4 ms·

It was never a sustainable business model to begin with. It takes 10 minutes for a chef to make my meal, and 25 minutes for someone to come to the restaurant,

It was never a sustainable business model to begin with. It takes 10 minutes for a chef to make my meal, and 25 minutes for someone to come to the restaurant, pick it up, and drive it to my house. The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order of magnitude less valuable than yours.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order of magnitude less valuable than yours. Targeting mainly the wealthy isn't necessarily a bad business strategy. It should also be noted that it's also useful for bulk order to people and those unable to physically move themselves to a place (disability, lack of car, etc). It's not a "use everyday" mechanism, but it has uses.
- lokar 3y ago
  But the whole structure of these companies (and valuations) is based on a much larger scale/market.
bloodyplonker22 3y ago
Indeed, the only way it is working right now is because a significant piece of their revenue is from discounted gift cards so their revenue grows while taking a loss. In the future, they will have to replace the driver with something automated if they want to make money.
grecy 3y ago
> The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order of magnitude less valuable than yours I mean, you've basically just described the entire service industry and virtually any job in North American where tips are expected. There is an entire class of people ready to serve you.
- legitster 3y ago
  I mean, don't get me wrong. My first job was fast food. But there's a difference between being able to serve 50 customers in an hour and 2.
  - grecy 3y ago
    My buddy's first job was pizza delivery driver in the late '90s. He was lucky to get 2 deliveries per hour...
dragontamer 3y ago
> The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order of magnitude less valuable than yours. Ish. There's clearly a logistics problem here. 1-meal being delivered promptly on time scales poorly. But 15 meals delivered to 15 different people within 45 minutes is in fact, a net gain. Alas, Doordash and Uber have gone about it in all the wrong ways. Its the drivers who double-book this process (ie: picking up more orders than they can handle), leading to inconsistent quality, cold food, late deliveries and more. Its a legitimate model though. A more "proper" company that's doing this officially is Foodsby, where one Restaraunt makes a single delivery to 15-ish people in one trip at a designated time and location (usually within 5 minutes walking distance of an office complex. IE: One particular office building has a Foodsby drop-off point). Everyone pays $2 each, the driver is happy, the restaraunt is happy (their personal staff deliver and therefore ensure quality food / hot food at the appropriate, predesignated time), and a ~5 minute walk for a bunch of office workers is a good idea anyway cause we're all sitting on our asses all day. --------- It double-benefits because professional chefs like doing ~15 or 20 of the same order all at once, its more efficient for them... especially if they can plan such an order ahead of time (Foodsby isn't offered every day for a Restaraunt, they pick-and-choose the days that they'll offer the service). So the chefs can cut-down on scheduling if they're burning out, or they can plan ahead and offer more days if they know some days are lulls / they have extra freetime. Doordash / Grubhub / Uber is almost malicious for everyone involved. There's some ideas of convenience to some people, but its not good enough for the overall environment. In contrast, Foodsby (and hopefully more companies that adopt that model) has proven itself sustainable, at least in my area.
- Consultant32452 3y ago
  I spent a number of years working at a pizza place in high school/college and on busy nights they had a dedicated "router", a human who was sometimes also a driver, who grouped orders together so they got where they needed to go in a timely fashion and the food was always warm. When I order DoorDash my driver either only has my order or they have a secondary delivery that is insanely out of the way. This is a very inefficient use of driver time. The pizza place is practically all delivery and it's easy to bunch up the orders heading in the same direction. Comparing that to UE/DD, a single restaurant might have 2-3 delivery orders at any given time, but what are the odds they are all headed in the same direction? I wonder if extreme density cities have less of a problem with this. For reference, I live in a "2nd tier" city. Not NY/LA, but a city everyone has heard of. On an unrelated note, I've always thought the big problem is their market is too narrow. These companies should deliver literally anything that can fit in a passenger car. One example I know of is that auto shops do not keep parts for every car in the shop all the time. They contract out to parts warehouses. Those warehouses have employees which deliver your new carburetor to the auto shop that's installing it. There's no reason your Uber driver can't pick up pasta and a carburetor.
adolph 3y ago
> The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order of magnitude less valuable than yours. Food delivery also seems to work with vertically integrated geo-segmented services like pizza and Chinese takeout. My best guess is that the profit margin and delivery packing are high enough to make it worthwhile.
pcurve 3y ago
Most of my favorite local restaurants use other platforms now. It's been 3 years since I've last used Uber or DD. If they don't deliver, I just go pick it up myself.
prawn 3y ago
I wish there were Indian curry vans instead of ice cream vans, driving around the streets playing distinctive music from 5-8pm. Group buy discounts for individual streets to promote pre-purchase, etc. Do a different suburb each night of the week. Please someone make this.
shiroiuma 3y ago
>It takes 10 minutes for a chef to make my meal, and 25 minutes for someone to come to the restaurant, pick it up, and drive it to my house. And in that 25 minutes, the food has gotten cold and its chemistry has changed too. You could reheat it in the microwave, but now it'll just taste like reheated leftovers. Why do people buy this crap?

