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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

What do you think would be a fair price for hauling a single burger 3 miles to you on demand would be? Objectively, on-demand/super-low-latency (less than an hour!) courier services have always been vastly more expensive than mere food preparation.

Seriously, get in your time machine and go check what it would cost for a law firm in Manhattan[1] c. 1930 to get a document across town on that schedule. That it's down to the same scale as the burger you crave to sate your grumbling tummy is an amazing innovation of our modern techno-whizgig society, not something to whine about in a throwaway comment on HN!

[1] Because needless to say, no one would think to have applied that kind of service to mere burgers.

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I think you've completely missed the fact that the base menu price increases when you select delivery? I listed the separate fees to show that the $6.39 to $7.79 price increase does not come from one of the later fees.

Besides do what every other restaurant historically has done and say "$20 order minimum for delivery". Also it's not 3 miles, it's 2000ft. The restaurant is literally 3 blocks away from me.

There's no need to be such an asshole just because you misunderstood my comment. You could also get in your time machine to 2010 when every pizza chain or Chinese restaurant could do this for $2.99 plus tip.

My sincere apologies if you were offended. It really seemed to me (and still does, honestly; maybe you want to edit and rephrase?) like you were complaining about the cost of delivery. And I stand by my reply there. It's an unreasonable complaint, delivery is outrageously cheap in the modern world, such that we can now apply it to things we'd never have had delivered even a decade ago, like a McDonalds burger.

Yes I'm complaining about the fact that they sneakily change the menu prices for items when you select delivery as an option. All the other fees are kind of expected these days.

But again if you want to argue about delivery prices, delivery is far more expensive than it was a decade ago. I know firsthand, I put myself through college delivering pizza and Burger King.

https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/8324-burger-king-expand...

Burger King used to deliver for a $2 fee in major cities from around 2012-2015. $10 order minimum. No secret menu pricing changes.

Even if you did understand my comment correctly, there's still no need to be an ass.

The delivery service charges a fee to the restaurant per delivery. So the restaurant can eat the commission, average it across all customers or pass it along the added cost to the delivery customer.

Yes, that's what the "delivery fee" line item is supposed to pay for.

But it's all part of the cost of delivery. I'm not sure anyone who points out that "delivering things costs lots of money" is missing your point. You're merely assuming that the prices you see broken down the way they break them down is actually an honest accounting.

I assure you nobody is assuming that.

Especially the person complaining about the dishonesty, that wants an easier way to track the dishonest numbers.

When I lived in Beijing, getting delivery from the McDonald’s a quarter of a mile away was pretty easy and cheap, and that was only in 2016. The USA is just way too expensive labor wise for that kind of thing. Density helps, of course, and you can get pretty much food from any restaurant delivered for a reasonable fee (no tip).

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