A small restaurant owner on Google, DoorDash, and Grubhub - <AUTHOR> https://www.saddlebackbbq.com/how-google-doordash-grubhub-conspire-screw-local-restaurants <comment><AUTHOR> The author is a friend and was the original marketing director for the hosting company LiquidWeb. He' a superb marketer and I suspect this article grew out of his frustrations dealing with this problem.

I don't think the average restaurant owner who may not be very digitally savvy realizes how these companies piggyback on top of their brand. I predict that soon there will be a large class action lawsuit with thousands of restaurants going after the delivery services for these underhanded tactics.

<comment><USER4> >I don't think the average restaurant owner who may not be very digitally savvy realizes how these companies piggyback on top of their brand. I predict that soon there will be a large class action lawsuit with thousands of restaurants going after the delivery services for these underhanded tactics.

It's honestly gotten pretty bad. I almost can't find most independent restaurants' web presences anymore because Yelp, Caviar, Google's page, Doordash, et. al. all outcompete them on SEO for their own brands. And that's AFTER the paid ads those same sites manage to take out.

Most of the time, I end up using restaurant menus listed on UberEats or Doordash instead of their own websites before I call them for a delivery because it's just impossible to find their websites. It's especially bad with things like Chinese or Thai restaurants since so many of their names are variations on a handful of motifs. So you might be looking for the Peking Garden across the street, but you're just as likely to get Peking Gardens in cities all over the country, none of which are affiliated with each other. But the Yelp or Doordash hit is always the one right by you.

It's unfair. I want restauranteurs to be good at restauranting. The line between their success or failure shouldn't rely on their ability to outsmart expert SEO hustlers. It basically winds up being a shakedown that adds no value to the customer or the restaurant.

<comment><USER5> > It's unfair. I want restauranteurs to be good at restauranting.

Restaurants have to pay an arm and leg (often around 1/3 of revenue) for prime real-estate; or pay higher wage in more prosperous places.... is it fair?

In the end, restauranteurs who are good at this business will thrive and those who are not good at it will falter. Google/Yelp/DoorDash just provides additional dimensions for restaurants to compete in. And as always, when new technologies emerge, there are winners and losers.

In this wave of change to restaurant industry, the winners are actually smaller restaurants at cheap locations who are previously invisible to most potential customers but now are on equal footing with restaurants at prime locations in terms of exposure. And in the long term, it'll shift restaurants' expense breakdown, and those who pay too much rent will struggle because they don't have the budget to pay for online exposures.

It doesn't mean the restaurants paying less rent will be more profitable, the money simply goes from landlords to tech companies. And as long as restaurant industry is a fiercely competitive market, profit margins will remain low.

<comment><USER4> >In the end, restauranteurs who are good at this business will thrive and those who are not good at it will falter.

If the differentiating factor between success or failure is SEO rather than location, quality of food, or service I have trouble seeing how that's a net benefit for anyone but Google. Maybe "fair" was the wrong term. It's encouraging maladaptive behaviors in the industry.

<comment><USER6> Why is location a net benefit for anyone but the landlords? SEO is essentially just your digital location. It makes your restaurant easy to find and navigate to, in the same way that a good location makes your restaurant easy to get to (and maybe park).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > DoorDash uses our brand name "Saddleback BBQ" right in the advertisement.

> Possibly the most maddening thing is that if a customer clicks on the link, > it does NOT take them to a webpage to order from Saddleback BBQ. It takes > the user to a general page to order BBQ from anyone that serves BBQ. At the > top of the list? Applebees.

This is a particularly egregious sleight of hand. It's a relatively easy click-through to write for DoorDash, and it would result in the customer getting exactly what they were looking for (instantly looking at Saddleback's menu options and probably ordering). But DoorDash isn't content with delivering what they promised! The customer must perform a _secondary_ search within DoorDash just to find that same restaurant again, because Saddleback is nowhere within sight on the page they've actually landed on. It's sneaky because it _seems_ like incompetence, but the reality is that they've absolutely done it on purpose so they can double-dip one customer and display ads to them from restaurants that paid more to DoorDash.

<comment><USER8> > DoorDash uses our brand name "Saddleback BBQ" right in the advertisement.

> Possibly the most maddening thing is that if a customer clicks on the link, > it does NOT take them to a webpage to order from Saddleback BBQ. It takes > the user to a general page to order BBQ from anyone that serves BBQ. At the > top of the list? Applebees.

Well isn't that plain fraud? (And no adding some * somewhere with a disclaimer doesn't make it not fraud. The point is that it _intentionally_ misguides/tricks/manipulates the user with the intention of harming the given brand (by on-the-fly replacing it)).

EDIT(clarification): It's like going into a shop and asking for a specific samsung tv and the salesman goes and comes back with a philipps tv saying here is your tv, the price is .... Sure if you look clearly at it it's not the PC you asked for but if you are in a hurry or social insecure you might still end up buying it even through you didn't want to.

<comment><USER9> I dunno about fraud, but it certainly seems reasonable that it would be trademark infringement. The name "Saddleback BBQ" is Saddleback's trademark. If another company uses it to sell potential Saddleback customers (which these clearly are, since they searched for that name) products from a competitor, that seems like something a good trademark attorney would be interested in.

(The potential hitch here is that most restaurants are small businesses, and small businesses aren't great about doing things like registering their trademarks. But you can still build a claim even around an unregistered trademark under certain circumstances: [https://www.nolo.com/legal- encyclopedia/what-good-unregister...](https://www.nolo.com/legal- encyclopedia/what-good-unregistered-trademark.html))

<comment><USER10> A trademark doesn't mean no one can use your name. You would need to prove that customers are being misled to purchase BBQ from another company thinking they are getting it from Saddleback BBQ. You can call out competitors, you can create an ad that says "4 out of 5 doctors prefer our BBQ to Saddleback BBQ" (assuming you've got the data to back it up).

What these companies are doing is definitely misleading but I don't think anyone is accidentally purchasing from Applebees thinking they were getting Saddleback BBQ.

It would be like mentioning a popular brand on your website in order to get the search engine traffic for that brand, even though you don't sell it.

<comment><USER11> You're right in your first para, wrong in the rest.

You can't lawfully squat a brands trademarks, neither in SERPs, domain names, nor in real world signposts.

You can use trademarks for comparison but having a signpost - virtual or actual - that has another brand on it is tortuous infringement. Bait and switch is rightly unlawful.

<comment><USER12> "Tortious"?

<comment><USER11> An action that is against a "tort", ie a civil law offence is "tortuous". It's like "criminal" but for civil law.

<comment><USER12> [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tortuous](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tortuous)

<comment><USER11> Hmm, I've been using "tortuous" as the adjective for tort for probably a couple of decades and you're the first person to try to correct me. Clearly I'm using what Wiktionary classes as usage that's obsolete.

Interestingly googling around the principle usage -- to mean pertaining to a tort -- of this spelling is in UK Terms of Use. It's quite hard to search though as often people will talk about tortuous caselaw [1], meaning 'twisting and turning'. Both usages can be in the same document, so Google Search - <USER2> particular - is no good here.

Spelling "tortuous": I find supporting documents from the UK Home Office [3], the UK IPO (including in court proceedings for trademark), and in private practice references to UK tort law, eg [2] dated 2019.

I don't consider my usage to be wrong _per se_ but will consider using tortious in international forums (I so wanted to write "fora", lol); thanks for the query, terse as it was.

It's possible we're all using it "incorrectly" of course. I work in the IP sector, we might all be drinking from the same fountain (eg perhaps reading past UK caselaw keeps us archaic).

[1] [https://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/brand- management/signif...](https://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/brand- management/significant-blow-cadbury-uk-court-appeal-decision-puts-purple- colour-trademark), example of talking about an intricate case that twists and turns.

[2] [https://thelawreviews.co.uk/edition/the-intellectual- propert...](https://thelawreviews.co.uk/edition/the-intellectual-property- review-edition-8/1196335/turkey) talking about an infringement of a tort, as tortuous.

[3] [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/references-to- the...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/references-to-the-court-of- justice-of-the-european-union/references-to-the-court-of-justice-of-the- european-union-2012) , note I'm assuming the Home Office is the origin, it's Gov, but I don't really see mention of the department that owns that data.

<comment><USER12> If "tortuous" didn't already have a completely different useful meaning, I wouldn't object. Calling harmful behavior "tortious" shouldn't be ambiguous. I'm not sure what happened in olden times, but over the last decade "tortuous" has dominated because of clueless spellcheck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a classic case of aggregation theory: [https://stratechery.com/concept/aggregation- theory/](https://stratechery.com/concept/aggregation-theory/)

DoorDash, Grubhub, etc. are becoming the place that customers go to when looking for food. And if they own the customer relationship, then your restaurant is a commodity. This is basically how I live already. I sometimes want something specific from a specific restaurant, but more often than not, I just want _something_ and I browse through Seamless until I see some food that looks good and order it. I don't really know or care where it's coming from as long as it's reasonably priced and has decent ratings.

I know how heavy the fees are, so I tried for awhile to order from restaurants directly, but it's often _horribly_ painful. You have to call on the phone, which is already a huge hit to user experience. Then you have issues with noise, accents, trying to accurately convey exactly what you want with any modifications, providing your credit card over the phone. It's just horrible and I always fall back to just using Seamless. I feel bad, but restaurants certainly don't seem like they're going out of their way to make the direct ordering experience as painless as possible.

