2 pizzas, a small order of breadsticks, and wanted to splurge and get cinnamon sticks.

Pizzas are a “Buy one get one deal!” at 13 bucks a pizza. Figured what the hell, I’ll splurge on desert then with the deal. Get to checkout… hold on a minute… 50 dollars for pizza?! Wait a minute 80 dollars after fees and taxes?!

Usually I only use Doordash for finding something, then I order direct from the store. I just saw the sweet “buy one get one” deal and thought eh, fine I’m here. Right, that’s why I stopped using door dash. I’m not spending 80 dollars on freaking pizza. I’ll just go pick it up and spend a quarter of that price.

At least I would have saved the $3 dollar delivery fee. Phew. Thanks DoorDash.

  • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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    12 days ago

    I’m missing something. If the two pizzas were 13, then the sticks + desert were 40? Then tax and service fee on top (40% lol)

  • underwire212@lemm.ee
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    12 days ago

    Few questions:

    How far away is the pizza place? Do you live in a remote area? What time of day is it? What are the driving conditions like (snow/rain/other hazards)?

    You say you can just pick it up for a quarter of that price. Then go pick it up? Is there anything preventing you? Not saying this is reasonable on DoorDash’s end, but there’s a ton of information we’re missing here. So I don’t understand how people can jump to certain conclusions this quickly.

  • rumba@lemmy.zip
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    11 days ago

    You know, for 26 bucks a delivery, why the hell isnt there local competition?

    • shortrounddev@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Network effect. People want to order online, and they don’t want to have to create a new account to do so. Doordash already exists, so it’s easy to go to the app to find food, rather than looking up your favorite pizza place and signing up through whatever weird 3rd party payment system they use

    • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Probably because the real trick is getting recognition. In the fog of a million voices on the internet all vying for your attention it is hard to make yourself a brand name. When people think of delivery now they automatically think of doordash.

  • DaddysLittleSlut@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    How far away are you??? That is expensive. Normally it’s not that bad. I just went up to 54$ on an order and tax and shipping is only 15$. While it’s not “good”. It’s not bad either.

    So I am guessing you either hit a busy period or live drastically far away from the place you ordered.

  • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    “Buy one get one deal!"

    That’s not a deal, that’s a normal sale. Did they actually phrase it like that? “You pay for 1 item, you get 1 item”? What you mean - and what such a wording might mislead you to believe - is “buy one, get one free” (a.k.a. BOGOF)

  • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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    12 days ago

    Even taking away all these delivery services I hate having food delivered as you don’t know how long it’s sat in the car whilst they deliver other orders. The fries are soggy and it’s just not good.

    I use those sites to browse the menu then i call the restaurant, which is cheaper, then go and collect it myself.

    These services have also ruined fast food. McD although shit is convenient on the commute home It’s just filled with Uber eats and Just eat drivers and really makes it slow now to get food. Then they have these screens to order on so you can’t even get hold of a member of staff to ask for salt cause they’re too cheap to leave it out like they used to.

    • spongebue@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      I don’t mind driving, and I’m such a weirdo about paying/tipping when I can do something myself. I can probably count on one hand how many times I’ve had food delivered in the last decade

  • Xanthobilly@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    I don’t know your personal situation, but people need to learn to cook. Even a meal kit with 3 meals six plates all delivered to your door can cost less than that one order for two pizzas. Your local grocery has pre made pizza dough, sauce, and cheese, and can be cooked in less time than it takes to wait for delivery.

    • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
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      13 days ago

      I mean, if you want pizza that’s even shittier than chain deliveries, sure, you can do that.

      Let’s be real. A home oven and premade dough might be cheaper, but it ain’t good pizza.

      You can get a pizza stone (or steel), or do a cast iron pizza and end up fine, that’s for sure. But if you’re using that premade dough, even Caesar’s is going to be as good. That’s not mentioning that the sauces available in jars aren’t all created equal at all, or that it’s a dice roll if the cheese is okay or not.

      Even dominos and pizza hut are better than a cheap home made pie. You want a good home made pizza, you’re spending roughly the same, but now you have to learn how to hey it right. The learning curve isn’t horrible or anything, but it’s there.

