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Food is really, insanely important. Way more important than 99% of Americans give it dues for. In fact food is more important than a cure for cancer. Bad food w

Food is really, insanely important. Way more important than 99% of Americans give it dues for. In fact food is more important than a cure for cancer. Bad food will kill and maim more Americans long before they get the opportunity to be struck down by cancer. And for that matter, "Cancers Associated with Overweight and Obesity Make up 40 percent of Cancers Diagnosed in the United States", CDC 2017: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1003-vs-cancer-obesity.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1003-vs-cancer-obes... And look at this graph (my own work, for something I'm writing): https://imgur.com/KUyUwQy https://imgur.com/KUyUwQy (Does America have an opioid crisis, or a food crisis?) Anything that gets more quality food availability to Americans, especially healthier cooked food delivered in lieu of microwaving a frozen processed thing, is an improvement to celebrate.

marnett 9y ago
No. It really isn't. This is a luxury service. If you use it to redistribute uneaten food in-masse, sure. But let's be honest, these services are for those who can afford laziness when it comes to walking outside their door (in a city might I add, where huge amounts of food options are available in a small radius) and getting food.
- jdtang13 9y ago
  You're projecting and not seeing the big picture. Cheap, high-quality, and healthy food delivery would be beneficial to all Americans, especially the working class and especially fledgling restauranteurs. Just because you live a life of luxury doesn't mean that all services are luxuries. Someone who is working oddjobs from 9am-9pm and still barely making next month's rent payment would benefit both from having extra time, and hopefully their health would not suffer if they were eating decent food.
  - omikun 9y ago
    Someone who is barely making rent isn't going to splurge on food delivery fees.
    - arebop 9y ago
      New things tend to be expensive, but when and if they become thoroughly ordinary, they can get cheaper. Why should food delivery be more expensive than food pickup? It's easy to see that you can deliver to somebody and somebody's neighbor for approximately the same cost as delivering to just somebody, and the cost of delivery vs. pickup for one unit is about the same. It's not obvious that this can't work; the best argument against it is that there have been many attempts in the past two decades and no successes at making deliveries much cheaper.
      - ntsplnkv2 9y ago
        Because there is value in having delivery-you're essentially selling convenience. That comes with a cost > It's easy to see that you can deliver to somebody and somebody's neighbor for approximately the same cost as delivering to just somebody, And it's also easy to see if you have to deliver to one person on one side of the city and to another side right after it will be much more expensive. Not only do you have issues of food freshness (which means customer dissatisfaction) but also wear on a vehicle, insurance, gas, etc. To make up for it the cost of delivery will skyrocket-and thus people will not pay the premium. Also-what about food locations? You're assuming that enough people in a very small radius will want to order the same food from the same place. That will almost never happen.
        arebop 9y ago
        In the worst case, one person has to round trip between the source and the sink. But although the worst case is the same as the best case without a delivery service, the best case for a delivery service is better. QED. There is wear on a vehicle, insurance, gas, either way but potentially less with the delivery service than with everyone doing their own fetches. Yes, I'm assuming there is enough density for there to be actual economies of scale. Yes, it's true that delivery/takeaway sacrifices freshness compared to eating at the kitchen. Yes, it's reasonable to be skeptical about whether any company can achieve the required density and whether the theoretical efficiencies will overcome the friction of employment taxes. Etc., etc. However, pizza delivery has been a very affordable luxury for decades and mail delivery has been obviously cheaper than hand-delivering your mail for centuries. So, I don't buy your claim that delivery services are inherently niche luxuries.
