I'm not arguing that DoorDash creates no value, I'm arguing that it creates a ton of value for executives and shareholders while exploiting workers who are vastly underpaid using opaque payment and tipping mechanisms. Yeah, affluent urban dwellers absolutely benefit from this system. But by choosing to use these services, you endorse this exploitation unless you choose to pay drivers anything close to a living wage, because the company sure isn't going to.

Of coarse the company is not going to pay more then the market-rate for gig workers. It's actually impossible for them, and will be even more impossible once DoorDash goes public, they'll be legally obligated by their shareholders to make the most money possible.

Our legal system supports companies making the most money the market will allow, if they paid more then the market for delivery drivers the executive that made that decision would be fired.

You aren't supporting exploitative practices by using DoorDash, you're giving somebody a job where they otherwise they wouldn't have any. You're funneling money from affluent city dwellers to the pockets of DoorDash's share holders yes, but also to their delivery drivers.

Attacking a company for creating jobs where there weren't any before is silly. Attack the issues with the legal framework, not the people that are using it as designed.

If it were underserved it should be paid for properly.

The fact that they don't make a profit even with shitty labor practices probably means it's not very sustainable, in the same way that WeWork filled a need but was ultimately not sustainable.

Some delivery seems to work given sufficient density and/or volume, e.g. NYC Chinese food or Dominos. Of course, the delivery drivers/bikers still make very little.

But the evidence suggests that given US labor costs and relative equality for much of the population, it's generally hard for middle-class or even upper-middle class to justify paying people to run errands for them generally. I'm not sure the economics of fast delivery are all that different from when kozmo.com was around.

Both WeWork and DoorDash proved their markets which is what is meant here. They found demand for something to fill a need irrespective of the services they offered to try and fill it.

There's a market for a great many things offered at below cost.

For example, there's probably a pretty robust market for a personal chef to come by your house and cook you a gourmet meal for $5. And private jets for the same price as commercial? Sign me up.

It's more nuanced than that. It's not really about cost so much as it is a new kind of thing people want and would be willing to pay for.

WeWork showed that individuals want and are willing to pay for communal office space and that small companies want and are willing to pay for "slices" of that space.

DoorDash (and the like) shows that people want and are willing to pay for more than just pizza and American-Chinese takeout and restaurants were willing to take a large percent cut for delivery-as-a-service.

>WeWork showed

Regus existed long before WeWork--as did many local spaces. I guess WeWork demonstrated that there was a market for "cooler" co-working spaces at scale.

As for DoorDash? People clearly want all sorts of rapid delivery and especially younger people who hate calling up a place really want to order through a consolidated web site. I'm not sure that's a revelation. The question is whether the economics broadly work out which is really not proven yet.

I mean Dropbox wasn't exactly revolutionary either, you could just always use curlftpfs but there's something to the execution that answers "why would anyone pay for DoorDash when they could just call the restaurant?"

That's the thing; calling for takeout is easy, the hard part is that most restaurants don't efficiently cook enough volume enough to justify the overhead of having dedicated delivery drivers.

The value proposition that has changed with the delivery apps is that lots of restaurants can share the cost of a large pool of drivers with an app that can sufficiently allocate routes. This isn't a proposition that has actually been profitable yet, though, and really the only thing that makes this situation unique is that we are now in an unprecedented situation where indoor dining is recommended against and in some cases heavily restricted or banned entirely. Presumably when restaurants are free to operate traditionally again they might not find having such a low-margin delivery arm so great, and they will leave. Anecdotally, some restaurants did this in my area when lockdowns were eased up.

That's fair enough. I guess my view is a bit colored by the fact that, heavy use of Amazon and other online shopping aside, I don't use any sort of food delivery services, am a very light Uber user even when traveling, don't use scooter or bike shares, etc. So I look at a lot of these VC-backed companies and go meh based on personal interest and experience.

I can cook quite well but honestly living in NYC and going to the grocery store to serve my partner and I ~2 meals a day every day of the week is nearly impossible with our work schedule. If I wanted to do nothing else with my day but work and cook, that might be fine, but Doordash et al. are making life a whole lot better. When we were launching our company, we joked that it was often just a stream of delivery drivers bringing us stuff to sustain ourselves.

The truth is though that if these apps and conveniences didn't exist, you'd adapt and find meals to eat that required 5 min prep time - things like a sandwich that are just assembling pre-ready ingredients in a bowl or in a piece of bread or in a wrap truly don't require cooking.

Laziness is an adaption, and we adapt to whatever level of effort is required. Money is just an intangible so it's easy to be wasteful with it when it pretty much doesn't exist and is just a number somewhere we can't see.

But if a particular luxury disappeared, you'd adapt just fine.

When I was regularly in an office quite a few years ago, there certainly were days when I just didn't feel like cooking at all and would pickup takeout. However, I also had a stable of recipes that were generally in the vein of throw some things in a skillet and saute for 5-10 minutes. Especially with partially pre-prepped food in grocery stores these days, it's pretty easy to throw decent meals together quickly with very little time or effort given just a little bit of planning.