DoorDash now warns you that your food might get cold if you don’t tip

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 636 points –
DoorDash now warns you that your food might get cold if you don’t tip
theverge.com

DoorDash now warns you that your food might get cold if you don’t tip::The app-based delivery service is alerting customers that drivers may not take their order in a timely manner if there is no tip included upfront.

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“Drivers will retaliate against you if you do not cover the part of their wage we refuse to pay them.”

There, fixed that for you, DoorDash.

I used to work in that crummy space on the HQ side of things.

That’s a little part of it, but there are bigger reasons. Orders with low driver payouts are less likely to get claimed by the contractors in the market. They will sit around longer waiting to get picked up.

Moreover, in order to move a low paying order, DoorDash’s algorithm will be more likely to bundle the order with one or two other orders. That will boost the payout or the claimed job, but it will also make your food wait on a counter an in a car.

You tried to say that it wasn't DoorDash's fault for paying like shit, but then went on to qualify every other reason with "low paying order" - none of that would matter if DoorDash didn't pay like shit.

Oh, it’s 100% doordash’s fault. I completely agree. The base pay needs to be livable.

My point was that it’s not like a dasher is going to slow walk your burger because you didn’t tip. If they see a low payout, they don’t claim it.

DoorDash likes to guilt trip the customer into tipping, when they really should just pay better.

They know that by having a separate tip line, instead of one larger service fee charge, people get tricked into thinking delivery is more affordable than it is. It’s all a bunch of dark pattern shit that fucks over customers and drivers. We need regulations around this space.

It seems like ticket master with the fees at the end and then have people go well I'm already this far into the cart so I might as well check out, or electronics where the starting price is low then few upgrades and price is more than double the initial eye catching low base price.

It's all pricing tricks except in this one they shift the blame to customers and workers while upper management watches them fight. And tricked people into saying it's somehow impossible to actually charge a product to account for all the overhead because it's a services and acting like every other monetary based activity isn't a service too but doesn't have pricing problems.

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Yea so I’m a driver and the characterization that it’s drivers retaliating against customers is… wrong. When we skip an order it’s because it will literally cost us money to deliver, and it’s DoorDash that we’re saying no to.

The problem isn’t the drivers, it’s DoorDash and their unwillingness to pay us appropriately. They’ve recently reduced the base payout to $2, and there’s no delivery where $2 is enough to cover costs of delivery, let alone make the extra few bucks that we’re doing this shitty job for.

DoorDash is actively disincentivizing drivers from taking orders that customers don’t tip on. Please don’t blame drivers for DoorDash’s shitty business practices.

Then why do it? Aren't regular Uber/Lyft trips more worth it?

The legroom in my backseat (‘13 Ford Focus) is garbage and wildly uncomfortable. I also don’t really like people enough for that and prefer doing delivery, on top of having a bit more control over where I operate by delivering. I live in a small city north of Seattle and can keep my deliveries all within 5 miles and still make $30/hour. I don’t think I could do that doing rideshare.

Do you actually make $30 an hour after you factor in gas, maintenance, milage, etc?

No, def not. I’m talking gross. I set aside half for taxes, car maintenance, gas, etc, and keep about 15/hour.

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I wouldn't call it retaliation. If one person offers you $10 and another offers you $15 for the same job, you're going to opt for the one that pays more. That's not the driver "getting one over", it's just basic economics. It's not like Door Dash is going to make up the difference.

In an ideal world they would remove any tip lines and just pay their workers a reasonable wage.

But honestly I can't wait for Zipline deliveries to become a thing.

It shouldn't be set up so the customer has to pay more to get good service. They should be able to add a tip afterward if they choose.

I agree but I installed the "shopper" app which is the driver side for instacart while I was between jobs earlier this year. The way it worked is you get an alert so you open the app if someone placed an order. You then see where the order is, how much you will make and can accept it if you want. If doordash works similarly what it sounds like to me is you open the app, and see $x dollars and where it is at and decide if it is worth it to them. If they decide it isn't, the restaurant is still making that food and waiting on another driver to accept the pickup. So if you open the app and see 3 orders, the ones that pay more and are closest to you is likely what you will choose. So if someone had a McDonald's order and a BK order and one is paying a lot more) they are going to have a much better time. That is all based off the theory that it works like the instacart setup.

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Door dash takes waaaay too much on bs fees from restaurants. If you have to use their app I'd suggest using it to browse menus, calling the restaurant directly and asking if they deliver and order it through them, heck pick up if you can. Fuck all these greedy apps nickle and diming everything.

It almost doubled the cost of my order last time, all the fees and tip bullshit

The last few times I tried to do delivery at food for the family, The price for four fast food meals exceeded going to a decent sit down restaurant and getting a moderate dinner for four.

I've never used any of those services. If the restaurant doesn't deliver, I pick up my order. I also try to go to the restaurant's website and use whatever ordering system they have there, under the assumption (perhaps mistaken) that the restaurant chose that ordering system because it was the best deal for them.

The whole reason I order online is to avoid using the phone. I usually find their website and see if they have their own online ordering. Smaller places often have online ordering provided by an unknown company that charges normal prices instead of having to mark it up to cover DoorDash fees.

Most of the places I've tried to order from directly still end up using door dash for the actual delivery. The only place where I've seen they actually send out their own driver is a Chinese restaurant near my house.

I’ve gotten drivers from the local pizza place using grubhub but sometimes would get a grubhub driver so at least with grubhub they must have a choice. That pizza place used to have their own online ordering but they sold the business so now they use slice which seems to charge a flat fee. I don’t think slice has their own drivers.

I really only ever order pizza from local places, I’d expect normal restaurants to not have their own drivers.

Fuck all these greedy apps nickle and diming everything.

Isn't it what's called shareconomy?'

Isn't it super fancy?