These restaurants don't have the money or expertise to develop great websites or apps, and I don't want an app on my phone for every restaurant anyway. Nor do I want a list of dozens of bookmarks for restaurants, without a way to discover new ones. Not that it matters, because I think we've seen pretty clearly that consumers as a whole are going to just go with whatever's easiest for them. And anyone who is going to build out the infrastructure that Doordash and Grubhub have so they can own the customer relationship due to a superior UX is going to extract as much value as they can as well, or they won't be able to keep up with the competition in terms of UX or ads. It feels like a fairly intractable problem without regulation, which I'm generally skeptical of. But maybe that's the answer here.

I do wonder if Google and Apple could add "order online" functionality to their maps programs without too much trouble. Their interests might be more aligned with restaurants such that they could take 5-10% instead of 30%.

<comment><USER14> You could also go out, and get the food from the restaurant itself, instead of having a low-wage worker do it for you.

<comment><USER15> With the discounts and such, it often costs less to use DoorDash.

<comment><USER16> These will go away once DoorDash needs to be profitable. At best, this is cheese in the mousetrap. Legally, it should be regarded as predatory pricing used to drive their competitors (the restaurants themselves) out of the delivery industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not only ads but these online ordering companies go as far as to setup _fake websites_ under _fake domains_ that make it look like an official website to unsuspecting restaurants that did not have websites.

Previously, they would also take these fake websites and use them to claim the official website on the Google Places listing so they can show up at the top without much SEO.

But often their fake websites would show up organically and appear as the real website, and then they'd take a 30% fee for "referring" the customer.

I learned about this when I was trying to sell an online ordering platform so restaurants could setup their own websites with ordering. The problem was sales was slow and expensive, and small restaurants weren't savvy enough to understand they'd need to spend a lump sum to setup their websites to fix the problem, or even how or why the problem existed.

<comment><USER18> Isn't this fraud?

<comment><USER19> Haven't heard of DoorDash or GrubHub doing it but OrderAhead was caught doing it couple years ago: [https://www.geekwire.com/2015/exclusive-thousands-of- rogue-r...](https://www.geekwire.com/2015/exclusive-thousands-of-rogue- restaurant-websites-diverting-customers-to-orderahead-deliveries/)

<comment><USER17> I know for a fact eat24 did this, and a crappy looking website called Beyond Menu. I'm not sure if GrubHub did this (before the merger). A lot of the times the goals of these sites were to make it look like you were ordering from the restaurant directly, so it was a bit obscured. Order Ahead did this, but only because frankly everyone else was doing it (they definitely didn't spearhead it as a relatively late entrant into the space).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Another thing I realized lately: I usually tip restaurants for curbside/pickup right now since I know their staff have been hit hard. But if we DoorDash, the tip goes to DoorDash, not the restaurant I want to support.

I generally try to order either curbside or delivery through the restaurant's own site. I figure even if they use a third party then, they're using the one most advantageous to their business.

I want my favorite restaurants to survive this pandemic, but I couldn't care less about these delivery startups.

<comment><USER21> > I want my favorite restaurants to survive this pandemic, but I couldn't care > less about these delivery startups.

Does the tip go to DoorDash, or to the person that delivered for DoorDash? I want the restaurants to survive too, but I have to imagine a lot of these DoorDash delivery people were either Uber drivers or employed somewhere else a few weeks ago until furloughed, and may have a less stable income than someone working at a restaurant which is getting takeout orders.

<comment><USER22> This is a question with two answers. It depends on the company.

There is lots of evidence of some delivery companies using your "tip" to cover the base salary of their employees. So if a driver is guaranteed $5/hr, and you tip $3, DD/UberEats/etc. will claim they only have to pay out $2 for that hour.

<comment><USER23> DoorDash was in trouble about a year ago for skimming tips off the top in some strange convoluted scheme that was too ingenious to be an accident.

It appears they haven't changed that behavior yet, despite getting a lot of bad PR and promising they will look into it.

 _Corporations are not moral agents. They cannot be shamed into acting to the benefit of the majority, and their promises mean nothing._

<comment><USER24> Skimming puts it lightly. If the driver's base pay was $5, for instance, and the customer tipped $5 through the app, the driver would receive $0 in tips because PoorDash would use the tip to offset as much of the base pay as possible. That's theft and borderline fraud because the term "tip" implies that the money will go to the person responsible for delivering your food, not Tony Xu the CEO.

<comment><USER25> Every time this comes up I'm always astounded that most people have no idea how tips work.

In a lot of states, at least for restaurant workers, this is normal practice and explicitly allowed for by law. In those states, this has been common practice since ... forever? The laws there require restaurant owners to pay the waiters such that their wage + tips combined should be at least the minimum wage. If a waiter makes more than the minimum wage in tips then the owner only needs to pay a less than minimum wage amount.

See [https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum- wage/tipped](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped)

So as an example, in Texas, if a waiter made more then $5.12/hr in tips, the restaurant owner needs to pay him/her only $2.13/hr.

The question I have is: Why are we OK with this for waiters but suddenly get upset when this happens to the drivers? Do you ask your favorite restaurants their policy?

<comment><USER24> > The question I have is: Why are we OK with this for waiters but suddenly get > upset when this happens to the drivers? Do you ask your favorite restaurants > their policy?

It's not OK, and it's part of the reason why I don't often go to restaurants even though I could afford to eat at one every night.

There is one difference, though, which is that restaurant staff are well aware of the nature of their pay.

Most DoorDash drivers didn't realize that they were being gypped. I know this because, when I was driving for GrubHub, I would sometimes bump into DoorDash drivers and I would ask them about DoorDash's pay model. Most didn't have a clue that they were getting tipped but that the tip was disappearing into the pockets of DoorDash. I'm sure that DoorDash had something about that in 6 pt font somewhere, but not everyone will read or even comprehend that. Unless the customer asks if you got the tip, there was no way for a driver to even know if they had a tip when that tip did not exceed their base pay. At least restaurant workers know that there are tips and can see the full amount. Until this came out, a lot of drivers considered DoorDash to be supplementary because the customers were "stingy", when in fact that may not have been the case.

But no, I do not ask my favorite restaurants their pay policy. Perhaps I should.

EDIT: Another key difference between restaurant workers and food delivery app drivers is that customers of DoorDash almost always tip ahead of time, so it's not as if the driver can do much if anything to improve their chances of getting a bigger tip. With traditional tipping, it's implied that an advantage in being paid mostly in tips was that better service could equate to more pay. DoorDash a few years ago was taking advantage of people's common understanding of what it means to tip someone and keep both prices and costs down, with the driver being the one to get screwed and not even realize it.

<comment><USER25> > Another key difference between restaurant workers and food delivery app > drivers is that customers of DoorDash almost always tip ahead of time, so > it's not as if the driver can do much if anything to improve their chances > of getting a bigger tip. With traditional tipping, it's implied that an > advantage in being paid mostly in tips was that better service could equate > to more pay.

It is implied, but generally not the reality. The correlation is fairly poor:

[https://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...](https://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&context=articles)

[https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4067&co...](https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4067&context=luc_theses)

[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/245/transcript](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/245/transcript)

I think the _real_ question is why we tip some service professions and not others.

<comment><USER23> > customers of DoorDash almost always tip ahead of time

A tip before you receive a service is indistinguishable from a bribe used to prioritize your service.

I don't understand why this is the norm, and why so many people play along. It would be so much more sensible to tap the user on the shoulder after the delivery to ask them for their tip.

<comment><USER25> > It would be so much more sensible to tap the user on the shoulder after the > delivery to ask them for their tip.

That would be as problematic as what you described.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you don't like certain business practices, vote with your dollar!

I refuse to use delivery apps because they skim ~10-20% off the top of my orders. I understand the utility of DoorDash -- there are a lot of customers who want the single interface and can't be bothered to search for a restaurant individually. But if you care _at all_ about this sort of thing, with a simple search you can find the phone number of the restaurant you like and call them up. There will always be someone by the phone, this is how restaurants operated for 50+ years! The ordering process is, paradoxically, easier and less time-consuming than going through DoorDash. I find the app to be slow, with way too many menus and scrolling. Even the browser interface is kludgy because they insist on making huge buttons that take up a large part of the screen, so I can only consider like 4 options at a time on my screen. It's been easier for me just to get a PDF of the menu, read off the stuff I'd like, and go pick it up 20 minutes later. Bonus -- the restaurant gets 100% of your tips. In this era the rent-seeking behavior of these app companies really becomes apparent. It's not easier to do it through them -- they add no real value. Clearly they don't add value for the small restaurants either: they're shafting the small ones in favor of those who have a corporate structure and throw millions of dollars into ads.

Stop feeding the ad platforms that use sneaky tricks to make the profits they promised to their investors. It's a self-perpetuating cycle if you keep letting them feed the VCs' expectations to the detriment of the people, the end users.

<comment><USER26> Voting with your dollars doesn't really work. You are and ant and the people who feel like you are a small percentage.

I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart around 2007, and Amazon in 2016. My purchased don't make a dent. I share my opinions and know several others who don't shop at Wal-Mart, but I remember during the 2008 financial crisis, people who had previously refused to shop at Wal-Mart were doing it again, verbally hating it, because they had kids and tight budgets and they saving nearly a $1/item on some things.

We can try to affect things with our purchases and advertising those decisions to others, but honestly, they don't even compare in the slightest to the power of corporate advertising at scale.

<comment><USER27> > Voting with your dollars doesn't really work. You are and ant and the people > who feel like you are a small percentage.

Couldn't you say the same thing about actual voting, though? In an election, what difference does your one vote make, in the grand scheme of things? Has there ever been an election where the margin was low enough that your one vote would have made a real difference?

