I would care a lot more if this market had even existed as recently as 15 years ago, but most of what this article is making a case for is that the next 5 years in this space are almost completely unpredictable.
The title scared me a bit before I opened the article and realized it was talking about restaurant->consumer food delivery services. While that isn't great, I was initially thinking was that the companies that facilitate the food delivery supply chains around the world were massively consolidated (I sure hope they aren't)
One of those companies are available where I live, and I'll never use them, because they make my pick ups insufferable.
I have kids, and can see McDonalds from my bedroom window, so I have more McDonalds points than I care to admit. Wolt is pissing me off every time. The amount of time the McDonalds staff needs to dedicate to Wolt staff is insane. They could easily serve twice the customer in resturante/drive-through if they didn't have to help a borderline incompetent Wolt staffer on a moped. It's actually rude to priorities deliveries over in restaurant customers. For that alone I will never use Wolt. Fortunately every single good pizza place nearby have their own drivers, who are actually polite and competent.
This is essentially the story of tech companies across nearly every industry where they have come to dominate.
This is one reason that I see most tech companies as essentially a net negative for society at large, as the goal is nearly always to control a large monopoly (and this is fully admitted by many tech leaders, e.g. Thiel) which the Internet makes possible. Pre-Internet you would see the same dynamics, but usually on a much smaller regional scale. I think that many of the growing problems in society today are fundamentally attributable to the extreme concentration of wealth and power that modern tech enables.
Tech has also reached into EVERY aspect/detail of our lives 24/7 to try and extract value from it.
Tech originally preached that it's going to improve/simplify/enrich our lives. Instead tech is farming us like we have never been farmed before while giving us none of the original promise/deal. There is no peace. There is no escape. The improvements in our life are normally marginal and short term. There is no just existing, just constant, continuous farming of you for whatever value can be extracted. And because of how tech scales any extraction is never too small to not be worth going after. At least in the Matrix you weren’t expected to curate your own enslavement and smile and post about it daily.
Yup. I would 100% support aggressive localism here, given that the actual service is very easy to replicate. I'd absolutely support an absurdly high tax on any "out-of-town" food delivery service in order to -- maybe "artificially" -- prop up a local one. There is now NO good reason anyone in California deserves a cent for e.g. a local Florida driver delivering local Florida food to a local Florida customer.
The problem with this line of thought is that everyone just uses it to hate on people they already hated on. You go after rich tech monopolies, progressives generally go after big business, conservatives use it to go after the biggest business of all, the government.
We all just need to focus on monopoly in all its forms, instead of letting the politicians continue to separate us using division without difference.
Less competition would certainly be bad for consumers and drivers. But has that actually happened here?
Doordash and Deliveroo do not operate in the same markets, so their merger would not reduce competition in any given market.
Prosus is a big conglomerate with its fingers in many different industries. But unless it starts buying multiple delivery companies that operate in the same markets, its acquisition of Just Eat also doesn’t appear to be reducing competition.
I still tend to discover a takeaway or restaurant and then figure out how to get them to deliver.
I've never not ordered from somewhere I was keen on based on their choice of delivery service.
If the consolidation results in price hikes and poor service, what's the lock-in? Why can't the takeaways just go rogue and offer independent deliveries?
I make good IT money with few expenses and thus have a lot of disposable income but I feel that restaurants are really terrible value for money and thus rarely go to them. Add the extra cost of getting restaurant food delivered right to your house and it just becomes a stupid waste of money.
The food industry is due for a good old opensource disruption, where each restaurant can setup their private menu hub (like you would an instagram account), add their payment processing details, and start delivering their own orders. It's a win-win for the restaurant and their recurring customers.
I think this will be even more consolidated in the future. Or mostly duopoly in many markets. Food delivery is capital intensive. It is unlikely that new players enter the market.
I think 5 is a good number based on no data or experience. Feels like enough where you could reasonably tell one to pound sand if they start getting too greedy, while not being forced to just take the other 1.
Meanwhile I have seen a lot of local restaurants advertising how ordering through their own delivery/pickup service can be 30% less than Uber Eats or DoorDash on their takeout boxes (and consequently in your uber/doordash order). It’s interesting that some of the POS companies are getting into the market: https://www.toasttab.com/local
There’s huge room for disruption in this model when a $12 chipotle order costs the consumer $30 after higher menu prices + delivery fees + tip.
I know these are three sided marketplaces and difficult to coordinate demand and supply ... but why isn't there more locally hosted town and city level options that undercut the national/international conglomerates? Food delivery is ultimately a local thing.
This is what our actual economic system is all about: a series of market oligopolies whose greed is unchecked by our political establishment and legal apparatus with the complicity of the voting masses. Any attempt to implement measures to palliate the social decay and corruption it breeds will be branded as chinese communism and opposed by the media and the public.