:-)

No its "gig economy", and it's primary purpose seems to be skirting labour laws by calling their employees "independent contractors" so they can save money by screwing the people working for them.

What's crazy is that there's really no reason why it should be the way that it is, where every chain restaurant has a different individualized app, every mid level business has a website, and every mom and pop restaurant you just have to call on the phone, and every business has their own delivery drivers with all these other apps picking up the slack in between. Doordash takes off so much from the top of the order to make it look more appealing, as a service charge, the restaurants just increase prices, the drivers get paid a pittance, probably so does the support staff if I had to guess, and all of their programmers, who are the only party left that the money would go to, the programmers can't make an app that works for the customers or the drivers. It's like a lose-lose-lose scenario for anyone that's not a soulless finance bro.

It's crazy, if restaurants are at a point where it's cheaper for them to just have an actual, well paid delivery driver, and just use their own old school apps, websites, and phone lines, rather than paying their fees to a business that could just handle the whole thing for them all in bulk, seeing as the needs from restaurant to restaurant is generally pretty similar. The latter should be the more cost-effective solution, here, it's fucking nuts.

What kind of "tip" is paid upfront before the service is rendered?

Literally fucking every place now and I hate it. Ordering take out food that I am picking up myself? It's "swipe your card here and it's going to ask you a question". Literally everywhere. Even places designed to be walk-up and get your food and leave, like a local smoothie place or something.

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Call the spot, order it, and go get the food your fuckin self. Stop spending an extra 35% to have somebody working three jobs get it for you.

Stop spending an extra 35% to have somebody working three jobs get it for you.

I don't how the three jobs factors into this. Surely they actually need those three jobs, they probably aren't working them for fun. So not like me not ordering helps them in any way.

Giving in to corporate extortionate practices doesn't help them in any way either.

If you stop using the service that might harm them though. Probably sacked if there's no work

Only 35%? You must be on the introductory deal.

If I could do that I wouldn't use GrubHub in the first place.

You do not need a service that did not exist ten years ago. I promise that you can live without it.

How about letting us tip afterwards not before. That way we know how much to tip.

How about ditching tips altogether and just paying the drivers a decent, livable wage?

My local pub in Australia just got new POS machines. Day 1 I'm there. They put in the price for your beer on the till, you go to PayPass and walk off, but it's asking you to tip first. You say "No Tip", then PayPass and walk off, but then it asks if you're happy to accept the 1% CC surcharge, being like 9¢. Then you can walk off.

The staff were losing it and apologising. They were so annoyed they just started hitting "No Tip" and "Yes" for people, because that's how it normally works.

Lowest level minimum wage for someone pouring beer is $24 an hour here.

People still throw cash in the tip jars from time to time, but it's like when they really appreciate the staff or see they're having a hectic shift. Even just good conversation or chucking your tunes on, will empty the pocket change in.

That's how tips should be. Where I live it's the same probably even more on the no-tipping side. I'll leave a tip when you've gone above and beyond (which is rare, service here is "sober" to put it gently, which is fine, it's somewhat efficient but just not personal at all).

Or, if you're the Italian head of bar at the fancy restaurant I took my wife out for anniversary dinner, got seated at a bar table and then you proceed to both entertain us, rock the venue, swap out our inexperienced waitress for the maître d'hôtes, and pour us free drinks on the sly, then you better be sure I'm slipping you a 20€ on the way out. That stuff is extremely rare though.

No my tip would be for being lazy and then actually getting it to me fast and correct. Which is why I said afterwards tip not before, because that means I'm not funding their underpaid wage.

As someone that worked in the space, and was forced to AB test this, it’s because pre-tipping increases tip rates and increases the likelihood that an order will be claimed promptly.

That said, if I could wave a magic want and get my way, I’d say that these people need to be employees, and true delivery costs need to not be hidden in fees and tips.

It IS expensive to deliver stuff, and we need to be upfront with that.

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Then it’s not a tip and they should include it in the price

I used to order meals sometimes through these kinds of delivery services but not anymore.

At first they were quite good but then they added extra "service fees" and the markup on the food increased, so did the delivery charge, it's a joke now and I haven't used them for a long time, and there's no good reason to, now.

Even when I do tip, and tip well, they now add so many other stops in between my food and my house that it still arrives cold anyway. I've largely stopped using them now too. They were convenient during peak pandemic and our newborn phase at home, but running out to grab take out really isn't the end of the world again now.

I only use them when I'm too swamped to go grab something or cook.

But one again learned to order at least 90 minutes out from when I expect to eat

Tipping is literally becoming extortion now.

The end result of the tipping surge is going to be the collapse of all tipped work. People will stop using tipped services entirely and eventually the pyramid of wealthy users who can afford increasingly high tip is going to shrink.

I'm a school bus driver and we get tips (at Christmastime and the end of the school year) for no fucking reason that I can figure out. This is bad enough as it is, but last Christmas one of my co-workers actually handed out fucking tip envelopes (like what the garbage collectors give out) to the kids on his buses. I was at least pleasantly surprised that he got in trouble for this.

I usually give a tip to you guys around that time of the year. Why shouldn't I? 180 days of the year, 2x a day I depend on you and I have had no problems. This is for two kids btw. Think of anything in your life that you use 720 times in one year without issue. So yeah here is 20 bucks happy holidays.

Why shouldn’t I?

Because we're not volunteers, we get paid. Do you tip everybody who performs a service of any kind for you? I used to write software for a living and nobody ever tipped me.

Thanks for the $20 BTW - it's not like I throw out the gift cards or anything, I just think it's weird.

I am sorry you didn't get a Christmas bonus. Your old employer sounds like a tool. And no I don't tip everyone. Also I don't give gift cards I just give cash, cash is like a gift card but you can use it at more locations so it is better.

