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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

#301

Post by BobaFloutist »

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

Right, and you'd like if there was a special 0% income tax only for software engineers or if every software engineer got a free pony too.

That's why we need to also consider the needs of people that aren't American software engineers.

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

#302

Post by Dracophoenix »

graemep wrote: post #225
lynx97 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Does that mean every vendor of anything is potentially a bad actor Yes, of course they are. Left unregulated they will form cartels. As Adam Smith said, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." They will try to raise barriers to entry as well, to limit competition. They wil…

Are cartels inherently unethical? The US government approves of and protects certain cartels (e.g. unions, hospital systems, defense contractors).

If anything, cartels thrive under heavily regulated and dirigiste economic systems, where as in an unregulated market a cartel would eventually lose to a competitor or succumb to infighting.

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

#303

Post by WalterBright »

ars wrote: post #216
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…

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

The Kibutzen are subsidized by the Israeli government. They would otherwise collapse.

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

#304

Post by almosthere »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #242
almosthere wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disagree

yes, a "source" that's widely known for producing false information is a reliable source, you're right.

the data is so fucking obvious (everyone knows there are massive OD and suicidality in this moment), of course people are going to be pedantic about the source and not debate the merits of the argument.

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

#305

Post by gr8beehive »

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…

Yeah it’s Soylent green all the way down; just people hiding behind allowed legal obfuscation.

Physics is inviolable. Human tech will never succeed in the fancy things we imagine. No evidence it allows such things naturally. We’ll conjure a bunch of artistic representations, but never harness enough energy to break things.

Hunter gathering is a bit far back. Since none of the geniuses can guarantee 100 generations from now will still care about rockets to Mars, listening to them today about the far future is asinine.

Keep enough food and hardware stores around and give people time back.

I’m anti story mode and that means Sam Altman’s or some notion of future human greatness. Fellow US readers; yeah that’s right I don’t care you exist. You keep me off the hook for your healthcare, good luck. Why would I care when you keep yourself off the hook for my healthcare? Fuck you.

I’m fucking sick of Americans clearly being low skilled useless to themselves exploiters of others for zero in return but a made up story. In all my study of physical science I never come across evidence any of this wanky web tech is a fundamental force. Occam’s razor applied, it’s all just the hallucinations of arbitrary meat people.

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

#306

Post by RamblingCTO »

almosthere wrote: post #304
RamblingCTO wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, a "source" that's widely known for producing false information is a reliable source, you're right.

the data is so fucking obvious (everyone knows there are massive OD and suicidality in this moment), of course people are going to be pedantic about the source and not debate the merits of the argument.

however you want to spin it, the source is always important. again, especially if it tends to fabricate things. don't be lazy and research a proper, first order source and not a parroted parody of a source.

you're intellectually lazy, so why would anyone want to discuss with you?

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db522.htm > 105,007 in 2023 heavily picking up since around 2015

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

#307

Post by WalterBright »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #239
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…

> it harnesses the inherent selfishness of everybody the biggest lie we're constantly being told: https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Ostrom.html . this really annoys me, we're not inherently selfish. at least not most people. free markets don't work in any rate. how do you even come to this conclusion? also, lots of counter examples here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_cooperatives

Ostrom: "the ones that worked did have a kind of property rights system"

LOL. And the fact that she gets a Nobel Prize for this shows how unworkable it is in general.

> we're not inherently selfish

You're selfish, so am I, so is everyone you know.

> free markets don't work in any rate. how do you even come to this conclusion?

The success of free markets in the US, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Singapore, etc.

Worker cooperatives: A worker cooperative is not a commune. In any case, there are what, a hundred examples listed? What that shows is they are so rare that a global list can be compiled on Wikipedia. Set that against the scores of millions of businesses.

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

#308

Post by ars »

WalterBright wrote: post #303
ars wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The Kibutzen are subsidized by the Israeli government. They would otherwise collapse.

That's not true. I just checked on it, and they used to be subsidized, these days not so much.

A lot of them are hybrid models with some capitalism, mixed with the socialism. So I guess it sort of confirms your opinion that these things don't work when pure?

But they do seem to have found a successful hybrid model.

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

#309

Post by WalterBright »

jjani wrote: post #248
RamblingCTO wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it harnesses the inherent selfishness of everybody the biggest lie we're constantly being told: https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Ostrom.html . this really annoys me, we're not inherently selfish. at least not most people. free markets don't work in any rate. how do you even come to this conclusion? also, lots of counter examples here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_cooperatives

Spot on, it's so sad to see this kind of thinking so ingrained in people, when literally 3 seconds of critical thinking would lead to the opposite conclusion. Are kids just as selfish as adults, at every age? Does their selfishness change depending on what they're taught and how selfish their role models are? Is selfishness among adults at the exact same level across decades, eras, cultures, nations? If the answer to…

> when literally 3 seconds of critical thinking would lead to the opposite conclusion

Understanding why free markets work takes a lot longer than 3 seconds, as it is counter-intuitive.

> the countless cases of people literally sacrificing their own lives through history

Decades ago, the Scientific American ran an article about this, where a study showed that people self-sacrificing can mathematically be shown to ensure the survival of their genes. For an obvious case, parents sacrificing themselves for their children's sake. This makes it selfish. People are less willing to sacrifice themselves the genetically further away the people benefiting from such sacrifice.

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

#310

Post by itake »

motorest wrote: post #207
itake wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I work at Grab (and ex-Yelp). I am very familiar with FoodPanda and their owners as they are a direct competitor to my employer. I literally work for one of the non-American "local" food delivery services. But within out region, there are reasons we don't have technology offices in every country we operate in and we have tech offices in countries we don't operate in.

There are also reasons that we continue to exist while our competition pulls out of the region. There are also many reasons why hyper-local delivery services aren't able to compete with global or regional winners: Talent, access to capital, and TAM are big parts of that equation.

If someone that works for a non-american food delivery service provider is out of touch, I wonder what your credentials are that puts you in touch.

Also, in the blog, 2 of the 5 players ARE American (Doordash and Uber). The other 3 are European and Chinese.

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