DoorDash Warns No Tipping May Result In Slower Delivery (cnn.com) 400
quonset shares a report from CNN: If you try to place an order through the DoorDash app without leaving a tip, you may get this pop-up: "Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered -- are you sure you want to continue?" The note goes on: "Dashers can pick and choose which orders they want to do. Orders that take longer to be accepted by Dashers tend to result in a slower delivery." In other words, tip your drivers, or prepare to wait a long time for a cold meal. Customers are then given the option to add a tip, or continue without one.
The message is just a test, DoorDash spokesperson Jenn Rosenberg told CNN in an email. "This reminder screen is something that we're currently testing to help create the best possible experience for all members of our community," she said. "As with anything we pilot, we look forward to closely analyzing the results and feedback." Rosenberg noted that Dashers, the people who deliver orders, are "independent contractors" who "have full freedom to accept or reject offers based on what they view as valuable and rewarding." Tips go directly to Dashers, according to the company. So if an order comes in without a tip, they're more likely to let it linger.
The message is just a test, DoorDash spokesperson Jenn Rosenberg told CNN in an email. "This reminder screen is something that we're currently testing to help create the best possible experience for all members of our community," she said. "As with anything we pilot, we look forward to closely analyzing the results and feedback." Rosenberg noted that Dashers, the people who deliver orders, are "independent contractors" who "have full freedom to accept or reject offers based on what they view as valuable and rewarding." Tips go directly to Dashers, according to the company. So if an order comes in without a tip, they're more likely to let it linger.
F U DoorDash (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:5, Insightful)
You can actually skip the first five words of your comment. Doordash has never been profitable, and probably never will be.
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Re:F U DoorDash (Score:5, Insightful)
It's always profitable for the suits.
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:5, Interesting)
In 2022 they brought in a gross profit of 2.63B, that is after their costs. That is 2.63B taken from their customers for no better reason than being a middle man. The fact that they spend more than that per year in advertisement/administration to generate a net loss is beside the point.
I would argue that at least some portion of (and maybe all of) the 829M of R&D expenses aren't easily avoidable unless you want somebody else to do a better job and watch all your income go away. And the 369M of amortization is funny money anyway.
It's really their advertising that's the problem. Although the 1.682B of advertising expenses (no idea how much is actual ad spend) probably drive at least some of that profit, though a 2:1 profit to ad spending ratio is completely unsustainable. Can you imagine if a local pizza place spent a five bucks per average daily customer per day to convince people to come into the restaurant? SMH.
The irony is that the main reason they have to spend so much on advertising is because a $28 order from a restaurant might costs $56 after all the visible and hidden delivery fees are added in, because every item on the menu costing several dollars more. And when people look at how much it costs, most people say, "It isn't worth that to save $1 in gasoline and 15 minutes."
If DoorDash instead cut their ad spending in half (or more) and used the savings to drastically reduce or eliminate the fees that they charge restaurants, then required that the DoorDash delivery price for each item must be the same as the in-store menu price, they'd undercut everybody else in the market, they'd attract WAY more customers, and the only people that would lose are folks with stock in whatever companies they're paying for their ridiculous level of ad spend.
Also, if instead of relying on gig economy drivers, they hired drivers with full benefits, then they could have far more control over everything. They could provide food heaters and coolers in the cars, and could then coordinate multiple pickups and multiple deliveries to reduce the amount of driving considerably, all with minimal impact on delivery time.
So it's not that their model is fundamentally unsustainable so much as that they're doing it completely wrong in pretty much every possible way. Fortunately for DoorDash, so is everybody else in the market, at least for now.
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a $28 order from a restaurant might costs $56 after all the visible and hidden delivery fees are added in, because every item on the menu costing several dollars more. And when people look at how much it costs, most people say, "It isn't worth that to save $1 in gasoline and 15 minutes."
This is why we only used it once.
I don't mind paying for delivery (delivery charge). I don't mind tipping the person who did the driving -if they do well (ensure the order is right/complete & arrive in a timely fashion).