That's just all of late stage capitalism. Most industries are shrinking bc most people can't afford to spend on much beyond the basic necessities of rent and food anymore.

I'm in the hotel industry and occupancy rates are declining, people just aren't going out on vacation like they used to.

Inevitably any service tipped or not will be wealthies-only.

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I hate to break it to you but it's always worked like that. I drove pizzas for a long time pre-apps and drivers have always prioritized deliveries based on expected tip. We even had a no-go list by the phone of people who stiffed drivers. If anything it's way easier to get away with not tipping now.

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That's why the ridiculous North American tipping culture needs to be called out as much as possible.

This is barely related to tipping culture, this is a service bid. They just refuse to call it that.

It's part of tipping culture because it uses the acceptance of tipping to slip this bidding system in. It also doubles as a tip because there is no separate tip option and tipping is expected for delivery. I'm sure more people wouldn't mind "bidding" low if it just meant getting their food later. Instead there's also the specter threat that a disgruntled worker will tamper with their food for daring to make a low "bid".

You're more likely to not receive your food then someone tamper with your food.

Just the plausible existence of a threat is enough and tampering has certainly happened before.

Exactly. All the people complaining about extortion don't understand the economics of Door dash / GrubHub / etc.

The food delivery person sees a potential job come in and can accept or reject it. In a few seconds they decide what to do. If it takes them 10 minutes to go to the place, 10 minutes to wait for the food, and 10 minutes to drive to you, they estimate a total of 30 minutes of work.

Of course they're not going to do it for no tip. There are plenty of other people tipping. Your food is going to wait for somebody to pick it up for whatever minimum amount DoorDash guarantees them. Maybe there is a second order going in your direction.

I live way out of the city center, but any time I order I don't tip in advance but my order is picked up near instantly anyways. My trick: living in a country without tipping culture where the drivers are paid for their time no matter how big the order or how far it goes.

This is not even tipping anymore. This is paying to get normal service, not better service.

That's always been the exact problem with American tipping culture. When it's expected to tip, you're no longer doing it to get better service, just normal service - which means it's just a hidden extra price.

Focusing on the wrong issue, but you're technically correct. You're not tipping. You're guessing at what door dash should be properly paying their employees instead of DD doing it themselves in your favor.

So pretty much the same as if you do tip.

This implies that your food won't arrive cold if you do tip, and that hasn't been my experience at all.

Same. I've almost completely stopped using these delivery services because of the extreme costs and middling performance.

When people constantly complain about how underpaid they are doing this job, I realized that I don't want to pay what people actually want to get paid for this service, so I'll just stop. Like paying 15 fees and tip is already too much for only 1-2 peoples worth of food. I'd consider it less painful for 6 people's dinner.

Turns out there's a reason that getting anything and everything delivered on demand hasn't ever worked. It's not a function that is worth the cost to very many people.

The order through Door Dash:

  • $20
  • $2 Tax
  • $8 Door Dash Charge
  • $6 Initial Tip
  • $10 for the Substitution up charge
  • $1 Tax for that purchase
  • $9 'Fuck you' charge
  • $4 Follow Up Tip Total: $60 for your $20 meal you could've just gotten your own damn self.

This.

I've basically started a Shit List of local restaurants that I simply won't order from because they do shit like this.

Not just delivery either. If they want to gouge customers like that I'm not getting take out or dining in either.

I stopped using DoorDash when their fees and overall cost doubled what it should be.

I'll walk down and get it myself.

It’s fucking ridiculous…they all are. Uber, Grubhub, I mean if some of that went to the drivers then fine, we could talk. But we all know they don’t.

The fee you add for DoorDash etc should not be considered a tip. Tips are given after service is rendered, and are based on the quality of service. These fees are more like a bounty. "I'll pay $10 to the person that brings me a hamburger, dead or alive."

Is it too much to ask that I might be able to just pay for this service? Sometimes I want or need food ordered. If it costs $20 to have it delivered, and pay the delivery person fairly, sometimes that's worth the cost to me. I wish tips were an extra for "thanks for doing something above and beyond or awesome". They shouldn't need to be expected.

$1.99 convenience fee $4.25 app fee $3.99 delivery fee Oh, and don't forget to tip your driver because none of this goes to them.

^^^^ this cap needs to stop. Just give me the $15-$20 delivery fee and be done with it.

15-20 USD for delivery service is really expensive man.

Which is why it’s only worth it sometimes. If that’s what it takes to provide the service without fucking someone over to the point that I’m expected to help them recoup their loss, then yeah, that’s what it should cost.

This is the spirit is what I’m after. It’s likely usually going to seem lopsided if I’m paying to have one meal delivered, but If in having a meal for a small group or the family with some leftovers expected, it likely seems more reasonable. The people doing the work shouldn’t be getting screwed, the business should get to cover cost and make a small profit, and the customer gets to make choices without having to do fee gymnastics for every different place with a sprinkle of guilt that you’re responsible to decide what to pay the workers via tip.

I expect food delivery to be kinda expensive, you’re usually saving me 30-45 min to go get it, wait for the order, and return.

That's about what they make with tips and an hourly pay for doing the task. Instead DD has created the system where that responsibility falls on the customer buying food.

I just wish the fees weren't based on a percentage of the total bill, on top of the fact they blatantly jack the menu prices up. A few of us would like to use DD and similar for work lunch, sometimes. The charges for $60-80 of food is ridiculous, when it should be a flat rate for the service. You'd think they would want to incentivize these larger orders. Assuming the food is ready when the driver arrives, there should be no difference for the driver, who would generally get tipped on top.

Just another reason to avoid Door Dash: Best to get off your ass and get food. Better yet: Cook your own food!

You'd be amazed with the number of millennials who need someone to get food for them. One of my friends from high school is a neckbeard who doesn't work and his parents literally bring all his food into his apartment and he's rude about it because they interrupt him playing video games.

