Lawsuit accuses DoorDash of charging iPhone users more than others

Many rental car companies, will charge you differently if you are picking up a car at certain airports depending on which country you say your residence is. Same car, picked up at the same airport, rented for the same amount of days with same insurances, with invoice issued out of the country where you are picking up the car. Different price...

Makes me feel less headache as I do not use delivery for food. I usually cook myself or go and buy ready stuff. If I am too lazy to visit nearest food place then I am not really hungry.

> I could see they justify this as value-based pricing. As in, it would have costed more for you to travel farther to get the food from that particular restaurant if you were to order pickup.

If this isn’t going to the driver, it’s absolutely unacceptable. DoorDash does not have to do more work because you would have had to drive further, but the actual driver does have to drive further, and is working for a flat fee.

To hear people on HN say things like this explains exactly why these companies do this. This is absolutely not a reasonable way to think.

We outlaw these things because they deceive the user, thereby making it impossible to 1) know this and 2) vote with their dollars.

Somebody’s salary is getting paid, a demand is being supplied and while they may not be making enough, there’s enough money to be made to attract deliverers. The music might one day stop, but it won’t be because anybody really wants it to. At the very worst, DoorDash or something like it might be the best way to put in a pickup order.

self driving cars

This is not an in-app purchase in the same way a traditional subscription for an app might be processed. This goes entirely through DoorDash, and Apple does not see any % of revenue sent from the user to DD for their order.

The industry is surviving on investor cash…DoorDash founders have already cashed out generational wealth, so they’ll be fine whether the grift collapses or not.

Does it depend on that? It will affect the cost to DoorDash, but if the premise of the lawsuit is unfairness of price discrimination based on device operating system, then I don't see how it's relevant to the end customer that DoorDash pays a different cost for their transaction.

That said, I'm personally skeptical that the premise is even defendable in the first place. Operating system is not a protected class and so I don't see any legal basis for why a company couldn't price discriminate based on it.

> restaurants are complaining that they dont make enough via the apps

Is this true? I can't think of any reason why a restaurant would put themselves on the app and spend all of that time managing it (Uber/Skip) if they feel they don't make enough?

Apple don’t take a cut of physical items

> Delivery apps are an interesting industry because it seems that no one is making money.

There are a lot of potential industries that have to start out like this.

Suppose you have a downtown where there are a dozen restaurants within a few blocks of each other, and then customers in a residential area on the other side of town. If you try to hire someone to go pick up the food for one person and deliver it to one customer on the other side of town, it's totally hopeless and you'll never make any money.

But if you could get the same driver to pick up meals for a dozen people at once and then deliver them to customers who all live near each other, now you have a chance of turning a profit. That's a chicken and egg problem, because the first customer isn't going to pay the full price of the trip, so you have no first customer and never get enough business going to reach the level of efficiency required.

Now suppose they operate by burning VC money for a while until they get enough usage to turn a profit.

> Really depends on if the cost increase is due to Apple taking a cut.

Apple only takes a cut of virtual goods. This is why you cannot buy Kindle books on iOS without going to the website, but you can buy a television.

I've found Uber routinely sends me push notifications advertising a fare drop right after I've left the app without confirming a ride in order to check prices on Lyft -- and doesn't do so otherwise, even if I introduce the same delay. I.e., after delaying ride confirmation, if I don't switch apps I am not offered a lower fare, if I do switch apps I am offered a lower fare. So sleazy.

I am actually increasingly concerned about the potential for price discrimination to become endemic, widespread, and very impactful. I actually am beginning to think we should be looking into legislating against it.

> Whether DoorDash, in adopting, promoting, and/or charging its Delivery Fee, misrepresented material facts to consumers, like Plaintiffs, including the fact that:

> o Dashers did not receive the Delivery Fee for their deliveries and that DoorDash retained the Delivery Fee completely;

> o DoorDash knew or should have known that its advertising tactics regarding discounts on the Delivery Fee were misleading;

> o DoorDash knew or should have known the Delivery Fee had nothing to do with the delivery of orders for consumers, like Plaintiffs, but instead related to the alleged cost to operate DoorDash’s technology;

Personally, I'd be happy if labeling something with a common english meaning but the something doesn't reflect that common meaning counted as fraud when financial gain was involved.

As an Android user, I sometimes feel like I should be a protected class.

But I get cheaper DoorDash orders, so that's good enough for me.

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Edit: Seems like I misunderstood the parent usage of class to refer to the terms as a sociological term not as its US legal term. Sorry about that

I don't even think it's deplorable, if it's possible to charge iPhone users more, do it. They'll pay. It also doesn't matter if it's illegal; they're suing because the entire fee system may be fraudulent, and since they're hiding this alleged iPhone tax in arbitrarily named and applied fees, it's relevant.

Even worse imo, if it's held to be true, Doordash will be in real existence-threatening trouble with iPhone users and will have to increase its marketing spending towards them drastically.

My same question, yeah. If you think of buying a new car, for example, the salesman will size up the customer in all sorts of ways, taking many signals into account in order to negotiate the price as high as he think he can get the customer to agree to. Perfectly legal, and it happens all the time.

I don't know if this DoorDash suit named the specific area of law that they allege was violated, but I would need to understand the difference between what DoorDash is doing and my scenario of the car salesman, for example.

I think the complaint is not about doing price discrimination, but being misleading about it. Calling an upcharge a "delivery fee" could be fraud if the customer thinks they're paying for the delivery.

This was my thought.

I don't see much functional difference between this and what Disney does with their ticketing systems, or what airlines do.

It's not something I'm glad companies are doing, but it's also not illegal as long as it's not a protected class.

Basically

A: I wish doordash wouldn't do this.

B: phone OS is not a protected class because it is deemed easily changeable.

If you can afford to buy the most expensive hardware as a status symbol, don't be too surprised when companies notice and scale prices accordingly.

No tons of companies do this, people charge X for people from poor countries and a much higher Y for people from rich countries. People get paid less because they are from a poor country and more because they are from a rich country.

I think the lawsuit claim is DD fraudulently represents pricing to be based on one thing (distance, etc.)but it seems to be based on other factors, one of which may be phone make

There’s this thing called travel, where one might go to a different city or country via a car/motorcycle/train/plane. Often people end up staying at “temporary houses” where you’d have access to a bed and a bathroom. But often these don’t include a kitchen. Now for reasons that might be difficult to understand, these people often choose to consume food while they’re away from home, as opposed to just taking a bit of break from eating until they’re back. In situations like that, among others, ordering online appears as a decent option.

Here’s another perspective: Having a young child eats up every free moment. Being able to order a wide variety of tasty food with a few taps has been truly life-changing.