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Ask HN: What's up with these DoorDash dark patterns?

by flycatcha on 8/4/22, 2:48 AM with 146 comments

I'm in the Bay Area. We don't order using apps often, but when we do we find that so much of the selection consists of mediocre looking Chinese, Indian, pizza and Mexican.

Using the current Android mobile app, you can't actually drill into and read reviews which makes assessing the actual quality of the restaurant difficult.

And I've found that restaurants will run their own "ghost kitchen" shadow restaurant out of their main (poorly rated) location. This delivery specific restaurant has good reviews on DD, but when you Google that restaurant name nothing comes up aside from listings on the app. And then the food arrives and it's terrible and you match up the physical address and realize it's a poorly rated Indian restaurant by a different name.

Or, you order from one of these weird ghost kitchen brands and the actual restaurant doesn't actually get your order (despite the app telling you they confirmed it) and your second driver finally tells you to cancel the order.

Is it asking too much to have a service that's transparent, functions well and have the end product taste good?

  • by woutr_be on 8/4/22, 3:43 AM

    One of the absolute worst dark patterns I’ve seen was on Foodpanda. When you’re just browsing, you see prices crossed out, with a cheaper price below it, which seems to indicate there’s some sort of promotion.

    You can continue browsing a specific restaurant, and order a “discounted” item, your total price will be the sum of the discounted items. That is, up until you actually want to check out, suddenly your total jumps back to the sum of the original valued of the items. Because, apparently, that discount was only for “pro” users. It’s nowhere mentioned that is the case. And since I’m logged in, they already know I’m not a pro user.

    This pissed me of so much, I documented and reported this to the local consumer council, but haven’t heard back yet.

  • by autoexec on 8/4/22, 4:30 AM

    My guess is that either DoorDash doesn't want to invest in preventing what is basically fraud on their platform or they've discovered that they actually make more money if they enable it and let it continue no matter how terrible the experience is for the people who order food.

    Uninstall DoorDash and the problem goes away for you, and if enough people uninstall DoorDash the math changes and the problem goes away for everybody. As a bonus you'll save a fortune by not paying the higher food prices and fees and you'll stop giving up some personal information in the process.

  • by dejawu on 8/4/22, 6:40 AM

    It's insane. I once found a restaurant that had ghost kitchen'd itself EIGHTEEN times:

    https://i.imgur.com/7jwBlFG.png

    Some of the name variations are pretty funny though.

  • by jmole on 8/4/22, 4:52 AM

    My favorite pattern from doordash:

    Browsing for a restaurant - delivery time 20-30 minutes

    Adding food to the cart - delivery time 25-35 minutes

    Checkout - delivery time 30-40 minutes

    Payment processed - delivery time 45-55 minutes

  • by stephenboyd on 8/4/22, 6:19 AM

    The worst ghost kitchen I've seen is for an exclusively gluten-free pizza place in Seattle. That's an appealing prospect if you have a serious celiac case and you can't eat food that's made in a typical pizza place where flour gets everywhere in the process. I looked up the address and it's actually a typical pasta and pizza Italian place with gluten in most items.

  • by gricardo99 on 8/4/22, 6:28 AM

    What about the hidden service fee? They gladly tell you the delivery fee is only $5 (or free!) but it’s not until you’ve fully ordered and paid that you see the itemized service fee that can be greater than 25%.

    But at least they tell you how much you paid for the service. The worst for price transparency is “same day” costco delivery by Instacart. They markup the prices but never tell you how much more you’re paying for their service, it’s completely hidden unless the shopper/driver accidentally leaves you with the costco warehouse receipt. Once I saw the 35% markup on a nominal $300 order, I never used same-day costco again. I knew I was paying some markup for the service (they tell you on the website that prices are higher than in the warehouse), but I could not justify that much.

  • by nharada on 8/4/22, 6:33 AM

    Yes! I thought I was crazy!

    The most annoying thing for me is constantly getting notifications for "discount codes" that don't actually work. When I've contacted support they tell me "they're expired" or "it was a bug in the app" and they offer me a much worse version of the coupon.

    If it's a bug, they've had it for months, and it conveniently is very beneficial to their engagement numbers (you enter the app, make an order, and settle for a tiny discount when the deal doesn't work).

  • by throw03172019 on 8/4/22, 3:02 AM

    This is very common on UberEats. I’d say well over 50% of the restaurants are ghost kitchens. I usually Yelp the names. Some of them are low ratings (1.5 stars) but on UberEats they are 4.5…

    Very frustrating to “search” on UberEats. Fine if you know the restaurant you want to order from ahead of time.

  • by alkonaut on 8/4/22, 10:51 AM

    There are a few of these delivery firms now, has at least one realized the best niche to use should be “trustworthy”?

    E.g require any restaurant to have a brick and mortar restaurant with actual customers in it, or it’s banned. And requiring each such restaurant to have only one listed name in the app - which must be the same as the name on the sign of the physical restaurant. And clearly highlighting the age of the physical restaurant (under the current name) in the listings.

