[ApolloFortyNine]

Dining out is already a luxury. Paying 20% more just for someone to deliver the food to my door is even more of a luxury, and without the 'dining out' experience.

Honestly I don't expect delivery services to survive, and I don't think it would be a tragedy if they ceased to exist.

[ApolloFortyNine]

I can't edit my post any more, but it makes me sad that this is sitting negative, when what I did was point out that food delivery is a luxury. This whole business of delivering everything has only really taken off in the last 3 years.

If you want to create an echo chamber, this is how you do it.

[CamperBob2]

Everything beyond the most rudimentary food, clothing, and shelter is a luxury. It's not very insightful to stick your nose in the air and loftily proclaim something a "luxury," as if your opinion should be taken into account in the boardrooms and executive suites at Uber.

[ApolloFortyNine]

>Delivery is expensive. It's time-consuming, and customers are rarely willing to pay the true cost of it.

>Most of the restaurant delivery services were bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars last year. They've had a resurgence because of the Covid-19 but that's a blip compared to a normal situation.

>If people think it doesn't cost that much money to operate, then all restaurants shouldn't have a problem having their own delivery service.

This is the comment I was responding to. Someone was discussing how much it costs to deliver and why people should be willing to pay more than 5% fees. And my comment that it's a luxury on top of a luxury is nothing more than an explanation of why people aren't willing to pay more.

>It's not very insightful to stick your nose in the air and loftily proclaim

Honestly I'm not sure why you took a comment calling food delivery a luxury so personally, I'm sorry it offended you.

[CamperBob2]

It didn't offend me, no worries. But I do use these services quite a bit, I appreciate the role of the driver (and tip accordingly), and I would prefer that the companies in question survive and prosper.

Is it a "tragedy" if food delivery services cease to exist? Not to me personally, but it would be an inconvenience, and likely something much more serious to the people who work there and to those who drive for them. It's unlikely that those people appreciate being dismissed as unnecessary. In a capitalist society, the fact that they are a luxury doesn't have any bearing on whether they deserve to earn a living. I'm sure you indulge in more than a few luxuries yourself, just not this particular one, and that's OK.

(My comment was) nothing more than an explanation of why people aren't willing to pay more.

Except you went a bit further than that, didn't you?

Honestly I don't expect delivery services to survive, and I don't think it would be a tragedy if they ceased to exist.

You were probably downvoted for appearing insensitive. It happens. Take the 'L' and move on. I usually shoot for a long-term baseline of zero, myself, because I agree with your criticism that HN tends to sound like an echo chamber.

[chongli]

It certainly would be a tragedy for all of the drivers who lost work and may struggle to feed their families. Many of the drivers are immigrant men who have few other prospects for work.

[VLM]

If delivery driving is going to be socialized as a jobs program, is it the ideal jobs program? I think not.

There must be unprofitable business activities that would make better jobs programs. Student stipends, vocational training, teachers aides for natives learning foreign languages, subsidized English language lessons, almost anything would be a better investment for immigrant men than subsidization of unprofitable delivery services. Arguably just handing out money and skipping the unprofitable business activity would cause less damage and waste to the environment.

[WC3w6pXxgGd]

If something is unprofitable, that is a signal that resources are being misallocated.

[jimktrains2]

And maybe that's a societal problem we should be addressing instead of expecting people to give money to silicon valley companies.

Don't get me wrong. I've used and use these services at times. I'm not morally opposed to them. I just think that saying that telling someone by not using them they're hurting immigrants is just a whole lot of backwards.

[chongli]

telling someone by not using them they're hurting immigrants is just a whole lot of backwards

Backwards? What's backwards about wanting to inform people of all the consequences to their actions? Life is messy and complicated. Far too often people don't want to think about all the consequences to their actions so they can erase that complexity.

As an aside, not all of these companies are Silicon Valley-based anyway. SkipTheDishes, the one I use, is a Canadian company.

[jimktrains2]

You can say the same thing for every food truck or small restaurant you've ever passed. The simple act of ordering food from one place instead of another risks putting the other out of business and that family out on the streets.

At some point we need to fix societal issues instead of worrying that not consuming goods or services is harmful.

[chongli]

I'm not saying "don't fix societal issues." Some people lean on the "fix societal issues" line to the exclusion of all else though. They let the perfect be the enemy of the good.