DoorDash Spent $1.4 Million Trying to Stop Mamdani From Becoming Mayor. Now We Know Why.

[u/SnoozeDoggyDog]

https://theintercept.com/2026/09/23/doordash-delivery-nyc-mamdani-wage-theft-settlement/

[u/PhD_Pwnology]

Wow they cheaped out on lobbying as well paying their drivers ROFL.

[u/Ok-Temporary-8243 → u/PhD_Pwnology]

For real. I think Uber, DD, and Lyft spent like 200 mil on prop 22

[u/Frequent_Opportunist → u/Ok-Temporary-8243]

Meanwhile they all have cut driver pay over a dozen times in the last 10 years.

[u/figbunkie → u/Frequent_Opportunist]

Well they can't pay the drivers, they have to pay the lawyers to let them not pay the drivers.

You might be thinking "well if the money is spent anyways, why not just pay the drivers", and the obvious answer is they hate the poor and don't think they deserve money. Lawyers are upper class and more deserving of it.

[u/AimlessWanderer0201 → u/figbunkie]

In many ways they pay even MORE to not pay their workers. It’s happening everywhere. It’s not even fiscally responsible even just looking at cost vs profit. It costs way more to be a colossal asshole.

[u/Martzillagoesboom → u/AimlessWanderer0201]

You kill off competition until you are sitting bruised and battered on top of the losers and then you crank up your pricing to make up for years of lobbying

[u/nerdmor → u/Martzillagoesboom]

In China there's currently a government initiative to crack down on delivery companies because they are all trying to starve eachother to be the only one.

Interesting that the country that says it is not capitalist is winning at capitalism

[u/Frequent_Opportunist → u/figbunkie]

The chief executive officer and co-founder of DoorDash is Tony Xu.

Drivers started calling him "$2 Tony" around 2018 or so.

[u/Downtown_Eye5736 → u/Frequent_Opportunist]

Not even $2 all the time. If a driver gets a stacked order and there's a tip, DoorDash will eat the $2 from the stacked delivery, but if there's no tip then they'll pay the $2 for the second delivery. It's such blatant theft Idk why there's not a countrywide case on them.

[u/notoolinthispool → u/Downtown_Eye5736]

Idk why there's not a countrywide case on them.

✨️𝓵𝓸𝓫𝓫𝔂𝓲𝓷𝓰✨️

[u/mrcheyl → u/Downtown_Eye5736]

$2 for the WHOLE 2nd delivery? That's insane.

[u/Tirras → u/Downtown_Eye5736]

I recently found out that if you opt to pay for Direct to You, the driver not only gets none of that extra, they aren't even told that your order is any different. Their app doesn't even tell them an order paid for Direct.

[u/Lazer726 → u/figbunkie]

Tale as old as time, burn money so that you don't have to spend it. For some reason, they'd rather give their lawyers yachts than their employees a steady stream of revenue

[u/ShoulderGoesPop → u/Ok-Temporary-8243]

There's admittedly a gigantic difference between the city of new York and the whole state of California

[u/persilja → u/ShoulderGoesPop]

I could name a California city (much, much smaller than NYC) where, in the last several elections, it is estimated that one particular entity spent on the order of 3 million per election to get a certain set of city council candidates elected (including mayor).

So yeah, my reaction was "only 1.4 million"?

[u/SirkutBored → u/PhD_Pwnology]

companies like these won't spend a dime without expecting a return somewhere, even if you don't know where that might be.

[u/yungrii → u/SirkutBored]

Imagine using the money to pay employees and give benefits and present a job that is worth it - a job where the employees don't feel like they're being screwed.

[u/SirkutBored → u/yungrii]

nah, it's cheaper to spend a quarter mil to keep out unions. I really hate 'right to work' laws, such a Bush Jr title.

[u/iRyaaanM → u/yungrii]

What’s the point tho? It won’t generate the company more return, that’s all they care about. Spending millions on lobbying for a chance at returns compared to spending millions on employees for no returns is what they see.

[u/jazzy663 → u/iRyaaanM]

In pure, cold calculations, this is correct. No ROI = no action.

I suppose, if there was ever a point to paying people livable wages, it would be to up the standard of living for the people living it. We all share a reality, after all, for better or worse. Surely, in the long run, a company is better off employing happy people, than bitter, resentful people?

Charlie Chaplain said, "We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's sorrow." I like to think that means the common good is generally desired by people and worth promoting. It begs the question, how did we get here...

[u/Frequent_Opportunist → u/PhD_Pwnology]

What did you expect from doordash?! They pay drivers $2 per trip and steal the tips.

[u/Tiiimmmaayy → u/Frequent_Opportunist]

I picked up Ubereats deliveries again a few months ago to earn some extra cash and learned they dropped their pay to $1.5. Lmao

Uber and Lyft pay is complete shit now too. There should really be a national strike from doing those gig jobs. Make em really sweat. But I know that could never happen.

[u/CosmicSpaghetti → u/Tiiimmmaayy]

I seriously don't understand why it's still a thing.