<comment><USER26> Oh absolutely! Especially in non-representational voting systems like in the US. Australia has order of preference (ranking) so you can't throw your vote away and NZ has MMP to evenly distribute half the party seats by % of the population that votes for them.

American voting is pretty next to useless. I did a whole video on that:

[https://battlepenguin.com/politics/video/does-voting- make-a-...](https://battlepenguin.com/politics/video/does-voting-make-a- difference/)

<comment><USER23> I like the ongoing debate between different voting schemes. I prefer approval voting over other things like RCV/IRV -- it reflects "average" percentages of approval directly and results in the least dissatisfaction, averaged across the population. No spoiler effects, which still exist in FPTP and RCV.

The most interesting and IMO overlooked part is how easy it is to communicate to the voter how they should vote. Approval voting is easy -- at the top of the ballot just say "check the box next to each name of the person who you approve of, and check as many as you like".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reading this article, I realized that DoorDash and UberEats now own me as a customer.

I have never been particularly picky about my restaurants. Chinese food is Chinese food. McDonalds vs Wendys is not something I have strong feelings about. Plenty of places have good ribs. Obviously there are places I will avoid due to bad experiences, but I am not highly opinionated as long as I find the food tasty. I am one of those people who would go to a different BBQ place if I found a cheaper one or a more interesting menu.

Even when I don't want to cook, I don't search for a particular food item anymore and probably take the top DoorDash deal half the time. Even within that, I don't choose a restaurant anymore. I choose food and am generally satisfied with whoever DoorDash has to supply that food.

That is a major shift for the food industry if even a small percentage of people are like myself as it means I must be won as a customer every single time I order and can easily have any restaurant in my quadrant of the city (rather than just going to the local one).

<comment><USER28> This is so interesting to me because I just _never_ use these services. I think I've ordered on Grubhub's website maybe once, and I've never used DoorDash or UberEats, and I eat a _lot_ of takeout. Though I don't do much delivery and maybe it's really just down to that.

The context of these (perfectly valid) complaints often comes down to, "wow this is a parasitic business model and we hate these guys, but we _have_ to use them" from the business owner, and I guess I've just never gotten how much of the market they've apparently eaten up.

I'll use the restaurant's own online ordering system (a lot of the ones I've visited lately are using the Toast POS system which seems to include online ordering, and I've used some of the apps and websites of the bigger chains), or call them, but the generic apps just seem like an unnecessary middleman and I can't quite get why I would use them, and that's without even considering that they're skimming off the restaurant's profits. It's also quite rare that I want "just anything" within some category vs. some specific restaurant.

Maybe there's something I'm missing...

<comment><USER29> I'm in your camp. Don't use it much. But not a heavy take away user in general. I have a preference for fresh food even if it's McDonald's (10 minute old McDonald's is worse to me). I don't even like drive thru much and they proliferate in Texas.

That said, when I order delivery (usually pizza), I just call. I feel like any amount of web/app UI, doing the ordering and account creation/management is a huge hassle. The telephone is easy and fast. It's like Alexa except with a real human. Y'all should try it out /s

But seriously, I'm a little older (that weird pre-millennial gen), but I find it crazy/funny how extreme the younger generations avoidance of voice calls has become. I don't like talking on the phone, but sometimes it's the best UI.

<comment><USER30> I used to work at a pizza place and often times phone orders will actually disrupt the pizza making since pizza makers have to go take the calls if there aren't any or not enough delivery drivers (who are the primary call takers). It takes just one problem customer to hold up a pizza maker for enough time and cause a huge pain.

Not saying you're wrong to call though, just a little random anecdote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > when you order delivery from one of the large delivery partners like GrubHub > or DoorDash - not only do you pay a delivery fee, service fee, and a > generous tip to the driver. But we restaurant owners also pay...these fees > can range from 15% to 35% of your entire order.

If these fees are too high, then why accept orders from these providers? If you don't get enough orders otherwise, then these services are providing value. If you do, then simply refuse to discount for these providers and handle the orders yourself.

This post, and others like it, seem like they're asking consumers to avoid these services, but it seems like it would be much easier for restaraunts to refuse to participate.

<comment> m-ee These services will go out of their way to place orders against the restaurants will if they choose not to accept them. Even going as far as having employees call in phone orders while posing as regular customers.

<comment><USER32> So what? Then the restaurant doesn't have to pay a fee.

If the problem is that the delivery services are charging high fees to restaurants, then terminating the relationship with the delivery service solves that problem. If the delivery service wants to make orders like a normal customer without any discounts, that's good for the restaurants.

<comment><USER13> No, because by doing so, the delivery services are effectively injecting themselves into the middle of the relationship between the customer and the restaurant. Over time, most customers will launch the app when they're hungry in general or for a type of food, and if they don't see a specific restaurant there anymore but they do see competitors that have decent ratings, they'll just order from them.

<comment><USER32> That's a lot of businesses. The local liquor store "injects themselves" between you and Budweiser when they sell you beer. It's not inherently evil or unethical to act as a middleman, especially when you provide additional value that the original business does not.

<comment><USER33> Yes, the unethical part is stealing the Google search results, taking the tips from the drivers instead of distributing them, etc. All the stuff you heard about over the past years. If they had an ethical business, we wouldn't be reading this article.

<comment><USER34> There's no "stealing" or theft here. Based on this article, and the comments on this thread, advertising is part of the package/contract. Restaurants can simply not partner with these services.

<comment><USER33> The restaurant owners aren't knowledgeable enough in this area to understand the harm from the contracts, they're not dumb, but they don't realize the power they give to the company. That's an unethical practice, to take advantage of someone like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> From the article:

> The "Advertisement" is much larger than our own "order" button where someone > can order directly from our website or get directions to our location.

Doesn't this complaint ignore the fact that the first organic search result is Saddleback BBQ's own home page, complete with six deep links (including the "Ordering" link)? Text that directs user flow into Saddleback BBQ's page takes up about half the screen.

<comment><USER36> Search results differ widely between regions and users. FTA: "If a person in Lansing goes onto Google search..."

No reason for companies to target users outside the Lansing metro area, no one in Boston is ordering BBQ from Michigan. If you're not in Lansing, you're probably not seeing the same results as the people this post refers to.

<comment><USER35> Sure, but I'm not in Lansing (or anywhere near it). And both an incognito and logged-in search give me the same thing for the search query in the article. I'm not talking about the contents of the map sidebar; I'm talking about the big "Saddleback BBQ |" link in the main results and its children.

While it's true I do not see the ad (probably because I'm outside the targeting area), even with the screenshots shown in the article, there are two order buttons on the page that deep-link to Saddleback and one ad link. Their complaint seems to be "The ad is more eye-catching than [ed: one of] our order links"... Yes, but it's also flagged as clearly an [AD].

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I don't think Google discourages this in any major capacity. I will say that Grubhub and DoorDash certainly have an ethical quandary. It certainly doesn't look good from a PR standpoint but I imagine it's a common practice.

Not a case that Google does but for Apple's App store ad system. I've worked at Lyft and I know years ago the top ad for searching Lyft was Uber and vice versa in the app store. Both companies would pay for advertisements against the other. But it was cheaper to trade jabs than defend your search term.

<comment><USER38> There is no ethical dilemma here. They are simply choosing the unethical option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Most tech/VC folks: DoorDash, UberEats, GrubHut, etc are great for restaurants!

Most restaurant owners: these guys are squeezing us of almost all profit margin with the argument "good luck doing any business without us" (platform fees are often 40% of the ticket, or more).

Huge disconnect of realities.

<comment><USER40> Haven't really seen the former ever. Any links to those kinds of comments?

<comment><USER39> Follow any investor on Twitter. Any negative comment that reads like "delivery startups are bad for the restaurants" turns into "yes, but look at all the revenue they're bringing". The more I talk with restaurant owners (almost daily), I'm convinced that a competitor that looks like Shopify (mostly fixed cost vs huge % of the check) will come in. And they may be many of them, perhaps local (not nation/global-wide like today).

<comment><USER40> Any links?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> For those saying they don't want to tip through the app because DoorDash keeps the tip. Choose Other and put $0. Give the driver a cash tip. I have a friend who delivers for Whole Foods and he says it's better that way because the payout on tips doesn't get borked in the system or slip into the pockets of the delivery service.

Yes I know we're trying to avoid contact with items between people, but it could be easy to protect you and the delivery person with some hand sanitizer or wipes.

Just my two cents.

</comment><comment><USER42> Pro Tip: For any company you really love that is smaller in size and not a global powerhouse, before you purchase, contact them and ask for their preferred purchasing platform.

For most restaurants, just call to place an order.

</comment><comment><USER43> [https://web.archive.org/web/20200515173159/https://www.saddl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200515173159/https://www.saddlebackbbq.com/how- google-doordash-grubhub-conspire-screw-local-restaurants)

</comment><comment><USER44> I keep seeing things like this, people hating on the delivery companies. Customers moving to takeout and restaurants moving to self delivery.

Its pushed me to have my quaranteen/layoff project be to create a competitor that supports only self delivery and takeout but has the order, management, aggragation functions, and crm of the competition for a low flat fee (plus cc fees).

<comment><USER45> Not to stop you from doing this because competition is good for businesses, but this exists. ChowNow is a commision-free piece of software anyone can buy for a flat monthly fee. Slice is a pizza-focussed app that charges a flat fee per delivery. I have no idea why they're so focussed on pizza rather than the general market, but do what you know, I guess.

<comment><USER46> Former Slice user here. They're focused on pizza only because they started as a pizzeria in Staten Island. They know their vertical. Part of the mission is specifically to help pizzerias.

