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Comment by OkayPhysicist | Hacker News Reader

Why would it be illegal? If you think of it as Doordash buying the pizza and then reselling it to you, there'd be no reason not to expect a mark up. You're allowed to price discriminate between different market segments, so even if we pitch Doordash as merely a third party delivery offering, restaurants could still charge Doordash customers more than those that come into their storefront.

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It should be illegal because these services market a subscription to you claiming the benefit of zero fees and free delivery, which is a lie. You are being secretly charged through a higher menu price, none of which is shown to you as a customer.

I can't count how many friends I have had to explain this to who don't understand they are paying 20-30% more even after getting "free delivery" than if they just ordered directly through the restaurant.

so like, Amazon Prime?

Also, Doordash does not have "zero fees" for orders when you pay for DashPass, they have "reduced" fees. I do absolutely hate the practice of "Taxes & Fees" being a line item and only when you click into it do you see that the taxes are minimal and most of that is the platform fees.

I'm not sure how UberEats/etc handle it but it's absolutely crazy how much of a markup there is to order through Doordash vs going to pick it up when you factor in Restaurant Upcharge + Doordash Fees + Tip. It's easy to have an $8 item suddenly cost $20 or more total out-of-pocket when all is said and done.

I don't know that it should be illegal. I think the argument would be that it's deceptive. DoorDash, for some customers, claims there is no service fee - it's "free." What they're really saying is: the service of our delivery may be free, but the overall service we will provide is hidden or obfuscated in menu items, and without doing some research at the restaurant, you'll likely not notice.

One could argue it's best for the consumer to very clearly understand how much more they're paying. If not a service fee, here is our aggregate food markup, in plain sight. Transparency, in other words. Let's not borrow any ideas from the healthcare system.

> If you think of it as Doordash buying the pizza and then reselling it to you

Isn't this basically impossible to do legally in the U.S.? Wouldn't you run into trouble both with IP law and food safety laws around reselling prepared foods?

This has been happening for a good while. There are loads of instances of food delivery companies creating unauthorized websites for restaurants with a phone number and url owned by the delivery company. They are literally buying the food and reselling it to you at a markup.

If it's illegal nobody cares.

IP law, no, for the same reason nothing stops me from reselling the Ralph Lauren shirt I bought as a Ralph Lauren shirt, so long as I make no pretenses of being Ralph Lauren, and I make no modifications to it. The good is the same, IP protected good. I'm just re-selling it.

Food safety? There might be some restrictions related to food handling, but to my understanding they're mostly pretty rote food handling safety training stuff that I'd hope delivery companies provide anyway.

This exact arbitrage, performed by Doordash, was exploited.

https://www.readmargins.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage

If you're in a jurisdiction that taxes prepare food, then the government is going to be unhappy about missing the tax on the second sale.

It's the opposite — you're legally protected to resell anything you buy and the seller can't stop you. I'm not sure if food has any caveats, but in general, IP law cannot stop you from reselling an item.

It's called the First-Sale Doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

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