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WeWork for kitchens is an interesting mixed bag. > It will soon be just as cheap to have your food prepared and delivered as going to the grocery store and mak

WeWork for kitchens is an interesting mixed bag. > It will soon be just as cheap to have your food prepared and delivered as going to the grocery store and making it yoursel The techno-utopianist I cannot beat out of me is excited. It is rediculous that we avoid economies of scale to save money. > Drivers Damn, to think the rest of the US is doing car delivery is ridiculous. NYC's ubiquitous bike delivery is a great example of why density is just more efficient. > > The “ghost kitchen” would change all of that. In place of small businesses there would only be a series of tractor trailers staffed with interchangeable “freelance contractors” cooking, presumably with no benefits or fixed hours. Lol I don't think much people get benefits at restaurants already. Still, the quote is absolutely correct, they won't start getting it either. IMO every "gig work" company should be pushing hard as hell for universal healthcare etc., as removes a huge competitive advantage of their competition. Do it for the $$ not the altruism, if you must. ----- Here's what I'm wondering about. The food seen for rich people has dramatically improved in the last 30 years. One way to think of this is rich Californians setting an example of "slow-food" / embracing unproductivity at every link of the supply chain to side-step all the grain subsidies and other perverse incentives. What we're seeing now is the beginning of others cooking for you as a non-luxury item. This is good. I think this means a lot of that bad stuff will be harder to at the same price-point. This is bad for me but perhaps good for society. Anecdotally, I feel like after getting better for a long time, delivery food has been getting worse in NYC as the margins get tighter and competition fiercer. There's two outcomes; - we all eat like shit, as increasingly not only is ordering cheaper than cooking, but the expectation of ordering means people will not be able to afford to take time off to cook[1] - Or, since nothing motivates political action like the loss of privilege within leaving memory, this will put new wind in the sails of the fight against the grain subsidies. [1]: Employment always takes a greater share of our time despite productivity improvements, probably due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox. this is Capitalism's #1 bug.

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
> others cooking for you as a non-luxury item Interestingly, this sounds more like a regression, since in most urban but poor countries it's already cheaper to eat out than prepare food yourself. This comes down to the cost of labor: a restaurant can buy in bulk cheaper than you can and prepare in batches larger than you can, so they'll be cheaper than you as long as their labor cost doesn't obliterate the advantage. In Europe or Australia it does, so eating out is a luxury; in India or China it does not. Obviously this is a generalization, there are countries that buck the trend (eg Japan) and some meals that are still cheaper to DIY. But I don't think we'll get to techno-utopia here until robotic food preparation goes from gimmick to mass market, and we're still a long way off.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Yes I absolutely agree. While I think it's generally good when luxuries become widespread, this isn't so good if just means some sort of mass middle class is exploiting some underclass. And we must always be vigilant for low labor costs being laundered as some sort of efficient tech (e.g. Uber in suburbs/rural is just inherently inefficient). It's a cruel irony as-under priced labor is the bellwether for inefficiency. That said, I hope there's something between now and full italicization that can be economically while paying the few remaining chefs well. Cities should absolutely price-control the shit out of these cloud kitchens since they will be so dependent on the public good that is efficient land use.
- arcturus17 6y ago
  In India in China it’s viable for whom? Is it viable for people at or below the median?

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago

> others cooking for you as a non-luxury item Interestingly, this sounds more like a regression, since in most urban but poor countries it's already cheaper to eat out than prepare food yourself. This comes down to the cost of labor: a restaurant can buy in bulk cheaper than you can and prepare in batches larger than you can, so they'll be cheaper than you as long as their labor cost doesn't obliterate the advantage. In Europe or Australia it does, so eating out is a luxury; in India or China it does not. Obviously this is a generalization, there are countries that buck the trend (eg Japan) and some meals that are still cheaper to DIY. But I don't think we'll get to techno-utopia here until robotic food preparation goes from gimmick to mass market, and we're still a long way off.

Ericson2314 6y ago
Yes I absolutely agree. While I think it's generally good when luxuries become widespread, this isn't so good if just means some sort of mass middle class is exploiting some underclass. And we must always be vigilant for low labor costs being laundered as some sort of efficient tech (e.g. Uber in suburbs/rural is just inherently inefficient). It's a cruel irony as-under priced labor is the bellwether for inefficiency. That said, I hope there's something between now and full italicization that can be economically while paying the few remaining chefs well. Cities should absolutely price-control the shit out of these cloud kitchens since they will be so dependent on the public good that is efficient land use.
arcturus17 6y ago
In India in China it’s viable for whom? Is it viable for people at or below the median?