I am a millennial lol. Not that I don't use delivery, but going to get food and cooking my own is pretty routine.

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How lazy and dependent people are if they can be "blackmailed" by the food delivery service and that service doesn't fear a significant loos of customers!

DD is just explaining that it's a bidding system. Few if any drivers are going to want to drive out of their way to pick it up and deliver it to you for little or no guaranteed tip listed up front and high chance of someone bailing on it anyway. Food sits at the restaurant for a long time

Pretty sure if I were to put a $20 tip I'd have no problems getting someone to accept the order immediately.

The problem, and the reason we've stopped using Doordash completely, is that your big tip means your order will get stacked with the low/no tippers to incentive the driver to pick them all up. And your food will sit there getting cold while the driver waits to pick up the others.

This has become universally true over the last year or two in Chicago at least. We are good tippers and every single time we'd see our food get picked up then watch the driver wait to pick up some other order -- sometime waiting 30 minutes or more with our food in their car less than a block from our home.

It's true everywhere. My wife and I both placed separate orders. I placed mine first and watched the driver wait 30 minutes, after picking up my order, until her order was ready. Then they got confused that both orders were coming to my house and didn't drop my order off. They figured it out after a few minutes and came back, but after 45 minutes of sitting in a car nachos are pretty fucking gross.

It's been four years since I lived there (Bucktown) but I started seeing that somewhat. We always tip pretty decent. Obviously it's best we avoid apps like these whenever possible but it has its utility still.

Chicago

I would have said go pick it up yourself but lol your parking situation.

Yeah we have one car and mostly don't drive unless we're visiting family out of town. But we are lucky and have a lot of restaurants within walking distance from which we can pick up, which is pretty much how we order these days. Also we have one of the best public transit systems in the US (at least we did pre-pandemic) but taking public transit to pick up food is still a PITA.

But there are lots of others in the city who don't own a car at all because the CTA is enough to get to work, and may live in a food desert without much around.

Gross.

Also, in my experience, an tip doesn't even guarantee warm food lol

I used door dash maybe 5 times ever, tipped 20% and still got cold AND wrong food everytime.

My mom sent food to my house one time and it sat out for probably 20 minutes because they were too afraid to knock on the door.

The apps default to "leave at door" and most people don't expect a knock since they are the ones who ordered and have an app that will notify them food was delivered (if they weren't following along every step of the way like most people do)... Has nothing to do with being "scared".

I used DD a lot during the course of the pandemic and I’d say it was completely botched at least 70% of the time. Part of the reason I used it so much was that they were giving me a ton of money to use in credit due as a resolution to the constant issues. This actually made it very cheap overall so it was hard to complain. I always gave above average tips too

HOW MUCH?! General sales tax here is 20% and food sales tax is 10%! It is double of food sales tax.

It boggles my mind that people use apps like these

I sit there at work sometimes, and people are ordering food from takeaways ten minutes walk up the road, paying easily three times what you'd pay to go and get it yourself.

It just doesn't seem to occur to them that they can go and fetch it.

Only time I ever used DoorDash was when I was too high to feel confident about my ability to put my shoes on. Too bad I didn't think about how unlikely it was that I would open my door.

The only real reason I can see people using apps like these regularly is if they're disabled or otherwise unable to drive and can't easily go out to get it themselves.

I honestly wish people would quit using these delivery services in general.

They literally have done nothing but cause problems in store. They cause people who actually came to the store to have to wait because we got a fuckin door dash order for $60 and we're told to put mobile orders as top priority.

Not to mention all the headaches of trying to contact customers about substitutions or out of stock items. It's just a fuckin mess.

You're paying more for lower quality and I honestly don't even feel bad when I fuck up an order. You'd have been able to tell if you actually came in.

And before anyone brings up disabled people the main users of these delivery services in my area are college kids.

I honestly don't get the hate. People obviously want to order restaurant food to have at home. Maybe they're watching a series, studying, have kids, are introverts... like who even cares the reason. And they're willing to pay more. Why not try to accommodate that?

To me it sounds like the issue is UX related (contacting customers) and store related (expediting orders in the best sequence). Neither of those seem like the solution is wishing people wouldn't use the service.

You clearly don't work in food service where we've had a constant increase of work load with basically no increase in pay.

And now we're forced to deal with online ordering which completely disrupts the normal flow of things.

It's not optimized it's forced and as a result both the employee and the customer are more stressed.

That still doesn't sound like the customers fault at all. It should be possible to set certain things as out of stock, depending on the system probably automatically.

The fact that you're interrupted for online orders sounds like your workflow isn't optimised for having online orders at all. Just look at McDonald's drive-in, that's a completely separate flow from the in-store orders usually and they make it work. That might be a very visible example but many other stores have updated their workflow to accommodate online orders if offered.

So both these issues (calling customers to fix shit and the forced workflow) are completely fixable. You shouldn't be mad at customers using delivery services, be mad at the store owner that just wants the money from delivering without making sure their system is up for it (not to mention they underpay you, even more reason to be mad at em)

Just go get the food yourself. Forget these delivery companies.

You're ignoring the main problem and point of the post here, but you're also ignoring some people's needs and how "just go get it" is often not an option. This isn't a useful comment and it also doesn't make any discussion.

If you can't go get the food, eat what you have at home. If you're not at home, bring something with you to eat later or plan better.

We lasted so long without uber eats. We can do it again

We can, but everyone should always have the choice to do what they want, not keep having others tell them what they should or should not do. Whether or not you like these services doesn't mean others can't. I don't care for certain clothing items, it doesn't mean I should tell people not to wear them or do what they like because it isn't my choice.

For some it's often not as simple as just eat what you have at home and that's often not an option.

Wow, how did people survive before food delivery to your door was commonplace?

Obviously by being forced to either do it anyways, get help or skipping that meal?