I only stopped using them because I moved away from NYC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I wish it was just this. A friend of mine works in an upscale deli here in Boston. Their employer doesn't partner with DoorDash, yet GrubHub --interchanged because they both do this-- still lists them. What happens instead of a printed order from their system? They instruct the delivery person to place an order at the counter, wait for it, and then deliver it. All this seems fine, if DoorDash wants to hire people to proxy face-to-face interactions so they can up-charge 20% for a caprese sandwich on ciabatta bread, more power to them. I understand the value of it. But it gets squishy in places.

What happens if an ordered and paid for item is out of stock? My friend's deli has excellent ciabatta and it sells out daily. DoorDash leaves this problem to the delivery-person, and delivery people can't cancel orders.

Why can't delivery people on GrubHub cancel orders? For the same reason that Uber Drivers can't see their fare's destination until they get in the car. DoorDash doesn't want their delivery people to cherry-pick only the costliest orders with the choicest tips. That would leave a good portion of customers without food.

So, the delivery people are left to call whoever ordered on their phone about this. If there's any confusion from the delivery person and their ability to convey the nuances of this problem --that GrubHub promised something they couldn't deliver-- then the delivery person is left to pay for orders that DoorDash users don't cancel.

My friend has been given more than one upset delivery person's phone which has an angry GrubHub customer on the other end. So, while a DoorDash customer may have wanted to avoid a phone call, the customer is now hungrier and upset at somebody who would have been able to sell them their sandwich for 16% less and had actual knowledge about what kind of bread was still available because they wanted to avoid the phone call that they're now having. Usually not a big deal, but if you're already working a crowded deli-counter during the lunch rush; it certainly cements the uselessness of these platforms.

<comment><USER13> It's also a losing strategy long-term, because many of your _existing_ customers will start just using GH to order, and eventually GH will own that relationship, not you. In the customer's mind, "want food = Grubhub app", not deli.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I worked for a restaurant reservation company I don't feel like naming.

Anytime the user had gone to the restaurants website, or used their website to make an online reservation, there was a significant reduction in our fee (like ~75%). That's because the user DID NOT use our network for discovery.

Using advertising like that to drive to a generic page where you show competitors first is really underhanded. I get that you want your kickback from Applebee's but c'mon.

A lot of this crap is just not fair to restaurants, and taking that HUGE of a cut from a restaurant AND gouging my ass in fees and then stiffing drivers in bullshit policies where my "tip" goes towards their minimum wage is horse shit (looking at you doordash).

</comment><comment><USER49> Fully agree this kind of practice is disgusting on the part of the platform sites.

And yet as someone who will never use each individual restaurant's website -- same as for retail, I just don't have the time except if one particular brand becomes an overwhelming part of my wallet spend -- it seems we have to be eying for a world where we do have aggregators making all these places available in one stop, but which aren't actively harming their individual pieces. At least for folks in the same boat I am.

<comment><USER50> I go out of my way to cut out as many middlemen as possible to ensure I receive the best service possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Everything remotely related to adware is just gross. It's hard to believe that after 10 years of this nothing has changed and the tricks are as dirty as ever. Totally unethical industry and I can't wait for the bubble to collapse.

<comment><USER52> How long have you been waiting? I think it is here to stay given how quickly it has become prevalent in real life as well as the web. We just can't do anything as long as we are dependent on them for anything. It sickens me as well, but it can't be avoided.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Here's another example of dark patterns: "Grubhub is still charging some restaurants phone fees, even if you call directly"

[https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/Grubhub-is-still- chargin...](https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/Grubhub-is-still-charging- restaurants-phone-fees-15273491.php)

Relevant excerpt: "Grubhub generates a phone number for each restaurant on its platform, which redirects you to the restaurant's own phone line when you call it. However, they are able to charge a fee for that redirection. In some cases, Grubhub collects a fee even when a call does not result in an order."

"Grubhub phone numbers often appear higher in Google search results than the restaurant's own line, which can lead even customers who don't use the app to dial the redirect."

</comment><comment><USER54> Wow, the entire advertising chain here looks like a completely unnecessary TAX on restaurants and consumers:

* A restaurant pays the advertising fee to DoorDash/GrubHub but the money is used to divert organic searches _for the restaurant_ to DoorDash/GrubHub instead. The restaurant gets nothing for that advertising fee. In fact, it _loses_ valuable organic traffic online.

* A consumer searches for a restaurant, but the first result is for a paid link to DoorDash/GrubHub. The consumer gets connected to these middlemen instead of the restaurant as intended. The search engine and DoorDash/GrubHub charge their cut for inserting themselves into the transaction.

The only term that in mind describes the act of extracting rents in exchange for providing no value or even subtracting value is... _extortion._

<comment><USER55> When I first started using food apps I thought they were great, and never really considered the flow of money.

One day I ordered from a kebab place through an app, and went to pick it up myself. When I got there the owner asked me -- hey, why didn't you just call me? I replied that the app was really convenient, etc. He told me that the app was charging him 15% for my order, even though I was picking it up myself.

So that was an eye-opening moment, and I haven't felt the slightest urge to use a food app since, if I have the option to get it myself or if the restaurant has their own delivery service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I've found the most effective way to place an order is to call directly. And I hate talking on the phone.

It seems backwards, but I don't want to give aggregators my business or my data, and most local websites either suck or require I retype all my data.

Calling is most analagous to just ordering at the counter.

<comment><USER57> They've also figured out how to scam the restaurant on that one. [https://www.engadget.com/2019-08-06-grubhub-is-replacing- res...](https://www.engadget.com/2019-08-06-grubhub-is-replacing-restaurant- phone-numbers-on-yelp.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> 1) We (technical people) need to stop being afraid to call companies evil. This isn't just an example of a company that does the profitable thing over the right thing - it's just an example of chosen behavior that almost always prioritizes profit over everything else.

Once it's socially acceptable to call companies evil, people will start being less surprised by behavior like this, and they can start to make more informed decisions. Using Doordash, GrubHub and Google should ALWAYS be considered a calculated risk. The same can be said for Yelp, Facebook and others. "Do what we say, or suffer the consequences of our indifference once our game is played out on you."

2) Anyone who writes something like this might consider spell and grammar checking.

</comment><comment><USER59> More great "innovation" coming out of Silicon Valley. Congrats folks, you're really at the cutting edge of screwing over the little guy.

<comment><USER59> More "innovation":

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/venessawong/grubhub- pho...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/venessawong/grubhub-phone-order- call-fee-coronavirus)

      > "If a customer calls to place a coffee order, we're paying a $6.42 fee — for a coffee."

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> On a more general level this kind of predatory behavior seems to the natural progression for internet conglomerates who specialize in connecting aggregate eyeballs / wallets to distributed vendors. It's not just delivery either, eBay, Amazon, AirBnb etc, they all absolutely squeeze vendors and there is no appeal process whatsoever if anything goes wrong with your account.

I wish there was a better way. It's quite sad to see how the internet has these seemingly intrinsic highways to organizational psychopathy built into it.

<comment><USER61> Oh this was happening pre-internet as well. Anonymous manufacturers get squeezed by brand labels, brand labels get squeezed by retail stores, franchise owners get squeezed by the franchise...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> DoorDash and Grubhub might be the villains of this piece, but in general Google don't need any help to abuse the trademarks of small businesses. It's common (as in, I've seen this in multiple industries in small rural communities in my state) for AdWords advertisers to bid on their local competitors' actual business names, and thus appear _above_ those businesses in searches for the exact names of those businesses. Then naive would-be customers are calling the wrong phone numbers and using the wrong driving directions. If they intended to drive to Alice's Donuts and end up at Bob's Donuts instead, they're obviously just going to buy something at Bob's. I think some younger Google users are aware of this phenomenon, but it's not a majority and above a certain age no one understands it. After all, on most phones the AdWords content is the only thing visible without scrolling. How many 70-year-olds can reliably scroll their phone, even if they know of the concept?

I don't know how this practice has failed to inspire class-action lawsuits. Perhaps Google can argue that they don't _intend_ to make billions of dollars in this obviously illegal way and it should really be AdWords customers who get sued for trademark infringement.

</comment><comment><USER62> An advertiser that advertises advertisers and monopolizes Google AdWords. I have the same thing in my industry where there are a couple of "directories" that sell advertising in my industry. They take the top couple of spots on Google AdWords. You click on their ad, and then you have a list of advertisements. This is a poor result for the end user. They have to click more times just to get to what they were looking for. Why can't Google just provide the best search results in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER63> I don't get those delivery companies (Doordash, Grubhub, etc).

Even with a first-timer promotion, a meal would end up being close to 25% more expensive than ordering directly with the restaurant.

I'm happy to order directly with a local restaurant on the phone, drive 10 minutes (especially now with no traffic) and get my food on my terms. I end up paying way less and the restaurant keeps the full dollar amount. It's a no- brainer win-win situation. I wish more people would order directly with restaurants.

<comment><USER64> Some fastfoods, with quick preparations and basic food can actually benefit from services like DoorDash. If they don't like technology, are not marketing specialists, live mostly offline, then it can bring them many new customers. So I think it's up to the restaurant to decide. Premium restaurants may have money and skills to have their website with their delivery ordering system and returning customers. It varies, I guess...

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> This looks more like a huge oversight than a malicious decision. I can't think of a good reason why a company advertising deliveries for a specific restaurant would redirect to a listing of similar restaurants. As an end user that would really annoy me; it's not like I'm going to change my mind and order Applebee's instead.

The only other explanation is that Applebee's is paying the delivery companies a fee to capture SEO acquired by them, which would be really scummy.

