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Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

latimes.com

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Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#261

Post by m463 »

tdhoot wrote: post #249
m463 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds plausible, but it's basically wrong. As an example, most people buy from amazon even though other retailers have very good websites, without inline advertisements and many times with lower prices. another interesting example is tow truck services.

I buy from Amazon instead of other retailers because Amazon has almost-always free shipping for Prime members, a consistent (and fast) website experience I know how to use, and great customer service. Some retailers have good websites (most don't), but I've always found issues like: slow shipping, having to create an account, spam from the retailer, poor customer service, etc.

...And now amazon is a habit, and you probably won't even consider going direct to a retailer.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#262

Post by JamesBarney »

otterley wrote: post #237
JamesBarney wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument recommends take out which also involves driving somewhere, and given that deliverers many times deliver to more than one household this is an argument for delivery over take out. Also it's not significant, even with a carbon tax to eliminate this externality that would be at most a dime or quarter of pollution. And human rights abuse? I had a job delivering, and it was honestly one of my favorite jobs. T…

"It can't possibly be happening because it never happened to me" is a pretty weak argument.

Original argument was "bad things happen"

then "humans right abuse is somehow related to delivery but I won't specify how"

then I replied "I was a deliverer and it was a fine job"

Of the three arguments mine is most relevant.

Maybe you can explain how subway delivery involves human rights abuse.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#263

Post by cozzyd »

basch wrote: post #259
ethbro wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be insane for restaurants to build their own platforms. It would be crazy smart for someone to standardize an interface (e.g. REST API), let restaurants implement glue to their systems, and then allow a plurality of delivery services to consume and order through the standard interface.

The POS systems need this natively. So an order from any system is ingested the same as any other ticket typed by an employee on prem. It needs to be a protocol like email or http, not another company with a proprietary aggregator.

I recently ordered a pickup order that seemed to just be using the restaurant's POS system.

For delivery it's harder because you actually need someone to deliver the food and the logistics are really hard (they have to get there when the food is ready but not too late and not too early, etc.). But... there are like 80 restaurants in a 10 minute walk radius from me, so I can just deal with pickup for now.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#264

Post by esyir »

ethbro wrote: post #255
nerfhammer wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would surprise me. It's unlikely a dozen apps would be able to coordinate like that. The thing about cartels is the first defector can cut prices and capture marketshare, which is what we're supposed to believe evil VC funded cutthroat startups are inclined to do. Raising prices to increase profit but reduce revenue growth is the exact opposite of that. The other hypothesis is that delivery is simply expensive.…

Or, this is more like TicketMaster and less like a free market.

The concert case single monopoly that controls both part of the source as well as basically all sales is now comparable to the pile of separate delivery services that compete against each other.

A claim that all of these have formed a cartel requires strong evidence.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#265

Post by heavyset_go »

nerfhammer wrote: post #253
Jommi wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not be surprised if the US market had some level of collusion going on. It just doesn't make sense to me that they aren't currently competing on price. There are some other possible reasons tho, like food actually not being as "commodity"-like as we think it is (like rides are)

That would surprise me. It's unlikely a dozen apps would be able to coordinate like that. The thing about cartels is the first defector can cut prices and capture marketshare, which is what we're supposed to believe evil VC funded cutthroat startups are inclined to do. Raising prices to increase profit but reduce revenue growth is the exact opposite of that. The other hypothesis is that delivery is simply expensive.…

This is naive. Cartels are a market failure, and your argument against cartels existing is that market forces in an ideal world would prevent them.

Reminder that Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay all colluded to keep engineer compensation below market value[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#266

Post by Jommi »

heavyset_go wrote: post #265
nerfhammer wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would surprise me. It's unlikely a dozen apps would be able to coordinate like that. The thing about cartels is the first defector can cut prices and capture marketshare, which is what we're supposed to believe evil VC funded cutthroat startups are inclined to do. Raising prices to increase profit but reduce revenue growth is the exact opposite of that. The other hypothesis is that delivery is simply expensive.…

This is naive. Cartels are a market failure, and your argument against cartels existing is that market forces in an ideal world would prevent them. Reminder that Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay all colluded to keep engineer compensation below market value[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Well that's also just a naive view. Industrial Economics takes a deeper look at this for example.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#267

Post by ethbro »

esyir wrote: post #264
ethbro wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, this is more like TicketMaster and less like a free market.

The concert case single monopoly that controls both part of the source as well as basically all sales is now comparable to the pile of separate delivery services that compete against each other. A claim that all of these have formed a cartel requires strong evidence.

The pile of delivery services is effectively 3, right?

And 2 of those are potentially combining.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#268

Post by nicesave »

ethbro wrote: post #257
petra wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If restaurants put any effort at all into fixing those things, there would not be such a strong demand for apps. In such a world, Some model of Ghost kitchens will thrive anyway, not small restaurants. Why ? The area a kitchen serves will become much larger - distance matters less when you don't need to go pick the food. And even when food freshness matters, there are some solutions like parcooking and finishing t…

This sounds like a future that ends in the Amazon of food... bland, lowest-priced facsimiles of actual product. Which only seems compelling in a future in which people are literally unable to cook for themselves.

That's because it is. What makes restaurants different is their specialization in an area, and excelling at that along with atmosphere. Without that there's no value add.

I have worked with these large kitchens that can make different types of cuisines depending on your want, but they all turn out mediocre.

My family completely stopped ordering out during this pandemic because most restaurants have lost the key employees who make their food special, there is no atmosphere, and GrubHub et al add no value.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#269

Post by kgantchev »

fzeroracer wrote: post #231
kgantchev wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the poster used legality as the moral compass, rather, consumer choice was the moral compass. If consumers lack the moral conciousness on their day to day transactions, then how can we expect them to make the right moral choices when they vote?

That assumes consumers actually have a choice to make in the situation. For example let's say you disagreed with how Comcast throttles the internet or behaves in monopolistic behavior. Your only option to make the moral choice is to simply not have internet at all in certain regions. A more topical one might be if you disagree with a company using sweatshop labor. Figuring out which companies engage in sweatshop labo…

Comcast is in a position to throttle the internet because voters voted against the interests of the consumers. Specifically, the voters restricted other market participants from competing with Comcast. So the consumers are not acting in their own best interest as consumers and they're not acting in their own best interest as voters. Why is Comcast on the hook?

With regards to the sweatshop labor: if you care not to buy sweatshop clothes and you can't reasonably establish the origins of the clothes, then don't buy them. Only stick with manufacturers who have had their products verified by a trusted third party.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#270

Post by kgantchev »

xenocyon wrote: post #204
kgantchev wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the poster used legality as the moral compass, rather, consumer choice was the moral compass. If consumers lack the moral conciousness on their day to day transactions, then how can we expect them to make the right moral choices when they vote?

I addressed consumer choice in my first paragraph. Let me expand on that: There have in fact been successful consumer-led movements, but the most successful of these concern cases where the consumers also happened to be the same people being exploited (colonial India's rejection of dumped British textiles, the Montgomery bus boycott, the Boston tea party, etc). Cases where consumers have acted en masse on behalf of a…

If consumers are not morally-minded enough to act on the behalf of another exploited class, then how can you expect them to vote on behalf of the exploited class?

And if history suggests that people's virtuous choices are largely useless, then how is their voting going to be any better?

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