      Most people that want a pizza want something decent, or they’d just throw in a digiorno’s or whatever. Mind you, calling most chain pizza decent is a stretch of the term, but that’s another issue entirely since a solid pizzeria isn’t exactly a guarantee outside of cities

      • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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        13 days ago

        Even dominos

        Hey let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. I’ll give you Pizza Hut, but fuck Dominoes and their nasty excuse for pizza.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOP
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      13 days ago

      What? Of course I can cook. It’s Friday and I didn’t feel like it. You’ve never said “Oh man, work was hell, I’m just going to order something and relax tonight”?

      I meal prep for every day and cook every day. You don’t need to act superior to people because they wanted to order a pizza.

      • Xanthobilly@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        You complain, but still pay for it. That only encourages the gouging. The best way to make it stop is not patronizing food delivery services. Use any means necessary. If your tired, I totally get it, but paying them means you condone the behavior of price gouging and hidden fees.

        I’m literally headed to the store now to make pizza. If you were local, I’d bring you a slice.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOP
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          13 days ago

          I… didn’t pay for it? I called the shop and went to pick it up. Saved 50 bucks on it. You’re making a lot of assumptions about me.

          Did you even bother reading the text?

          Usually I only use Doordash for finding something, then I order direct from the store. I just saw the sweet “buy one get one” deal and thought eh, fine I’m here. Right, that’s why I stopped using door dash.

            • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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              12 days ago

              Are you crying here because you didn’t read the post and you regret your comments or are you still having a pop at OP?

              I hope it’s the former as the latter makes you seem like a shitty person. Positive intent makes me believe it’s the former.

        • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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          13 days ago

          OP’s situation aside, that doesn’t even fit your generalization here, many pizza places fired their delivery drivers and use these services without really informing you. I recently ordered from Pizza Hut and didn’t know my pizza was coming via these services until they text me that they were arriving. Naturally I only got one of the pizzas I ordered and the other was one that someone else ordered. Someone with terrible taste who thinks jalapeño and pineapple are appropriate ingredients for a pizza.

            • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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              12 days ago

              Do you just assume everybody that gets take out, goes for fast food, or eats at a restaurant can’t cook?

              Does it not seem more appropriate that they just want to have a lazy day and not cook. Your comments here reek of privilege and superiority.

              Try and be better my guy. Looking at how you’ve been received here should cause you to have a little introspection in how you conduct yourself. I say this from a place of constructive criticism and not having a go at you. We all make mistakes online and we should learn from them to be better and make this community a better place for everybody.

    • lurch (he/him)@sh.itjust.works
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      13 days ago

      Don’t judge ppl for not cooking. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes more than the attention span of a squirrel. A lot of people just can’t any more. Depressed people, old people, exhausted people, busy people. Some flats don’t even come with kitchens and some people are forced to move somewhere. It also, doesn’t stop with the cooking, you have to clean up afterwards as well. Cooking can be fun, but it can also be chore.

  • zerosignal@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Seeing things like this make me happy that I

    • live in a state that banned junk fees.
    • live just far enough outside of a metro area that these services don’t deliver to me so I don’t have to worry about being tempted to order from them.
    • Carl@lemm.ee
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      11 days ago

      Hear hear for living too far away from DD to be tempted by it. I used to waste a lot of money on it back in like 2021/22, but I moved to a town whose only “fast food” is a burger grill that’s attached to the gas station and run by exactly one guy and if he’s on break when you show up then you can either wait until he’s done or leave and go to the grocery store.

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
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    12 days ago

    I stop ordering from restaurants that shuffle orders to Door Dash.

    I wouldn’t mind a local co-op food delivery company.

  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    I don’t understand how all of these delivery services are so popular when everyone is saying how high the cost of living is. People have money to blow on delivery fees?

    • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Yes. Those people consider things like this part of the “cost of living”, not the luxury that it is.

      On average, people have more of an issue overspending than they do underearning. That’s why even among people making six figures, 1 in 4 of them live “paycheck to paycheck”, which people assume to mean ‘barely make enough to make ends meet’, but what more commonly means ‘deliberately chooses not to save/spends every dollar earned’.

      • wuphysics87@lemmy.ml
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        12 days ago

        Those “fools” live with a poor educational system, sub-living wages, and are constantly tempted with luxeries. But who’s the fool? The fool who sucumbs to their temptations or the fool who can’t empathize with the plight of others?

