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Why? Making a phone call removes middlemen from the process.

When I order food over the phone, the only people who need to take a cut of the transaction are the restaurant and maybe the credit card company if I don't pay cash. I can also be confident that my tips are going to the person whose hand I place them in.

When I order online, there are umpteen different companies taking my data and the restaurant's money, and they often obscure where fees and tips go. To me, it seems absurd to involve so many parties in such a simple transaction.

The experience is also usually fungible. Talking to someone doesn't take longer or introduce more error in my experience, so I usually prefer it because there are less externalities and fewer complexities.

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.



Literally the purpose of a phone call is to reach a middleman.

Using computer agents avoids the middleman.

If the restaurant runs a website, there's no "umpteen different companies taking my data".


Building your own online service is more expensive than just using the phone line that they already have.


...or you can contact the restaurant via text message, WhatsApp, etc, and have all the benefits of both phone and online ordering.


You also don't have to sign up anywhere or give your email address for a phone order.


You have to give your phone number, which is worse.


The main difference is that when you place an order with Door Dash or Uber Eats, you get put on a marketing spam email list by default.




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