t really do the enterprise thing it claimed to do reliably.
Imagine getting the opportunity to sell microsoft office to the entire world again how much money is on the table. It doesn't even matter if it works. If you can get the mindless corporate buyers to purchase it along with all the other useless redundant junk they also purchase you are making money hand over fist.
Fusion power on the other hand has to work as it doesn't make money until it does. You can't sell futures to people on a fusion technology today that you haven't yet built.
There is probably not any large market for fusion power as we conceive of it today.
You will get a different result if you revolutionize some related area (like making an extremely capably superconductor), or if you open up some market that can't use the cheapest alternatives (like deep space asteroid mining). But neither of those options can go together with "oh, and we will achieve energy positive fusion" in a startup business plan.
Investment in fusion is huge and rising. ITER's total cost alone will be around $20b. And then there's Commonwealth Fusion, Helion, TAE and about a dozen others. Tens of billions are going into those efforts too.
There are a lot of areas that could use more investment but aren't getting it. The way this works is complicated. The best explanation comes from really understanding Moore's Law. The main effect of the law was really about investment, about securing investment into semiconductor fabs rather than anywhere else.
See, every fab costs double what the previous generation did (current ones run roughly 20 gigadollars per factory). And you need to build a new fab every couple of years. But, if you can keep your order book full, you can make a profit on that fab- you can get good ROI on the investment and pay the money people back nicely. But you need to go to the markets to raise money for that next generation fab because it costs twice what your previous generation did and you didn't get that much free cash from your previous generation. And the money men wouldn't want to give it to you, of course. But thanks to Moore's Law you can pitch it as inevitable, if you don't borrow the money to build the new fab, then your competitors will. And so they would give you the money for the new fab because it says right on this paper that in another two years the transistors will double.
Right now, that "it's inevitable, our competitors will get there if we don't" argument works on VCs if you are pitching LLM's or LLM based things. And it doesn't work as well if you are pitching battery technology, fusion power, or other areas. And that's why the investments are going to AI.
A pizzeria owner made money buying his own $24 pizzas from DoorDash for $16
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/18/21262316/doordash-pizza-p...
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