I could write a lot about the benefits these apps provide, but I think we can all agree their ease of use and flattening of the marketplace into a centralized d

I could write a lot about the benefits these apps provide, but I think we can all agree their ease of use and flattening of the marketplace into a centralized data source is a very powerful combination. This means restaurants essentially have to be on them to compete. Before, more decentralized factors like geography and word-of-mouth helped restaurants gain and hold marketshare. This isn’t a new phenomenon, but it’s a definite shakeup of an industry that didn’t have to deal with this issue as much before. It’s similar to how credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard inserted themselves into the payments space. The ease of use these services offered customers simply outweigh the option for sellers to not use them. Sellers already didn’t like how these companies skimmed a few percent off of every purchase. Now you have delivery apps which are taking far more significant chunks of revenue out of each transaction. However, how many customers know how much of what they’re paying is going to transaction costs? Some stores and gas stations offer slightly lower prices if you pay with cash instead of card. Customers are given this awareness so they understand that they are paying more for a feature. Takeout apps not only add to the transaction cost, but also control the interface between the customer and restaurant. A restaurant wouldn’t even have the option to tell the customer how much of the price of their food goes toward middleman fees because it’s not in the takeout services’ interests to surface that info in their app. Instead, they can hide away the details of price differences between restaurants and then play sellers off against each other for their own benefit. Even credit card networks don’t have that much control over the entire transaction process, but these new end-to-end marketplaces control both factors in order to pawn off blame on the sellers. If this continues, I foresee these takeout services exerting so much control over small-business restaurants that the restaurants either fold or all be homogenized under whatever the takeout services will. Given the propensity for vertical integration these days, the takeout services will probably just stand up their own food services in place of the restaurants, similar to what Uber ultimately wants to do with its drivers. Small business won’t be able to compete and even more local restaurants will disappear. Some will continue to exist as a niche as demand for variety/personable service and low prices/convenience fluctuate back and forth between stabilizing somewhere in the middle. This will probably be at the expense of customers and society as a whole, given that restaurants are one of the last bastions of small business in the ever globalizing economy. In order to combat the shock that restaurants face while takeout apps hold a huge level of control over the marketplace, public institutions and personal will are needed to keep these apps from becoming too powerful. I see it as a more proactive form of anti-trust enforcement. Otherwise, you’re looking at a future where local restaurants probably won’t exist.