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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

#211

Post by shkkmo »

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…

> Just because Americans have an obesity problem doesn't make every food vendor a drug dealer.

Not all, just some of them. It's pretty obvious which ones when you actually look at how they design and market their products.

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

#212

Post by WalterBright »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #193
WalterBright wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>> Any company which has earnings beyond those of operating costs is a concentration of wealth by definition. For context, here is the second sentence related to the above: Whether that wealth is distributed to shareholders, kept as retained earnings, or otherwise transferred to specific entities is irrelevant. I believe this relevant to the below. > Let's say I buy $20 worth of art supplies, and I paint a landscape…

> Either you have not "become wealthy", as you "traded a million dollar painting for a million bucks" or the effectual value of money exceeds the purchase value of the "million dollar painting". Both cannot be true.

I became wealthy by creating wealth, not concentrating it. Concentrating it requires it be taken from somewhere else. There is no taking going on, there is creation and exchange.

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

#213

Post by p_v_doom »

budududuroiu wrote: post #103
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…

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

> I dislike the commentary that any pushback against tech companies means you’re a Luddite

Me too, and I actually AM a Luddite

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

#214

Post by safety1st »

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…

Carlin's actual view is a lot more nuanced than that. Big Tech (along with Walmart, Visa and more) have gotten to where they are by employing illegal business practices such as price discrimination and exclusive dealing. These tactics laid the groundwork for the mass mergers and rollups and the monopolies and oligopolies that dominate America today. The laws on the books which prohibit them, like Robinson-Patman and the Clayton Act, have gone largely unenforced since Reagan. Software sped up how quickly businesses can exploit these criminal tactics but this has become a problem across all sectors of the economy.

This shocking degree of negligence has required complicity from both political parties, but there's a deeper issue which is that this stuff is just too arcane to be linked meaningfully to a popular vote in today's democracy. We're talking about a nation where 1 in 5 people are now illiterate and that number is rising. There are two parties and a vanishingly small number of candidates presented to them every couple of years, meanwhile the media bombards them with a dozen supposed crises every day. This system is never going to produce a consensus that the most important priority is enforcing some law from 1914. Popular sentiment is more likely to be expressed through the rise of more guys like Luigi Mangione.

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

#215

Post by rhubarbtree »

Aurornis wrote: post #63
daedrdev wrote: post #23

I think the truth is restaurant food delivery is a luxgury good, literally “private taxi for your burrito” yet many people spend like it isnt.

Seeing how many Gen Z people use food delivery services on a weekly or even daily basis was mind blowing to me. I’ve had numerous conversations where I’ve had to bite my tongue when younger colleagues complained about finances after also explaining that they DoorDash dinner nearly every night. It’s bizarre. Not all Gen Z, of course. Most of the younger people I’ve worked with have been generally smart about finances.…

I agree with your sentiment and was also astonished about spending on delivery.

However, I don’t think food delivery is the reason they’re complaining about finances - it’s more likely it’s that every generation above them has been able to buy housing and they cannot.

No amount of penny pinching on everyday spending is going to close a doubling [1] in the cost of buying a house for Gen Z vs _Millennials_ (never mind boomers!). It’s incredibly unfair and Gen Z are absolutely right to complain and be angry about it.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gen-z-mortga...

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

#216

Post by ars »

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…

The Kibutz model in Israel seems to work. What makes that different?

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

#217

Post by jack_h »

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.

If five companies competing is anti-competitive, then how many competitors does it take to suddenly become competitive and why? What is the significance of this larger-than-five number? Is it the same across industries? How do you derive it?

This seems to rest on the mistaken belief that a corollary of monopolies being bad is that more competition is always better than less competition. If everyone was a competitor in the restaurant food delivery market we'd all starve to death as no one would be growing food. An efficient economy wouldn't waste resources competing over less important things like restaurant food delivery over something more beneficial.

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

#218

Post by grues-dinner »

budududuroiu wrote: post #103
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…

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

Put a cap on company size. No organisation can be worth more than (say) a few hundred million. You can still make big and complex things but it'll have to be several small(er) companies working in concert, which is already kind of how massive companies work internally anyway. Less efficient, maybe, but I am not entirely convinced that huge companies hoovering up any attempt at competition leads to efficiencies in the long run. And the more value that can be extracted by smaller players, the more that ends up in the hands of humans rather than pooling R the top. Maybe have a credit for capital outlay so building and operating a factory is better than building a financial war chest, and a credit for non-executive salaries so paying your workers increases your company's headroom.

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

#220

Post by PieTime »

Responding to a deleted comment on tech control:

They do already, google, Microsoft, meta, Amazon all AI defense contractors using their technology to suppress negative feedback to their involvement in military contracts. Police using surveillance to spy on journalists phones. Healthcare approval completely automated by AI and school that don’t know difference between student or AI homework.

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