I do mind getting screwed by hidden upcharges. It pissed me off. Never again.
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I have never used it, but my daughter used it without my permission and man its expensive.
I do mind paying a tip, because I believe the delivery charge should include the cost of paying the driver a reasonable amount to deliver the item, silly me. What else is the delivery fee for? All I see is the tipping system in the US does is hide the true cost of an item. Note I am not from the US.
A tip to me is what you pay if delivery person went above and beyond, although I can't see many situations where that is p
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:4)
Furthermore, how can I provide a tip before I receive my order? The tip is what we give for "good service". How can I know if I got good service before I even received my order?
Re: F U DoorDash (Score:3)
And to head off the âoego get it yourself lazy fuckerâ people that inevitably turn up, sure. But for now Iâ(TM)m recove
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*You* pay your drivers. Otherwise the economics of your business model don't work.
It's either tips or higher fees. Where else would the money come from?
It used to be that the only wealthy people paid other people to do their mundane shit for them. Now everybody wants it even though most can't afford what such a luxury actually costs.
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:5, Insightful)
It's strange. I recall being able to get stuff delivered from the local pizzaria back in the 90s, and I was by no means wealthy.
As to your first question, higher fees. I agree the money has to come somewhere, but as a European I do not agree at all with the American mindset of, "I'm going to tell you a price. This price is not what you're going to have to pay me."
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:4, Insightful)
It's strange. I recall being able to get stuff delivered from the local pizzaria back in the 90s, and I was by no means wealthy.
As to your first question, higher fees. I agree the money has to come somewhere, but as a European I do not agree at all with the American mindset of, "I'm going to tell you a price. This price is not what you're going to have to pay me."
And if you ordered from the local pizza place in the 90s in the US (or Canada) chances are you handed the driver a tip after they handed you your pizza. I know I did. But a lot of people today that are using delivery apps like DoorDash, UberEats, etc. don't tip. So if a driver can pick and choose the delivery they want to do, guess which ones aren't going to get picked?
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:5, Informative)
That's because tipping has transformed from a nice extra to an entitlement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: F U DoorDash (Score:3, Insightful)
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That's because tipping has transformed from a nice extra to an entitlement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Tipping was never supposed to be a "nice extra". It was supposed to be a pay for performance model.
Waitress is attentive and keeps your glass filled and the rolls coming? Give her a good tip.
Waitress does the bare minimum? Low tip.
Waitress ignores you, talks on her phone in the hall, and generally acts like the customer is a burden on her existence? No tip.
You can make solid money waitressing in a restaurant with a good, regular clientele. Same goes for bartending, and several other service jobs. The tips b
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:5, Insightful)
Waitress ignores you, talks on her phone in the hall, and generally acts like the customer is a burden on her existence
The restaurant's management should ensure good service if they want me to return and if they want to keep their restaurant open. It should not be up to me - the customer - to incentivize good business practices through tipping.
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:4, Insightful)
What is the problem ? The price asked for was $8, why should anyone pay more ?
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Re: F U DoorDash (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the realities of the situation overwhelmingly demonstrate that is in your interest to do so.
Wrong. In an ideal world, no one would pay the tips, and the government would force these companies to pay at least minimum wage before tips. So the reality is that it is overwhelmingly in your best interest NOT to do so.
It is, however, in the COMPANY's based interest to convince you that it is in your best interest to do so, because if enough people do, then they don't have to pay as much, and as an added bonus, they can use it to extort money from other people by saying that you that you might not get your food (despite the fact that you're paying for delivery, and thus they are obligated to deliver it) if you don't tip.
You don't have to but neither does anyone have to deliver to you.
At an individual level, that is correct. Their drivers do not have to deliver to you. At the company level, you are incorrect. By paying for food, you're promised that your food will be delivered. If they don't deliver it, or if the food has been sitting there for an hour when it finally gets picked up, they're going to get hit with chargebacks when customers refuse to pay them for spoiled food, and eventually the credit card companies will stop taking their business. To avoid that, they're using the threat of non-delivery to scare people into tipping.