<comment><USER66> I guess the idea is that once you try doordash, you'll want to stay there because you have more choices and better product. Doordash can control the whole experience as well as send you emails, push notifications, etc. to bring you back in.

<comment><USER67> > "We believe online diners are becoming more promiscuous," Grubhub CEO Matt > Maloney and CFO Adam DeWitt wrote in a shareholder letter, noting that > Grubhub diners were once known to be extremely loyal, but new diners have > often already sought out a competing online platform

[https://fortune.com/2019/10/28/promiscuous-grubhub- customers...](https://fortune.com/2019/10/28/promiscuous-grubhub-customers- just-helped-lower-the-companys-value-by-1-2-billion-in-minutes/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> This is a classic example of how affiliate marketing is generally bad for businesses. For a local restaurant it may seem appealing to only pay for demand generated, but your partners are better than you at intercepting your existing demand and charging for it. If you have a trademark on the brand you would be able to get Google to take down the advertisements. If businesses are looking to generate demand, paying on a CPM basis via FB for example is a better outcome.

</comment><comment><USER69> I think the author's frustration here is warranted, but it's directed at the wrong part of DoorDash/GrubHub's product strategy.

Advertising on competitor listings is a bread and butter marketing strategy that happens everywhere. If you're a BBQ restaurant owner, you _want_ to advertise on your competitors' branded keywords because it's an obvious place to acquire new customers.

The underhanded move on the part of food delivery platforms like GrubHub, DoorDash, Caviar, UberEats, etc., is that they increasingly are nudging their users to _completely remove the restaurant brand from the loop_. Open up one of the apps and notice a few things about the user experience they're pushing:

\- foregrounding "dishes" and "cuisines" rather than specific restaurants

\- hiding/burying the ability to just browse a list of restaurants, instead opting for themed or algorithmically generated collections of restaurants and dishes.

I get the distinct sense that DoorDash, GrubHub, and the other delivery platforms want their users to think of the _platform_ as the source of the food, rather than the restaurant. "Let's get some ribs delivered from GrubHub" rather than "Let's get some ribs delivered from Saddleback BBQ via GrubHub".

This makes perfect sense for a company operating a two-sided marketplace - <USER3> ideally want to become indispensable to both sides. Restaurants need to realize that the marketing opportunities the platforms are offering will only provide them value as long as they're not entirely captured by the platform. And since restaurants have much lower brand recognition and far lower marketing budgets, it's going to be tough to fight back.

</comment><comment><USER70> It amazes me the larger world is just figuring this out. Dark business patterns has been every delivery company's #1 business model from day one, regardless of what they have been saying. Their behavior has always included these types of dark patterns. Why anyone uses these loud frauds has always been beyond me. And that goes twice for the people tricked into being a gig worker for them.

</comment><comment><USER71> > Being that we are partners of DoorDash and GrubHub,

Well, then stop partnering with them! If they continue to use your name, issue a C&D order!

<comment><USER46> > Well, then stop partnering with them!

At the end of the article, they are saying they may do just that. It's also not clear to them that this will stop this particular issue.

> If they continue to use your name, issue a C&D order!

I don't own a restaurant, but I've worked in food service. If I were this guy, I wouldn't want to start a legal battle with a company that's much, much larger than I am.

<comment><USER26> > If they continue to use your name, issue a C&D order!

Not to mention it's probably in the DoorDash/GrubHub agreement. That's probably how they get away with using that trademark.

> Well, then stop partnering with them!

Say you hate books-a-billion and you want to only sell at mom and pop bookstores. Good for you, but what if that kills 70% of your revenue?

When talking about trying to make a living and pull in enough to stay afloat, these people often don't have the choice. You don't publish your ebook on Amazon Kindle and only on Barnes and Nobles Nook, you cut yourself out of a huge revenue stream.

<comment><USER72> > Say you hate books-a-billion and you want to only sell at mom and pop > bookstores. Good for you, but what if that kills 70% of your revenue?

Then it sounds like books-a-billion is providing a pretty valuable service to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> _the customer could have just gone to our website and ordered directly from our online ordering store and we would not be charged a commission to GrubHub or DoorDash._

Is there anything we can do to start a counter movement to help restaurants figure out how to get people to more reliably type in the name of the restaurant they are interested in and order directly? (Or some other work around? I would love to start an app for my small town that lists "What's open now" for example.)

I support gig work, but for various reasons I'm not a fan of services like DoorDash. I don't think such services are a good thing at all for anyone involved and I'm happy to support some means to give push back against such and try to find a way to help protect restaurant owners from these predatory business models.

</comment><comment><USER74> The title is misleading. This is only _one_ of the ways...

<comment><USER75> "Conspire to screw" breaks the HN guideline about titles, so I've edited it to make it less baity. It's a bit generic now though. If anyone suggests a better title, we can change it again. "Better" means more accurate and neutral, and preferably using representative language from the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I investigated a case similar to this a few years ago (as an attorney). The problem is that most of these restaurants already signed contracts with the tech company that gave away a lot, including rights like this. And because it's B2B, it's hard to play the "unsophisticated consumer" card.

</comment><comment><USER77> Anyone else find it peculiar that he keeps calling Lansing a small town?

It's not only the capital city of the state, but it's generally divided in peoples minds into the four cardinal directions, so North Lansing, South Lansing, East, and South. This is important because each area is not only fairly large, but is also very different culturally from each other.

In fact East Lansing (still Lansing!) is the home of Michigan State University. That's hardly what I'd call a small school in a small town. East Lansing is practically a city unto itself.

Out of the 300 municipalities in the state of Michigan, Lansing is the 5'th largest by population.

I understand he's trying to evoke a certain emotion, but to anyone who is even remotely familiar with the area it comes off as pandering and dishonest.

<comment><USER73> I live in a town of about 16k people. I don't think we have any of those delivery services.

But those services tend to mostly be in the biggest metro areas. Lansing is relatively small from that perspective.

So I figured that's why he framed it that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Many business owners are frustrated by this. Suckers will call GrubHub and DoorDash to complain. When you call them you are entered into a workflow where you are talking to a human or robot that is trained to do the minimum for you to prevent you from suing them. They are doing unethical and/or illegal things so they are prepared for pissed off people and this is an expense on their business plan.

Instead, just sue them. Even if you have to file by yourself, without hiring an attorney.

Reading a sad blog post is fun. But reading "I just sued GrubHub because they are violating me -- I'm not sure what I'm doing, can anyone else relate or help?" is front page news in the 21st century.

</comment><comment><USER79> I tried the same thing in both Bing and Duckduckgo. In Bing there was no Grubhub and in Duckduckgo there was an ad in the sidebar that took me directly to the restaurants page on Grubhub (not a higher level page).

Was just curious to compare across search engines.

</comment><comment><USER80> That google "business name" sidebar has got to go. I volunteer at "somerville open studios" a once a year event where artists open their studios.

Google has recently been showing the sidebar for "somerville studio" a photo studio. I get that google is confused and no amount of business registering seems to change that (we're a registered non-orofit, but don't have a physical space...) But they're showing the "Open time" and a bunch of sidebar info in the main feed (we're open at 7am.. but the event starts at noon).

When that sidebar works its kind neat, but when it fails it fails spectacularly.

</comment><comment><USER81> Cached version: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=firefox...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=firefox- b-d&ei=dfO- XoeCPZHbsAfPvYmoAw&q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.saddlebackbbq.com%2Fhow-google- doordash-grubhub-conspire-screw-local- restaurants&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.saddlebackbbq.com%2Fhow-google- doordash-grubhub-conspire-screw-local- restaurants&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQA1C1H1i1H2CBIWgAcAB4AIABaIgBaJIBAzAuMZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy- ab&ved=0ahUKEwjHkK3z0rbpAhWRLewKHc9eAjUQ4dUDCAs&uact=5)

</comment><comment><USER82> They can legally register a trademark (costs 500$ once and is done online).

After trade-marking competitors can still bid for your trademark but they can't write the trademark words in the title or content of the ads.

These two links explain how trademark vs ads works:

[https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en](https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en)

[https://www.brandverity.com/blog/google-ads-trademark- rules-...](https://www.brandverity.com/blog/google-ads-trademark-rules-101)

</comment><comment><USER83> If you don't tip cash, GrubHub takes back the hourly they pay the driver.

Say you get $10 an hour delivering for GrubHub. You earn $10 in delivery fees and credit card tips in that hour. How much do you think the driver gets? It's $10. GrubHub gets to say "your whole tip goes to the driver!", But never says they claw back the drivers hourly making them free for GrubHub to employ.

Tip cash, or literally don't tip at all. I never saw my credit card tips the whole year I worked for them.

</comment><comment><USER84> The post seems to misinterpret that Doordash + Grubhub are somehow in cahoots with Google to skim off of restauranteurs. What Doordash & Grubhub are doing is an extreme form of "growth hacking" that doesn't have any considerations for the collateral damage it creates - they should be held accountable for that. Google here is just the provider of a tool that they abuse, they need to work on ensuring that this form of abuse should not be possible.

To deduce that there's a conspiracy between Google + Doordash is taking it a bit too far..

</comment><comment><USER85> Whoa quite the surprise to see this posted on hacker news. I used to work with Travis for a few years. He was pretty much never in the office and if I did see him, he was usually hiding in the fish bowl.

I also lived in Cherry Hill Downtown Lansing for three years about two blocks from Reo town. The food at Saddleback was decent but never knocked my socks off. Now crack chicken, east side fish fry, astros pizza and Olympic broil, those places had some food that brings back memories

</comment><comment><USER86> "They are redirecting those customers to their platform where they can purchase from a competitor or they can charge us a fee to provide food to that same customer. Whereas the customer could have just gone to our website and ordered directly from our online ordering store and we would not be charged a commission to GrubHub or DoorDash."

