You’re phrasing it as if requiring all food delivery platforms to get permission from restaurants is an unintended side effect, but again, it’s the entire point of the law.
As to the problem this solves, there are plenty of links on HN alone detailing the harm that these delivery platforms have done to consumers and restaurants both.
Consumers clearly don't think that these platforms are doing them any harm considering how popular they are. Consumers like to be able to order from home through an app from a wide range of restaurants.
This is actually the problem restaurants are facing: How to adapt to change technology and consumers habits? A bit like traditional taxis were blown out of the water by Uber.
Restaurants don't have to offer delivery/takeaway, and indeed traditionally they don't (at least in Europe). They'll have to decide how to adapt and that may include focusing on the in premises experience instead of chasing online sales.
But, again, this bill does not solve problems, and may actually be counter-productive as already explained, and you're certainly not giving me an example to the contrary.
As a side note, and something to consider: these platforms are very good for the taxman as they make tax evasion all but impossible (and I suspect that has a financial impact on more restaurants that they wish to admit).
I'd like to focus on this particular argument, because it's a fallacy I see a lot:
> This is actually the problem restaurants are facing: How to adapt to change technology and consumers habits?
The implication is that technology is an inevitable, uncontrollable force. But of course that's not true: we create technology and the laws around it. Restaurants only need to adapt because GrubHub, et al. have decided they want to shape technology and consumer habits in a way that makes their VC investors money. It makes no more sense to ask restaurants to adapt than it does to tell tech companies that they can't change technology like this.
Put another way: delivery platforms are pissing on restaurants and telling them that it's raining. We can either tell restaurants to suck it up and carry umbrellas now, or we can tell delivery platforms to stop pissing on them. I'd prefer the latter.
That is not a fallacy. That what has been happening, is happening, and will happen. The world is always changing and this is indeed inevitable.
I am puzzled by you putting the blame on these platforms. As said consumers like the service, if they didn't these platforms would have been forgotten failed experiments by now.
Who are you to decide that this is wrong and that people should not be able to order food for home delivery?
You are also ignoring another already stated point: Restaurants are not required to offer takeaway. They do it if they so decide. If you're a restaurant owner and don't like takeaway then just don't offer it and focus on the 'traditional' experience.
It is quite neutral, really. Different, but not inherently better or worse than it was.
We should be careful not to make this an emotional and ideological issue.
The world changing is inevitable, but the manner in which it changes is not — especially with regard to technology, which is created entirely by humans.
But that's not even the issue at hand. The actual technological change — aggregating restaurant menus and allowing consumers to order from them via one interface — is orthogonal to the discussion here. We're talking about the specific business practices that companies implementing that technology have settled upon.
I'm putting the blame on platforms because the change they're pushing involves predatory behavior without consent of the restaurants. That wasn't inevitable in any way — it was a deliberate choice made by delivery platforms to redirect money from restaurants to their investors.
> Who are you to decide that this is wrong and that people should not be able to order food for home delivery?
> You are also ignoring another already stated point: Restaurants are not required to offer takeaway.
These are both straw men. No one is saying that people shouldn't be able to order delivery. No one is saying that restaurants are forced to offer takeout. No one is even saying that delivery platforms shouldn't exist!
The point is that the onus should be on delivery platforms to get restaurants to opt in, not on restaurants to be vigilant against predatory middlemen moving in without warning. That's where this starts and ends.
As to the problem this solves, there are plenty of links on HN alone detailing the harm that these delivery platforms have done to consumers and restaurants both.