I think this is a good question. I can tell you that, here in NYC these services do get a fair bit of use (seamless.com, in particular, though I think GrubHub m

I think this is a good question. I can tell you that, here in NYC these services do get a fair bit of use (seamless.com, in particular, though I think GrubHub may also be popular). I attribute this to the combination of a large number of affluent people working long hours and the relative difficulty of getting around that big city life presents. I think the reason why factors like this are important is that, all things being equal, people would rather dine in a restaurant if they're going to pay "eating out" prices. When you go to a restaurant, of course, you are paying for more than the food. You are also paying for (hopefully) a nice atmosphere and a feeling of relaxation and wealth. It's also nice to get out of the house/office. Oddly enough, I draw an analogy to RSS readers. (Which has been on my mind recently for obvious reasons.) The thing that people overlook about RSS is that the value of a website is in more than just paragraphs of text. Websites are also designed to create a certain kind of experience. The premise that underlies this design work, of course, is that design adds value for the user beyond just the words on the page. But that added value is stripped away when content is consumed through an RSS feed. The question then becomes whether the added convenience (etc.) of aggregation into a feed outweighs the value lost. Similarly, the question for GrubHub users is whether the loss of the secondary benefits of eating in a restaurant (and add to that, of course, the small additional monetary expense) are made up for by the added convenience. Evidently most people feel that it is not.