    Basically: I want to use services that aren’t trying to grow quickly by inflating anything. I don’t want VC funded startups operating at a loss for growth for anything. I want to pay the true price of the service and only use services that aren’t “disrupting” by using legal loopholes or pricing to a loss to drive established actors out of markets.

  • by joshstrange on 8/4/22, 1:45 PM

    I absolutely hate ghost kitchens, I think they should have to be labeled as such since they are often only a step at best above straight up scams. The 2 times I accidently ordered from one ("Oh nice, I didn't know we got an X nearby") the food has been below subpar and generally a huge disappointment.

    These days I really hate using delivery apps. You have to dodge the ghost kitchens which isn't easy (both the fake brand name ones and the fake made-up restaurants like "It's just Wings", "F*cking Good Pizza", and "Super Mega Dilla"), you have to compare the DoorDash/GrubHub/UberEats prices to the restaurant's app prices to see which it the better deal (sometimes even if they use DoorDash for the actual delivery it's cheaper to buy through their app), and unless you are paying for the monthly/yearly subscription you can get fleeced on fees even after wading through all the bullshit to find real restaurants that have real storefronts in town.

  • by sha256sum on 8/4/22, 11:03 AM

    PSA: If you have been burned enough times using these apps then Perhaps you should give up ever believing they will change for the better. Cook food at home or skip the delivery and eat at a restaurant you know will be nice.

    Consider the ratio of experiences you’ve had with any delivery app after the first order, good experiences to bad. Was the food late, cold, poor quality, damaged, or was its price marked up beyond what you initially believed?

    If the same thing keeps happening and you expect different results then… well, you know what I’m getting at :)

  • by starky on 8/4/22, 7:04 AM

    >Is it asking too much to have a service that's transparent, functions well and have the end product taste good?

    In my city (Vancouver), a restaurant owner actually setup a local only food delivery service during the pandemic with the idea that they keep costs as low as possible to run the service and restaurants didn't charge a markup which allowed for a flat service fee for every order and the restaurants pivoted employees to do deliveries instead of laying them off. The only downside for using it for most orders was that the options tended to be higher end dining.

    It just shows how much VC money these larger services waste on their shitty services that get more and more expensive when maybe a couple of people were able to deliver the a better experience in a few months at the start of the pandemic. Unfortunately it seems like the service is shut down now as it always says "ordering unavailable", so maybe it wasn't that sustainable as a business.

  • by Balgair on 8/4/22, 1:46 PM

    Aside: The piece on DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage is always a great read [0]

    Not sure if it's still working out for A.J.'s Pizza, but that it did at any time should tell you everything you need to know about DD's internal structure; there is no there there.

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

  • by libraryatnight on 8/4/22, 4:01 AM

    My wife and I enjoy figuring out the origin restaurant. Sometimes it seems like an attempt to appeal to a different customer. We found one that traced back to a sports bar with a kitchen. The fake profile was more generic family appropriate in tone. We didn't try it but we didn't feel that was all that nefarious if that was the goal. We've also found places that were gross trying to masquerade as new and not gross. Once an address that resolved to apartment complex, which was weird.

  • by sharemywin on 8/4/22, 5:30 PM

    Since they charge restaurants for the service which forces restaurants to raise prices and then charge the customers for the service(service 17% plus delivery fee plus suggested tip) and then pay drivers the least amount possible to take the order I don't understand how they aren't making hand over fist.

    $20 for a big mac meal.

    $30 for a large pizza.(might offer the driver like $5-$6 with tip.

    I've stopped ordering delivery and pick it up myself now.

  • by nicgrev103 on 8/4/22, 11:53 AM

    I've had a few. The most similar was uber eats, they constantly have a promotion on. One such was get £15 off your next order via email. I clicked through and ordered only to find no discount was applied. When I qestioned it they said some bullshit like the offer was only valid for the first 100 customers. Needless to say I am never odering through them again.

    I had another one when travelling. I used skyscanner (flight comparison site), the cheapest flight took me through what must have been 3 forms and 30+ questions taking several mins to fill out. When you get to check out they say the price has now increased since you started the checkout (incuding fury and panic) and suggesting you accept the increase before the price goes up again! I quickly did a new comparison and funily enough the first price was still being shown on the comparison site. I opted for the second cheapest option and no such last min price increase was administered and I thought i'd doged a bullet. Sadly not, when I got to the airport to return home I found that the agent I had gone with had not booked my luggage on the retun flight, que a £50 surcharge to get it on last min. I am still trying to get my money back from them and the flight was in April. Unfortunately the comparison site model has encoraged agents to 'show' the lowest price at apparently any cost - some up the price last min others book your luggage only one way.

    This is not limited to tech or internet companies. I found a worrying and annoying dark pattern in jewllery. Many companies use their own measurement lettering systems and there is a surprisingly large varience between companies, so you think your wife is size x and you order the ring but it turns out to be a different size which means you have to send it back to be resized (for a fee of course) and they know that you won't quibble because you don't want to look cheap in front of your partner for what is probably an emotionally driven purchase.

    Compaines are literally in the business of extracting as much money from you as they can for the least resistance, so unfortunately unless people write reviews or share their expereinces it's business as usual.

