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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

The idea that people would rather pay unknown extra dollars to middlemen to avoid picking up a phone and talking to someone for 2 minutes is so bizarre to me.

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That feels a little reductionist. You’re paying for stuff like order tracking, customer service, easy tipping, a way to talk to the delivery driver, and a centralized place to choose stuff. I don’t think those things are worth the price anymore, but they have value

I wouldn’t pay extra for it (and don’t order food often, since it’s always cold and late), but ordering something over the phone can be rather difficult in America if you don’t have an American accent. Don’t even get me stated on drive-thru speakers.

The killer feature of Doordash is the fact that you can order in a structured textual form. The feature that kills it is their inability to provide a heat-preserving bag for drivers.

I honestly think the reason most food delivery used to be pizza, is because it actually tastes better when the cheese has cooled a little.

It saves you the trouble when your order goes wrong and way easier to argue/negotiate, it's the same reason airbnb works (else why wouldnt you just exchange number with the host and rent it directly)

I’m in my late 30s and this is how I know I’m old. Calling places is just so easy. I don’t understand the need to replace it with some new process.

As a non-native English speaker, calling places is absolutely soul crushing. People cannot understand my name, cannot understand me spelling it, and half of the time I cannot understand them back. Why have me call and tell you my name for you to be typing it when I could enter it in the computer myself?

I've also lived in countries where I'm not a native speaker, so I know how hard it is calling (much more so than speaking in person). But honestly this is a little irrelevant. The split between those who are fine calling and those who really want an app has basically nothing to do with language. Young people in the US often hate the idea of calling even if they are native speakers. That is what I don't understand. As a native speaker of English, calling places is just so easy. I don’t understand the need to replace it with some new process.

So yeah while I understand your issues, they simply don't explain this phenomenon when it comes to native speakers of English in the US.

We have had online ordering for over decade now. Nothing magical or expensive in that tech...

Online ordering from the restaurant's designated website is fine, but ordering from a third party like Door Dash or Uber or whatever and their jacked up prices is weird to me.

I can call a pizza place and get a pizza delivered using the pizza restaurants' delivery person, or I can use a third party app and pay 100% more?

Or the restaurant could buy ready made solution or some relatively cheap solution that provides them this website. Then do the delivery themselves and only lose a bit on the order.

Why? Phone calls are the worst. Car wrecks induce less anxiety, and I've been hit twice.

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