Drivers hate it, restaurants often lose money & hate it, and the customer gets overpriced cold food and often hate it.

The only actual winner here is the corporation - eating with both hands from both ends.

[u/hastagelf → u/CosmicSpaghetti]

they barely make a profit either actually. they just burn through money.

this is a lose lose for every single person

[u/outremonty → u/CosmicSpaghetti]

Same reason AI is flourishing: there are just enough brain dead consumers out there who put convenience above everything continuing to patronize these parasitic services.

[u/Nwyrh → u/CosmicSpaghetti]

My hot take has been to nationalize Door Dash Lyft and Uber since they're not doing any of the work and just parasitizing the process

Maybe throw in Visa and Mastercard while we're at it

[u/lFightForTheUsers → u/CosmicSpaghetti]

Maybe building our cities so spread out to where people feel like they have to use food delivery services all the time was a mistake. Some of my favorite food runs have been buying quesadillas from a food truck right outside my hotel or a buzzed walk to the local diner right around the corner for some 2am drunk food.

[u/AllergicToBullshit24]

Letting corporations have more political influence than actual voting citizens is one of the most fucked up things that's ever happened to democracy

[u/Remote_Sherbet_1499 → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

13 years is all it took for Citizens United to destroy democracy.

[u/rook119 → u/Remote_Sherbet_1499]

I just want to live in a country where I have the same rights as a corporation.

[u/Geno0wl → u/rook119]

Have you tried being born to rich parents?

[u/rook119 → u/Geno0wl]

Why couldn't mom and dad be 2 soulless corporations that engaged in a merger?

[u/Quaczarr → u/rook119]

Mmmm. IRS officials probably loving this dirty talk from you.

[u/Ballsofpoo → u/Quaczarr]

They'll never know since 30% of them were fired by that immigrant with a chainsaw

[u/Sr_DingDong → u/Ballsofpoo]

illegal immigrant with a chainsaw

[u/sadsackspinach → u/rook119]

Well, when an LLC and a corporation love each other very much…

[u/bretttwarwick → u/sadsackspinach]

I read that the female corporation will bite the head off the LLC after mating.

[u/SkunkMonkey → u/bretttwarwick]

No, that's Private Equity, the side piece.

[u/zero573 → u/bretttwarwick]

Well, from what has been said repeatedly by LLC experts is that Female corporations has ways of shutting down if it didn’t like the hostile takeover.

[u/Alive_Store_6298 → u/rook119]

The nice thing is that there is a growing demand to kill Citizens United. Abdul El-Sayed is running for Senate in Michigan under the banner of never taking money from corporations. He seems to be quite successful so far.

[u/TumblingForward → u/Alive_Store_6298]

Hopefully I don't get filtered but, to help spread the word a bit since I haven't seen any mention of it here so far, Hawaii figured out a very VERY old interpretation of a state defining what a corporation is and set the rule as it isn't able to donate or something like that. There was a really interesting youtube video on it that I watched and it really makes sense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBGpEcPrbso

Hopefully that will be at least one way Citizens United and it's related rulings get wrecked as I'm so fucking tired of the crazy bass ackwards reality we live in. Corporations can change their names or drop an offending business (like Amazon does with contractor delivery companies) and get away with it but lmao at trying to do that as an actual person.

[u/thehalfwit → u/TumblingForward]

Essentially, corporations can't exist without a state charter. Since it's the state who gives birth to the corporation, the state has every right to set limits on what corporations can and cannot do. It's a genius strategy.

[u/vortexmak → u/TumblingForward]

Something similar is on the ballot in Montana , where they are trying to redefine a corporation to get around Citizens united

[u/AttorneyAdvice → u/TumblingForward]

you can't get filtered because I upvoted

[u/Erazzphoto → u/rook119]

You have to pay for that son

[u/rook119 → u/Erazzphoto]

I changed my name to a PO Box in Delaware, does that work?

[u/BathroomEyes → u/Remote_Sherbet_1499]

Also, the ACLU supports the Citizen’s United decision. Never forget.

[u/EquivalentBeach8780 → u/BathroomEyes]

Have they ever explained why?

[u/Inside_Support510 → u/EquivalentBeach8780]

Yes. Their argument was that they supported the free speech part of what the ruling was trying to achieve, but they said that the same campaign limits that applied to an individual should apply to a corporation; however, just because a corporation was donating, we should not attempt to limit their free speech.

The ACLU wanted more avenues to raising money to be allowed to allow more people to become candidates without independent wealth.

I think it was misguided by them to not realize that it would become this clusterfuck that feeds into itself by having a neutered SEC that allows business consolidation and then bigger donations by an increasingly smaller group of corpos as they conglomerate.

[u/Lunavalve → u/Inside_Support510]

I would like to note that the ACLU is more nuanced than many know. Plenty of State/Local chapters do not agree with National and vice versa. There’s a lot more going on than what is in headlines. Sure there are some fuck ups but overall they are trying their damndest to help the little guy.