Here he refers to Grubhub and DoorDash as "competitors" with the restaurant.

Yet at the conclusion of the story he refers to them as "partners" with the restaurants who pay them.

"DoorDash and GrubHub have a long history of screwing their partners."

These companies are "middlemen". That description in fact fits a large number of "tech" companies. It is a common theme when we look at the "tech" industry.

A few days ago food delivery, including Grubhub, was discussed on HN.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23169597](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23169597)

One commenter argued that companies like Grubhub exist in "fake markets" that would not exist were it not for VC funding.

Another argued that these markets are not fake because these companies have managed to be profitable and deliver returns to investors.

Not sure what you all have experienced, in my experience with restaurants and delivery, the owners always seem to prefer customers who order directly from the restaurant, not via a middleman. However, I can sense that they feel compelled to sign up with the middlemen for fear of losing business.

HN commenters seem to enjoy comparing first page search results on Google versus alternatives such as DDG. Try this one out. Search for your favourite restaurant. On Google, I see more middlemen than I see on DDG, including a result for "[restaurant-name].business.site" which I believe belongs to Google. I don't see that result on DDG.

Imagine if the telephone book Yellow Pages listed multiple numbers for each business, some of them not belonging to the business but to middlemen who would "make calling easier". Even more, imagine it changed the order of the listings according to a "secret" methodology instead of presenting them in alphabetical order.

</comment><comment><USER87> I see this: Forbidden You don't have permission to access this resource.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

</comment><comment><USER88> > _The problem is that if we cancel, does that mean they will actually stop > stealing customers that are looking for our restaurant and directing them to > our competitors?_

At least in this scenario, since there's no contract and no advertising agreement, Saddleback could sue them for trademark infringement if they keep advertising using the Saddleback name. Of course, lawsuits suck and cost time and money that I'm sure the owner doesn't have to spare.

</comment><comment><USER89> This is really frustrating to read and I know the importance of ordering direct when you can, but the hardest part for me was trying to find restaurants around me that actually offered direct online ordering.

I helped build a site to try and solve that: [https://foood.com/](https://foood.com/)

It's mostly restaurants in the Chicago area right now but trying to grow as fast as possible everywhere

</comment><comment><USER90> What's amusing to me is that many of these techniques were well documented on Blackhat SEO forums circa 2010. These companies just normalized and scaled them.

</comment><comment><USER91> This looks like the same thing Etsy has been doing since early this year. [https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/26/21155193/etsy- advertising...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/26/21155193/etsy-advertising- program-angers-sellers-cut-of-sales)

Ad landing pages feature prominent links to competitors' products at the top of the page.

</comment><comment><USER92> Wow, this is unbelievably blatant. How can they even use the advertise the restaurant without their consent on Google? These ads almost look like spam to me like those old internet generic ads. Most people wouldn't click those, and even if they do, they would back off after all they see is a generic landing page which is not about the original restaurant they were looking for.

</comment><comment><USER93> It is certainly not fair for restaurants to pay for ad fee when it is not ad for themselves, but I think calling it conspiracy is a little of stretch.

</comment><comment><USER94> This is happening in other industries, too. Google have recently launched a Hotels API where hotels, B&Bs, vacation rentals, etc can upload their prices and other data to Google, and Google will decide when to show that info to the user. So searching for "hotels in New York" will now be fronted by a giant Google widget that will capture your traffic and not a list of hotel websites.

<comment><USER95> What's wrong with that? Hotels make money from people booking, not being on their website. If this helps people find what they're looking for and convert into a stay, that's great.

<comment><USER94> The user doesn't see their website. The content is loaded to google, google gets advert traffic, etc. etc. as well as the stuff outlined in the article. That's what is wrong with it.

<comment><USER95> There are thousands of hotels in New York. Nobody is going through thousands of links, unique websites, retyping the same dates and details into different forms. They're going to the same top website that paid the most for SEO. The user doesn't want to see their website. The user wants to see all the relevant details of all the options that match their criteria so they can hand over their cash to the best one, not the one that has put the most money into building a website. That is what modern search is. That is what Google is doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> I was under the impression that it was against Google's ad rules to use the trademarks other than your own in your ads. Are they not applying their own rule consistently to these food delivery services?

[0] [https://support.google.com/google- ads/thread/8702273?hl=en](https://support.google.com/google- ads/thread/8702273?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER97> cached version: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b4DOuG...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b4DOuGeTelQJ:https://www.saddlebackbbq.com/how- google-doordash-grubhub-conspire-screw-local- restaurants+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk)

(current link returns a 403)

</comment><comment><USER98> Is there a way as an end user I can filter out all results driven by DoorDash, GrubHub and the likes on Google Search? Or perhaps would I be better off using DuckDuckGo?

Seems like this might be neat browser extension to help people get search results that point you directly to a restaurant website. Perhaps following the ad blocker concept; restaurant middleman blocker.

</comment><comment><USER99> How hard would it be to make an open source framework for restaurants to be easy to setup/use instead of the alternatives?

</comment><comment><USER100> If I wanted to start a grassroots local competitor for collecting delivery orders without screwing over restaurants, what would be the best way to handle payment processing? Using Stripe + manually sending money via ACH doesn't sound sustainable. Would AML/KYC laws start to apply for this sort of thing?

<comment><USER15> Why couldn't you use Stripe? DoorDash does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> This sort of anti-marketplace sentiment is making mainstream media on the other side of the Atlantic. Today's Sky News coverage [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbt-l- RnQZo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbt-l-RnQZo)

Disclaimer - I'm the bald guy.

</comment><comment><USER102> Why do these gig companies have to function like racketeers? I don't understand why everyone from Grubhub to Uber to Airbnb feels the need to "take a piece of the action" in the way they do. There are smarter profitability models, it's just so lazy.

</comment><comment><USER103> Might be a specific issue for this restaurant. Tried googling several restaurants in SF that are open at the moment and the link from google to the delivery company goes directly to a page for that restaurant, not a generic page for the type of food.

</comment><comment><USER104> Does the contract with DoorDash and Grubhub allow them to use the trade name? Regardless, if Saddleback BBQ does cancel, I would assume it would be very much illegal for DoorDash and Grubhub to advertise using that trade name.

</comment><comment><USER105> Would there be any legal issue for a restaurant to _banish_ external delivery runners?

i.e. refuse to serve those using Doordash garb or luggage, those who don't show the same credit card used for purchase, etc?

</comment><comment><USER106> How much in a restaurant's cost is (food and its preparation) vs (rent, decor, service and marketing)? I bet less than a half. If they only had a kitchen, they would be totally ok with this arrangement.

</comment><comment><USER107> > small town

> small town

> small town

It's the state capital. It may not compare to the antics of stay-at-home protestors, but your insistence on describing the city this way when surrounded by so many ACTUAL small towns is still pretty embarrassing.

</comment><comment><USER108> I can understand the author's frustration, but that's a doordash ad, not a Saddleback BBQ ad - it's unrelated to the advertising fee that the author pays to be on the platform from my understanding that fee is for appearing in searching on the platform.

The ad on google is for the platform itself. Doordash paid google to pick out queries with words like "bbq" and redirect them to doordash queries for "bbq". That has nothing to do with saddleback BBQ -- except, that for some awful reason, the ad is placed in the sidebar full of saddleback BBQ information instead of the main search results.

I'd say this is less conspiratorial and more evidence of incompetence. Still, I feel for the author.

</comment><comment><USER109> I'm getting a 403 Forbidden, here's a backup link that works : [https://archive.is/sNLho](https://archive.is/sNLho)

</comment><comment><USER110> I've never used DoorDash nor Uber Eats, and the one time I used Grubhub was a disaster. Don't use these services and you can help stop this insanity.

</comment><comment><USER111> Whenever you read "disrupting" industry X, the real way to read this is screwing local businesses involved in that industry. So, no surprises here.

<comment><USER112> And disavowing responsibility for their workers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER113> The restaurants are equally to blame here. It didn't take long to realise that it's more profitable to deliver food to a broader audience than just serve 15 table each evening. Very few restaurants knew how or were willing to invest in marketing,internet reach and so on. Now a lot of them are no more than a nice thumbnail in these websites. I don't even know where those place are- all I know is somewhere within a few miles.. However, having written all this,the type of stuff mentioned in the article isn't doing any favours to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER114> And this is why I don't use any of these terrible services. Order direct with the business using THEIR phone number & pick it up.

</comment><comment><USER115> I do curb side. I've read enough bad things about DoorDash, et al that I choose not to do business with them.

</comment><comment><USER105> Actual title is "How Google, Doordash, and GrubHub Conspire to Screw Local Restaurants".

</comment><comment><USER116> I'm getting a 403 when trying to access.

</comment><comment><USER117> Are there any food delivery services that aren't scummy? Would love to support those instead.

</comment><comment><USER118> It's so ironic that Google's original motto was "Don't be evil".

</comment><comment><USER119> I avoid all of these app's and order directly from the restaurant themselves.

1) All of them add to the cost of the bill way more than I think is a good use of my money.

2) Driver's don't get paid very well.

3) Restaurants get screwed.

Sure it might mean I have to go out and pick up the order instead of getting it directly delivered, but it's really not that big of a deal.

</comment><comment><USER120> Seems like this is a Google problem more than DoorDash or GrubHub, because it's google that allows people to advertise against your own business name.

