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Comment by m3kw9 | Hacker News Reader

If my resturant didn’t sign up for a middle man, don’t force yourself in between. That seems reasonable

Careful there... Apple (or any manufacturer) could say the same thing about Ebay. Any sports team or band could say it about Stubhub. Nike could say it about StockX.

I think we can carve out an exception specifically for food and food services. Why? Because of the extremely limited shelf life of hot food. That’s what sets it apart from your other examples.

Actually, Stubhub is a little complicated in that, for example, sports season tickets can have conditions attached to them. Stubhub has lost a couple of court cases around that.

The law does not set any health standards on food delivery platforms.

Restaurants will have to sign up with each delivery platform, and/or delivery platforms will have to sign up each restaurant. Either way, the net effect will be to protect the extant food delivery platforms from new competition.

Lots of items have incredibly short shelf-lives as well. I spent nearly a decade in the live event ticketing industry so I'll focus on that.

A significant precent of ticket sales are last minute. A friend tagging a long or someone waiting for prices to drop. Food spoils and looses quality fast, but so do good from many industries. I think carving out an exception for food is potentially a slippery slope.

It would probably be better to carve out exceptions for any item that could potentially be worthless after some amount of time. Live event tickets, food, travel, etc.

Your "why" is totally arbitrary. Shelf life? Why not dollars? Apple could say it should receive extra protection because it loses 1000+ dollars every time an unauthorized MacBook Pro or iPhone 12 is sold outside of the channels that it controls. (I don't believe that is entirely true, but it's how Apple would argue it) Whereas unauthorized food deliveries are dealing in the tens of dollars, and further, the restaurant is never totally cut out of the loop, since previously-consumed food can't be resold.

The distinctions are only arbitrary in the fantasy world where an iPhone is remotely similar to a burger.

Food products, especially restaurant foods, are regulated differently than non-food consumer goods. And have been for over a century. There are licensing requirements, safety requirements, and other rules that apply to restaurants that don't apply to other businesses.

And those "arbitrary" laws make all the difference in why unapproved middlemen should not be allowed for restaurant foods.

> There are licensing requirements, safety requirements, and other rules that apply to restaurants that don't apply to other businesses.

none of which are addressed in any way whatsoever in this new law. nor does this law add any licensing or safety requirements for the delivery person or delivery platform.

Then let's amend it so those things are there.

Additional licensing and safety requirements aren't required.

In requiring the delivery platforms to get permission from the restaurants, the delivery platforms are deemed agents of the restaurant and therefore are subject to any existing requirements that apply to food delivery.

IOW, the food safety rules now apply to Uber Eats, GrubHub, etc., without requiring a redundant set of new laws.

None of those examples claim to be, or otherwise tey to make you think they are, an official outlet for those goods.

Sure they do, of course ebay hosts used items but they also promote direct manufacturer-to-customer sales for many products. Stubhub actually does sell plenty of seats that were never otherwise available to the public, further, with their stadium maps and use of team names, etc, plenty of people might assume they are buying tickets via an official or authorized channel. StockX you likely have a point -- but it still doesn't mean that Nike approves of it and wouldn't try to shut it down if given some statutory assistance meant to target restaurants but written a bit too broadly.

I would argue that the average person would not consider ebay an official vendor for a brand like Amazon. Ebay is set up to make the seller prominent. (Moreso than amazon does, I would argue.)

I haven't used StubHub in a while, but if they have move to being a first party distributor in some cases, i could see some confusion arising for a consumer.

The funny thing is, Amazon is a terrible example, since lots of stuff there is actually being sold by 3rd parties, not by Amazon itself, and not with any authorization from the manufacturer.

example: https://www.amazon.com/Rolex-Datejust-126303-Silver-Bracelet...

would you shell out $13,000 for this watch from "AUTHENTIC WATCHES"? Are they authorized to sell Rolexes? Do they have any "arrangement" with Rolex? Would Rolex honor its warranty after this sale? Is the watch even new?

My point is that amazon makes it difficult to see who exactly youre buying from and to know that you're getting it from that seller under many circumstances.