[u/colinstalter → u/EquivalentBeach8780]

Any rule that requires the government to determine what political speech is legitimate and how much political speech is appropriate is difficult to reconcile with the First Amendment.

It's hard to be a free speech absolutist without also thinking that collections of people (unions, corporations) should have the right to political speech.

ACLU does support campaign finance reform though.

[u/Cent1234 → u/colinstalter]

Actually, it's simple: a person has the right to free speech.

If ten people agree, they don't form Voltron, and you don't get an 11th person with rights; you still have ten individual people who all happen to agree with each other.

[u/Punpun4realzies → u/Cent1234]

Let's take it a step further. In a world with integrated media that can be accessed to advance the political aims of the group, does it make sense that it stops being speech when you have to pay in order to access your audience? And if one member of the group is allowed to use money to speak (by purchasing internet ads or spots on the radio or any other way), why can't the group pool their money to more efficiently spend it?

The truth is that campaign finance laws are super, super complicated, and any simple answer is guaranteed to fall apart as soon you think through a scenario where you don't personally oppose the message being spread.

I would personally be in favor of much more stringent contribution limits, from individuals and from organizations, combined with robust and generous public funding for campaigns that reach a petition limit, but that's been contrary to the Supreme Court's interpretation of the constitution since the 70s, not since Citizens United.

[u/drigancml → u/BathroomEyes]

Whaaaat?! TIL

[u/jeffderek → u/BathroomEyes]

I mean, the Citizen's United decision isn't terrible. The results of it are, but that's not up to the Supreme Court. The problem is that the Supreme Court said "hey this particular method of restricting the speech of an organization is unconstitutional" and Congress said "well fuck it I guess we won't try anything else".

[u/Fuck_your_coupons → u/Remote_Sherbet_1499]

I remember this guy at my church that worked at McDonalds that was so smug when that passed like it would personally benefit him. It's wild how these billionaires have people slinging fries thinking giving the billionaires more power will benefit them.

[u/big_duo3674 → u/Fuck_your_coupons]

They 100% beleive that just hard, dedicated work can also make you a millionaire some day, as long as you just kiss the corporate ring every day when you clock in. Seriously, they'll work at places like McDonald's or Walmart for years and years, finally get promoted to shift manager, department manager, or some other lowly "management" position like that when they're in their 40s, and then actually think to themselves "I've done it! I'm finally on my way up!" They'll daydream about making it to regional director, or even a VP, and start planning the layout of the huge mansion they'll have, and how their trophy wife will be waiting with dinner ready every night. As their smiling and looking off into the distance, a voice on the radio says "John, some kid puked in the men's room. You are the only certified biohazard cleanup employee working tonight, so please grab the mop and bucket and head there right away. Don't forget to put down a 'Wet Floor' sign when you are finished". Then they thank daddy Trump for being the sole person responsible for them getting a promotion after 15 years, and go back to daydreaming about Ferraris and $1000 blackjack hands in Vegas

[u/Fuck_your_coupons → u/big_duo3674]

I love Facebook comments from people saying I've worked there for 10 years and never took a sick day why am I being laid off. They fundamentally can't fathom the idea that blind loyalty matters fuck all to major corporations.

[u/badamant → u/Remote_Sherbet_1499]

Please blame the Republican Party by name.
They created and passed (via their corrupt judges) Citizens United.

[u/SirkutBored → u/Remote_Sherbet_1499]

watch the movie Distinguished Gentleman with Eddie Murphy. this has been a known secret far longer than Citizens United allowed it to be out in the open.

[u/paradigm_shift2027 → u/Remote_Sherbet_1499]

They knew exactly what they were doing. So corporations and billionaires now own the Supreme Court and both political parties, and are aligned with radical Christo-fascists and Nationalists to destroy our democracy. So…what kind of government do we have now? A Corporate Socialist Christo-fascist Oligarchy?

[u/Any_Sale2030 → u/Remote_Sherbet_1499]

No.  It was one party that people keep voting for because that party tells them they will ALL become rich SOME day.  And they believe them.  

[u/adumbrative → u/Any_Sale2030]

While that same one party keeps taking actions to impoverish those same people...

[u/Intraluminal → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

Then support overthrowing Citizens United: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-corporate-power-reset-that-makes-citizens-united-irrelevant/ https://scanlon.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1961

[u/MonkeyzzPaw → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

I hated citizens united when it passed.

I hate it still.

Corporations are NOT PEOPLE, just like the GOVERNEMENT IS NOT IN CHARGE OF THE PEOPLE.

Corporations are comprised of PEOPLE, and the governement WORKS FOR THE PEOPLE.

[u/binger5 → u/MonkeyzzPaw]

If corporations want to be people they need to be jailed for life if the company causes any death.

[u/Some-Relative4150 → u/binger5]

Best I can do is a 1-5% fine of the profits made.

[u/spoonybard326 → u/binger5]

I’ll believe that corporations are people when Texas executes one.