  • by zbjornson on 8/4/22, 10:46 AM

    "Virtual kitchens" (ghost kitchens) are encouraged by doordash as a way to diversify and boost revenue and stuff:

    https://get.doordash.com/en-us/blog/virtual-restaurant-brand

    They seem to be used frequently as decoys to allow restaurants to drop bad reviews though.

  • by silicon2401 on 8/4/22, 1:03 PM

    The beauty of the food world is that if you're willing to choose a restaurant that doesn't use a delivery app, or if you're willing to do takeout, you save money and get a way better experience. The first time I tried using a delivery app I saw that the service fee was something like 20%, whereupon I laughed and never went back. I'd rather pick up the food myself and pay nothing more than the cost of food itself, or get delivery from a local place where I can ensure the only extra cost, i.e. my tip to the driver, goes directly to the driver, cash in hand.

  • by modeless on 8/4/22, 7:36 AM

    While we're piling on Doordash, how have they managed to produce a website that takes more than a second to respond to every single button press? Like even something as simple as clicking on the hamburger menu icon takes over a second to register. It's infuriating.

  • by emsign on 8/4/22, 10:51 AM

    An old wise man once said: For some problems like getting screwed over by people there is no absolute technical solution.

  • by nailer on 8/4/22, 11:52 AM

    In the UK one restaurant constantly has a “30% promotion” on Uber eats / Deliveroo, which pushes them to th top of results.

    The only item that is 30% off is the restaurant’s merchandise.

  • by AndyMcConachie on 8/4/22, 7:31 AM

    I live in The Netherlands and order food at least once a week, usually from Thuisbezorgd. I've never had any of the problems people are discussing here.

    I will say that Thusbezorgd is often more expensive than just going directly to a restaurant's website. But also we find restaurants that we like and keep ordering from them. I typically know precisely where my food is coming from because I physically know where the restaurant is.

  • by mbit8 on 8/4/22, 9:38 AM

    DoorDash is for digestible food. If you want rather quality food, you either need connections or step out the door into a restaurant.

  • by faangiq on 8/4/22, 6:18 AM

    Yea that whole company and industry is a dark pattern. Convenient though.

  • by Victerius on 8/4/22, 3:06 AM

    I understand and I sympathize. But... you could also cook. Prepare rice in a cooking pot and chicken in a frying pan with onions or shallots. 20 minutes. Or cook pasta and an egg. 10 minutes. Or fried potatoes with sausages and boiled eggs. 15 minutes. Or an omelette with spices and an avocado on the side. 10 minutes. Or a big sandwich if you're in a hurry. And half or more of those times will be spent waiting for the food to cook and monitoring them and stirring them.

  • by Ekaros on 8/4/22, 6:44 AM

    I think it is too much to ask knowing how much money these rent-seeking companies want to make and how expensive it is actually to have individuals deliver you stuff.

  • by pipeline_peak on 8/4/22, 6:16 AM

    I like the idea of forking over half a million to live in some Bay Area crawl space and just listen to people like OP complain about ghost kitchens and refusing to Google restaurant reviews. The reviews already exist, how is providing even more in DoorDash’s interest?

    “Let’s use UberEats instead, DoorDash doesn’t have reviews”.

    If you don’t know what it is, either go by car or don’t order it.

  • by scarface74 on 8/4/22, 11:19 AM

  • by raverbashing on 8/4/22, 10:56 AM

    Here's an idea. Order from restaurants that actually exist

    If you haven't seen it and knows where it is then don't order from it

  • by Jasper_ on 8/4/22, 12:24 PM

    Yes, it's asking too much, it's VC funded lmao. They want to make money and the dark patterns work. Ghost kitchens are encouraged and supported by the industry. Stop using DoorDash, find a restaurant that delivers and call their number directly. Or learn to cook.

  • by giardini on 8/4/22, 3:49 PM

    On a related fast food topic from flyover country: Ghost Kitchens(sp) in the Sky. "Here it comes, America!":

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkdci55adqk

  • by tehwebguy on 8/4/22, 7:59 AM

    Same on the other platforms now. All these weird “restaurants” use the same photo style too, basically all indistinguishable.

  • by peanut_worm on 8/4/22, 11:31 AM

    The ghost kitchen thing seems like it should be illegal. It is a huge problem on Uber Eats as well.

  • by noja on 8/4/22, 8:57 AM

    Say what you like about DoorDash, but who wants to go back to the days before it?

    Nowadays I can order straight from the app, simply pay for my pizza, the service fee, tax, delivery charge, and tip. Wait a little while and it comes straight to my door.

    Sure, now it costs a little more, but that money is going straight to the guys that deliver my food. That's great for everyone.

  • by nonrandomstring on 8/4/22, 7:27 AM

    Seriously, all of you lazy toads, learn to cook

    It's one of life's exquisite pleasures. You'll save a ton of money. Massively improve your health. It really impresses any potential partner - many a lifelong relationship started in the kitchen not the bedroom. Cookbooks are recipes are really fun. Surely my fellow hackers, don't we love to know how things work and be in control?