Thread

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

349 points · 189 comments · vrganj

dayvid · 1790201069 · focus · HN ↗
Ever since it was found that they took part of driver's tips for themselves, I didn't trust the company <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/27/doordash-new-york-tips-delivery-workers" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/27/doordash-new...
1. BeetleB · 1790203785 · focus · HN ↗
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  1. altairprime · 1790204064 · focus · HN ↗
    Extrapolating from DoorDash scale to ‘your favorite local restaurant’ scale is inappropriate. Fraud at an exponentially higher scale deserves a similarly exponential increase in mistrust. Yes, bad actors individually exist, but when megacorporations scale up bad actors to national and international levels, it’s appropriate for mistrust to scale up accordingly. I have not been able to determine which of the restaurants I frequent are bad actors in this regard, but I have absolutely been able to determine that DoorDash is an unrepentant bad actor, as many consecutive “we fucked you over and paid pennies on the dollar to do so” settlements have confirmed. So changing my behavior to avoid a corrupt megacorp does not automatically correlate with contradiction and hypocrisy in my local behaviors.
    BeetleB · 1790206789 · focus · HN ↗
    > Fraud at an exponentially higher scale deserves a similarly exponential increase in mistrust.
    It was never determined to be fraud. Keep in mind that what they were accused of was never actually tested in courts.
    Also keep in mind that this practice is explicitly enshrined in the laws of many states for restaurant workers. If the worker got a tip, the restaurant owner was allowed to pay below minimum wage for that hour to that worker (as long as wage + tip met the federal minimum wage).
    Which is why I was asking. If you're in one of those (many) states, chances are high that most restaurants are doing what people find so despicable of Doordash. So yes, it is "at scale".
    jasonwatkinspdx · 1790210014 · focus · HN ↗
    Ok, so let's imagine that it's common that mom and pop stores cheat employees by adjusting timesheets. Let's say we also find that Walmart was doing this as official policy accross all their stores.
    Are we supposed to just say "welp, that's ok Walmart, keep doing it, because we can't stop every other mom and pop store in the nation from potentially doing this."
    It's an absurd position to take.
    BeetleB · 1790258544 · focus · HN ↗
    > Are we supposed to just say "welp, that's ok Walmart, keep doing it, because we can't stop every other mom and pop store in the nation from potentially doing this."
    No, you're supposed to say "Let's stop everyone from doing this" and stop making it legal for mom and pop stores from doing it.
    And this has strayed from my original comment. I'm not asking about legality. The person I responded to found it so terrible he refused to use them. I'm merely suggesting they keep the same moral high ground when they go to eat at a restaurant.
    jasonwatkinspdx · 1790286653 · focus · HN ↗
    You don't seem to understand what DoorDash did wasn't legal. They violated NY's minimum rate law which has provisions specific to gig economy delivery services.

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