# Grubhub Fee Strategy and Social Media Shifts

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-02-03

## Transcript

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Upscrolled has zoomed past 2.5 million users.
I'm Imran Shake in your daily crunch for Tuesday, featuring three big tech headlines.
Starts right now.
Grubhub is making a bold move in an effort to close the gap with competitors, DoorDash and Uber Eats.
On Monday, the company unveiled both its Super Bowl 2026 commercial and a significant policy change.
Starting soon, all delivery and service fees will be eliminated for restaurant orders exceeding $50.
This initiative could deliver significant cost savings for customers and may increase Scrubhub's appeal in a fiercely competitive market.
The new Super Bowl advertisement stars actor George Clooney at an extravagant dinner party.
As the host dramatically asks, Who will eat the fees?
Clooney responds, Grubhub will eat the fees.
Grubhub says this is a permanent offering aimed at putting more money back in customers' pockets amid challenging economic times.
The company notes that delivery and service fees on orders over $50 usually average about $13 per transaction across food delivery apps.
Grubhub's move to permanently eliminate fees on all orders over $50 stands out as a unique offer in the food delivery space.
Neither DoorDash nor Uber Eats offers a permanent waiver of delivery and service fees on large orders.
Their promotions are typically limited-time offers or tied to paid subscription services, such as Dash Pass or Uber One, which often apply only to select restaurants or are subject to other restrictions.
Additionally, this new offering comes as Grubhub faces challenges in user growth and trails behind its competitors.
The delivery company saw its monthly active users decline by 20% year over year in 2025 to $8 million, according to marketing intelligence firm Censor Tower.
DoorDash, meanwhile, boasts nearly 50 million monthly active users.
Rings AI-powered search party feature, which leverages the company's network of cameras to find lost dogs, is now available to all ring customers in the U.S.
For the first time, the feature will be made available to those who don't own a ring camera too.
Now, launched last fall, Search Party uses AI to find possible matches for lost dogs across neighbors' camera footage.
When a neighbor reports a lost dog in the ring app, nearby outdoor cameras use AI to scan for possible matches.
If a match is found, that camera owner receives an alert and can optionally choose to share any related video clips with their neighbor who reported the pet missing.
They'll also have an option to call the owner or send them a message without sharing their own phone number.
Ring says the feature has been reuniting more than a dog per day since its launch.
Previously, Search Party was only available to customers with a ring camera installed.
The company is now making Search Party accessible to anyone through the Ring app.
Alongside the launch and expansion, Amazon owned Ring said it's committing $1 million to equip animal shelters with ring camera systems and aims to aid 4,000 U.S.
shelters.
By adding the shelters to Ring's network, the company hopes more lost dogs will be reunited with their owners.
The company already works with other nonprofits, including Petco Love and Best Friends Animal Society, and is open to other partnerships.
The company's founder, Isam Hijazi said during Web Summit Qatar, we launched about six months ago, and we grew to about 150,000 up until early January.
And as of the last few days, we reached over 1 million users globally.
Now, starting today, we surpassed 2.5 million users globally, Hijazi said.
Up scrolled is a blend of Instagram and X and claims to be inclusive of all voices.
The company says that it allows for all kinds of content and doesn't shadow ban or censor people.
During his speech, Hijazi called out big tech companies for being unethical and selling user data for profit, and accused social networks of suppressing pro-Palestinian content and choosing to censor users selectively.
Users on other platforms have complained about Upscrolled hosting a lot of porn and nudity.
Hijazi noted that while the company won't rely on amplification algorithms to boost or suppress certain views, it would have community guidelines in place to comply with laws in different regions.
The company is gathering a team of experts to solidify its community guidelines and is also taking user feedback into account, Hijazi added.
The company hasn't announced any funding publicly, but Hijazi said that the social network has been getting investor interest.
In January, TikTok switched to a new ownership structure in the U.S.
with a consortium consisting of investors like Silver Lake and Oracle taking a majority share of the company, while ByteDance retained 20% ownership.
That change led to many users exploring other social networks.
Apart from Upscrolled, AT protocol based Skylight also gained attention, crossing 380,000 users in the days following the finalization of the TikTok deal.
And that's your Daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Lauren Forrestall, Sarah Perez, Ivan Meta, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow, same tech time, same crunch channel, and until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.