[u/Fuck_your_coupons → u/binger5]

It's hard for me to care about what's legal to do as a citizen when there is literally no meaningful punishment for a corporation that performs the same actions.

[u/2Completion2Ography → u/binger5]

If corporations want to be people they need to be

executed for crimes.

[u/davwad2 → u/MonkeyzzPaw]

IIRC corporations were people before slaves were.

[u/Intraluminal → u/MonkeyzzPaw]

Then support overthrowing Citizens United: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-corporate-power-reset-that-makes-citizens-united-irrelevant/ https://scanlon.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1961

[u/zoinksbadoinks → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

“If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”

― David Frum, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic

[u/Herbal77 → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

Thank Ronald Reagan for his trickle down economics for give so much power to corps and only grew from there.

Its been 40 yrs in the works

[u/InvestigatorOk7015 → u/Herbal77]

Neoliberalism ruined a lot

[u/Low_Challenge_2827 → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

America is not a democracy. The sooner people realise it the better.

[u/art-is-t → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

American democracy

[u/Phyrexian_Archlegion → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

We don’t live in a democracy anymore. The correct term is an oligarchy

[u/FoxCQC → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

Corporations always have to be regulated. You cannot trust them to their own virtues.

[u/lvga25]

Mamdani said, “The size of this settlement shows the damage done to workers by wage theft. But it also shows that enforcement matters.”

[u/Aegi → u/[deleted]]

"Environmental theft" is a term I have seen used before, so if we include that, then I would challenge your claim with that likely being the bigger one as we cannot get back extinct organisms who's DNA is lost to time, but we can get people back to a certain spot on our socioeconomic ladder.

[u/Internal-Plantain-56 → u/lvga25]

ANDREW CUOMO PUNCHING AIR FROM HIS HOME IN WESTCHESTER

[u/UselessInsight → u/Internal-Plantain-56]

I’ve never been so angry at the NY State Democratic Party.

You don’t love socialists running for office? Then do BASIC GOVERNMENT SHIT. That’s all people want. They want potholes fixed, snow plowed, landlords punished for not fixing things, and wage theft dealt with.

Don’t let a nepo baby sex pest be your main candidate. Don’t let insane former cops run either.

[u/Internal-Plantain-56 → u/UselessInsight]

Agreed.

That election made me done with the dnc. Fuck Schumers fuck Jefferies fuck Pelosi.

All of them need to go.

[u/datafox00 → u/Internal-Plantain-56]

Glad pelosi is no longer going to run.

[u/ApophisDayParade → u/Internal-Plantain-56]

Man Schumers is a schmuk though I at least kind of get it, but I don’t know how Jefferies was ever elected

[u/fresh-dork → u/UselessInsight]

literally what socialist thing has mamdani done? fill potholes, go after lyft, release docs showing that 9/11 workers were lied to. i guess the grocery store thing, if you squint, but i'd file that under 'addressing a gap directly'

[u/UselessInsight → u/fresh-dork]

Nothing. The word “socialist” has been Overton-Windowed to having zero functional meaning.

[u/bushsniffa → u/UselessInsight]

Anything that benefits any thing but me directly.

"Socialism is the Republican word for anything that helps the People." – Harry Truman

[u/sneakyplanner → u/UselessInsight]

Socialism is when the government is used to do anything but inflict suffering on subaltern groups.

[u/1quirky1 → u/UselessInsight]

Upvote for nepo baby sex pest.

[u/sadsackspinach → u/Internal-Plantain-56]

It always brings me so much joy to see everyone uniting to hate on Cuomo

[u/Ok-Temporary-8243 → u/sadsackspinach]

It will never not be hilarious that cuomo lost the mayoral election in part because a crazy cat man hated him so much he would rather have a "socialist" in office than him

[u/Internal-Plantain-56 → u/Ok-Temporary-8243]

I can’t believe I got to vote against Cuomo twice!!

[u/sadsackspinach → u/Internal-Plantain-56]

I would have voted against him a third time if I could etc etc

[u/Internal-Plantain-56 → u/Ok-Temporary-8243]

Most New Yorkers hate westchester Andrew.

[u/sadsackspinach → u/Ok-Temporary-8243]

Legitimately my favourite part of the entire election. Mamdani is just that charming uwu

[u/Own_Laugh_5080 → u/sadsackspinach]

I will forever remember the day I learned Andrew Cuomo has pierced nips.

[u/Dioxid3 → u/lvga25]

From a perspective of a Scandinavian, that has a really opaque view on your politics*, this Mamdani guy seems pretty fucking cool

*I feel like this is worth mentioning. If I didn’t spend as much time as I do on reddit, all I’d hear is Trump this and Trump that.

[u/amazing_asstronaut → u/Dioxid3]

He is really fucking cool, and he's singlehandedly showing us how bad most mayors let alone higher up politicians actually are. Granted, other mayors have nowhere near as much media savvy and presence as this guy, his team really went all out on extreme media saturation even before the election. Mind you, all largely centred around positive and constructive content. I mean a lot of the messaging before the election was how Cuomo is bad, and showing the bad things done. But since then it's all here's what we fixed, we made food for kids in school, fixed the roads etc. to the point where people have got to wonder, what the fuck are all the mayors even doing?

