If money is so “serious” to you (And what does that mean anyhow? Is money somehow a joke to the rest of us?), why are you asking anyone else to make your food for you? Just cook for yourself, and then any timeliness or accuracy issues are your own damned fault.
For me, at least, going to a restaurant or getting takeout is mostly about convenience. Online ordering increases the convenience. I would think this would be obvious.
Yesterday, I was looking at the website of a Chinese food joint and it had a link for “Order Online”. When you clicked it, you went to a page that said “Call us for information on online ordering” :dubious:
That would be the perfect restaurant for the OP.
From time to time I look for something on line, like spices. In almost all cases, I can buy the same quantity at my supermarket cheaper than online, considering shipping cost.
I once ordered curry powder on line because it was cheap in a 19-ounce container – but when I got it, the sodium content was so high, I couldn’t use it. It was mostly salt. 100mg sodium per teaspoon.
The local Burger King has takes online orders for delivery and I’ve given up on getting them to remove onions from anything. I do not like raw onions and every single time I tried to get something delivered with no onions, they’d leave the onions on but remove the tomatoes or whatever. Now I just give the onions to the wife.
We’ve never ordered online and had anyone deliver something completely wrong (i.e.: order a 13 and get a 15 instead), that’s only happened over the phone with a local deli.
My mistake. It says “Please contact…” so I guess mailed letters or in-store visits would also be acceptable.
I, for one, feel much more comfortable ordering and receiving my meals by carrier pigeon.
At work, we get a per diem for ordering food, via DiningIn.com. Every day, we have a choice between a few restaurants (it rotates, so there’s a lot of variety). The way it works is, “Restaurant A” has an ETA of 11 am, “Restaurant B” at 11:30 and “Restaurant C” at noon. You have to have your order in two hours before the expected delivery time, and you can see your options for the next six days, so hypothetically, you could order all the week’s lunches on Sunday afternoon.
Our office has approximately 60 people at our location, and for the most part, the food comes timely (with it usually arriving early). We’ve had a handful of occurrences where food came later than expected, but that’s also due to the large amount of orders they are handling. (If everyone orders from “C,” expect it to take a little longer.)
In terms of getting orders wrong, in the past 8 months, I think they’ve messed up my food once (didn’t include tomato soup with my grilled cheese), and another was due to my request being unusual. (I was under the per diem limit by a considerable amount, so decided to do “extra cheese” four times to my grilled cheese and bacon sandwich, if only to see if they would do it. I’ll just say that I didn’t get 5x the cheese. 
Good one.
What a fascinating and entirely relevant anecdote.
You seem to be late to the game, 7e42. Online food ordering has been common for at least the past 7-8 years, if not longer than that.
I’ve had FAR more screw-ups from garbled or mis-done drive-through and phone orders than the online ones; with the online ones, it’s your own fault in almost every case. I suspect it’s because there’s one less step for ambiguity (between you and the order-taker); you directly choose what you want, and the preparer makes it accordingly. No literal game of telephone to garble it up.
That said, I’ve had 2 mistakes that are notable. One, I forgot to change the default pizza size, and ordered a single medium for like 4 people (oops!), and two, I accidentally sent a pizza to my buddy in a different part of town, because I forgot to remove my old address from when I was his roommate. Both were my fault though.
Otherwise, it’s fast, easy and more convenient than any other method. At most places, you can even specify a delivery or pickup time, so you can submit your order in the morning, and have it show up when you get home, or whatever.
Do not call people this in this forum again.
I find that orders placed via seamless.com are superior in terms of delivery speed and food quality than orders placed from the same restaurant via phone.
As others have mentioned — you are more likely to get exactly what you order without mistakes. Also, the forms where you place the order have checkboxes for certain options – such as the heat level on Chinese food – so I am less likely to “forget” to order my food mild.
But the biggest reason – and the one I don’t think anyone has mentioned yet – is the ease with which you can rate and review a restaurant or transaction, the sheer amount of ratings and reviews for each restaurant and the way in which lots of good ratings and reviews can bring in business. Lots of bad ratings and negative comments will cause people not to order from that place.
I typically sort the hundreds of open restaurants on Seamless by their rating when I’m deciding who gets my order. There are typically dozens of options for each type of food - Chinese, Japanese, Pizza, Diner Fare - most with nearly identical menus - so if I don’t have a confirmed favorite place I’m ordering from the 5 star place.
The rating systems keep the restaurants on their toes and may cause them to give on-line orders special consideration,
Bingo – I love anything on-line because I have a severe phone phobia and avoid it whenever possible. This backfired when I gave a fake number when ordering on-line at Pizza Hut. I don’t want the phone call and I am willing to take the chance that I get there and there was an issue. But she gave me attitude about not giving a real number, and resorted to slamming things and bitching about me to her co-workers while I’m standing right there. Look, I’m willing to believe I am a weirdo and even an asshole, but surely you’ve had basic training on how to deal with weird assholes and it doesn’t include what you were doing.
Anyhoo, in this case I did have to pay when I got there because appparently paying on-line wasn’t an option.
Ooo, finally banhammered.
I was wondering when the mods were going to lose patience for Don Turnbee.
(Props to Flywheel)
I love ordering online. Beats the heck out of shouting an order over a cell phone, into the ear of someone who’s probably two feet away from a coworker banging pizza pans together. It’s also handy when you’re trying a new kind of cuisine, and haven’t the foggiest idea of how to read the name of the thing you think you’ll eat. 
I will say that the utility of the various third-party services varies depending on where you are. Domino’s has online ordering through their own website wherever you are, but whether you can get at the Thai-Nepalese-Italian fusion place via the internet depends on whether you’re in an area where they get enough custom to make it worth their while to sign up. You’ll have the best (i.e., weirdest) selection if you live in a large, dense city and/or a college town.
Some of them also have payment options other than cash/card. Eat24Hours takes PayPal, for instance. Useful if you have a regular event – you can have everyone kitty up online, and not have to worry about splitting it over cards or figuring out change. You can also schedule a delivery far in advance, which I’ve found is difficult to work out over the phone.
I’ve also found that it’s useful for sending one of my best friends Chinese food from across the continent. 
I can pay with my card, and give them her address and phone number. Most places will phone when they’re on their way rather than ringing bells if it’s late or you live in an apartment.