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All it takes I one deviously altruistic group of hackers to build an online delivery market maker that links couriers to restaurants, and all of the GrubHubs an

All it takes I one deviously altruistic group of hackers to build an online delivery market maker that links couriers to restaurants, and all of the GrubHubs and Deliveroos would collapse. I feel like a lot of the work in something like Deliveroo is marketing, dispute resolution, money and payment management, inventory / menu tools (and transcription?). If everyone paid cash, restaurants typed in their own menus, and left marketing to some other third party, is the rest just craigslist-for-food? “1995 ... written in Perl”. I’m hesitant of coming off as “this could be built in a weekend” but the reason why most things cannot be built in a weekend is because they are the publicly visible front of a machine designed to be worth $1bn through analytics, marketing, ad tech revenue, content moderation etc. Drop all that and the front end is much simpler.

rahimnathwani 7y ago
'I feel like a lot of the work in something like Deliveroo is...' You forgot 'delivery'. Many people don't mind paying an extra $10+ to have someone else pick up their takeout meal.
- gorgoiler 7y ago
  Sorry to not be clearer: when I talk about market making I meant for the restaurants to be put in touch with delivery people so they can negotiate that themselves, off app, rather than having Deliveroo involved in the process. It’s not a very coherent idea other than the usual “crush the rent seekers! [Deliveroo]” I guess.
djannzjkzxn 7y ago
ChowNow and qMenu are apps that restaurants can pay a small fee to use, that provide a similar experience to users as the big apps. The selection of restaurants is more limited but there are enough options for me on there in the Bay Area. Some restaurants do offer delivery on these apps, although I’m not sure if it’s restaurant employees doing delivery or people hired by the app.
Jommi 7y ago
Yes you are right. Dont forget the time component either, when the profits become visible, there will be (already is) a multitude of companies based on cheaper regions that will compete with a nearly similar product but cheaper.
fche 7y ago
ebay's main value is its escrow capability related to its dispute resolution

rahimnathwani 7y ago

'I feel like a lot of the work in something like Deliveroo is...' You forgot 'delivery'. Many people don't mind paying an extra $10+ to have someone else pick up their takeout meal.

gorgoiler 7y ago
Sorry to not be clearer: when I talk about market making I meant for the restaurants to be put in touch with delivery people so they can negotiate that themselves, off app, rather than having Deliveroo involved in the process. It’s not a very coherent idea other than the usual “crush the rent seekers! [Deliveroo]” I guess.

djannzjkzxn 7y ago

ChowNow and qMenu are apps that restaurants can pay a small fee to use, that provide a similar experience to users as the big apps. The selection of restaurants is more limited but there are enough options for me on there in the Bay Area. Some restaurants do offer delivery on these apps, although I’m not sure if it’s restaurant employees doing delivery or people hired by the app.

Jommi 7y ago

Yes you are right. Dont forget the time component either, when the profits become visible, there will be (already is) a multitude of companies based on cheaper regions that will compete with a nearly similar product but cheaper.

fche 7y ago

ebay's main value is its escrow capability related to its dispute resolution