[x3blah]

"How do you reconcile this narrative with the fact that Grubhub turned a net profit every available year until 2019 per their SEC filings."

Easy. Take away the VC funding and see if anyone wants to try or can manage to start a similar company.

In most cases, these companies are just middlemen. Many folks do not see middlemen as "legitimate" businesses, even though the middlemen make money.

Hosts and parasites can each thrive. However only one can survive on its own. Ideally hosts would prefer to live free of parasites.

It should be expected that some consumers or producers will want to cut out the middlemen. We cannot reasonably expect everyone to appreciate those middlemen for the success they may have in taking a cut (and collecting data on consumer behaviour).