Underrated comment

It's definitely not, it's very recent and rapidly gaining upvotes.

Lazy people are downvoting because they want to waste their money on Door Dash.

People are free to spend their hard earned money on whatever they enjoy, it doesn't mean they are lazy either.

If someone is rich, then I agree. A millennial or zoomer making between $40-80k doesn't have the money to be blowing on their unwillingness to leave their house, or even to be going out all the time.

If they want to spend what little disposable income they have on it, they should be free and happy to do so.

I guess, but is it really wise for them to spend it that way?

Why wouldn't it be if that's what they really want?

Because wasting money is stupid.

Wasting, yet you acknowledged it is what they really want.

Wasting would also be using it on a more expensive car, a gym membership, new clothes, any and all makeup/cologne, toys for kids or really anything.

You can run outside, do body weight based training stretch your old clothes longer, kids can play with sticks/rocks/pine cones.

So what we should really do is take everyone's money away so they don't spend it unwisely, and just divy it out when needed. We'll put a small roof over their head with enough substance to ensure they don't get sick and then send them off to work so we can ensure their futures are what we want them.

They don't need freedoms, they need to do things as we want them, otherwise they are unwise for having wants of their own.

That's a lot of nonsense extrapolated from your imagination. Not once did I ever suggest taking any freedom from any human being.

I'm simply letting you know that it's dumb to waste your money like that. You have the freedom to waste your money, your life, whatever you want, as long as it doesn't harm another person.

So, having been well informed about the dumb waste of money, don't complain about not having enough money to live on if you waste it like that.

Tips subsidize business owners who don't pay their employees enough.

THIS IS IT. All other comments in this thread that don't say this are focusing on the wrong problem or are flat out wrong.

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Tipping needs to die.

While it's called a TIP, it's not. Nor is it a bribe imo. It's "door dash is too lazy to pay their driver's a fair rate, so here is where you come in..." The higher the amount you put in there, the more likely your order will be received And delivered in a timely manner.

If door dash just paid their people properly, this issue wouldn't exist but they feel the need to maximize their profits instead of doing what's right for both their employee and customers.

I have no problem tipping, I have a problem with DoorDash and Grubhub calculating the tip on the total bill with all their fees included.

I have no problem tipping 20% with a $4 minimum, but it's going to be based on the meal I ordered, not your bullshit service fees.

Tipping is weird to me. Since every other business doesn't have tips because they already price their services or products correctly to account for their employees salary, since it is 100% their responsibility as the employer.

This shifting of responsibility and blame to the client by underpaying staff and pushing a system of begging and guilty tripping is incredibly weird.

This all signifies a pricing problem. Well I guess not one for the employers who are cheapskates raking in profits in a system where they shift attention of blame away from themselves.

Tipping is paying for the service. Having someone deliver food to your doorstep is a luxury. The restaurant needs to be paid for the food, the service needs to be paid for facilitating the delivery, and the driver should be paid for the service.

Why not actually price it into the cost of the food. Like any delivery x distance will cost x amount. Like actually charge what they want instead of this arbitrary guessing game.

Like you know... Like how online orders will provide the shipping cost to the consumer and then not expect tips, since the shipping cost is already accounted.

Charge what they want...

Because the restaurant isn't doing the delivery.

Now, I agree, if you're talking a restaurant doing delivery themselves, yes, bake it into the price of the food... Except then you're dealing with competition from other restaurants. If Pizza Hut is $4 more a pie because they pay their drivers more, what happens when Papa John's under cuts them?

In the case of Door Dash, you're dealing with three entities all trying to make money, the restaurant, the Door Dash service, and the contractors they have driving.

That is the business justification for it. I'm saying set the price themselves and if it's door dash than actually set a high enough fixed price as opposed a system worse than ticket master where it's a guess game of begging and charity.

You try to make it out to be so complex but really is as simple as an online company not being the one to do the delivery but providing different delivery options from various different companies that have set a clear and upfront cost to deliver the package.

Instead of a weird paying the cost of the product and being charged cost of shipping but then that actually not being enough, since delivery companies can be bothered and having to start tipping hoping x delivery company eventually delivers it since they don't know how to set prices themselves.

Door Dash doesn't set the menu prices, the restaurants do. Door Dash sets the delivery fees and then leaves the tipping of drivers to the consumers.

If Door Dash set the delivery fee at $10 with no tip, and Grub Hub sets the delivery fee at $5 with tip to be decided by the consumer, nobody would use Door Dash.

Seems like a company that shouldn't exist if they can't stay in business by actually charging what is necessary to remain solvent because customers will be scared off as you claim.

Seems more an excuse for door dash to justify why they don't set a proper delivery fee to lure customers and underpay drivers and just sit back and have the blame game being played between customers and workers.

Gonna be real boss, as a driver for DD, delivery drivers don't care what you ordered. They care about mileage, pickup & drop off times, and stairs. A $5 tip will cover most sane orders. $10 will usually cover insane orders / stairs.

If you're concerned about timing, tip $5 and then text them when they are assigned the order and let them know it is time sensitive and that you'll add cash tip on arrival for prompt delivery.

DoorDash "tips" are done before your food arrives, not after, and you can't change them after you order.

They're not tips, they're bribes.

As a driver for one of these apps it's more of a bid than a tip. People send me bids to deliver their food and I deliver to the highest bidder. It sucks because that's not what a tip is supposed to be and the majority of the delivery fee doesn't go to the driver. That's why I don't really order from these delivery apps myself anymore.

Thanks for confirming something I thought true. I've always been a generous tipper not because I like tipping culture, but because in the absence of an alternative it seems awful to punish the people working hard to scrape together a living by catering to my laziness.

However, I've noticed that I almost always get food that's ordered through these services very quickly – although my small sample size is anecdotal at best. But like you, I don't order through the apps if I can help it.