[u/DakkaDakka24 → u/Dioxid3]

I like Mamdani a lot, but the reality is that he shouldn't be exceptional. This is how leadership is supposed to look at the basic level. The fact that he stands out so much is both a compliment to him, and a statement on just how low the standard for governing is in America.

[u/Arnold_Shortzweather]

Haha so they ended up paying for lobbying AND the fine? Love that for them

[u/IAmADuckSizeHorseAMA → u/Arnold_Shortzweather]

Still not even close to how much they've profited from the crime. 

[u/Confident-Low-2696 → u/IAmADuckSizeHorseAMA]

that's my main issue with most financial crimes, they always know they make more than the justice punish them for ...

[u/IAmADuckSizeHorseAMA → u/Confident-Low-2696]

Makes it more of a tax than a punishment, really.

[u/Just2LetYouKnow → u/IAmADuckSizeHorseAMA]

Welcome to the rot.

[u/cheese_is_available → u/Confident-Low-2696]

And if they're not they go broke and good luck getting any money from them anyway.

[u/gforce1616]

DoorDash executives should go to jail for this. Stealing wages is a crime.

[u/Middle-Nerve1732 → u/gforce1616]

Yes and the fact they tried to lobby against it shows intent and prior knowledge. But come on white collar criminals paying for their actions? Doubtful

[u/GitEmSteveDave → u/Middle-Nerve1732]

Yes. The case against them started in 2023.

[u/beanakajulian2408 → u/Middle-Nerve1732]

Not coming at you, I just hate how often we say that's just the way it is. We need leaders, not rulers, just people willing to organize our collective power. And we need to protect ourselves and our leaders in a new power struggle.

[u/boverly721 → u/gforce1616]

Steal a thousand dollars and it's your problem. Steal a billion dollars and it's everybody else's problem. It's ass backwards and needs to be remedied. Crime is now just a cost of doing business. Legalizing corruption doesn't make it OK, it's still corrupts our economy and culture.

[u/Monteze → u/boverly721]

We acknowledge that murder should be illegal and punished because it is harmful to society practically speaking outside of morals/ethics. We put people away for life or kill them because it is such a break of our social contract and humanity.

But if you cause even more harm in the way companies like DD do...well suddenly we have to pretend we can't apply the same logic. Suddenly its just too complicated :C its "different" .

[u/Rethink_Repeat → u/Monteze]

And DD only steals money from their employees... Now, let's take a look at healthcare insurers who literally kill their customers for profit.

[u/Rocktopod → u/Monteze]

Murder is illegal because it breaks the state's monopoly on violence, which is the very thing that the state derives all of its other powers from.

[u/Monteze → u/Rocktopod]

Well that is a part of it but we'd all agree even if we had to start over making murder i.e non-self defense killing wrong in your society is good regardless. Even if we didn't accept the state having a monopoly on violence.

[u/RupanIII → u/gforce1616]

The movie Nuremberg on Netflix made me think a lot about individuals being responsible for the actions of a group. That's what the trials were all about. We really should apply that same legal principle to corporations.

[u/Schonke → u/gforce1616]

Corporate death penalty.

Force the company to dissolve. Bar any C-suite and board people from holding such positions for 5-10 years.

[u/Eternal_Bagel → u/gforce1616]

That should absolutely come with a grand theft charge for the executives who oversaw this theft

[u/SlazarusVC]

Quite honestly one of the most un-neccessarily cruel and evil companies of the last 15 years. Very glad that they are in the "find-out" stage now.

[u/Ruthrfurd-the-stoned → u/SlazarusVC]

I struggle to understand how the company still exists. The drivers hate it, the customer hates it, and from what I’ve heard restaurants hate it. How do they exist?

[u/KhonMan → u/Ruthrfurd-the-stoned]

Easy. Customers hate it but not enough to not use it. Same as TicketMaster.

[u/SlazarusVC → u/KhonMan]

Agreed, but Ticketmaster is different because often they are the only platform you can use to purchase a ticket. With Doordash, you often have at least 1-2 other options (if not more) and I think people choose is simply because it's the known brand.

[u/Geno0wl → u/SlazarusVC]

You can avoid using all of the delivery apps entirely pretty easily. Just go get your own food in your own car. Bonus: it is usually faster and always cheaper.

Inversely I can't choose to not use ticket master. They are the only way to see shows.

[u/Blueguerilla → u/Geno0wl]

Actually if everyone stopped going to Ticketmaster shows, in a very short time their monopoly would be shattered. But that would require people making the slightest bit of sacrifice, so of course it will never happen…

[u/FlamboyantPirhanna → u/Blueguerilla]

This is just trying to put the responsibility on the people. Stop it. Blame the government for refuses to enforce antitrust laws for the past 40 years. Boycotts almost never work because they require consistency from a large amount of people. These companies need to be dismantled and broken up. We already have the laws and power to do it, we just don’t.

