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Comment by pavel_lishin | Hacker News Reader

In this analogy, it would be more like you creating an eBay store called "Strand Books", listing the entire Strand Books' catalog, and then when someone purchases a book from you, popping into The Strand to get the book and shipping it to them.

Except sometimes they're out of the book, and so the customer never receives it. Or you damage the book between the book store and the post office, and they receive a badly damaged book.

The customer is going to be mad at the Strand, not at you. You'd be damaging their reputation.

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But the customers are ordering the food from Grubhub, no? So why would they be confused that there's a middle-man?

A middle man is responsible to the consumer. A subcontractor is not. Grubhub does not tell the consumer whether they are acting as a subcontractor or middle man for a particular restaurant. This is deceptive and harms the restaurants who do not subcontract Grubhub.

I can buy this, if the customer is ordering directly from the restaurant and Grubhub delivers that order. Because that's what a subcontractor relationship looks like; you the customer only deal with the primary contractor. But if I order from Grubhub, I am explicitly asking them to be a middle man, no?

Grubhub often partners with restaurants. The fact they do not disclose the cases when they do not is very deceptive.

No. Just as Amazon and eBay maintain that your transaction is with the third-party seller, not them, Grubhub claim that your transaction is with the restaurant, and the restaurant is responsible for problems. Except when the restaurant didn't subcontract them, but they don't mention this. They can't have it both ways.

Grubhub literally says on their website "Grubhub helps you find and order food from wherever you are. How it works: you type in an address, we tell you the restaurants that deliver to that locale as well as showing you droves of pickup restaurants near you.".

Grubhub literally says 'shows you restaurants that deliver to you', imply the restaurant is delivering, not Grubhub. Furthermore it implies if you order, you're ordering from the restaurant- where Grubhub may have put up that ordering entirely without their consent!

At least you didn't cut off the second half of that sentence. The AS WELL AS there is carrying a lot of weight. As long as the restaurant is offering pickup service, Grubhub is very clear about that offering.

The restaurant may not be offering pickup service in a way they consent to because Grubhub is listing them against their consent. Grubhub isn't being clear that these restaurants haven't consented to orders via Grubhub.

This is just reiterating the first post I responded to, and so I'll respond in kind:

Why does Grubhub have any responsibility to obtain the restaurant's consent? If I pay someone to go to the grocers and pick up some items for me, is that someone obligated to obtain the grocers' permission? Why is this situation different?

If the restaurant is offering pickup service, then to me there is no obligation on any third party to obtain permission to utilize that service and deliver the results to a customer.

Grubhub doesn't state that they are picking it up for you. Grubhub states that the restaurant delivers.

The customers are ordering their food from the restaurant, via GrubHub.

People are stupid.

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