So that's the legal question- what part of your own name do you own on a third party platform? And what if that platform (google) has a monopoly on web searches?

</comment><comment><USER121> 403\. Can't access in Europe.

</comment><comment><USER122> as of ~15:45 PDT 5/15 searching saddleback bbq lansing on Google and DDG the links in the advertisements go to the restaurant's website, not GrubHub or DoorDash for me

</comment><comment><USER123> This is just how Adwords works. Funny, Google seems to have removed ads for the BBQ keyword. Doordash was just putting up ads for any query that contained the word "BBQ".

</comment><comment><USER124> Is everybody getting an 403?

Anyone has a copy of the article?

</comment><comment><USER40> Why would I tip before I order the food?

</comment><comment><USER125> it doesnt help that many restaurants have terrible sites

</comment><comment><USER112> Yes! More middlemen! /s

As participating capitalists, shouldn't we be shunning any company that adds friction where there was none?

This really brings to mind the mafia elbowing in for a cut of the operations, or the whole contract, and adding nothing but extortion and shoddy work.

<comment><USER16> Startup capitalism seems quite different from traditional capitalism. Instead of profitability, the main qualification for a successful startup seems to be a good story for investors. Then, with VC money in hand, traditional pricing signals can be distorted by subsidizing the service - sometimes for years. Whether the big business that results at the end of this process is viable, valuable, or even desirable to customers is impossible to tell until the subsidies run out and the startup has to try to make a profit. At that point no alternative may exist because smaller, independent competitors have been driven out of business by a series of VC-fuelled market distortions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> Article and entire domain returns 403.

<comment><USER127> Here you go: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200515203018/https://www.saddl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200515203018/https://www.saddlebackbbq.com/how- google-doordash-grubhub-conspire-screw-local-restaurants)

</comment></comment><comment><USER128> Wouldn't be a tech company unless it created another serfdom.</comment>


Co-browsing for dispersed teams Work in synchrony from many screens - <AUTHOR> https://plutoview.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> In March 2020, work and education came to a standstill. Businesses, schools, and universities had to scramble to transition to a remote model. Thankfully, the Internet exists as a tool not only for browsing social media, but also for increasing productivity to previously unattainable levels. Classes have gone from lecture halls to video conferences. Employees have learned what meetings could've actually been phone calls all along. However, video conferences and phone calls are not equal to face-to-face interactions. Indeed, it remains unclear when it will be possible to resume classroom instruction and office work. Plutoview can make this difficult time a bit more manageable. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0lODs0bj_0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0lODs0bj_0)</comment>


The Writing Revolution - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-writing-revolution/309090/

<comment><USER2> citizen journalism is the future. writing needs to be nurtured in the culture, but if kids don't see a purpose they won't develop the skill.

spread the word about nwzPaper.com</comment>


A Mac Podcast App You Can't Have - <AUTHOR> http://stephenradford.me/the-mac-podcast-app-you-cant-have/ <comment><USER2> I've had one semester of Computer Science, and have zero clue of how people do stuff like this.

How does he get the UI working so fast and looking so good? How do you _reverse engineer an API_ \- this seems like some hacker stuff you'd see in Halt & Catch Fire, in my mind anyways.

I'm sure I'll get there, but right now there's a major disconnect between the C investment calculator text program I made, and these super functional, beautiful works of art.

<comment><USER3> There _is_ a major disconnect! You're studying computer science and wondering how it applies to software engineering. When I studied CS (graduated a year ago) we never went over things like building a GUI, reverse engineering an API, or designing a UI. Those are software engineering topics. By the time I graduated I learned how to do those things, but it was by learning them on my own. If you want to learn these things you'll need to take the initiative yourself.

Here are some links to get you started:

1\. [http://lancenewman.me/reverse-engineering-the-tinder- api/](http://lancenewman.me/reverse-engineering-the-tinder-api/)

2\. [https://www.raywenderlich.com/151741/macos-development- begin...](https://www.raywenderlich.com/151741/macos-development-beginners- part-1)

3\. [https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating- gorgeo...](https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui- part-1-559d4e805cda)

<comment><USER4> It seems like many if not most computer science students are actually interested in software engineering and not CS. It is a shame that more schools don't offer separate software engineering programs or at least make the distinction between the two more apparent to prospective students.

I am sure I wasn't the only 17 year old told I should get a CS degree if I wanted to be a software developer. Meanwhile the most value I have gotten out of the CS classes that taught me to write a loop in MIPS or two build a XOR gate out of NAND gates is commiserating about those experiences with fellow CS grads. I would have much rather had a class about reverse engineering an API or other less theoretical and more vocational classes.

<comment><USER5> Knowing how a loop is implemented in MIPS means your now have enough knowledge to debug assembly, and perhaps do low level performance optimisations. It's not useless, just not directly and immediately. You won't be able to lean on any foundational work if you hadn't learnt it, and you'll have a super hard time doing complex things later, like reverse engineering.

<comment><USER4> What percentage of developers ever have to debug assembly or do low level performance optimizations? I am 10 years into my career and I have only professionally seen assembly code once. We have abstracted most of these low level things out of the normal life of most developers. That isn't to say it isn't important for some, but there are a lot more developers who would benefit more from a class on design principles than a class on assembly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's cool that he was able to get a whole Mac app finished. Unfortunate that none of it seems to be open sourced, at least the non-private API parts. But maybe he plans to use the code to monetize something different in the future.

On the other hand, for best iOS/Mac podcast app, I haven't been completely happy with any for years. New ones with smart speed - great feature, but I like one feature above all else.

My favorite app was Instacast for iOS because it let me add time stamped bookmarks/notes. Audible has something similar. None of the apps mentioned in Product Hunt or his blog post seem to support this. Such a bummer. I paid for Instacast 5 before it was removed. It started crashing at launch on iOS 10 however.

Edit: I recognize not many people, likely a single digit percentage of podcast app users would care for bookmarking/notes (thanks Void_)

<comment><USER7> Do a lot of people share this pain? It sounds like a very niche problem to me (as a macOS dev).

But if those bookmarks/notes is a problem to a lot of people, then it might just be worth looking into.

<comment><USER6> Nope, doubt it's a feature many people care about. I should specify that in my comment now actually. Thanks.

<comment><USER8> Imagine if you could share the notes. And the notes could be structured. And you could tweak your player to react to notes in various ways. We could have crowd-sourced ad-'blocking' on podcasts!

<comment><USER6> Hah. That is true.

Actually I have extensive time stamped notes for hundreds of podcast episodes including their ads starting and ending, but personally I'm against ad blocking. I've been in the process of removing those parts before publishing my bookmarks/notes.

<comment><USER8> I think I agree, much as I hate ads! There is something about podcast ads that I find much more acceptable than most other forms; the only slight downside is they tend to be quite repetitive, both within shows, and across them.

It would certainly be useful to have notes for a whole range of other benefits e.g. making it much easier to search an old episode for a specific topic.

<comment><USER6> That's actually why I started tracking the ad times. The same podcasts I listen to usually rotate through the same ads. So I would end up skipping them and noting it for fav episodes that I might come back to. Same issue ads on YouTube or Hulu when they become repetitive. I'm trying to not be against ad blocking, but when that happens, it's almost impossible to not be annoyed.

And yeah the other use cases help for sure!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My suggestion to the developer would be to talk to the Pocket Casts people about offering the desktop client as an in-app purchase and share those revenues (easily traceable) with the dev. Maybe they could create a special authorization key that would allow access to the unofficial API without locking that account. The app gets a desktop version and the dev gets some revenue for his trouble, and Pocket Casts has some increased income to support any additional load on its servers (plus profits).

Just a thought. Tell me why I'm wrong / horribly naive / etc

<comment><USER10> One snag may be the collection of metrics. Marketing people seem to have realized that there's a burgeoning market that they haven't destroyed yet and they seem determined to correct this oversight. If they decide that they need to monitor listeners or make sure they can't skip ads, then third party clients are going to never happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I recently tried turning the PocketCasts webplayer into an app on chrome and while it worked well, it had a major flaw. I'm stuck at my computer! If I wanted to get a cup of water, check the mail, put clothes in the dryer, whatever, I would have to pause the podcast, or leave it on and lose part of the story. This is fine when I had radio, since I can dip in and out and it doesn't matter much. But if I'm listening to something with a deep plot like Serial or that Halo thing, I don't want to miss a thing.

<comment><USER12> Spotify just needs to host more podcasts... I have become obsessed with how convenient it is to cast Spotify to my wifi speakers, phone, computer and back and forth. Easy to switch where it's playing by changing in the the mobile or desktop UI. Constantly switching between phone/speakers when moving around the house, or leaving the house.

<comment><USER13> 'Podcastaddict' also has google Cast functionality.

<comment><USER14> One of the few free apps that I've donated to! Quality podcasting app that has been receiving non-trivial updates for years.

<comment><USER15> Agreed, and I have donated as well. I especially like the advanced sorting options they have added reciently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if he could define the minimal API that his application needs, then write adapters for different podcast services. Maybe one day Pocket Casts will have a public API or perhaps be willing to officially license him to use their private API. Or maybe he should spend next weekend and write the backend part himself. He certain seems to have the talent to do so.

</comment><comment><USER16> I use PocketCasts in conjunction with BeardedSpice [1] to forward media key commands. It works very well!

[1] [https://github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice](https://github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice)

</comment><comment><USER17> Well that's disappointing. Don't mind me, just quietly shelving the Pocket Casts API client I was working on...

</comment><comment><USER18> You know, it really is insane Apple continues to push this "we're a music company" narrative, especially with the release of The Defiant Ones. iTunes has been a car accident for over a decade, and the release of Apple Music has only further exemplified that the whole thing needs an overhaul.

