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Comment by thesuitonym | Hacker News Reader

I see this sentiment a lot and I don't understand it. Why would you involve yet another human in your food purchase? I've never been a huge fan of delivery services like this anyway, but even if I had ever considered them before, now just seems like it's not the time to do so.

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Despite the communal nature of the pandemic, people are obsessed with an individualistic formulation of risk.

I agree with your sentiment. In top of the fact that these apps in the past have ripped off the drivers:

https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/20/20825937/doordash-tippi...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlesradclyffe/2018/10/16/tip...

And have manipulated search rankings to force people to use their service when they think they are talking to the restaurant:

https://www.wxyz.com/news/doordash-is-delivering-food-withou...

Than bully restaurants:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/04/14/doordash-gru...

I an good conscious can't use them.

In addition, the argument that the customer is minimally exposed is, to me, an incredibly selfish argument. Yes you the customer may be less exposed, but at the expense of the driver (who now goes to multiple restaurants and multiple houses), and the restaurant (who also has to interact with those drivers).

I personally do carry out from restaurants, and done properly, carry the same risk exposure as delivery to the customer (e.g. putting the food in the trunk of your car, placing the order in the front door and allowing you to get it at a safe distance).

Well, going to the takeout place can expose you to more human beings. At least with delivery, you get just one person and a brief contact.

And of course this plague is not carried in food.

On the other hand this one person risks becoming a superspreader. It's not at all clear which is better from an epidemiological perspective.

How is that different from the server/cashier who gives you your food at the store, from becoming a superspreader? I don't see it as very different, and in fact from a single customer point of view a delivery service isolates them best of all.

And it's a real balancing act but having caught COVID and almost died at the age of 33 I'm simply not going to take any chances when since we have no solid proof that my antibodies are going to ensure from now until I am next in line for the vaccine. Having worked in NYC in the immigration law system a ton of my ex-colleagues caught it and some of my supervisors passed away from it right away and as much as I'd like to think of myself as a rationale person who evaluates th evidence, personal experiences are powerful and scary and it's hard to convey how unexpectedly agonizing a "mild" case felt to me. This isn't the difference between mild and spicy wings, it's less-spicy and qhost-pepper wings.

And so them (and postmates, and instacart, and shipt, and local booze deliveries) have been extremely important because it reducecs the attack vector. Call me paranoid, but I can at least hae some control over the groceries sent to me, and for example. It's simply a tradeoff I'm willing to make. At once point, I couldn't even even properly update my will even though I'm a lawyer because I wanted to be prepared but not even my friends from school who are in the field were willing to come to my house, with the quarantine complicating things. since it was felt tha the 14 day window was arbitrary and I didn't get full blown symptoms until day 8-9.Under these cirucmstances every precaution, in my personal view, as long as it's a precaution that isn't conjured out of thin air and backed by some level of indication of efficacy that skews towards minimizing potential vectors of re-infection. It's not failsafe - my then-girlfriend, was asympomatic, gave mteh rvirus, and there wasn't any way in those days to even know or sure what do to, but as Don Draper said in Mad Men: "Limit your exposure".

well I can speak from experience. Since i'm at home more. Not going to bars and restaurants. I make cocktails at home and then order food because I am not able to drive to pick up the food.

This is the main reason why food delivery makes sense to my situation.

It would be lower risk than going to the restaurant yourself.

To clarify, it is a lower risk for you. It is not a lower risk for the driver, who mingles with multiple restaurants and goes to multiple houses, and it is not a lower risk to the restaurant.

wouldn't curbside pickup be essentially equivalent in risk profile? you're outside and you only have to interact with one person.

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