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Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

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Re: Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

#151

Post by AndrewKemendo »

WalterBright wrote: post #145
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the bit on Youtube (I couldn't find an Archive link): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSAxtIYM08 This is the right conclusion, and I love sharing that video for that reason. As of 2025 everyone globally has everything they need to make the world a great place for everyone. Instead, people continue to take the lowest energy route for their personal actions, which means they do not even think about the external…

> I've tried to start multiple non-heirarchical anarchist cooperative organizations and the number one challenge is finding people who will put the group ahead of the individual. It just doesn't happen. I could have saved you the trouble if you'd just asked me! Over 20,000 communes have been started in the US. None have survived. What baffles me is why people keep believing they can work. Free markets work because it…

I’m very aware of those unfortunately

I was a devotee of Mr Rogers growing up and I’ve seen really successful people start from nothing and help others

40 years of hope in humanity is hard to kill but it finally died so that’s that

It took proving it mathematically to get me there

Re: Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

#152

Post by AdieuToLogic »

WalterBright wrote: post #141
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #11

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 usu…

Big business is the engine that drives the economy. Small businesses are the future big businesses. Economies where big business is discouraged don't do very well. Small business doesn't have economy of scale, nor can it raise the capital to do big projects. > extreme concentration of wealth Big business does not concentrate wealth. What you're seeing is the creation of wealth. This created wealth then flows out into…

> Big business does not concentrate wealth.

They absolutely do. If for no other reason than each of their revenue goes to fewer entities.

> What you're seeing is the creation of wealth. This created wealth then flows out into the rest of the economy, via paying the workers and buying plant&equipment, etc.

This is the flawed reasoning behind "trickle-down economics"[0], which was called "horse and sparrow" in the 19th century. It didn't work in the 19th century when labelled as the latter nor in the 20th when reframed as the former.

Any company which has earnings beyond those of operating costs is a concentration of wealth by definition. Whether that wealth is distributed to shareholders, kept as retained earnings, or otherwise transferred to specific entities is irrelevant.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

Re: Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

#153

Post by protocolture »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #129
fasterik wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a George Carlin bit about politicians. The punchline is "the problem isn't the politicians, it's the people." His point is that nothing emerges from a vaccuum. Politicians are people just like everyone else, they're just responding to incentives created by a majority vote. Tech companies are just like any other company, except a lot more people are willing to pay for their goods and services. If Carlin were a…

Here's the bit on Youtube (I couldn't find an Archive link): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSAxtIYM08 This is the right conclusion, and I love sharing that video for that reason. As of 2025 everyone globally has everything they need to make the world a great place for everyone. Instead, people continue to take the lowest energy route for their personal actions, which means they do not even think about the external…

>It's never been easier to do that, but people would rather not.

Never been harder with ubiquitous surveillance.

>As of 2025 everyone globally has everything they need to make the world a great place for everyone.

Disagree. Even if theres enough food being produced, its not produced evenly, and the extra labor and resources to distribute it evenly would screw a lot of this up. Then theres the idea that a bureaucracy large enough to distribute it worldwide would be efficient.

>I've tried to start multiple non-heirarchical anarchist cooperative organizations and the number one challenge is finding people who will put the group ahead of the individual.

The group is made of individuals. Ultimately eventually they will need some reward for their participation. Whenever I have involved myself in these groups theres ultimately some unsavoury character who has positioned himself as leader and siphon off the glory for themselves. Or in one case, it was just an avenue for the "leader" to gain access to vulnerable women. These groups dont work because they get hijacked, not because the people doing the work dont want to work.

>Unions now make most of their money from capital investments [2], which is directly in opposition to their anticapitalist philosophical roots.

Unions are about protecting workers. They dont have to be socialist paragons as long as they meet that directive.

>At this point in history, everyone has access to the information they need to make globally holistic decisions.

Lmao, where to start with that doozy. Local knowledge still trumps the disinfo hose.

>lack the cognitive ability to think beyond Dunbar's number

People just dont trust beyond that number, and with good reason.

>Self elimination is the only possible arc for humanity.

Lmao, there's no reason why we cant keep going like this. An engine built on brutal exploitation. Predicting humanities doom seems greatly premature.

Re: Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

#154

Post by WalterBright »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #151
WalterBright wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've tried to start multiple non-heirarchical anarchist cooperative organizations and the number one challenge is finding people who will put the group ahead of the individual. It just doesn't happen. I could have saved you the trouble if you'd just asked me! Over 20,000 communes have been started in the US. None have survived. What baffles me is why people keep believing they can work. Free markets work because it…

I’m very aware of those unfortunately I was a devotee of Mr Rogers growing up and I’ve seen really successful people start from nothing and help others 40 years of hope in humanity is hard to kill but it finally died so that’s that It took proving it mathematically to get me there

Mr Rogers was indeed a special man.

Re: Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

#155

Post by BrenBarn »

fasterik wrote: post #101
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #11

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 usu…

There's a George Carlin bit about politicians. The punchline is "the problem isn't the politicians, it's the people." His point is that nothing emerges from a vaccuum. Politicians are people just like everyone else, they're just responding to incentives created by a majority vote. Tech companies are just like any other company, except a lot more people are willing to pay for their goods and services. If Carlin were a…

You're right in a sense. The thing is what people are "willing" to do or what they "want" is a somewhat amorphous concept and depends on how options are presented to people.

