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Comment by Reedx | Hacker News Reader

Exactly what happened in SF. Uber Eats stopped delivering to Treasure Island as a result:

"The Order limits our ability to cover operation costs, so we have had to revise the areas Uber Eats can deliver to in the city. Unfortunately, this means we cannot continue to serve customers in Treasure Island. The Mayor’s Emergency Order limits the commissions we charge restaurants for access to our platform and delivery services."

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To some extent this seems like grandstanding. They charge a delivery fee. If the delivery fee doesn't cover delivery, then charge a higher delivery fee. That comes from the customer, not the restaurant.

* If the delivery fee doesn't cover delivery, then charge a higher delivery fee.*

Why doesn't that reasoning apply to restaurants? If the fees cut into their profits too much, then they need to raise prices.

There is no free lunch here (ha!). The customer is always going to be paying for both the food and the delivery. There's no benefit in micromanaging the internal transactions.

I’d wager they have clauses that prevent them from charging a lower price for direct customers. In which case the restaurant has to charge everyone a higher price. In what world does that benefit anyone but the intermediaries?

It’s the exact same as credit card processing fees. Except that’s 3% and this is 30%

> Why doesn't that reasoning apply to restaurants?

More opaque. The honest approach would be for the menu prices to be the menu prices, and the cost of the delivery should be obvious.

Because the restaurants aren't allowed to charge higher prices to their higher cost delivery customers. Which doesn't stop the food delivery places from charging higher prices, of course. And taking a cut, and collecting a delivery fee, etc etc.

> Because the restaurants aren't allowed to charge higher prices to their higher cost delivery customers.

Why can't they? Is this a local or state law?

Because it's a platform rule from most Delivery Apps in most markets.

Restaurants in Australia do charge higher price on Ubereats and Menulog, I am surprised its not the same in the US.

And base that delivery fee on distance between the restaurant and the customer as well. They can solve it they want to. People in treasure might be willing to pay a higher fee than to not get any delivery at all. It’s political posturing and pressure tactics.

In that other fold of the multiverse, the headline could be that uber is charging people extra in Treasure Island, which contains a lot of subsidized low-income housing.

They already do that for taxi rides, right? A longer taxi ride doesn't get magically cheaper because it's going to/from low income housing. It's all transportation, and transportation gets more expensive for a longer distance.

Well who would click on that article?

That makes no sense to me. Why can't they charge people ordering from Treasure island higher?

Because the city made it illegal, obviously. Just like Portland. They're not going to operate at a loss. All you're doing is criminalizing deliveries that cost more than 10%.

> Because the city made it illegal

That just seems as PR from food delivery apps. AFAIK the city put a limit on how much the restaurants can be charged, there is no limit on how much a person ordering the food can be charged.

The city made it illegal to charge the restaurants - not to add a higher delivery fee.

Some semi-related reasons I can think of

1. If people knew what it actually cost to get food delivered (as opposed to hiding the delivery fee by increasing per item costs or charging the restaurant a cut), they wouldn't order

2. Part of their business model is to waive delivery fees, like if you buy the subscription for unlimited delivery. However even if you have unlimited delivery they still make money from service fees and restaurant commissions. If all of that cost gets charged as a "delivery fee", the $20 subscription for unlimited free delivery becomes unsustainable.

3. As others have mentioned, they're probably doing it in part just to make a point

They can, but they don't want that increased charge to be shown to the customer, they want the restaurants themselves eating that cost so the prices stay artificially low from the end users perspective.

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