DELIVERY

DoorDash Starts a Food Fight

These days, food delivery apps have more suits than Barney Stinson.

DoorDash sued New York City yesterday over a law that would make the delivery app share customer data—including names, emails, phone numbers, and delivery addresses—with the restaurants fulfilling its orders. And that’s the second time DoorDash sued NYC...this week.

The other lawsuit, which saw DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats join forces, concerns commission caps, or the percentage of a food order’s total that delivery apps can charge restaurants for their services.

Some no-background: Pre-pandemic, apps reportedly charged restaurants 20%–40% per order. But when Covid-19 shut down in-person dining, restaurants were forced to rely on delivery. So NYC, plus San Francisco, Chicago, and several other cities, imposed commission caps to help keep restaurants afloat and the dream of sizzling fajitas alive.

• The NYC law that apps are fighting limits them to charging 15% of an order’s total for delivery and 5% for other services, like in-app advertising.
• What delivery apps like DoorDash are angry about is that leaders in NYC and SF traced over their commission cap laws in Sharpie even after restaurants reopened.

It’s part of a bigger battle between apps and regulators

• Chicago sued DoorDash in August for adding a “Chicago Fee” to orders, implying to customers that the city introduced an extra charge. It also went after GrubHub for other allegedly deceptive practices. 
• Portland, OR, is facing a similar problem: UberEats added a “City of Portland Ordinance” fee, while DoorDash added a “Portland City Mandate.”

Bottom line: Food delivery is a brutally tough biz, and even during the pandemic boom times those companies remained unprofitable. More helicopter parenting from cities could threaten their long-term viability even more.—JW

GAMBLING

Fear and Loathing in Macau

As part of its dramatic quest to reshape its consumer culture, the Chinese government is now taking aim at Macau, the largest gambling market in the world. 

What happened: The government of Macau, a special administrative region of China, said it would kick off a 45-day consultation period for the industry, which investors fear could lead to tighter restrictions and...less gambling. 

Gaming stocks are going to have to hit the ATM, because they got wiped out.

• A Bloomberg index of the six Macau casino operators plummeted 23%, the biggest one-day fall on record. 
• US casino stocks with exposure to Macau, such as Wynn, also tumbled yesterday.

Zoom out: Macau is to Las Vegas as Las Vegas is to Atlantic City. Macau’s casinos rake in around $37 billion in annual revenue, roughly 5x more than the Vegas Strip. But this crackdown couldn’t have come at a worse time for Macau, when revenue is already down ~80% from pre-pandemic levels. —NF

STARTUPS

Canva Drags and Drops Its Way into the Top Five

When we needed our hot takes to be cute and Instagrammable, Canva was there with its Futura font and pastel backgrounds. Now, after raising $200 million at a $40 billion valuation, the Australian company is the world’s fifth-most valuable private startup—sandwiching itself between Klarna ($45.6 billion) and Instacart ($39 billion).

Canva, which launched in 2013 with a free service, started out as the go-to design platform for small businesses and anyone who wanted to make trendy posters, but it has since added paid versions for power users and companies. 

• Canva has 60+ million monthly active users in 190 countries, and companies like Salesforce, Marriott, and PayPal all use its enterprise plan.

Two of the company's founders, CEO Melanie Perkins and COO Cliff Obrecht, also said yesterday that they’d donate most of their combined 36% stake in the company to charity. 

Looking ahead...Canva will use the new funding to double its 2,000-person staff over the next year and expand into web design and video editing tools. —MM

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Electric’s track record is tough to beat, with a 105% ROI, according to Forrester’s Total Economic Impact report. 

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GRAB BAG

Key Performance Indicators

Stat: Yellowstone National Park is turning into a zoo...of humans. More people visited the park last month—921,844—than in any August on record, park officials said. That’s a 4.5% bump from last August and a 12% increase from 2019.

Quote: “To be clear, I blame Larry Nassar, but I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse.”

Simone Biles and other American gymnasts testified at a Senate hearing around the FBI’s (mis)handling of sexual abuse allegations against former USA Gymnastics team doctor, Larry Nassar. Nassar is serving what amounts to a life sentence in prison.

Watch: An excellent back-to-office video. (Julia Hobsbawm on Twitter)

CYBERSECURITY

The Future Is Passwordless

Microsoft said that all of its accounts, from Outlook to Xbox, can now be accessed without a password. Which means you’ll be able to log in by using some combo of fingerprint/facial recognition, Microsoft’s authenticator app, and a verification code sent to your email.

This is years in the making. In 2018, Microsoft launched its first version of passwordless logins so people could ditch the old sticky-notes-taped-to-the-laptop storage method. Since then, 200+ million users have opted to live the password-free lifestyle, according to the company.

Big picture: Other tech giants, like Google and Apple, have also been working on passwordless authentication to beef up security on their own accounts—because while it’s more convenient to scan your finger for email access, it’s also more secure.

• Hackers have a much easier time breaking into your email when you’ve been using slightly altered versions of “Blink182Luver” as a password for the last seven years. 
• It’s much harder to swipe a user’s fingerprint or a code sent directly to their phone.

Bottom line: Microsoft said that the rapid shift to digital during the pandemic accelerated its timeline for the rollout. —MM

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Today in boosters: Moderna released data suggesting that immunity conferred by its Covid-19 vaccine decreases over time, which it says supports the use of booster shots. But the FDA said it hasn’t seen enough evidence to conclude that booster shots are needed. 
• NFT marketplace OpenSea acknowledged that its head of product bought NFTs he knew were going to be featured on the site’s front page.
• Taco Bell is testing a monthly subscription service.
• IPO update: Dutch Bros., the coffee chain that sells egregiously sweet drinks across the Western US, and On Running, the Swiss running shoe company backed by Roger Federer, both began trading yesterday.
• To all our readers fasting today for Yom Kippur, we hope it's an easy one.

SPONSORED BY ROUTE

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BREW'S BETS

Book recs on book recs: The 50 biggest books of fall 2021 and the short list for this year’s Booker Prize. 

From the Trinidad bureau: Two interesting responses to that Nicki Minaj tweet.

Meet Neffy: The winner of NPR's 2021 Tiny Desk Contest.

GAMES

The Puzzle Section

Brew Mini: Got this one done in :25. Can you beat that? 

Three Headlines and a Lie

Three of these news headlines are real and one is faker than the phrase, “Sure, I’ll help you move.” Can you guess the odd one out?

1. Lord of the Rings actors praise Italian man who lives as a hobbit
2. The toilet-paper startup Who Gives a Crap just raised $30 million
3. Bookstore boycotts new Sally Rooney novel so staff doesn’t have to interact with ‘sad people’
4. Massachusetts calls on the National Guard to mitigate a school bus driver shortage.

ANSWER

We made up the Sally Rooney one. But go read her new book!

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