No one's entitled to delivery.
They certainly could refuse to take the order in the first place, and you are not entitled to them accepting your order, but contractually, from the moment they accepted payment for service, they are obligated to provide that service. So you are absolutely entitled to delivery if they accept your order.
But you do have opportunity to win that outcome.
Translation: You have the opportunity to overpay for food in the same way that tech bros overpay for housing, in a ridiculous bidding war, all because some greedy company doesn't want to pay its workers a fair wage. No. F**k that.
The very fact that they can see the tips before placing the order is just plain wrong. A tip should be a reward for good service. There's no way to specify a reasonable tip before you get service, because for all you know, they could just empty your food into the bushes and drive away.
Moreover, it should not even be legal to reveal driver tips to the driver until a significant period of time after the trip, and maybe not at all except in aggregate, because doing so effectively discriminates against customers based on their income. And because race is significantly correlated with income, revealing driver tips is per quod racial profiling of customers, and thus almost certainly illegal. One good racial discrimination lawsuit, and that practice will end faster than you can even say the word extortion.
So no, it most certainly is not in your best interest to do so except in the most limited, selfish sense of the phrase.
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That contract has an exit clause.
At any point we can choose not to deliver in return for giving up claim to payment.
That's almost certainly untrue.
The first problem you're going to run into, at least in the United States, is promissory estoppel. If the customer has to spend more money to get food on an emergency basis because you failed to deliver, or if the customer is harmed in some other way (financially or otherwise) by that failure to meet the terms of the contract, the customer has a fundamental legal right to recover damages, and if the failure to deliver can be shown to be willful, then you could also face trebl
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Re:F U DoorDash (Score:5, Insightful)
No, people don't "make" anyone do that.
People go to a webpage or in an app and order stuff.
Stop trying to make someone feel guilty for using a service.
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:5, Insightful)
I delivered pizza back in the 80s, about 1 in 10 orders tipped. I was compensated by the company.
Also, the largest tip I ever received was less than considered the minimum today.
US Tipping out of Control (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the largest tip I ever received was less than considered the minimum today.
Tipping in the US has now got completely out of control. I was in the US a couple of weeks ago and counter-service cafes where you purchase your food at a till and then have to go up to the counter to collect it when they call your number are now asking for tips.
Worse, the tips now seem to start at 20% and up which is a really stupid response to inflation. By being a percentage tips automatically account for inflation because as the cost of the food goes up so does the tip. I don't like the US-tipping culture at the best of times but I refuse to tip when there is literally no service. If this keeps up you'll be getting pressure to tip at the supermarket checkout next.
Re:US Tipping out of Control (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:US Tipping out of Control (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah and even worse service as Supermarkets in the US move more towards self-checkout
Future self check-out prompt: "Would you like to leave a tip for the people who stocked those items?"
Re:US Tipping out of Control (Score:5, Insightful)
I think self-service checkouts should offer an option of a -10% tip to compensate me for doing work they should have hired a cashier to do.
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Re:F U DoorDash (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:5, Insightful)
This is stupid.
A tip is for good service, I'm not tipping until the driver shows up with the HOT food.
ALL OF IT, even the french fries.
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You seem to be strongly implying that the driver doesn't get paid fairly for the work they've done unless they get a tip, and blaming the customer rather than the employer for that state of affairs. Have I misunderstood?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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"It's either tips or higher fees. Where else would the money come from?"
You apparently aren't noticing the "higher fees", I regularly see $20+ delivery fees.
Re:F U DoorDash (Score:4, Insightful)
Higher fees please. Then the price quoted is actually honest and you can make meaningful comparisons with alternative food delivery options.
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*You* pay your drivers. Otherwise the economics of your business model don't work.
It's either tips or higher fees. Where else would the money come from?
