It’s different when the food is standardized and limited in scope. It also helps that they have corresponding brick-and-mortar stores.

True, but OP claimed the entire category of on-demand food delivery has major problems. And 3 out of 4 of their concerns are about delivery logistics not menu standardization. Domino's turnaround shows that the food delivery model can work.

(If that sounds funny, read up on how Domino's has improved customer sat regarding their pizza quality in the past few years. It's a great case study, incl. how to do marketing when your brand is in the dumps.)

They are also a nationally recognized band, increasing the perception of legitimacy.

Their brand was absolute trash for awhile. Actually made the pizza taste worse (in blind studies). They turned it around.

I’d imagine the waste factor for pizza ingredients is much lower than other (attempted) on-demand foods. If it didn’t get ordered, it doesn’t get made, and water, flour, pepperoni, tomato sauce, ... aren’t going to go bad in a day (or a week)

The biggest product that Domino's sells is not pizza. It is a flag that says "Domino's" that is bought by the people who own the franchises. Domino's competitor is not mom&pop pizza. It is McDonalds/Subway/Arbys/etc

So Domino's provides the backend support + marketing + development and for that it gets a hefty fee from whoever attaches Domino's flag to the location.

Pizza is incredibly high margin with low cost of goods and lots of upsell. It's fast and easy to make and delivery has been priced in over decades. In-store purchases also offset the cost because of the vertical integration.

The model is sufficiently different enough to make it extremely viable, and perfectly scalable for the smartphone era.