  - windlep 9y ago
    I doubt its healthy for people to sit around all day while everything is delivered to them so they never have to go anywhere nor interact with anyone else socially in public.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >"Cheap, high-quality, and healthy food delivery would be beneficial to all Americans, especially the working class..." Yes cheap, high-quality and healthy food would be beneficial. There is however nothing inherently healthy about using an app so you don't have to walk further than your front door. Do you really believe the barrier to people eating healthy is that there isn't an app for them to do so without leaving their couch?
    - dmix 9y ago
      a) All change is incremental, it doesn't have to be revolutionary all at once to be meaningful b) There is no question that these taxi/delivery apps have reduced costs. Not to mention his vision for the future of food delivery has hardly been implemented. Apps are merely being tacked on to existing business models. This isn't the world Steve's getting excited about... it's the first baby steps. But once businesses are designed from the beginning with apps, decentralized delivery, automation, etc in mind - just as he mentioned his sister in law did with her Vietnamese food service (by just getting a commercial kitchen with no retail front-end besides the app). Nor has the true power of Uber-style delivery/driving apps been close to being reached yet. There is tons of potential for change still to be done, which will further reduce costs. c) Yegge himself said this goes beyond food/transport > Here’s the thing, though: Transport and food are only scratching the surface. Same-day food delivery can be generalized to same-day anything delivery, for instance. We’re going to see major disruptors happening yearly (if not faster) for many years to come. Payments and financial services are up next, and they’re a staggeringly huge opportunity.
      - bogomipz 9y ago
        >"Yegge himself said this goes beyond food/transport" "Yegge" said it? OMG. The cult of Yegge! I am completely baffled by the swooning on HN over this guy. Wow, he worked at Google?! OMG. He wrote some blog entries 10 years ago?! OMG. What a giant! That blogpost yesterday was so cringeworthy that he had to walk parts of it back today in another blog post, making him look even sillier. The content and claims were absurd and laughable. My first thought when I read it was "I bet this person has never been abroad before." I would ask anyone apologizing for him and his absurd claims would you be doing this for any other random person writing on medium.com whose name wasn't "Yegge."
- pchristensen 9y ago
  Lol laziness. Is someone who buys food from a grocery store instead of growing it in a garden? Are you lazy if you heat it on an electric stove instead of chopping wood for a fire? And don't you dare tell me you used a lighter instead of a bow drill. The whole point of technology is to enable and lower the cost of things people want. It's hard to top food on the list of things people want.
  - jokola 9y ago
    What does that have to do with anything? The US has cheaper and better food than most of the world. If anything the health problems in the US comes from people eating whatever they want rather than staple foods and vegetables.
Retric 9y ago
~40% of Americans get cancer. This is food service delivery by web vs picking up the phone. It's hardly revolutionary.
bogomipz 9y ago
>"Food is really, insanely important." Yes food is important, food delivery as a luxury service in large urban areas, not so much.
balls187 9y ago
Okay, but he's working on ordering food from your smartphone. Turns out I can do that from my dumb-phone. I just have to talk to someone.