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order of magnitude less valuable than yours. Targeting mainly the wealthy isn't necessarily a bad business strategy. It should also be noted that it's also useful for bulk order to people and those unable to physically move themselves to a place (disability, lack of car, etc). It's not a "use everyday" mechanism, but it has uses.

lokar 3y ago
But the whole structure of these companies (and valuations) is based on a much larger scale/market.

bloodyplonker22 3y ago

Indeed, the only way it is working right now is because a significant piece of their revenue is from discounted gift cards so their revenue grows while taking a loss. In the future, they will have to replace the driver with something automated if they want to make money.

grecy 3y ago

> The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order of magnitude less valuable than yours I mean, you've basically just described the entire service industry and virtually any job in North American where tips are expected. There is an entire class of people ready to serve you.

legitster 3y ago
I mean, don't get me wrong. My first job was fast food. But there's a difference between being able to serve 50 customers in an hour and 2.
- grecy 3y ago
  My buddy's first job was pizza delivery driver in the late '90s. He was lucky to get 2 deliveries per hour...

dragontamer 3y ago

> The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order of magnitude less valuable than yours. Ish. There's clearly a logistics problem here. 1-meal being delivered promptly on time scales poorly. But 15 meals delivered to 15 different people within 45 minutes is in fact, a net gain. Alas, Doordash and Uber have gone about it in all the wrong ways. Its the drivers who double-book this process (ie: picking up more orders than they can handle), leading to inconsistent quality, cold food, late deliveries and more. Its a legitimate model though. A more "proper" company that's doing this officially is Foodsby, where one Restaraunt makes a single delivery to 15-ish people in one trip at a designated time and location (usually within 5 minutes walking distance of an office complex. IE: One particular office building has a Foodsby drop-off point). Everyone pays $2 each, the driver is happy, the restaraunt is happy (their personal staff deliver and therefore ensure quality food / hot food at the appropriate, predesignated time), and a ~5 minute walk for a bunch of office workers is a good idea anyway cause we're all sitting on our asses all day. --------- It double-benefits because professional chefs like doing ~15 or 20 of the same order all at once, its more efficient for them... especially if they can plan such an order ahead of time (Foodsby isn't offered every day for a Restaraunt, they pick-and-choose the days that they'll offer the service). So the chefs can cut-down on scheduling if they're burning out, or they can plan ahead and offer more days if they know some days are lulls / they have extra freetime. Doordash / Grubhub / Uber is almost malicious for everyone involved. There's some ideas of convenience to some people, but its not good enough for the overall environment. In contrast, Foodsby (and hopefully more companies that adopt that model) has proven itself sustainable, at least in my area.

Consultant32452 3y ago
I spent a number of years working at a pizza place in high school/college and on busy nights they had a dedicated "router", a human who was sometimes also a driver, who grouped orders together so they got where they needed to go in a timely fashion and the food was always warm. When I order DoorDash my driver either only has my order or they have a secondary delivery that is insanely out of the way. This is a very inefficient use of driver time. The pizza place is practically all delivery and it's easy to bunch up the orders heading in the same direction. Comparing that to UE/DD, a single restaurant might have 2-3 delivery orders at any given time, but what are the odds they are all headed in the same direction? I wonder if extreme density cities have less of a problem with this. For reference, I live in a "2nd tier" city. Not NY/LA, but a city everyone has heard of. On an unrelated note, I've always thought the big problem is their market is too narrow. These companies should deliver literally anything that can fit in a passenger car. One example I know of is that auto shops do not keep parts for every car in the shop all the time. They contract out to parts warehouses. Those warehouses have employees which deliver your new carburetor to the auto shop that's installing it. There's no reason your Uber driver can't pick up pasta and a carburetor.

adolph 3y ago

> The only way it works is if someone else's time is an order of magnitude less valuable than yours. Food delivery also seems to work with vertically integrated geo-segmented services like pizza and Chinese takeout. My best guess is that the profit margin and delivery packing are high enough to make it worthwhile.

pcurve 3y ago

Most of my favorite local restaurants use other platforms now. It's been 3 years since I've last used Uber or DD. If they don't deliver, I just go pick it up myself.

prawn 3y ago

I wish there were Indian curry vans instead of ice cream vans, driving around the streets playing distinctive music from 5-8pm. Group buy discounts for individual streets to promote pre-purchase, etc. Do a different suburb each night of the week. Please someone make this.

shiroiuma 3y ago

>It takes 10 minutes for a chef to make my meal, and 25 minutes for someone to come to the restaurant, pick it up, and drive it to my house. And in that 25 minutes, the food has gotten cold and its chemistry has changed too. You could reheat it in the microwave, but now it'll just taste like reheated leftovers. Why do people buy this crap?