Cities Crack Down On Food Delivery App Fees As Restaurants Struggle To Survive

[dalton99a]

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/14/856444431/cities-crack-down-on-food-delivery-app-fees-as-restaurants-struggle-to-survive

Cities Crack Down On Food Delivery App Fees As Restaurants Struggle To Survive
May 14, 2020 9:45 PM ET
Bobby Allyn

...

In a bid to help struggling restaurants, cities from Seattle to Washington, D.C., are passing caps restricting how much food apps can charge to deliver meals. The food delivery apps have different ways of devising fees, but they tend to be in the range of 20% to 40% of how much a restaurant makes in app-generated revenue.

On Wednesday, New York became the latest city to pass commission limits: third-party delivery services will not be able to charge more than 15% per order, and the tech companies cannot add more than 5% for other fees, like credit card processing and for better placement on the apps.

Councilman Mark Gjonaj, who sponsored the bill, said the food delivery apps have placed some restaurants on life support, but it is not sustainable.

"Without them, it's an instant death. With them, it's a slow death," Gjonaj said in an interview.

[JCMach1]

1. I'm afraid the age of restaurants is over

They are not coming back soon

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Restaurants are not going to disappear.

A lot of them will reinvent themselves as carryout, but there will still be restaurants.

We will not all be reduced to cooking at home. Really, we won't.

[Skittles]

4. I agree

there is always going to be a market for junk food, family food, fine dining (OMG I *HATE* cooking) - it's just the classic restaurant experience that will falter

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Bingo.

I happen to like cooking, and have been stocking up on basics recently. While I will need to purchase various fresh ingredients, like certain vegetables, I have the basics for several months' meals in my freezer. So long as I can continue to get potatoes, carrots, onions, and a bunch of other such things, I'm golden.

I'm grateful that I like to cook. I recognize that for those who do not like cooking life right now is truly awful. Wish I could offer something more than a stupidly banal "try it, you'll like it" bit of pablum.

I will offer this. Cooking is not as complex as say, fixing your roof or repairing the tile in your bathroom. Perhaps videos will help. Let's say you sigh heavily and think, okay, I like to eat beef stew. So google beef stew recipes. There will be videos. I am not a sophisticated cook by any means. I have basic skills. When I want to try something a bit different, I google it. Watching recipe videos can be hugely helpful.

Good luck to you. Even though I happen to like to cook, you have all of my sympathy for not liking it.

And while the classic restaurant experience will falter, at least in the short term, getting food cooked by someone else will still be possible. Oh, and depending on where you live, food trucks will save us all.

[Skittles]

6. it's so strange

I have all my life eaten junk food, sweets, processed food......yet I am healthier than most people I know....I still weigh the same as I did in high school. I do exercise about an hour a day, so maybe that helps. And no, my life is not truly awful, it is exactly the same. I can still get processed food and junk food, no problem!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. I am a semi-healthy eater.

I'm 71 years old and healthier than almost everyone I know my age.

I'm constantly amazed at the health issues of people a whole lot younger than me. Perhaps the real underlying issue is that so many people have serious health issues.

[JCMach1]

8. The bloodbath will be huge

...

[Cha]

2. Good on them!