[u/mtranda → u/FlamboyantPirhanna]

I get your point, but not going to a concert is like... the least sacrificial thing you can do. Not only do you teach the company a lesson (collectively) but you even end up with more money (personally).

On the other hand, I can see a government going hands-off because "the market self-regulates". Oh, wait, it's what is already happening.

[u/Otherwise_Appeal7765 → u/Blueguerilla]

Actually its economics unfortunately... even if we got everyone to agree not to go... suddenly TicketMaster will try to buy just enough support to destroy this boycott...

A celebrity endorsement or two there...

A donation to important local charities here...

and most importantly... absolutely cheap ticket prices with ads telling you it would be wrong if you missed out on the opportunity to go to this celebrity's concert with your loved ones for so cheap... you have the biggest opportunity to get great memories with them, dont waste it...

Monopolies are not built to be broken. The only thing that has ever destroyed monopolies in the history of the US and the world, is government action.

But well, now that you allow for corporations and monopolies to directly pay these policy makers' salaries, what the hell do you expect to happen now?

Genuinely, get ready for a world of monopolies again, get ready for huge income inequality, get ready for money to do the talking. History is a cycle, it never repeats, but often rhymes. We had private police (pinkertons) breaking up unions and killing leaders, dont think it wont happen again.

[u/FuckDataCaps → u/SlazarusVC]

The alternatives are all doing the same.

[u/anormalgeek → u/Ruthrfurd-the-stoned]

Convenience.

A totally different issue, but I feel like this is essentially the same concept Gabe Newell talked about years ago when discussing how to combat software piracy. It's not a price issue. It's a service issue. Doordash sucks as a company, but the service provided is REALLY convenient.

[u/SlazarusVC → u/anormalgeek]

Bingo. Love that note from Gabe. Convenience will really win out almost every single time and it's underpinned so much of what we hate about "tech"

[u/SlazarusVC → u/Ruthrfurd-the-stoned]

It's that people are willing to trade dignity for convenience. That's a tale as old as time.

[u/Main-Cheesecake3287 → u/Ruthrfurd-the-stoned]

Customers don’t hate it. For every complaint there’s probably a thousand deliveries that go off fine. It’s like Airbnb, works fine if you’re not a moron. Don’t order takeout that travels like shit, don’t order from far away, don’t use third party delivery expecting it to be cheap.

[u/Dermott_54 → u/Ruthrfurd-the-stoned]

There was a period where they were calling the bar where I work multiple times a week trying to get us on the platform, despite me saying every time "We are not interested. Stop calling here."

Two weeks ago, an actual person came in and I got to say to his face that I'm not interested in enriching his shit company.

[u/oby100 → u/Ruthrfurd-the-stoned]

What do you mean? Tons of people are addicted to DD. They don’t actually hate it. Drivers similarly have become dependent on it. There’s no easy replacement for whatever their specific benefit to driving for them is.

Restaurant owners love it. Workers hate it.

[u/rook119 → u/SlazarusVC]

there isn't any "find-out" stage. In the end its just a cost of doing business rounding error. Door Dash is still free to steal millions from workers and customers w/o the threat of jail time.

[u/ExtentNo3020]

This is why lobbying should be eliminated and make illegal.

[u/APRengar → u/ExtentNo3020]

What sucks is lobbying is just a bribe at this point.

The concept of "lobbying" originally came from a time where constituents would have to physically send people via horse & buggy to go to Washington, so they could stand in the lobby (hence, lobbying) of congress waiting for politicians to leave, so they could intercept them and try to speak to them on their issues.

Like, "We have a farm that sells animal feed, and these guys have a rancher farm that needs animal feed, if you approve a road that connects us, we can provide much more food and tax revenue."

Which the politicians in Washington would then discuss and approve/disapprove.

These were average joes who just scrounged up enough money to send someone to Washington on their behalf.

But that isn't modern day lobbying, which is just rich people giving money to campaigns, super PACs, or some kind of dark money organization, to push legislation their way.

Frankly, if we banned campaign donations and brought back actual lobbying, aka average joes being able to actually talk to politicians, the country would be in a much nicer place.

Like, part of Mamdani's appeal is his team actually listens to people on the ground level. Imagine if every politician had to at the very least listen to their constituents and not just rich donors. I'm not saying every little guy is inherently good or correct, but I absolutely trust someone who lives in a community for what to do about that community than rich assholes, who would never even be near that community. Especially this current batch of rich sociopaths.

[u/Ninjahkin → u/APRengar]

Lobbying Bribery would be a more apt name nowadays

[u/Fuck_your_coupons → u/ExtentNo3020]

I was in line for a diner that was near the Michigan capital where this girl that worked at the capital was talking about how she brings lobbyists to that diner because it's so loud that she can't hear them and she gets a free meal. I always thought that was funny because that's how lobbyists should be treated.

