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Comment by rideontime | Hacker News Reader

Not necessarily, considering how DoorDash adds restaurants to their site without their knowledge and foists the customer service burden onto them.

e: Yes, the original article makes it clear that he didn't sign up for this: https://www.readmargins.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage

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I don't mean a TOS between Doordash and the restaurant, I mean the TOS between Doordash and customers of Doordash using the Doordash app. The pizzeria owner signed up to Doordash as a customer, in order to buy pizzas.

And he honored this contract. He paid $16 for each pizza, just as Doordash offered. The fact that Doordash was selling pizzas for a loss was Doordash's problem, not his.

> And he honored this contract.

I don't know, what does the TOS actually say? The app's TOS might say something like "you can't use this app to order food from a business you own", or something else that might forbid this scheme. Maybe it doesn't though, I don't know and haven't read it, but I think it could.

I have no reason to believe the TOS contains a clause like that.

I’d argue it’s clearly a ‘nuisance’, which is prohibited by the TOS.

There is one Term that is probably applicable, but this was certainly not the case they were anticipating when they wrote the term:

> (f) You will not use the Services, or any content accessible through the Services, for any commercial purpose, including but not limited to contacting, advertising to, soliciting or selling to, any Merchant, User or Contractor, unless DoorDash has given you prior permission to do so in writing.

This hinges on if trying to make money by using the service as a consumer counts as commercial use. But you can tell they were thinking about very different scenarios when they wrote this term.

If you access any of our websites (or other methods) … you have read, understand, and agree to be bound by this Agreement - https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/terms-and-conditions-u...

The T&C attempts to bind “merchants” to the “Self-Delivery Product Addendum”, which states: Merchant shall ensure that pricing of Merchant Products under the PickUp Program is not greater than the pricing of the same Merchant Products for pickup (a) in-store - https://help.doordash.com/merchants/s/us-addendum-self-deliv...

So it’s expressly prohibited. But are they bound to the additional merchant provisions if they never signed up to be a merchant?

Of course not. He’s not acting as a merchant when he orders pizza from himself on Doordash and can’t be bound by contract terms he never agreed to. Doordash didn’t ask him to sell pizzas on doordash, they decide to list his products themselves below cost. He doesn’t have an agreement with them except as anyone else ordering food from doordash, or doordash ordering food from him as anyone else could. Doordash doesn’t bind him contractually any way here.

Uh huh. There’s also this in the T&C: You will not use the Services, or any content accessible through the Services, for any commercial purpose, including but not limited to contacting, advertising to, soliciting or selling to, any Merchant, User or Contractor, unless DoorDash has given you prior permission to do so in writing. the pizza shop owner used it for the commercial purpose of selling pizza to himself.

In English law, if it’s dishonest, it’s fraud. The pizza shop owner’s conduct was plainly dishonest by the standards of “ordinary decent people”. Where was this, anyway? What’s the local standard? Probably a variation of exactly the same.

I like DoorDash’s chances on this.

Then you are a real advocate for predatory marketing or doordash or you are just a pedant...

Two wrongs make a right?

I was providing an analysis of the situation. The name calling is not appropriate.

I just scanned through the TOS. The only thing I could find that's related to this at all is a clause saying that you won't submit a review or rating "for any Merchant or business for which you have an ownership interest, employment relationship or other affiliation or for any of that company’s competitors"

Nothing about not ordering from your own business.

I feel like such a clause, even if somehow enforceable, could easily be worked around. The owner's child could place the order. Or the owner's spouse. Or a close friend.

Clearly the better option for Doordash is to simply not engage in predatory pricing to begin with.

Still probably fraud since done with intent.

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