DoorDash now warns you that your food might get cold if you don’t tip::The app-based delivery service is alerting customers that drivers may not take their order in a timely manner if there is no tip included upfront.
DD is just explaining that it's a bidding system. Few if any drivers are going to want to drive out of their way to pick it up and deliver it to you for little or no guaranteed tip listed up front and high chance of someone bailing on it anyway. Food sits at the restaurant for a long time
Pretty sure if I were to put a $20 tip I'd have no problems getting someone to accept the order immediately.
The problem, and the reason we've stopped using Doordash completely, is that your big tip means your order will get stacked with the low/no tippers to incentive the driver to pick them all up. And your food will sit there getting cold while the driver waits to pick up the others.
This has become universally true over the last year or two in Chicago at least. We are good tippers and every single time we'd see our food get picked up then watch the driver wait to pick up some other order -- sometime waiting 30 minutes or more with our food in their car less than a block from our home.
It's true everywhere. My wife and I both placed separate orders. I placed mine first and watched the driver wait 30 minutes, after picking up my order, until her order was ready. Then they got confused that both orders were coming to my house and didn't drop my order off. They figured it out after a few minutes and came back, but after 45 minutes of sitting in a car nachos are pretty fucking gross.
It's been four years since I lived there (Bucktown) but I started seeing that somewhat. We always tip pretty decent. Obviously it's best we avoid apps like these whenever possible but it has its utility still.
Yeah we have one car and mostly don't drive unless we're visiting family out of town. But we are lucky and have a lot of restaurants within walking distance from which we can pick up, which is pretty much how we order these days. Also we have one of the best public transit systems in the US (at least we did pre-pandemic) but taking public transit to pick up food is still a PITA.
But there are lots of others in the city who don't own a car at all because the CTA is enough to get to work, and may live in a food desert without much around.