I'm a person who tips pretty big, at 100 percent at times. So I'm happy to spread a little money around to those that might not have as much.
But if DoorDash sees fit to threaten me with delivery times that are tied to how much I tip, my reply is pretty simple.
Go fuck yourself DoorDash.
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Well then it's not really a fixed price service, it's more of an auction where highest bidder gets their food first.
And of course, we all have the option to participate in that auction. I wonder how much they make when people don't order anything from them?
Venture capitalism at it's finest. (Score:2)
>> Otherwise the economics of your business model don't work.
Their model does not work either way.
Venture capitalism at it's finest.
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Bubble pattern. (Score:2)
it's a pattern.
A bubble pattern.
Tipping should be banned (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies should pay their workers a living wage and then incentivize them to provide good service as part of doing their job, e.g. a bonus based on their rating. It should not be on customers to supplement their income because the company is too cheap to do it.
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I have known many Instacarters and Doordashers. Including people with decent "living wages" at their day jobs. Those people generally do not want to be employees of Doordash (or any other gig company). They want to sign in, grab a few high-dollar orders, and then sign out.
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They can still be employees when they do that.
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I don't think this will play out the way you think it will. Just look at track record of places like Amazon that are stupidly successful and still wring every last bit of productivity out of workers to the point it borders on in humane, lack of bathroom breaks forced risky driving behavior etc.
If you do this companies will just charge more, and when the times comes to start goosing quarterly profits, they will crank the requirements to get those performance incentives until they are out of reach of most wo
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We have not outsourced the cost of food delivery to foreign countries.
Re: Tipping should be banned (Score:2)
Looking forward to some very long delivery times. But so cheap!
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If it saved companies a single penny they would do it overnight.
Re:Tipping should be banned (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow over here in Europe where tipping is not the default option, relevant businesses have not all gone bankrupt overnight.
Re:Tipping should be banned (Score:5, Funny)
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That sounds strange. Tipping is quite common and expected in Germany. Must have been some other factors at work here. Though there are countries in Europe where tipping is really frowned upon (Iceland comes to mind).
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I once attempted to tip a bartender in Germany. She was freaked out, thought I was trying to pick her up with a 20 Euro note, (sleazy) until another person explained tipping to her.....
Tipping in Europe is a minefield, because the "rules" are arbitrary, and vary by country, even where you sit. At the bar it is often no tipping at all, but at a table, tipping is okay. So you inadvertently breached protocol.
They would really hate me there, because I tip big, as high as 100 percent, and have gone higher at times.
Anyhow, for those who wonder - here in the hinterlands, if a person doesn't get enough in tips to reach minimum wage, they are paid extra to compensate. But that didn't happen
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I hosted a large event in Europe and we had a massive table. Towards the end of the evening the waitress came out and and told us she was leaving and handed us over to a colleague instead. I overheard an American say "but is the other person taking her tips?" I excused myself to "go to the toilet", went inside and hinted to the waitress to go bring out a bill to the table because there were 20 Americans sitting with us. I went off to the bathroom. When I came out the waitress looked at me while walking back
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If the items were marked 18% higher then I would know that that was the real price of the food - which then makes it easier to compare the cost of different ways of getting fed. Add ons at the last moment are a way of making the goods headline price lower, deceptive marketing which should be out-lawed.
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Yes I would be fine with that. Then I can see the actual cost I'm paying, not some made-up meaningless number.
the driver has no to little control over the kitch (Score:2)
the driver has no to little control over the kitchen so they may not be at fault for an slow kitchen.
Now at pizza places (not all of them) they also work the kitchen as well as drive.
tipping culture (Score:5, Informative)
I struggle to grasp a lot of the weirdness of American tipping culture, but as I understand it the theory is you pay well for a service that was provided well. How exactly am I meant to know if the service will be delivered well at the time I place the order?
Re: tipping culture (Score:4, Insightful)
American tipping culture is that you pay an indeterminate sum just because on top of what service was quoted as costing you.