I often opt to starve/eat random stuff in the house than order. Now if I actually want to order, I have no idea how to order

Yes, and next we will have: No tip to cook and you will have delayed ordered preparation, No tip to Doordash and we will delay placing your order.

It's time to just cook the meal or go buy it directly.

The worst part is some lazy restaurants just link to doordash instead of paying proper delivery drivers so you can't even avoid door dash if you like certain restaurants.

I mean in fairness before these services most restaurants did not have delivery options at all, so I don’t think this is that surprising? It was not long ago that your delivery options in many places were just pizza or Chinese.

Little Ceasers offers delivery and sends it through doordash here. Curious if that is because they don't want to deal with it or it is somehow cheaper on their end.

Little Ceasers didn't offer delivery before these apps either though.

Yeah but that's the problem. They're essentially outsourcing something they couldn't afford in the first place so DD becomes the bad guy for not paying their employees instead. Then the customer bitches at the driver's because the drivers don't want shitty pay for their work. Stop using DD.

There are more than a handful of places near me that used to have decent delivery but Door Dash etc basically shut them out. They lose business by not being affiliated and not getting exposure, so they get on Door Dash and lose even more business to Door Dash, next thing you know they have no in-house delivery and all the prices on Door Dash are jacked up so they can give Door Dash their take.

I just don't go to restaurants that do this or close their eatery to the public because they expect everyone to use DD, haha. Though I mostly just cook at home, restaurant food took a massive nosedive during the pandemic. More expensive, and generally tastes worse. :/

Don't like the concept, stop using the service. It's that simple.

But also that annoying, because this model where your ""tip"" becomes a bribe is a cancer upon society that needs to be eliminated.

They should also warn that they'll spit in your food too.

Cold food would be an improvement over the last three times I ordered food with DoorDash. Last three times, the driver stole my food. I'll never use them again.

We've had multiple orders delivered to the wrong address. We get confirmation pictures of our food sitting on someone else's doorstep. Has happened with all of the services. We live in a regular neighborhood with houses and streets pretty much laid out on a grid and signs everywhere so I don't get the problem but it happens about 50% of the time. None of the places with employee delivery have trouble finding us.

Grub hub was the last one we hadn't canceled since we get discounted delivery fees through something ( a credit card bonus I think?) Ordered dinner two weeks ago, and got another wrong address delivery, so my husband calls customer service for a refund and they insist on trying order again first. They got it right, but we got food 2.5 hours after we'd ordered.

We've canceled all delivery services now.

Did you report it? I imagine they take that seriously but they also don't have any way of knowing if someone is just being psychopathic.

Holding your food hostage for tips. lmao. Just pick it up yourself or drive-thru and make it part of your existing commute.

Yeah this is so fucked. Tipping at the vary least should happen after the transaction.

One of the many reasons I get my own damn food. I'm not paying out the ass for something I could do myself for half the price.

you'd have to wait until the food gets lukewarm and soggy if you want to compare with them.

I have never used any of these food delivery services, and I'm pretty sure I never will.

I have younger family members that use it a lot, and I've asked how much they spend a month. Holy smokes, I could cook some damn nice meals for what they spend a month - one person has spent as much as a family of 4 would spend on groceries a month. My average home-cooked per-plate cost is about $3.50. Nicer meals (steak) may go to $5 per plate.

It's understandable occasionally if you're pushed for time; shit happens. Paying someone to deliver shitty fast food or whatever just because you can't be bothered to cook makes no sense to me.

It doesn't take much planning to get started making your own meals. And the more you do it, the bigger your pantry gets with all the pieces and parts you need for other meals. Even if it's a lot of canned and boxed stuff, that's a start.

Yeah, I'd rather just cook or even pay for those overpriced prepackaged ingredient packages to cook at home.

Probably healthier too, and lot of stuff at restaurants is prepackaged microwaved stuff anyways.

@Tb0n3 It's to the point they will also say "They Might Spit In Your Food If You Don't TIP" like hey I didn't order this shit.

I frequently find food bag have been opened when a doordasher delivers orders. It's odd because the tracker typically shows the dasher stopping in weird residential areas and parking for extended periods of time.

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How about I just get food from one of the 15 places in easy walking distance as I'm in a city.

Or even if you're not in a city, drive a little bit and pick it up. I have that many options within 5-10 minutes' driving distance

Some people's don't have cars? They want to stay and focus on their homework or chores or anything? How about those with 30 minute breaks who order and time it to land within their break time? How about those who are who are sick/disabled/less fortunate and unable to get to locations easily without extra effort?

Only the last one of those is mildly valid. The rest are not good enough to tip the scales to make it reasonable.

Even if you don't have a car, you should probably be saving up for one instead of blowing money on Doordash. Grocery delivery would be more practical.

Huh, if I went out to the corner and bought food and came back, it would take 20-30 minutes. Sometimes, the restaurant is busy, and I sit there knowing I will have to not eat it because I will just have to clock back in the second I get back. Sometimes, I have to explain why I was late. Why would I put myself through that and not just get someone to do it for me in advance.

Mildly valid for disabled or less fortunate individuals...

One other thing. I bought food for someone, and it is more attractive to receive it from the comfort of their home instead of being annoyed by traffic or getting dressed. How about those with a car that don't want to deal with traffic? Ever hear of comfort, or are you one of those people who think no pain no gain hard-core lifestyles are the only way to live?

It's just silly that you think not using Doordash is some kind of uncomfortable or hard life.

Bottom line is that it's a luxury that is unnecessary for most people. If you want to waste your money on unnecessary delivery, that's on you. I prefer to keep more of my money to spend on durable things rather than temporary conveniences. That's part of the reason that I own a house and land.

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'That's a really nice and hot meal you've got there. It would be a shame if it were to be... how you say... room temperature when it arrived.'

