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DoorDash Spent $1.4M Trying to Stop Mamdani from Becoming Mayor. Now We Know Why

349 points · 189 comments · vrganj

  1. dzonga · · focus · HN ↗
    services like door-dash are literally built on a concept of a sucker pays more. you order a meal that costs $10. total charge comes to $25. then delivery worker made $5 on that order. + the delivery worker expects a tip.

    which means the company sees both the delivery worker and the person who ordered as suckers. no wonder ride-share companies jumped onto food-delivery.

    1. sokoloff · · focus · HN ↗
      I don’t think paying someone to perform a service for you makes you a sucker.

      I’ve never used DoorDash (and am pretty unlikely to), but if I did, I would look at as paying someone for a service they provided rather than simply “paying more for the item” (and expecting someone to wait on me personally for free?).

      1. wat10000 · · focus · HN ↗
        It’s not like they hide anything about what they’re offering. They advertise service X for price Y and that’s what they deliver. Seems fine. If you don’t think Y is worth it for X then don’t use it.

        Now, the part where they use tips to offset driver pay is evil and people should be in prison for it.

        1. jamilton · · focus · HN ↗
          Most states allow tips to be deducted from wages down to sub-minimum wages for for most tipped workers. Which sucks to be clear, just saying it's not unique to ride-share drivers.
          1. wat10000 · · focus · HN ↗
            That’s bad and should be considered theft. But what DD did is even worse. They didn’t just reduce pay, they hid what they were doing and didn’t even show a tip to the driver unless the tip was more than the guaranteed pay. And they did this to the tune of over sixteen million dollars.
            1. dzhiurgis · · focus · HN ↗
              > And they did this to the tune of over sixteen million dollars

              So like $1 per driver?

              Also it's not like the tips they earn correlate with service drivers can provide. At most you can be a bit faster, but generally bound to traffic? (I haven't used them tbh).

              1. llbeansandrice · · focus · HN ↗
                You are excusing literal theft to the tune of $16mm. And the excuse is that the company is so large and vast and dominant that the scale to the company is a drop in the bucket.

                Does the theft of $16mm become worse if DoorDash was half the size?

                If I steal $16mm I’d go to jail but it’s no big deal because a corporation did it? The apologia for this is baffling to me.

                1. dzhiurgis · · focus · HN ↗
                  Relax it's basically an accounting error.
                  1. kelnos · · focus · HN ↗
                    Not to the drivers, it isn't.

                    Not sure why you seem to think that the company only matters here, and the workers are irrelevant.

                    (And no, it's not $1 per driver, way to argue in bad faith.)

                    1. dzhiurgis · · focus · HN ↗
                      How much is it then? Their revenue is 16B per year. Do you really think its worth "stealing" 0.1% to pad your numbers? Are you that naive that publicly traded company can pull this off?
                      1. wat10000 · · focus · HN ↗
                        There’s no dispute that they did what they did. What are you even arguing?
                  2. llbeansandrice · · focus · HN ↗
                    Funny how those never seem to favor labor. I wish I could have an accounting error like that don’t you?
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