<comment><USER19> What's wrong with Apple Music? I switched over from Spotify because it has better integration with iOS and it has a similar library and neither service has a distinguishing feature that makes it really stand out.

<comment><USER20> Apple Music has some things Spotify doesn't have, some out of the control of Spotify Inc, some they choose to ignore:

\- Siri integration (this is Apple's fault, no reason not to open SiriKit to music services)

\- An Apple TV App (This is on Spotify, it's been asked for forever)

\- An Apple Watch App (This is also on Spotify, but there are rumors it's coming soon)

But there are some real downsides to Apple Music vs Spotify:

\- Apple Music's playlists aren't as good, community playlists are tough to find. I've found links to Spotify playlists filled with interesting music, no luck for Apple Music.

\- Apple Music's radio is subjectively worse. Repeats far too often.

\- iTunes is a travesty and I'm forced to use it to listen on my desktop. It's slow, ugly, tough to navigate, terrible to search. It does 500 things and none of them well.

\- The Apple Music app on iOS isn't much better. UI is scattershot and it is tough to do some things that shouldn't be.

\- No cross-device play state sync. For example, if I start listening to a playlist on Spotify I can start at the same point in the song and pick up exactly where I was on any other device.

\- Social integration - I can send Spotify previews to people via Facebook Messenger, and Spotify integrates with other social stuff. Apple Music is all by itself.

I think a big issue that Apple will run into is that they insist on tying releases of Apple Music to iOS releases. Spotify can release new versions whenever they want, but because Apple didn't announce something like cross device state sync there's no chance I'll get it until at least next year.

I have both Spotify and Apple Music, but I'm not 100% happy with either.

<comment><USER10> > Social integration - I can send Spotify previews to people via Facebook > Messenger, and Spotify integrates with other social stuff. Apple Music is > all by itself.

What about Ping? Doesn't it allow this kind of sharing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there any reason not to just release it anyway? Users know the risks with using an unofficial app. Even though they reached out via Twitter with a polite "No," why not counter with a polite "I understand the issues, but I'd still like to release this"?

It sounds like Pocket Casts are rather overstating their case. The dev put a lot of work into it. Unless they get a lot of traction, none of the concerns seem to matter much. And if they do get traction, it informs Pocket Cast what they should be building.

<comment><USER22> Probably the "getting people's accounts locked" part, which might be too big a risk.

<comment><USER21> Sure, but users understand the risks. If the dev throws up a splash screen saying "Proceed at your own risk. Your account might get locked," then they can't be held morally accountable for that.

I don't know. It would've been an interesting experiment to carry to its natural conclusion.

<comment><USER22> On one hand, I agree with you, on the other hand, I'm 100% sure some users will send angry emails to PocketCasts and demand refunds because this third- party app didn't work well (or they couldn't figure something out, or any number of things).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I use Pocket Casts in its own window with Fluid[1]. It's too bad it doesn't support media keys, but someone could create a Chrome extension to control playback, similar to how it's done with Google Play Music.

[1] [http://fluidapp.com/](http://fluidapp.com/)

<comment><USER24> I do the same thing, with Overcast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> ok i listen to a lot of podcasts and fundamentally dont understand why there is this small group of people who have this deep desire for a desktop podcast client. I don't question that these people exist, but I just don't understand why they prefer desktop over mobile especially when headphones are wireless/you can connect to bluetooth speakers. mobile dominates in every aspect.

<comment><USER26> I've given up on finding a good desktop app. I'd like one though. When I'm in my home office I want to use the speakers built into my thunderbolt display and not the phone speakers or headphones. In practice I'm playing podcasts via phone and music via laptop/thunderbolt display. That's because Google Play Music since perfectly and is good for music, but the iPhone podcast app doesn't.

<comment><USER27> I admit that the times I want to play podcasts over my iMac speakers, I use Rogue Amoeba's "Airfoil Satellite" running on the Mac so I can airplay to it. Obviously this is a macOS/iOS-specific solution, but it works well enough.

Having said that, in practice I tend to just play podcasts over a Bluetooth speaker (a JBL Flip for years, but as of yesterday a Bose SoundLink Mini II, as the Flip's battery life is down to well under an hour and it was time for a replacement/upgrade).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've been a happy PocketCasts user for years so maybe a bit biased here, but I think they handled this really well.

</comment><comment><USER29> I agree that it does continue to be a problem. I've yet to find a suitable solution for recommendations that adequately surface more obscure titles. Likewise when you have a subscription / Premium podcast it gets even harder as things like Google Play dont seem to support custom feeds, at least in the Android App. It makes it all the more difficult to monetize and spread your Podcast.

Slightly off topic, but I'm a recurring voice actor on the NoSleep Podcast, featured prominently in the imaging on this post. Thanks for Listening!

<comment><USER25> that's pretty random! how did you get to be a voice actor? side gig or main gig?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> If I were him I'd try to work out some sort of contracting deal where he sells them the codebase and agrees to support it for X years, for a reasonable price. They would get a finished and polished app with zero effort, while maintaining control on the internal api; and he would get a nice runway to work on this and other projects.

</comment><comment><USER31> If you use the PocketCaster Chrome app, media keys work fine: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pocketcaster/jmlel...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pocketcaster/jmlelgnlpdinbjemiclfmgcpbpdjlhff?utm_source=chrome- app-launcher-info-dialog)

</comment><comment><USER32> Why not use Electron to wrap the Web player?

<comment><USER33> Why not just use the web player in this case? Wrapping it in this garbage called Electron will not magically make it any better.

<comment><USER32> I know it's resource-heavy, but at least you can start tying your own dedicated hotkeys inand sending out notifications from it. And you can build your own features that make it its own similar to Google Music Desktop Player

Plus you don't have to worry about Pocket Casts breathing down your neck because it's still through their system.

<comment><USER33> The issue is, accepting Electron will encourage more people to make such garbage apps. We need to firmly say no until this fad dies off and people get back to writing proper apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Does anybody know who is actually hosting this content? Does pocket casts host the media files, or is it just a search platform for content hosted elsewhere? Seems like you could end up in a bunch of legal problems considering the number of people trying to own this market right now

</comment><comment><USER35> This is something that is severely lacking in my life. The iOS podcasts app is just okay, and the Podcasts section of iTunes on macOS is very bad.

It would be amazing if someone came up with a free or one-time-cost macOS podcast app, and it would be even better if it were open source.

<comment><USER25> can i just ask why you want this on desktop so badly vs just continuing on your mobile? its not like your phone ceases to exist when you are working on your desktop? just trying to better understand the psyche of users like yourself.

<comment><USER35> I like to have certain things available on both platforms. If I am using my laptop, I don't want to have to pull out my phone to listen to podcasts. I want to be able to play and pause on my computer.

I use email and messaging on both platforms, and I wish I could do the same with podcasts.

<comment><USER36> This sounds a lot like my own usage habits. If I'm using a computer of any sort, I don't want to have to pull out my phone for hardly anything. My phone is for times when a more capable machine isn't readily available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Just release it anyways, their problem that they don't have a public api, not yours. Sometimes you gotta break some rules to do something great.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm not sure why a Podcast app really needs an independent service, wouldn't it be easy enough to sync against a configuration stored on dropbox/drive, etc? Unless you are following a _LOT_ of podcasts, or on a _LOT_ of devices, it should be easy enough. (Or "self-host" to Azure/AWS/GCP tables/dynamo)

For that matter, electron and/or react-native could make it easy enough to create such an application.

</comment><comment><USER39> I just wish that PocketCasts web player would also sync playlists.

</comment><comment><USER40> You know there is whitespace when a user goes and builds your app for you..... Some product managers from PocketCasts should be reading this thread.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm surprised I haven't heard Downcast mentioned here yet - it's by far my favorite podcast app. iOS and desktop versions that sync together well.

<comment><USER42> It's the first recommendation that the article mentions and then dismisses.

<comment><USER41> ahh that should teach me to read the article :) but I do disagree with 'the UI could use some work', and I've never found I need the marginal time removed by smart speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I realize that this is about Mac podcast apps (hopefully you won't mind a quick diversion), but I'd like to quickly plug my favorite iOS podcast app: Castro (no relation, just a happy user)

I tried Overcast and really loved the features (smart speed, etc.) but I didn't love the queue handling. It's not that there was anything wrong with Overcast in that regard. It certainly works fine (it's a great app), but it didn't map to the way I listen to podcasts.

Castro is ideal if you only have a few hours a week to listen to the occasional podcast and you don't always listen to every episode of every podcast. All other podcast apps (disclaimer: that I know of) have an on/off relationship with podcasts. You are either subscribed or you are not. If you are, you can specify how many of the podcast episodes to automatically download and put in your queue. So if you like to listen to occasional episodes of, say, a hundred podcasts, you will use a TON of storage.

Castro has a triage model. When you subscribe to a podcast, you can have the app automatically either queue it up immediately (like the traditional method) or have it appear in your inbox (along with a notification), which is a kind of temporary time-based view of recent arrived episodes, or you can have it put in the archive, which is where all of the older episodes eventually go. You can always queue up an episode from any of these locations.

The best part is that only things that you put (or specify to automatically add, which I never do) in the "listening to now" queue are actually downloaded. So if you keep that list at 5 podcasts, then only those 5 are downloaded. Very nice and a perfect match for my use.

<comment><USER12> Castro is discussed in the OP article..

<comment><USER44> In passing in one paragraph. This is much more substantial and has convinced me to try it out.</comment></comment></comment>