For doordash it would be very simple to just make it worth everyones time by putting it in the price.. You pay this and for driver side that you get this..
Free delivery with expected tip is especially atrocious.
And yeah in most of the world it works like that you pay what you were quoted or what was on the menu. Most of the world needs to know that shit to budget their plans.
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Doordash is probably taking a cut of the "tip" for "processing fees", so the more they can scare you into paying, the better for them.
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And yeah in most of the world it works like that you pay what you were quoted or what was on the menu. Most of the world needs to know that shit to budget their plans.
Wow, really? I guess most of the world has changed a lot, since I traveled it courtesy of uncle sam. Some countries you were lucky to ever get service at all without some greased palms.
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>> get service at all without some greased palms.
We speak about restaurants, not corrupting cops to avoid fines.
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Lol, you were getting scammed by the locals. American Joe has deep pockets.
Re: tipping culture (Score:2)
Pre-tipping? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've tipped in advance, you've taken the incentive out of it. You've just paid for a premium or fast track delivery service without calling it that. If it then takes longer than reasonable/expected, can you take the tip back?
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Insure
Prompt
Service
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My response ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered -- are you sure you want to continue?
My response: Click [Cancel Order]
Re:My response ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered -- are you sure you want to continue?
My response: Click [Cancel Order]
My response: Uninstall the shitty app.
Uninstall the shitty app. (Score:2)
There are 2 steps (pun intended)
1) Uninstall the shitty app.
2) Take your 2 feet, and walk a few meters to get your oder yourself.
Since when do you tip before getting service? (Score:2)
Between this and tipping a fucking electronic ordering machine, is it maybe time to legalise violence against people who promote this practice. PAY YOUR FUCKING STAFF PROPERLY.
Re: Since when do you tip before getting service? (Score:3)
Stop tipping people and they'll pay their staff properly.
Extortion, not a tip (Score:5, Insightful)
A tip is supposed to come _after_ service has been rendered to create incentive to provide good service. I'd like to believe that most people in restaurants provide at least standard tip for functional service and more for better service.
But this "pre-tip or get cold food" is the opposite side of that coin. DD is saying that to get basic service (bring my food hot and don't fuck with my meal) requires a bribe or you'll get terrible service. That's really shitty.
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Then again, it's really the whole "independent contractor" thing that makes DoorDash less like Uber and such. Because the drivers can look over the orders and decide independently what orders they want to take.
And naturally, they will take the more profitable orders over the less pro
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To clarify, I don't blame the drivers in any way. They are behaving in a rational way by taking the higher fee deliveries.
My issue is with DD and how they treat both drivers and buyers. They're not dealing in an ethical way on either side of the equation.
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Right this isn't really new - its an expedite fee essentially. However they should call it what it is.
DD wants to call it a TIP because people feel TIP-ing is an obligation. They are probably taking a cut somehow. On the other side of the coin though nobody feels guilty about skipping the 'expedite fee' that is just a decision about how important it is to have the pizza at 7:00 and not 7:15.
So it's a bribe (Score:2, Insightful)
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This is illegal in the UK. Having to pay an unspecified amount upfront to get favourable service at the expense of those who didn't pay the bribe.
Then delivery apps need to start charging the customer more for the delivery. Either way, tip or a larger fee the customer has to pay because £3 to drive to the restaurant, wait for your order to be ready, and then drive 20 minutes to deliver it to you isn't enough.
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Depends. In dense urban areas (even suburbs) and delivering mostly orders from a popular takeout, 3$ an order is going make for a good wage. In a perfectly transparent market, delivery prices should be differentiated by restaurants and locale. The traditional takeouts such as pizza places and Chinese food can sustain higher volumes of pickups and deliveries in a given time, so should have lower delivery costs.
In the old situation of takeouts with their own drivers, there was built in competition to make thi
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No, the pps can just NOT TELL THE DRIVER beforehand who is tipping. That's how tipping is supposed to work. You do a good job, you get a tip.
