[save_ferris]

> But on the flip side, I've observed a lot of restaurant owners not having the time, energy, or know-how to set up even basic online things that could really boost their business.

Isn't part of being a successful business knowing where to put your energy as a business owner? You're saying that restaurants don't necessarily have the ability to make the best decisions for their business, therefore they should be able to opt-out and not opt-in. The flip side of this argument is that these apps can cause undeserved damage to a restaurant's reputation. How do you know what's best for restaurants?

You're arguing that the onus should be on the restaurant to opt out whenever a delivery platform causes problems, but the onus should be on the delivery platforms to create a product that restaurants, not just consumers, want to use.

[_huayra_]

This is already the case with bigger companies. As is the usual case with a lot "disruptive" firms, that "growth hacking" comes from exploiting some regulatory loophole that no one else has seen yet (e.g. most things related to the "sharing economy").

I'm pretty sure if I just declared myself to be a sales partner (idk the term?) of Cisco, IBM, Oracle, etc and just resold their gear, I'd be in hot water legally because my actions would reflect on them.

[jldugger]

>I'm pretty sure if I just declared myself to be a sales partner (idk the term?) of Cisco, IBM, Oracle, etc and just resold their gear, I'd be in hot water legally because my actions would reflect on them.

This is pretty much how local governments buy IT gear. Put out a "I want a router" low volume RFP that the tech companies don't want to bother with, and some local vendor will resell to you. Ideally, they're getting a volume discount and sharing some of it with you at least.

[nradov]

There is nothing illegal about purchasing hardware products from those companies and then selling them on to other customers, even without a formal sales agreement in place. This is the first sale doctrine. However software is different and licenses can't necessarily be resold.

[rattray]

> Isn't part of being a successful business knowing where to put your energy as a business owner?

If you own a small restaurant... are you really in it to be a tycoon of industry? Or are you passionate about the food and the community?

I know I want to spend as little time as possible thinking about sales and marketing, and just focus on improving my product and making my customers happy.

[bobthepanda]

Most small restaurants fail within a year of opening. It’s a very tough business.

Some app claiming that you are partnering with them for delivery when that is not the case is not necessarily positive for a business given potential reputational risk.

[save_ferris]

> I know I want to spend as little time as possible thinking about sales and marketing, and just focus on improving my product and making my customers happy.

That's fine and understandable, but you also have to weigh the risks of delegating those responsibilities to external parties that don't necessarily care about your success because they have thousands if not millions of customers. Not to mention the restaurants that don't want any part of the delivery platforms altogether because they don't like what they're seeing.

In an opt-out model, the restaurant has to take time to deal with (and possibly remove themselves) from a platform that didn't ask for their business, potentially dealing with upset customers along the way. Wasn't the whole point of this idea to reduce time and energy spent on these kinds of activities to focus on the food and the community? If you had no idea that you were on one of these platforms and an angry customer reaches out to you, how does that benefit the restaurant?

It's really strange to see a collectivist for-the-greater-good argument being applied in a business sense here because it's based on two incorrect underlying assumptions: that every business owner wants the same thing (automated marketing and logistics services handled by one provider), and that platforms will always act in the best interests of their users. As a hypothetical business owner, shouldn't I have the right to prevent delivery platforms from using my restaurant without my permission? Say I get a bad experience with a delivery platform once, and I remove myself. Now I have a keep a lookout for any other platform that wants to use my name, all because those platforms made the argument that they know what's best for the restaurants and then didn't measure up. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.