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Comment by shay_ker | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, not a great look from Matt. It's entirely possible that a lot of this was a misunderstanding, since microsites is literally a product feature that GrubHub sales folks use to sell to restaurant owners (among several, several other features that GrubHub provides).

One could imagine that this was mainly a communication error, and it could've been fixed by updating GrubHub's sales processes.

But Matt saying that restaurants have it wrong? It's just... not a smart thing to do. GrubHub has a symbiotic relationship with restaurant owners, and they gain nothing from insulting restaurant owners.

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Agreed. Blaming the restaurants is an absolutely horrendous political play. They don't need GrubHub. There are many other operators that fill a similar niche.

Accepting responsibility for the communication error (if we can call it that) is the best way to keep a positive sentiment with restaurant owners.

Blaming the restaurant owners sends a message here -- GrubHub feels they have the upper hand by pointing to the legal language. B2B relationships are not ultimately defined by paperwork, unless grave disputes arise. The relationship is fundamentally is maintaining a good rapport.

I mostly agree w/ you!

> They don't need GrubHub

This part I disagree :-) A lot of restaurants depend on GrubHub for their livelihoods.

If you have a really good product, you'd probably survive without GrubHub. But yes, with the advent of these apps (and the decline of going-to-eat-at-the-restaurant experience), we are seeing the commoditization of what's for dinner. It's a tough place to be, with thin margins. But there still are other platforms.

c'est la vie

They might have not-insignificant potential revenue losses if they have to remove these micro-sites.

Welp, it appears they have not-insignificant PR backlash from handling this so poorly. If a restaurant owner wants the domain for their website it'd probably be a real PR win for grubhub to just transfer ownership.

The article says they hand over ownership on demand.

Both GrubHub _and_ restaurants, yes.

The restaurants will gain if they take over the microsite and put their own content there because they won't have to pay a fee to GrubHub.

Perhaps! But remember that wouldn't work as well for merchants that use GrubHub Delivery drivers. And many restaurants owners aren't that tech-savvy.

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