I hate Doorsdash so fucking much but I'm pretty sure I'm addicted to it. It's one of those terrible destructive relationships and I find myself screaming at the app every time I use it. I recently discovered a neat trick though, where if I order from the website then the app won't spam me with the double-dash popup but I'll still get my delivery statuses.

As someone who doesn't use it* I'm curious, why is it so addicting?

*My wife used it once when we were out of state for a wedding but only because I was stuck inside due to illness.

It's a time saver for sure. My husband and I use it a lot though over the past 2 months we've made conscious efforts to cook at home more for both money saving (it's fucking expensive) and to reduce our calorie intake.

That being said, it's really nice to just press a quick button, and then start sweeping, doing laundry, vacuuming, taking out the trash, etc, and then food just shows up that can now be conveniently cleaned up quickly as well.

Cooking yourself not only takes away time from the other chores kicking them to getting done later, but also now adds chores as well with the dishes.

I reason that something has to give between work, fitness, chores, schooling, sleep, and downtime. So far it's been my sleep, but I don't feel guilty using food delivery services to get some gaming/social time back in as well.

Thanks, that does make sense. I just finished raking leaves, walked 2 miles today for fitness, cooked dinner, and cleaned up. And there's still more to do...

If it wasn't for the tip I would honestly do it too. But I hate tipping non-wait staff so I'll go pick a pizza up just to avoid it.

Learn to cook. This is why everyone became broke and fat. It is scary how fast you lose money this way. A single meal for one person can be the same as a family of four food budget for a week and the food you get is loaded with salt and calories.

My rule for eating out is simple: it has to be food I can't resonably make at home. I love Indian food but it wouldn't be realistic for me to start cooking it.

I know how to cook, but only in a commercial kitchen and only when I'm making 150+ servings of something.

I know how to cook, but sometimes I don't want to cook. I don't see why this is such a hard concept to grasp, and I don't know why everyone is so hostile towards people who choose to spend their money on this

Because it is hard to feel bad about someone complaining about a luxury that caters to human laziness being slightly more expensive. There is about a billion people on earth who don't have enough to eat or don't have access to a good diet and you people are whining about spending 41 dollar laziness premium vs a 38 dollars laziness premium.

Try using a bicycle, maybe you will lose some weight.

People are "whining" about an out of control tipping culture. Doesn't matter if you like the service or not, tips are fucking ridiculous right now.

Here's the main problem as I see it. With these tech services is that you can take a basic framework that acts as a middleman between people wanting a service and people willing to provide it and then scale it up immensely by just adding more computing resources. But not everything scales that way, including the checks and balances that ensure everything is going smoothly and filtering out people trying to use the service in bad faith or incompetence. Support (for both customers and staff), QA, HR, and training don't necessarily scale (training can, if you have workers that are smart enough to be trained solely from media, but if anything is confusing then it stops scaling well).

And add on to that with it being so scaled up, interactions are often with random people, for both the customers and the workers. They don't form relationships like what happens in smaller businesses. A good experience won't say much about what to expect next time. Same thing with a bad experience. And support people have no idea who is complaining and who they are complaining about. They know their identities but not there personalities, or if this driver is generally good and might have had a bad day, or a customer is lying to get free food, or that driver is generally an asshole. A lot of these services do what they can to avoid having a relationship that goes beyond "fulfill order, get paid".

And on top of this, it's not really able to handle fluctuating demand well, since services need to have extra capacity to handle spikes in demand. If things are slow, drivers will just log off and do something else with their time, where as a pizza place handling its own delivery will have a better chance of predicting activity levels and scheduling people to be in at that time (and offering incentives to be there in case it turns out to be slow). That's not to say businesses handling their own delivery service are perfect, but at least they'll have people seeing what's going on who can deal with it (eg by sending inside staff to deliver or hiring a delivery service to help with the load until it's back to manageable levels).

And this article indicates that door dash considers this a feature rather than a bug. After all, if they are taking a cut of all money that gets transferred through their app, of course they'll encourage customers to pay more. It's all pretty much passive income for them, other than maintaining the code and servers.

Stop attacking the drivers. If you're upset about how door dash works, get upset at DOOR DASH itself, not the people they can't seem to pay properly.

Stop using the service...

Who the heck is still using it and the ones like it past the point of once? The few times I played with it just to check it out the meal was 3x the price of getting it myself. I have used it twice while on work travel and both times the food was cold and messed up.

People who waste their money on DoorDash deserve to lose it. Learn to make your own food or pick it up your damn self. At least order from places that do their own delivery.

You're acting like that is an option for everyone and you're blaming the people who order from DoorDash which is both pointless and ignorant and helps absolutely no one.

Outside of emergency situations where you’re physically unable to go out and your power is out so you cannot cook and have nothing edible without being cooked, there is no reason a food delivery service is necessary. Food can be delivered from grocery stores and can be cooked.

I'd like to just link my other comment but I'll rewrite my point, there's a lot of health conditions and other scenarios where someone may be unable to cook or get help in that moment.

If you have the income for it, DoorDash is an amazing option for this in the US. It's a lot simpler where I live where you can just get ready to eat fresh food from supermarkets and the restaurants deliver things themselves, but people themselves are not to blame for using DoorDash.

If they are unable to prepare meals themselves, how are they getting up and answering the door? You’re describing a very narrow niche that likely doesn’t really exist. The vast vast majority of people who use these services are capable but unwilling to get it themselves.

I don’t support any of these gig-economy services for various reasons, but this isn’t on DoorDash. This is the reality of the situation, and the consumer isn’t being screwed.

My comment is more or less focused on mental health, where there can be huge blockades to go and prepare food and it's quite common. I do understand that a huge chunk of people are simply unwilling though.

