Wow, that was great. And honestly good on them for profit-taking on this arbitrage. The author likes to pin this on zero-interest rates ("ZIRP") and that certainly explains why the system is awash with cash but I'd say he's missing a key point here. When I moved to NYC (~10 years ago) I didn't order delivery at all. Honestly it's a huge pain. To call someone up and try and communicate an order to someone who probably…
It's the same here. Everyone will always tell you that these knew gig economy companies are so much better! Their service is better, they're quicker, you don't have to deal with people, you can order whenever you want etc. etc. But actually, it's probably going to turn out it's just cheap.
It's very likely these services are basically used by 90% of people because they're cheap, and they're cheap because they're losing money to gain market share. The problem is that once they need to turn a profit, they have to drive up margins and now that $16 pizza needs processing fees and costs for the delivery driver - now it's $22. Or more importantly, your $8 starbucks order is now $13. So the second that the prices reflect the true costs these businesses are going to shed customers like you wouldn't believe. Oh and in order to try and curb those costs you're going to see some guy in a broken down car do a tour of the city delivering everyone else's food before yours gets to you.