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

marketsaintefficient.substack.com

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

#201

Post by lynx97 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #175
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…

> There's an air of let's go back to the good old days when we were hunter gatherers to the whole thing. I strongly disagree. On the contrary, I see the arch of many technological advancements in that, in the beginning, they solve a crucial need, but then once they solve that problem they attempt to hijack the positive feedback systems of humans (e.g. addiction systems) to stay in power. Consider the food industry. M…

Just because Americans have an obesity problem doesn't make every food vendor a drug dealer. Come on, get real. Basically everything that is being sold can be abused by the user. Does that mean every vendor of anything is potentially a bad actor? I believe you are exaggregating. BTW, I virtually never thought about Thiel when I ordered a Pizza. Is there a reason why you drag the owners into this? It basically sounds like you are antagonising everyone above your wage-class. I don't get it.

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

#202

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

ram_rar wrote: post #190

Can someone help me understand how many companies are generally needed for healthy competition, as opposed to a market being considered fragmented or monopolistic? To the untrained eye, having 5 players might seem like a reasonable level of competition and suggest a functioning market. Personally, I’ve always seen food delivery as a premium service rather than an essential one — so it makes sense that there's a highe…

Because the 5 players are for the entire planet, not any individual market. In any particular market, there are one or two big delivery companies. The 5 companies are Meituan, DoorDash, Uber, Prosus, and Delivery Hero. I'm in the US, where DoorDash and Uber Eats are the major players. I've never even heard of the other three, which dominate non-US markets.

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

#203

Post by motorest »

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.

> 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

You need to be completely out of touch with reality to read an article on 5 companies dominating a global market and your take from that info is that there are no anticompetitive practices because 5 is more than 1.

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

#204

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

efitz wrote: post #171

If there are 5 companies, doesn’t that count as “competition”? If not, how many companies does there have to be to have “competition”? If there were only 1 or 2 companies, that would seem much more of a problem.

But there are only 1 or 2 companies in any particular market. I'm in the US, where DoorDash and Uber Eats dominate. I've never even heard of the other 3 (Meituan, Prosus, Delivery Hero) which dominate in other regions.

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

#205

Post by lynx97 »

motorest wrote: post #203
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.

> 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 You need to be completely out of touch with reality to read an article on 5 companies dominating a global market and your take from that info is that there are no anticompetitive practices because 5 is more than 1.

"completely out of touch" is definitely an exaggregationg. Besides, as if competition would really increase quality. Where I dwell, we have around 3 active delivery services. Only 1 of them has an app with useable UX, icnluding accessibility. Competition? Meh. What for? So that I can watch the smaller guys blunder their way to the top?

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

#206

Post by rightrighton87 »

The thing about food delivery services is that it has one outcome people want -- to get their food delivered. It's no surprise the biggest contenders in the beginning of instant food delivery now have a monopoly.

Now to stand out you need to be dirt cheap or offer something innovative/creative..I guess like with every other industry these days

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

#207

Post by motorest »

itake wrote: post #160
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.

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 winni…

> Can you name them which countries this impacts?

Sure, go to each country and check what food delivery companies operate in them, get a list of companies operating in the market that are not controlled by the big 5 mentioned in the article.

In Europe there were a few companies operating in the sector which were taken over by these global companies. I recall the Glovo takeover by Delivery Hero. You mention Foodpanda but you seem to be unaware this is a brand from Delivery Hero, and Just Eat is a Prosus company too.

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

I'm baffled by your comment. Do you believe only the US has "the talent" to put together a food delivery business? Because even if you ignore the fact that 2 out of the 5 dominant players are not US companies, you need to be way out of touch with the reality of both the technology side and business side.

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

#209

Post by motorest »

lynx97 wrote: post #205
motorest wrote: post #203

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 You need to be completely out of touch with reality to read an article on 5 companies dominating a global market and your take from that info is that there are no anticompetitive practices because 5 is more than 1.

"completely out of touch" is definitely an exaggregationg. Besides, as if competition would really increase quality. Where I dwell, we have around 3 active delivery services. Only 1 of them has an app with useable UX, icnluding accessibility. Competition? Meh. What for? So that I can watch the smaller guys blunder their way to the top?

> "completely out of touch" is definitely an exaggregationg.

Is it, though? I mean, can you present a coherent argument supporting the idea that a global market being dominated by 5 multinational corporations does not flag a risk of anticompetitive practices?

> Competition? Meh. What for? So that I can watch the smaller guys blunder their way to the top?

Is this what you have to offer to refute the idea you're completely out of touch?

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

#210

Post by ctxc »

lynx97 wrote: post #201
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's an air of let's go back to the good old days when we were hunter gatherers to the whole thing. I strongly disagree. On the contrary, I see the arch of many technological advancements in that, in the beginning, they solve a crucial need, but then once they solve that problem they attempt to hijack the positive feedback systems of humans (e.g. addiction systems) to stay in power. Consider the food industry. M…

Just because Americans have an obesity problem doesn't make every food vendor a drug dealer. Come on, get real. Basically everything that is being sold can be abused by the user. Does that mean every vendor of anything is potentially a bad actor? I believe you are exaggregating. BTW, I virtually never thought about Thiel when I ordered a Pizza. Is there a reason why you drag the owners into this? It basically sounds…

It's not black and white, but what you're saying sounds like "just because users have an attention problem doesn't make every social media app an attention grabber"

I mean, companies optimise for profits and at some point people fall for it in excess which is the point OP made.

It kinda makes sense, because the means the companies employ are psychologically advanced plays on people who don't know the spelling of psychology.

I'm probably manipulated into scrolling more than I wanted to or buying more than I wanted to on an everyday basis.

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