    • letsgo@lemm.ee
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      12 days ago

      Easy really. The shop has one parking space which is occupied by their delivery driver. The next nearest parking space is half a mile away through a dark alley and you have to pay, but it takes so long to pay that you get fined. The shop itself is freezing because the door doesn’t shut properly. It’s also a ten mile drive away, down wide fast roads, or at least roads that would be fast if they weren’t infested by ridiculously low average speed cameras which mean you have to crawl all the way there and back or risk getting fined again. Then when you get home you discover you’ve been fined for the last time you parked somewhere and overstayed by a whole nanosecond.

      That’s how it is in the UK anyway. And politicians wonder why town centres are dying.

      • falcunculus@jlai.lu
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        11 days ago

        It is your opinion town centres are dying from not enough parking space?

        This used to be the mainstream opinion back in the sixties, but nowadays basically any “revitalisation” programme will be removing asphalt, because small business health has been shown to be correlated with how well connected the area is to public transport, and how pleasant it is to loiter in.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      FWIW my teen does. For him it’s a combination of things not available on campus and he’s always sent money as soon as he gets it. But he doesn’t have any expenses so …

    • AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Most of the people that I know that make decent money don’t use the service, but the people that work at restaurants or do gig work occasionally do… I don’t understand

    • relic_@lemm.ee
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      12 days ago

      Many places raise the price of things ordered through door dash. So it might be $13 if you go through their own website, but not door dash.

    • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Yeah the math doesn’t add up. Maybe they bought a bunch of toppings? Pizza places crush you for ordering individual toppings.

  • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    13 days ago

    What is standing in the way of an open alternative to these services? Both customers and workers getting a terrible deal, you’d think anyone would switch to something else at the first opportunity

    • Annoyed_🦀 @lemmy.zip
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      13 days ago

      Someone would need to host and manage that thing, in the case of dispute. For the gig worker, they would need someone to know that these alternatives exists, and that require marketing and marketing cost money.

      But i bet someone can make a cooperative of this service and only run locally, and restaurant and delivery worker can both help promote their alternative.

      • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        13 days ago

        At least some local alternatives sort of like that do exist, eg. https://www.noshdelivery.co/about_us. But yeah, there is the issue of managing it and overhead since I guess probably part of what they do is vetting and dispute resolution, so it might be hard for it to be more decentralized. Maybe eventual convergence on shared tools and protocols though?

    • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      13 days ago

      Turns out hiring a cab for your pizza is expensive, who would have thought. Personally when ordering out, I always choose pickup, and fortunately can bike to most places to pick it up. If the weather is too shitty to bike, why would I want to put a delivery driver in those conditions.

      The alternative isn’t an open platform, but maybe prioritizing 10 minute city in urban environments where you don’t need a car to get/deliver everything you need

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        My dad drives for Uber Eats and Skip the Dishes. He basically makes all his money in shitty weather. During the summer, when it’s gorgeous out, nobody places any orders. He ends up sitting in the car for hours doing nothing!

        • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          12 days ago

          I guess I should clarify that I’ve never used DoorDash or Uber Eats, but for restaurants who have their own delivery people, it’s almost always via someone on an electric bike where I live, so rain or snow is not fun for them.

  • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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    13 days ago

    These apps will die slowly until the companies can switch to self driving electric cars.

    Once they become common/cheap enough that a pizza place can afford one or two self driving cars doing delivery the prices on these things will absolutely crash.

    For pizza, I wouldn’t be surprised if it went a step further and the pizza was made and cooked by a robot inside the vehicle while it drives around. Only needing to go restock and recharge every few hours.

    Not needing a retail location or almost any staff would make the whole thing super cheap to operate.

    In the meantime fuck all food delivery.

    • jqubed@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      The money you’re paying DoorDash isn’t going to the drivers, so I don’t know how driverless cars will reduce the costs. Having driven for DoorDash off and on over the past couple years, they typically only pay $2 per delivery, plus whatever tip the customer gives. I’ve read they additionally charge the restaurants around a 30% commission on all orders, which is why the prices are so much higher than in the restaurant; the restaurants raise the prices so that they still get roughly the same money after the commission is deducted.