marnett 9y ago

No. It really isn't. This is a luxury service. If you use it to redistribute uneaten food in-masse, sure. But let's be honest, these services are for those who can afford laziness when it comes to walking outside their door (in a city might I add, where huge amounts of food options are available in a small radius) and getting food.

jdtang13 9y ago
You're projecting and not seeing the big picture. Cheap, high-quality, and healthy food delivery would be beneficial to all Americans, especially the working class and especially fledgling restauranteurs. Just because you live a life of luxury doesn't mean that all services are luxuries. Someone who is working oddjobs from 9am-9pm and still barely making next month's rent payment would benefit both from having extra time, and hopefully their health would not suffer if they were eating decent food.
- omikun 9y ago
  Someone who is barely making rent isn't going to splurge on food delivery fees.
  - arebop 9y ago
    New things tend to be expensive, but when and if they become thoroughly ordinary, they can get cheaper. Why should food delivery be more expensive than food pickup? It's easy to see that you can deliver to somebody and somebody's neighbor for approximately the same cost as delivering to just somebody, and the cost of delivery vs. pickup for one unit is about the same. It's not obvious that this can't work; the best argument against it is that there have been many attempts in the past two decades and no successes at making deliveries much cheaper.
    - ntsplnkv2 9y ago
      Because there is value in having delivery-you're essentially selling convenience. That comes with a cost > It's easy to see that you can deliver to somebody and somebody's neighbor for approximately the same cost as delivering to just somebody, And it's also easy to see if you have to deliver to one person on one side of the city and to another side right after it will be much more expensive. Not only do you have issues of food freshness (which means customer dissatisfaction) but also wear on a vehicle, insurance, gas, etc. To make up for it the cost of delivery will skyrocket-and thus people will not pay the premium. Also-what about food locations? You're assuming that enough people in a very small radius will want to order the same food from the same place. That will almost never happen.
      - arebop 9y ago
        In the worst case, one person has to round trip between the source and the sink. But although the worst case is the same as the best case without a delivery service, the best case for a delivery service is better. QED. There is wear on a vehicle, insurance, gas, either way but potentially less with the delivery service than with everyone doing their own fetches. Yes, I'm assuming there is enough density for there to be actual economies of scale. Yes, it's true that delivery/takeaway sacrifices freshness compared to eating at the kitchen. Yes, it's reasonable to be skeptical about whether any company can achieve the required density and whether the theoretical efficiencies will overcome the friction of employment taxes. Etc., etc. However, pizza delivery has been a very affordable luxury for decades and mail delivery has been obviously cheaper than hand-delivering your mail for centuries. So, I don't buy your claim that delivery services are inherently niche luxuries.
- windlep 9y ago
  I doubt its healthy for people to sit around all day while everything is delivered to them so they never have to go anywhere nor interact with anyone else socially in public.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"Cheap, high-quality, and healthy food delivery would be beneficial to all Americans, especially the working class..." Yes cheap, high-quality and healthy food would be beneficial. There is however nothing inherently healthy about using an app so you don't have to walk further than your front door. Do you really believe the barrier to people eating healthy is that there isn't an app for them to do so without leaving their couch?
  - dmix 9y ago
    a) All change is incremental, it doesn't have to be revolutionary all at once to be meaningful b) There is no question that these taxi/delivery apps have reduced costs. Not to mention his vision for the future of food delivery has hardly been implemented. Apps are merely being tacked on to existing business models. This isn't the world Steve's getting excited about... it's the first baby steps. But once businesses are designed from the beginning with apps, decentralized delivery, automation, etc in mind - just as he mentioned his sister in law did with her Vietnamese food service (by just getting a commercial kitchen with no retail front-end besides the app). Nor has the true power of Uber-style delivery/driving apps been close to being reached yet. There is tons of potential for change still to be done, which will further reduce costs. c) Yegge himself said this goes beyond food/transport > Here’s the thing, though: Transport and food are only scratching the surface. Same-day food delivery can be generalized to same-day anything delivery, for instance. We’re going to see major disruptors happening yearly (if not faster) for many years to come. Payments and financial services are up next, and they’re a staggeringly huge opportunity.
    - bogomipz 9y ago
      >"Yegge himself said this goes beyond food/transport" "Yegge" said it? OMG. The cult of Yegge! I am completely baffled by the swooning on HN over this guy. Wow, he worked at Google?! OMG. He wrote some blog entries 10 years ago?! OMG. What a giant! That blogpost yesterday was so cringeworthy that he had to walk parts of it back today in another blog post, making him look even sillier. The content and claims were absurd and laughable. My first thought when I read it was "I bet this person has never been abroad before." I would ask anyone apologizing for him and his absurd claims would you be doing this for any other random person writing on medium.com whose name wasn't "Yegge."
pchristensen 9y ago
Lol laziness. Is someone who buys food from a grocery store instead of growing it in a garden? Are you lazy if you heat it on an electric stove instead of chopping wood for a fire? And don't you dare tell me you used a lighter instead of a bow drill. The whole point of technology is to enable and lower the cost of things people want. It's hard to top food on the list of things people want.
- jokola 9y ago
  What does that have to do with anything? The US has cheaper and better food than most of the world. If anything the health problems in the US comes from people eating whatever they want rather than staple foods and vegetables.

Retric 9y ago

~40% of Americans get cancer. This is food service delivery by web vs picking up the phone. It's hardly revolutionary.

bogomipz 9y ago

>"Food is really, insanely important." Yes food is important, food delivery as a luxury service in large urban areas, not so much.

balls187 9y ago

Okay, but he's working on ordering food from your smartphone. Turns out I can do that from my dumb-phone. I just have to talk to someone.