Human nature involves the ability to let different dimensions of our cognitive apparatus cover one another's weak spots. In my view, a lot of what many would consider wise decisions throughout human history have been instances of this, many of them in the form of law, from child-labor restrictions to drunk-driving laws to birth control to incest taboos.

There just seems to be a certain segment of society that for some reason insists that "what the consumer wants" has to be construed in this narrow way as what is in the person's mind at the instant of a decision, and that any attempt to broaden that person's decision-making is somehow unnatural. Well, no. It's good to make changes that create immediate costs if doing so can save us from future costs that we're not good at foreseeing at the moment. It's good for Ulysses to ask his men to tie him to the mast. It's good in many cases for people to deliberately, explicitly, not do things they feel like doing because they will regret those things later. I believe this is often true even from a perspective of self-interest (e.g., people will not like it if a monopoly emerges and raises prices later), but it's even more true if you incorporate a bit of consideration for the well-being of others, and I think plenty of people are willing to do that to some extent.

Re: Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

#156

Post by WalterBright »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #152
WalterBright wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big business is the engine that drives the economy. Small businesses are the future big businesses. Economies where big business is discouraged don't do very well. Small business doesn't have economy of scale, nor can it raise the capital to do big projects. > extreme concentration of wealth Big business does not concentrate wealth. What you're seeing is the creation of wealth. This created wealth then flows out into…

> Big business does not concentrate wealth. They absolutely do. If for no other reason than each of their revenue goes to fewer entities. > What you're seeing is the creation of wealth. This created wealth then flows out into the rest of the economy, via paying the workers and buying plant&equipment, etc. This is the flawed reasoning behind "trickle-down economics"[0], which was called "horse and sparrow" in the 19th…

> Any company which has earnings beyond those of operating costs is a concentration of wealth by definition

Let's say I buy $20 worth of art supplies, and I paint a landscape and sign it with my moniker, "bright". Since "bright" paintings are very rare and go for a million bucks each, I now have created a million bucks of value. Who did I transfer the wealth from? Nobody. I took nuttin from nobody. Yet I have become wealthy.

Let's say I sell it to you for a million bucks. Did I take your wealth? Nope. I traded a million dollar painting for a million bucks. You are exactly as wealthy as you were before.

Now, if you decide to use my painting as compost (sob!), you are dissipating the million dollar value. That's not me concentrating wealth, it's you destroying your wealth.

If you stole the painting from me, then you concentrated wealth. But we're not talking about theft here.

Re: Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

#157

Post by alberth »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #11

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 usu…

> the story of tech companies across nearly every industry

I don’t think this is limited to tech companies.

Most industries are controlled by a few companies in those sectors.

Such as Steel, railwood, pharma, grocery, etc.

Re: Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

#158

Post by anigbrowl »

fasterik wrote: post #106
budududuroiu wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t have to go back to hunter gatherer societies, just do some antitrust. I dislike the commentary that any pushback against tech companies means you’re a Luddite

Anti-trust for an industry where there are at least five companies doing well in any given space? That's not called a monopoly, it's called competition. Edit: I wasn't accusing everyone who is critical of tech of being a Luddite. The attitude that nearly every tech company is a net negative for society goes quite a bit beyond criticism.

It's an oligopoly.

Re: Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

#159

Post by chrisdirkis »

rangestransform wrote: post #135
alisonatwork wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine you live in one of the other 190 countries of the world who do not or no longer have significant players in the industry because they were crushed by those five foreign companies. It's not competition when the wealth and power is so disproportionately held by the same people in the same places.

As a software engineer in the US, I like that the US sucks up money from the rest of the world, that’s why my dollar goes so far when I travel and why I can retire in a non-reserve-currency country for cheap

Do you not feel as though that's incredibly anti-social? It's a very zero-sum "I'd prefer if things were better for me in direct proportion to how much worse they'll be for '_others_'"

Re: Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

#160

Post by itake »

alisonatwork wrote: post #132
fasterik wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-trust for an industry where there are at least five companies doing well in any given space? That's not called a monopoly, it's called competition. Edit: I wasn't accusing everyone who is critical of tech of being a Luddite. The attitude that nearly every tech company is a net negative for society goes quite a bit beyond criticism.

Now imagine you live in one of the other 190 countries of the world who do not or no longer have significant players in the industry because they were crushed by those five foreign companies. It's not competition when the wealth and power is so disproportionately held by the same people in the same places.

Can you name them which countries this impacts?

China (basically) only has didi. Not much the USA can say here.

Southeast has Grab, and within each country there are at least 2 local competitors (Be, GoJek, Bolt, Line Man, Bluebird, etc). I believe Doordash just bought Deliveroo, making it the only American competitor in SEA.

In Europe, the main players are local food panda / Delivery hero and Just Eat.

India's winning food delivery is Swiggy.

What countries have both the talent to build a food delivery app and the USA is the dominant player?

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