I never understood the appeal behind them in the first place, so take my opinion with that bias in mind. I think that a user-adaptive program to procedurally g

I never understood the appeal behind them in the first place, so take my opinion with that bias in mind. I think that a user-adaptive program to procedurally generate a weekly meal plan, break that down into a unified grocery shopping list, and maybe even forward said list to the picker services that some grocery stores are running now, would remove every last speck of competitive advantage the mail order kits have. Instead of getting a dinner-in-a-box delivered to your door every day, you can park in a pickup spot at the grocery, pop the trunk/hatch, get your order, and take it home. Every night, your phone can alert you when to start dinner, what foods you'll need, and pull up a recipe card or checklist if you need it. If you know how to make tacos, and like to eat them every Tuesday, you'll get taco ingredients on your grocery list every week, and will likely get frequent suggestions for recipes that also contain cilantro, chiles, lime, tomatoes, sour cream, and green onions, to use up the leftovers. Cilantro-lime chicken. Pad Thai. Crunchy ramen salad. The most efficient meals divide your grocery store haul across multiple meals, so you don't end up eating a whole head of lettuce in one sitting, but can eat a little in every meal for which lettuce makes sense, until it's gone--ideally the night before you pick up your next load of groceries. But the biggest advantage is that I wouldn't have to think about food until it's exactly the time I need to deal with it. There're no tedious exchanges like: "Whaddya wanna eat? Dunno; whaddyou want? Don't care. Pizza? No, not that. Mexican? Nah. Sushi? Yyyyeah... okay. Sakura or Honada? I thought we weren't going to Sakura any more? Oh yeah." &c. &c. &c. Remember when Mom and/or Dad said "We're having meatloaf and Brussels sprouts tonight. Siddown, shaddap, and eat."? That was easy. All you had to do was show up. It even worked okay after Mom/Dad got sick of your kid complaints and said, "Fine. You make dinner, and I'll unload the dishwasher." The menu was already planned, and the food ready to cook. So a program that would select a partially randomized meal, composed of stuff that I already told it I like, and can cook, would eliminate a lot of time wasted on thinking about food. The mail-order services do that, but they're not the only ones who can do that.