Over here things like delivery is more of a fun thing you do every 2 weeks, and not a common occurrence which is ideally how it should be. I find comments targetting people like the original quite lame as it accomplishes nothing, and the root cause is how corporations and education in the US works.

"Mrrrm, I HAVE to order McDonald's at DoorDash, I can't be expected to do for myself as an adult Mrrrrrrrm"

That's how you sound right now.

Not quite, there's a lot of health issues and other things that can impact someone's ability to cook on their own or get help at that current moment. DoorDash is oftentimes great for scenarios like that and the people aren't to blame.

Mockery instead of trying to think of reasons why my point could be valid is also a very low blow to make.

'Food might get cold' is a euphemism for getting spat into.

Nah, just that they won't pick up your order if the driver sees that there's a real possibility they'll only get paid $2 to drive your starbucks order across the city.

It would be nice if you could put the tip you PLAN to pay, but without a certain rating afterward it doesn’t get paid. Sadly that would likely get abused by customers too. I would rather give them a better cash tip than a (ahem) documented one…

Uber Eats lets customers change the tip retroactively. As a driver this is riskier because people bait drivers with a big tip and then go in and remove it entirely after the fact for no reason.

The other issue is that most people don’t know what they’re eating when they give a rating. My 1 star reviews are from customers who’s food was done incorrectly by the restaurant or who gave such shit directions for delivery that it was impossible (had one apartment customer who wanted me to enter the secure building to leave it at their door but didn’t give access instructions, respond to my texts, or answer any of my calls… and they decided I deserved 1 star for that).

I’d like something that gives both customers and drivers more confidence. Like a proper wage from DoorDash that’s baked into the cost of service (maybe from those exorbitant fees they charge?). Just cut the tip all together and pay drivers appropriately and stop hiding behind the independent contractor shit as an excuse for exploiting people.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


DoorDash has added a pop-up in its app this week warning customers that orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered.

The move appears to be an effort by DoorDash to show customers that drivers are likely going to prioritize more profitable work.

According to DoorDash spokesperson Jenn Rosenberg, the prompt is “something that we’re currently testing to help create the best possible experience for all members of our community.”

It appears the pilot is not live in every locale; one Verge colleague in New Jersey got it, while another in South Carolina didn’t.

While tipping isn’t something anyone who lives in America should be surprised about doing (or should ever consider not doing without a really good reason), pre-tipping is a relatively new concept in our gig economy.

Update October 31st, 4PM ET: Added statement from DoorDash confirming the message is part of a test it’s piloting.


The original article contains 529 words, the summary contains 150 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Why can’t people just learn to cook for themselves. It’s a basic life skill. Your body needs food, learn how to make the stuff. It’s not even a hard skill There’s even food you can do low effort and fast. And it’s healthier cuz when you order out you’re consuming so much more salt and sugar than you’re supposed to and it’ll literally rot your organs.

I'll give you the real answer. Most people are working so much they are exhausted at the end of the day and the thought of doing anything other than resting is even more exhausting. Door Dash will get there eventually with the food meanwhile you rested the entire time AND have food now. Some of us are depressed on top of this which makes us even less motivated to cook or clean or do anything really. People need to work less and have more free time. Then we will see them cook more and take care of themselves more.

This.

I love to cook, it's something that brings me joy to see myself create delicious meals and feed my family. But my God, after a long day of work and then getting my kid from daycare, only to come home and have to figure out what I can make and then do it is just too much. I'd rather focus my attention on playing with my kid, and coming down from the day, than spending all my time in the kitchen. I'll make my kid food and then order something for my wife and I afterwards.

We shouldn't be punished with cold food just because DoorDash/Uber/Skip won't pay their drivers properly. I can't always drop 18% (somehow the norm where I live) on top of their already baked in delivery fee, and service fee. Also, tipping as far as I'm concerned is an after-the-fact action. If you exceed your job I'll tip you, but delivering my food warm and on-time is your job... Why tip when I consistently have late deliveries anyways. I can always pay a premium to get my food first, but that's just another fee.

There's no winning here

I hear you but please understand none of these places have you or your family in mind on nutrition. At the going rate you can start seeing the effects on your body of high sugar and salt as early as your late 40s. Doesn’t matter how much you exercise either. That stuff eats your organs. Diabetes, heart disease, pancreatitis, stomach cancer is just a tip of the iceberg of choices of the lovely shit that is about to greet you for those choices. This is what the people of the ‘growing up on McDonald’s in the 80s” are facing right now. And a lot of them just thought looking lean and exercise was all that took to negate the effects which is bullshit. Exercise only targets fat and caloric intake. It doesn’t negate what overdosing sugar and salt does directly to the organs.

I get that it’s hard but this goes deeper than just convenience. This stuff is really toxic. Literally. Tips aside. Albeit the gouging is pretty fucked up on its own but that should be a hint on how little they care about you. They want your money. They inject salt to make you buy this shit. They don’t care if they kill you and your family over ca$h.

I feel like dealing with tipping culture is a byproduct of just giving people more time to recover from a weeks work.

Like a 4 day work week for example. Pay adjusted so no one loses money. People have more time to relax and recover from work, actually live their lives. They cook more, and places like DoorDash can't parasitically siphon money off of people who are just desperate to rest.

I can't believe I've been conditioned to think this is impossible because it helps people too much. Sometimes I hate the U.S. .

If you think this is frustrating you're not alone. This is a trap made by rich and powerful people to keep people in line. You can't argue if you're always overworked and tired. When homelessness is the other choice you don't even get to make a choice 99% of the time. People died to make work less overbearing and it seems we might have to go through this again for any changes.

The driver "the clock is ticking bitch ! your food is getting cold" This is actual ridiculous

I simply take it as DoorDash warning that it provides poor service. Ok.

Ah yes, the app for the particularly lazy, maybe that serves as an incentive to move their asses for once and get it themselves