      I’m not really sure where all that money goes with DoorDash. They clearly try to keep support costs as low as possible. I’m guessing they lose a lot to refunds, legitimate or not. But I still don’t understand how the prices can be so high yet they always seem tight on cash.

      • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Driverless cars will eliminate Grubhub, DoorDash, etc, because it will be cheaper for most restaurants to have their own delivery vehicles again, and you’ll probably see co-op services for smaller places.

        Restaurants delivering their own food is not a foreign concept - it’s how all food delivery was done in the ‘old days’. They will jump on the chance to eliminate these gig commissions.

    • RegalPotoo@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Nah, cos the way the self driving thing will be structured will make it pretty much impossible to actually buy one - they’ll be crazy expensive to buy outright, but you can absolutely lease one - oh but if you are using it for commercial purposes it’s more expensive cos… insurance or something, oh and don’t forget the per-km fees, and the servicing fee, and the battery wear fee, and …

      • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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        13 days ago

        Self driving car companies benefit from more total units on the road compared to limiting service and charging more. It will only take one of the companies selling outright to customers for the entire industry to be forced to drop prices.

    • DudeDudenson@lemmings.world
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      13 days ago

      I wished I could live in this fairy tale world where a driverless car won’t be vandalized/stripped for parts

      Like you’d be paying 30 bucks to basically have an unsupervised car show up at your location that’s totally not gonna result in a lot of trouble and cost a shit ton

      • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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        13 days ago

        You say unsupervised, but they have as many cameras and sensors on them than your average military drone at this point. They can (and will) transmit this data live if they detect negative interactions.

        It’s not like people don’t have unsupervised access to cars without people in them right now. People park and leave their cars alone all the time.

        • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          Gangs of criminals are hacking big companies all the time and stealing or extorting millions of dollars. If they can hack into Amazon or Target they can hack into Uber and steal fleets of self driving vehicles. Just turn off all the data logging and have them drive to a chop shop or even down to the local port and right into a shipping container.

            • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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              12 days ago

              Most security workers at companies overestimate hackers abilities. That’s why all these companies are hacked all the time and there are tons and tons of data breaches.

              The thing very few people understand about hackers is that they can code and they share their hacks as tools with each other on the black market. This means you’re essentially up against the combined effort of all hackers on the black market. When one succeeds, they all succeed. When one piece of server software is hacked, all companies who use that software get hacked.

              • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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                11 days ago

                There’s a difference between grabbing data, and controlling physical systems.

                Hackers are not regularly taking over power plants or shutting down manufacturing robots.

                • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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                  11 days ago

                  They are taking over Internet accounts though. They hack people’s social media profiles, Netflix accounts, Amazon accounts etc. They also take down websites via DDoS attacks.

                  Here’s the thing with fleets of self-driving rental cars: unlike power plants or manufacturing robots, these cars will be on the public Internet. They cannot be airgapped on a private LAN the way a fixed robot in a factory can.

                  So all it takes to control these things is to hack into the authentication system and steal the credentials for the master control account for the cars. Then they’ll be able to connect to the cara remotely and issue commands to control them, just as the company would for say, ordering them to return to base to recharge, get cleaned up, or be repaired.

                  That’s the vulnerability. And even if they put all the cars on a VPN it’ll still exist because hackers can and do steal VPN credentials just like any other credential.

                  By the way, there has been at least one high profile hack of manufacturing robots: the Stuxnet worm which targeted Iran’s nuclear program. Since a fleet of self-driving cars is going to have millions and millions of dollars in value (tens of thousands of cars on the road) it’s going to be an extremely high value target for criminal gangs. While their resources might not be as extreme as the probable Stuxnet creators, they will be very large (and might even gain state actor support from unfriendly countries).

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        13 days ago

        Who’s gonna vandalize it when everybody biological is confined to their home for safety? Not like any of the interhome bots could ever escape their programming without the police bots disabling them immediately.

      • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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        12 days ago

        We’re already in a place with self-driving cars. They are operating as taxis in a half dozen cities in North America already and Waymo is expanding to like 12 cities total in the next year.

        It won’t happen overnight, but the aren’t science fiction at this point, it’s just refinements.