We have collectively decided that the economy shouldn't be in service of the people, canis canem edit.
I can't think of a single industry or segment, whether consumer or enterprise, where 90%+ of the market isn't controlled by 1-5 companies. That's just how business works.
This post doesn't appear to present any evidence that five companies control any significant share of the food delivery market. It looks at transaction volume of major deliverers, comparing them to each other.
But it's not at all clear that major deliverers are even a majority of the delivery market. There are no pizza chains on the list. There are certainly no individual restaurants on the list.
> Why is my $8 burger $23 after fees - An average reddit user
Delivery in China (through Alipay, which may or may not be backed by Meituan) is generally cheaper after fees than it would be if you just went and bought the food in person. This might explain why Meituan has so much more transaction value than Doordash and Uber Eats. But it's not something I'd imagine drives a lot of user complaints.
I honestly just can't comprehend how people so easily just throw away money on these apps - The fees are ridiculous on top of already expensive restaurant prices.
> As long as food delivery is better than other ways of consuming food, like cooking, takeaways, or dining out, it will be able to keep customers in the network.
Made me laugh out loud. It's strictly the worst option. Only use it if my job wants to pay, or if very sick.
Cold food. Unpredictable delivery times. More expensive than eating out. Usually less nutritious than cooking yourself. And of course expensive as hell.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 66.5 ms ] threadThis is the article's claim, but I'm fairly certain it's of the food delivery aggregator market. There's still plenty of independents.
I have kids, and can see McDonalds from my bedroom window, so I have more McDonalds points than I care to admit. Wolt is pissing me off every time. The amount of time the McDonalds staff needs to dedicate to Wolt staff is insane. They could easily serve twice the customer in resturante/drive-through if they didn't have to help a borderline incompetent Wolt staffer on a moped. It's actually rude to priorities deliveries over in restaurant customers. For that alone I will never use Wolt. Fortunately every single good pizza place nearby have their own drivers, who are actually polite and competent.
This is one reason that I see most tech companies as essentially a net negative for society at large, as the goal is nearly always to control a large monopoly (and this is fully admitted by many tech leaders, e.g. Thiel) which the Internet makes possible. Pre-Internet you would see the same dynamics, but usually on a much smaller regional scale. I think that many of the growing problems in society today are fundamentally attributable to the extreme concentration of wealth and power that modern tech enables.
Tech originally preached that it's going to improve/simplify/enrich our lives. Instead tech is farming us like we have never been farmed before while giving us none of the original promise/deal. There is no peace. There is no escape. The improvements in our life are normally marginal and short term. There is no just existing, just constant, continuous farming of you for whatever value can be extracted. And because of how tech scales any extraction is never too small to not be worth going after. At least in the Matrix you weren’t expected to curate your own enslavement and smile and post about it daily.
We all just need to focus on monopoly in all its forms, instead of letting the politicians continue to separate us using division without difference.
Doordash and Deliveroo do not operate in the same markets, so their merger would not reduce competition in any given market.
Prosus is a big conglomerate with its fingers in many different industries. But unless it starts buying multiple delivery companies that operate in the same markets, its acquisition of Just Eat also doesn’t appear to be reducing competition.
I've never not ordered from somewhere I was keen on based on their choice of delivery service.
If the consolidation results in price hikes and poor service, what's the lock-in? Why can't the takeaways just go rogue and offer independent deliveries?
There’s huge room for disruption in this model when a $12 chipotle order costs the consumer $30 after higher menu prices + delivery fees + tip.
So as their is a ready supply of drivers, anyone who can raise an amount of money, and find a niche can enter the fray?
The suppliers (restaurants) are not happy with 30% or so being taken by the giants.
This is what our actual economic system is all about: a series of market oligopolies whose greed is unchecked by our political establishment and legal apparatus with the complicity of the voting masses. Any attempt to implement measures to palliate the social decay and corruption it breeds will be branded as chinese communism and opposed by the media and the public.
We have collectively decided that the economy shouldn't be in service of the people, canis canem edit.
But it's not at all clear that major deliverers are even a majority of the delivery market. There are no pizza chains on the list. There are certainly no individual restaurants on the list.
> Why is my $8 burger $23 after fees - An average reddit user
Delivery in China (through Alipay, which may or may not be backed by Meituan) is generally cheaper after fees than it would be if you just went and bought the food in person. This might explain why Meituan has so much more transaction value than Doordash and Uber Eats. But it's not something I'd imagine drives a lot of user complaints.
Made me laugh out loud. It's strictly the worst option. Only use it if my job wants to pay, or if very sick.
Cold food. Unpredictable delivery times. More expensive than eating out. Usually less nutritious than cooking yourself. And of course expensive as hell.