Now, it's just extortion: pay the tip up front, or you get bad service every time. They're doing it this way so they can pay the driver less, yet force customers to pay what they won't.
Every other delivery service I'm aware of does not tell drivers what they will be tipped beforehand bacause THAT'S NOT A TIP.
Some cultures don't tip and it works fine (Score:2)
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minimum wage in australia is $23.23
she was probably getting more than that.
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Only a weiner tips on the credit card (Score:2)
The way minimum wage laws work, tipped employees are allowed to be paid less than the state minimum wage, as long as the difference is made up in tips. Otherwise, their employer has to pay the difference.
In other words, a state may make the minimum wage $10/hr, and $5/hr for tipped employees. If a tipped employee then earns less than $5 in tips in a particular hour, the employer must make up the difference, so the tipped employee ends up with at least $10/hr.
Imagine a situation where you order a $25 pizza (
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"If you give the driver a five dollar bill, you just spent $30, the driver gets $15."
No, the driver gets the same, unless he commits fraud. The difference is that you are enabling fraud, because you're someone who would willingly commit it, then call those who wouldn't "dipshits".
"It's still better for a DoorDash driver if you tip in cash, because - not to put it too bluntly - that's literally money in their pocket, as opposed to money that Uncle Sam knows is in their pocket."
So tax fraud.
Translation (Score:2)
Translation: It's your fault my employee provides inferior service.
Why does DoorDash care which customers tip, it's not their money, right? So they can profit from it: They can't demand the employees share tips with the boss, that's been tried. I guess, that leaves freezing wages and demanding customers pay a bigger tip instead.
What about tipping in cash? That's the f'ing point of the USA, right: The little guy is rewarded for bowing and scraping?
Tipping before service. (Score:5, Insightful)
My Family's Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
We've found that the prices for restaurants we like are higher in the DoorDash application even before the "optional" tip. I figured out a solution that works well for us.
I call it DadDash.
In other words we put our order together and I go to the restaurant myself. I realize that this may not be feasible for everyone, but it works well for us.
Extortion (Score:5, Insightful)
I'ts just extortion. They don't need to show the tips beforehand to the drivers. They've made it so that you must tip, or get extremely poor service.
BID - not a tip (Score:2)
Only in America ! (Score:2)
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That's because those people abroad are Socialists, who are BAD and SCARY people here in 'Murrica.
Tip Before Service? (Score:2)
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A huge middle finger to DoorDash (Score:2)
As DoorDash driver (Score:2)
... I would absolutely be ok with having a higher set price. If I know I'm getting 10% of the value of the food as my pay every time, I'd be thrilled. Sure, I'd give up the occasional big tipper who paid me $20 on a $50 order, but that would be made up for by the number of times I've delivered a Big Mac and Fries for zero tip.
We do get a base delivery fee (usually between $1-$3 based on distance between restaurant and customer) but depending on your car type, that basically barely covers the gas. DoorDas
Charge the fees (Score:3)
Hiding the poor pay by trying to convince consumers to willingly give up extra money to people arbitrarily leads to the crazy out of control tipping that we have and unstable income for people. Some people slacking and doing a poor job are getting more money due to the way people are tipping in their area than people busting their ass off working hard.
Tipping needs to die and return to something where someone went out of their way, beyond what's expected for their job and you're thanking them.
Not some thing where people give you shit service and expect the same time that someone who did well receives, and that it's expected because it's their wages.
No, your wages are what your EMPLOYER pays you. Not what you try to get us to give to them extra. Let the real price hit the floor, the real cost, and see if it's a viable business model. (Hint: Information says its not). Otberwise you're trying to cash in on the hope of people trying to do these low skill low effort jobs for below minimum pay with the thoughts of 'Well I got a bigger tip last time, if I can keep that, then I'll actually make good money" but they don't.
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Because that would involve effort.