[mc32]

I had the same question.

I guess when you pay a part timer to deliver you’re not paying for the added overhead for a whole new division of highly paid engineers, marketing folks, advertising, expansion budget, underselling, etc.

[cameronh90]

You'd think that the economies of scale would work in its favour though.

Or would literally just running a giant call centre that manually routes orders/drivers be more efficient, like in the old days.

I just can't figure out how Uber Eats and Deliveroo charge higher fees, underpay their drivers and have 10000x the scale, use technology to reduce costs - yet still can't make a profit in a proven market. It's mind boggling.

[com2kid]

> yet still can't make a profit in a proven market. It's mind boggling.

Because they let me order food from a restaurant that is 20 minutes away, w/o traffic, in a suburb.

First time I visited Manhatten I was blown away by what I could delivered. Economy of scale, amazing! I could get a single chocolate chip cookie delivered at 2 in the morning! But that only works because the bakery that makes it was only a few blocks away.

Food Delivery companies try to bring the convenience of living in a big city to low density suburbs.

Of course that failed.

Some delivery services offer order a head of time where you place an order a day in advance and they batch up deliveries from one restaurant going to a given area. That is a sane model.

Even better, pre-pandemic, services like chow-bus that did orders and then large pickup sites in cities. You'd walk a few blocks from your work place to a pickup site where your food was waiting for you.

An actual innovative business model! Using technology to improve logistics. It was great, Seattle's business district has horrible food choices, being able to be part of a mass group order of food from a good restaurant was great! Wonderful idea.

Uber Eats is, outside major metros (of which America has very few) not a great idea.

[mc32]

Pizza delivery has worked in big cities and the suburbs.

Yes I acknowledge that density is on your side, but the pizza business has been able to make things work even in low density localities.

[vinger]

TV Ads for one.