[u/SkiingAway → u/ExtentNo3020]

Lobbying in the form of expressing their desires to government officials is fine enough, obvious freedom of speech, and to some extent necessary.

Lobbying in the form of bribery via campaign donations/PAC spending on their behalf, vacations, luxury meals, cushy jobs after leaving office, etc - that is all the sort of thing that needs to be crushed.

[u/bumbling-bee1 → u/ExtentNo3020]

How is it not bribes at this point?

[u/ExtentNo3020 → u/bumbling-bee1]

That’s the thing, they are.

[u/WhereMyWeirdosAt]

We need to end citizens united and allowing corporations to do this shit!

[u/Aggressive-Expert-69]

1.4 million? For lobbying??? Jesus these guys are fucking cheap. The CEO of Google spent 100 million to avoid paying 13 million more in taxes. Doordash needs to step their pussy game up if they want to get things moving.

[u/A_literal_HousePlant → u/Aggressive-Expert-69]

100 million to avoid paying 13 million? That's the art of the deal right there

[u/2xtc → u/A_literal_HousePlant]

If it's an annual saving it'd pay off after 8 years

[u/spewing_honey_badger → u/2xtc]

On this particular issue, sure. But there will always be new taxes proposed and more money spent on lobbying. If they do this every year to fight a new proposed tax, all they’re doing is paying taxes to lobbyists instead of the American people.

[u/grchelp2018 → u/spewing_honey_badger]

all they’re doing is paying taxes to lobbyists instead of the American people.

many of them would prefer this.

[u/Willrkjr → u/spewing_honey_badger]

Part of it has to be cultural too. Sure. They’re only getting 13 million in “savings” in the short term, but in a world where they don’t do that and accept a 13 mil “tax”, what happens when now the Overton window has shifted and people want more? It’s very easy to keep a boulder from rolling down a hill so long as you’ve got it stopped at the top, once that ball starts rolling tho suddenly you need to invest way more in making it stop again (and who knows how far it’s rolled in the meantime?)

[u/Orange_Tang → u/A_literal_HousePlant]

Precedent matters. That's why they spend so much. They know if caselaw says they can go after corporations for these types of things they'll lose a lot more than that in the longterm. Same reason oil and gas companies always end up settling cases instead of letting them go to trial. Easier and cheaper to pay them off now than to set a legal precedent that can be used for other similar cases in the future.

[u/Astartes2435]

MAGA is losing their minds over the settlement on the Meta apps, it’s hilarious 

[u/Lstgamerwhlstpartner → u/Astartes2435]

When have they ever been in any other state?

[u/everyoneisadj → u/Astartes2435]

in what way?

[u/iPhone_6s → u/everyoneisadj]

Companies being held responsible for their actions = communism. Conservatives still live under the delusion that America has a free and fair market, and therefore, companies should be allowed to do anything they are able to do.

[u/Substance59 → u/iPhone_6s]

Most of these aren't people. They're bots. Facebook especially is totally infested with them

[u/DeapVally → u/everyoneisadj]

They're probably just eating the crayons they were already going to eat today anyway 🤷🏼‍♂️

[u/L0pkmnj → u/DeapVally]

Crayons are a Liberal Dish. MAGA eats only the finest American made lead paint chips

[u/Middle-Nerve1732 → u/Astartes2435]

Sometimes I’m jealous of how dumb they are. Must be pleasant to go through life like that, just getting all your talking points from Fox News and blindly repeating them without applying critical thinking 

[u/0RGASMIK → u/Middle-Nerve1732]

I’ve met a few “rational” conservatives and the rational is a form of Stockholm syndrome. If we don’t let the corporations do what they want then they’ll take the jobs elsewhere.

[u/StormyBlueLotus → u/0RGASMIK]

It's usually privileged people who grew up in an above-average situation and have coasted through life on easy mode as the beneficiaries of the corrupted institutions which enabled that, so they need to rationalize everything which allows said institutions to exist and operate the way they do.

A great related example to this kind of delusional justification is how many people cling to the idea that the American healthcare system is better than singlepayer and say the latter is too expensive or leads to worse care or is communist, despite the existence of dozens of countries with such a system which spend less than half as much per person as America does, have healthier populations, and are most certainly not communist. 

[u/Sponge-28 → u/Middle-Nerve1732]

It genuinely hurts to spend more than 2 seconds thinking about their thought process (or complete lack thereof). Politics will always be very divisive, but it gets to a point where words don't even describe how utterly thick you are to be devoted to something that isn't just ruining your life, your friends + family and those of your fellow country, but the rest of the world because you want to support arguably the most destructively dumb leader in modern history.

[u/half-baked_axx]

The government is such a cheap prostitute for corporations. Lobby 1M to get hundreds of millions even possibly billions in return.

[u/chaosilike]

So I bet if everyone did an audit, they would probably find out they were screwing everybody.

[u/CurrentlyLucid]

This guy is showing Democrats how to do shit, they would do well to pay attention.

[u/Independent-Reader → u/CurrentlyLucid]

He's showing Democrats what a spine is and how to use it.