Also, there is the first sale doctrine, so they most likely do not need to be "authorized" to sell by Rolex unless you can only purchase a rolex by signing away the roght of first sale. (I'm not sure that's possible to do and am sure it's come up with Tesla, but haven't looked for any relevant cases.) (Whether or not you trust that seller enough to give them that kind of money is a separate issue; I do not.)

This isn't about these companies reselling food, its about them acting as an agent of the restaurant when they are not. They're also not selling me a "cheese pizza" for delivery and giving me one from a local place, they're selling me "company X's cheese pizza" for delivery, when Company X may not want their pizza delivered and has no knowledge of their listing by this company acting as their agent.

It would be the same thing if the delivery company was operating as a resale marketplace for used food ;)

The First Sale Doctrine [1] is what prohibits Apple or any manufacturer from preventing me selling my Mac on eBay.

It used to be that you could buy or sell airline tickets to people. There used to be ads in the newspaper classifieds. The airlines are very happy that that's not possible now.

Absolutely many companies in many industries would be happy to prevent people from doing X, both from a quality control and profit-maximizing perspective.

But if I buy a ticket from StubHub or a scalper on the street, the experience should be the same. Having a delivery company insert themselves into the process means they make accept orders where they don't have enough drivers, have to transport it too far from the restaurant to the customer (many/most restaurants have limits on delivery area for time/quality), etc.

So this seems completely different because the delivery companies are inserting themselves into the process as though they were endorsed by the restaurant.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...

But they're not forcing themselves in between. All the customers you already had are still going directly to you. They're just widening the pool of potential customers.

By lying. In-N-Out is infamous for dealing with this. They sued one of the delivery sites for trademark infringement. “But why?” you might ask. Because customers are dumb sometimes and would blame In-N-Out when their food arrived cold of their milkshakes melted.[a]

Sure, In-N-Out was getting more money, but it was hurting their brand (which caused money loses). They never approved being on the site, but that didn’t stop the site from lying and pretending In-N-Out was a “partner”.

[a]: Think Amazon with the stupid 1-star reviews for being “late” or “shipping box damaged”. It hurts the brand of the product being sold.

Sure, I completely agree. They shouldn't lie.

I was arguing that they're not "forcing" themselves in the middle of any transaction. They're a separate route for the transaction.

Seperate route for A transaction, not THE transaction.

The difference is setting expectations and how they are managed.

The restaurant is able to set and manage expectations when people deal with them. They are not able to do that with other agents, unless that relationship has been established and mutually agreed to.

If doing that came along with the outside service, such as what one might experience with a general courier or agent, it is not cheap.

And people get what they pay for and associate it with the restuarant, who did not set and manage expectations appropriately.

Total mess.

Unless you think GrubHub are forcing themselves in the middle of a transaction that was going to take place anyway, I don't think we disagree.

GrubHub are offering a service where they go and pick up your food for you from a place that offers takeaway but not home delivery.

That sounds fine, I can't imagine anyone having an objection with that service, even if the restaurant hasn't signed up for it.

The problem is that GrubHub are making people think they're dealing directly with the restaurant, not that GrubHub are picking up food from restaurants that didn't sign up for it.

The problem isn't that GrubHub are sitting in the middle of a transaction between a customer and a restaurant. The problem is that they're (maybe) lying about it.

As long as they are completely up front about being a courier, and they are doing something to insure food safety, and they deal with the establishment as any other customer, I am sure some people would use the service.

People did it with TaskRabbit, and one could get more than food done that way.

The resturaunt charges xx.xx

You are paying service yy.yy

For a total of zz.zz

Personally, I won't. Unless I talk with the restuarant, I have no idea about availability, time to prepare, etc...

And frankly, I can get my food. I know what it costs for someone to do that and not be way underpaid, and would rather not see people underpaid.

And let's be honest: they will do everything they can to capture traffic, and will end up handling deals that would have gone to the resturaunt and will then leverage all of that. Hell, I would!

So, no. Not interested. Perfectly happy to support my locals directly.

Yes I don't see how this isn't 'passing off' in a trademark sense, when I hear about some of the worst offenders.

I used to order directly from a local Chinese restaurant quite regularly, but when they appeared on Just Eat I ordered from there instead (convienence and laziness on my part). I never thought to ask if they'd actually joined or if Just Eat had added them without consent.

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