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Comment by habosa | Hacker News Reader

Seems like Uber Eats really did save the company. Not with the original plan (leveraging idle capacity in the existing driver network) but instead by just discovering that urban customers are willing to be insane premiums (50%ish) to get food brought to them and that restaurants are too desperate for business to say no. Covid was probably the best thing that ever happened to Uber here, that’s when most people I know got addicted to food delivery.

I really wonder if that will continue or if there will be a change in consumer attitudes towards food delivery.

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Anecdote of 1, but with inflation, even though I could technically afford it, I just can't bring myself to pay it anymore - it's just too insane. With delivery fees, up charges, taxes and tips, it's easy to pay like $40 bucks for a pretty simple meal where I live.

Especially since all I need to do is the teeniest amount of planning ahead, e.g. I'll just call ahead for pickup somewhere and plan it around times when I'm driving anyway.

Spending more time ordering, waiting, getting with customer support when things go south? I can go get my food without the extra cost and headache and that's what happened to our house.

We stopped ordering food once it got to be more of an inconvenience than picking it up.

Anecdote++

Myself and most of my social circle happily used UberEats heavily before and during the pandemic. It was great to pay a little extra for delivery.

The pricing dark patterns and inflation have put a sharp end to that. We now only use it when in a real pinch (late-night revelers getting hangry) and when we do, it's almost guaranteed that the order will be messed up and late. Delivery from our favorite local Chinese restaurant is more than double what it costs for takeout. It's absolutely not worth it anymore.

"pricing dark patterns"

Every item on Uber eats is a dollar or two more than if you were there in person, instead of making it up with a higher delivery fee. boo.

yep. not just uber though, all of the delivery services are like that now

Add to that if you have food restrictions, the $40 meal might not even taste worth it but you have to order for some reason (like not being able to cook on that day, etc.)

I just checked prices near me and a Big Mac meal is $13.59 before taxes and fees, $19.19 after taxes and fees, before tip.

Looking at the McDonald's app it's $10.69 after taxes. Which is frankly still too expensive for a fast food meal, but Uber nearly doubles the price. The meal itself is even 30% more expensive on UberEats before all their other fees.

> The meal itself is even 30% more expensive on UberEats before all their other fees.

Likely because Uber is taking a 30% cut of the restaurant's take, so they increase menu prices to compensate.

I wish these companies would stop requiring restaurants give up a portion of their revenue. Uber should just have a larger service/delivery fee that's added on top. But I'm sure that's where customers would balk, seeing the actual real cost of delivery would scare too many people away.

McDonald’s has heavy app adoption, too, so the more typical price would be $8.50 with the daily 20% off coupon.

I do easily pay a 30% markup for the restaurant deliver me the food. Actually, I do that all the time. Since I don't like spending, I think it's perfectly normal for somebody to pay 50%.

But I completely refuse to use Uber Eats, because of its service quality.

Also, if you dine in you generally spend 25%+ markup (tip, service charges etc).

In practice I don't see this as any different: the tip I'd give to waitstaff just ends up going to the driver. Not sure what you mean about service charges; I don't know of many restaurants that add in anything aside from tax before you get the bill.

I find the cost off putting. But when engaged with a production incident then it’s worth it to me.

And there’s ways to make it more palatable. For example, consider that the cost of delivery compared to my hourly income is still more favorable than a minimum wage worker getting McD or TacoBell, which they do all the time. Shrug.

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