[u/lloooll → u/CurrentlyLucid]

This guy is showing Democrats how to do shit, they would do well to pay attention.

i didnt know mamdami was the head of new york city department of consumer and worker protection in 2023. lol

[u/Aggressive-Expert-69 → u/CurrentlyLucid]

Its just a shame he cant run for president

[u/SuperTeamRyan → u/CurrentlyLucid]

The lawsuit began under adams btw.

[u/jamesvtm]

We need to get money and corporations out of politics!

[u/Any_Sale2030]

Billionaires are just bad people.  Bad to the bone.  Read any religions “bible”.  They ALL say the same thing about the rich.  

[u/Jadguy → u/Any_Sale2030]

Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. I don’t know why so many Christian’s celebrate these rich corrupt billionaires when it’s clear all of them are evil.

[u/Geno0wl → u/Jadguy]

Because most of them are cultural Christians who treat church like a book club and not something to actually strive to live by.

[u/Sniflix → u/Any_Sale2030]

Democracy and billionaires cannot coexist.

[u/TwilitSky]

"In May 2024, the company agreed to pay $75,000 in a settlement after New York Attorney General Letitia James found that the company routinely rejected applicants with criminal histories in violation of the New York City Fair Chance Act. In February 2025, the attorney general settled with DoorDash for $16.75 million after the company used tips to subsidize workers’ guaranteed pay."

This company is a freaking crime wave.

[u/erocknine]

1.4 mil doesn't seem like much

[u/IniNew → u/erocknine]

You saw the Susan Collins story? She was paid $150k in exchange for $32 million in defense contracts. It’s absolutely wild how cheap our elected officials are.

[u/zeke780 → u/IniNew]

It's way more complex than this. A good example is the head of IAC donating a normal amount of money to Hillary and bill clintons campaigns. But outside of that their daughter was getting like 11 million a year as a board member, they paid crazy money for them to do talks, trips, investor "conferences", no show consulting jobs, etc.

You can move millions, upon millions into the orbit or directly to a politician in a legit way that isn't a line item on a campaign funding sheet.

[u/ryuzaki49]

Corporations should not spend money on political campaigns.

If the Doordash board don't want certain policies or elected candidates they should spend their own money not the company's

[u/penny-wise]

“DoorDash contributed $1 million to Fix the City, a super PAC that spent $31 million in the mayoral election, accounting for close to half of the total outside spending in the race, largely funded by big corporations and billionaires.”

Imagine how much $31 million could have done to “Fix the City.”

[u/TootinFartin-ll]

can we just delete DD and Uber from society? a lot of problems would go away.

[u/NosyCookBogtrotter]

It's sad how there's so many stupid and useless worthless people who don't understand just how fucking shitty anyone against mamdani is. Even when it's this obvious that we've elected nothing but leeches and vultures into our government except a handful like him and they're demonizing him while he fixes things. country's cooked af

[u/unfairrobot]

Fuck these toxic corporations making hundreds of millions in profit who won't even pay people properly. They can fuck right off.

[u/Fun_Zombie_6796]

I want people in jail too.

[u/justkeepswimming2026]

Makes you wonder how much more $$$ they are withholding from other states

[u/amitnrg1]

Obviously this is not something new for people,but imagine how many capable candidates were stopped by such cronies,how many outright to quite close to unconstitutional policies exists because of such companies. Democracy is suppose to be of the people and the companies are suppose to answer to the government,but too many get away with it.

[u/Taphouselimbo]

Time for CEOs and others in the c suite to enjoy prison time for the theft. If corporations can contribute millions to avoid being held to account they can face justice on behalf of all the people they stole from.

[u/ghos7_ger]

DoorDash's board of directors will face no consequences for being scammers? Unions should collect their kneecaps.

[u/CurlOfTheBurl11]

Abolish Citizens United

[u/Gilbert38]

Why is anyone surprised, this is normal behaviour for large companies in America today….

[u/CulturedReaving692]

This investigation predates Mamdani

[u/nucifero]

Hearing stuff like this always seems to shake me out of the matrix. How dystopian is it for companies to spend any money like this. In the words of Professor Farnsworth. "I don't want to live on this planet anymore".

[u/Gorguts1974]

Haven't used Doordash in two years (or any others). You should all stop if you are. It's overpriced and always fucked up and a pain to get any kind of refund.

[u/armaedes]

$1.4 million is nothing! They make that with two 5 Guys deliveries.

[u/PelagicSwim]

In no way am I supporting DoorDash but would anyone 'in this day and age' expect them to do anything other than take a punt at 'buying' the cheapest product to sell at a grossly inflated markup? Pity they hadn't spent a much higher percentage of their ultimate cost.
Way to go Zohran Mamdani !

[u/reckless150681]

Feeling a real full-circle moment from when I saw him on Subwaytakes

[u/in1gom0ntoya]

citizens united was one of the worst decisions made

[u/TheYell0wDart]

It should be a fucking crime to do that.