[jhwang5]

"Over the past few months, we have experienced the mainstreaming of technology-enabled behavior previously thought of as being on the fringe. Shopping for groceries online and having them delivered, for example, was something of coastal luxury."

Food / grocery delivery is still to expensive to be the "norm", especially for the middle class.

"It is not as if they had a choice. COVID-19 has exposed one harsh truth: digital channels are more flexible and faster to adapt to change than physical channels."

Yes. That being said, physical stores (after a CMBS crash) may get massively underpriced coming out of this recession.

[freeAgent]

Food delivery is ridiculously expensive for what it offers me in added convenience. I’m not even using it now, forget after COVID-19 has passed. I actually enjoy getting to pick out the specific food I bring home from the grocery store, and I have no trouble picking up my own food from a restaurant (assuming I don’t want to eat out). I feel like a lot of these consumer oriented gig services primarily increase intermediaries and cost for very little benefit.

[gowld]

Food delivery is only expensive in money if you are rich in time. Some people have more time than money, others vice versa.

Food delivery like expensive because it is combined with complicated meals, which are expensive in their own right (again, if you are time rich).

[imustbeevil]

> Food / grocery delivery is still to expensive to be the "norm", especially for the middle class.

The biggest thing for me is just how arbitrary the pricing is. If I make an order I know is $8 at the drive through, and it costs $16 on DoorDash, and then there's a $7 fee, and then I have to tip $5, and then it still takes an hour and a half to get to me. Nah. Never that.

I'm learning how to cook now; I make a mean smash burger.

[jlbnjmn]

Yeah, the shady/deceptive/misleading/false pricing you mentioned is foolish. ("Free delivery"* after undisclosed $10 platform fee and $4 processing fee.)

Destroying tech industry reputations and eroding trust is not a good long term play.

It's no better than infomercials touting free products with "just pay shipping and handling". Same sleaze, different generation.

[rswail]

You need to distinguish between grocery delivery and food/meal delivery.

In Australia, the two primary grocery outlets, Coles and Woolworths, already had online ordering and delivery. The use exploded with the lockdown but they have ramped up.

The cost for a delivery depends on the value of the order for Woolies and on time of day and delivery window for Coles but is of the order of $10-$15.

A lot of people have moved to the services to avoid going to the supermarkets, and many won't return to physical shopping for the weekly groceries.

The food delivery services are a bit different, there's the widely spread existing services like Dominos etc, but then there's the Uber Eats/Doordash etc. For the moment, the Eats/doordash people are screwing the restaurants, but they're starting to also charge more to the customers.