I think there are two other pains wrapped up in why people buy from these services: meal planning and instruction. Meal planning is hard and it helps to just treat it like picking from a menu than creating a plan out of thin air. To some degree these services provide some instruction, though I've heard people get instructional benefits from these to varying degrees. Would be curious to see how the instruction has helped you.

Ding ding ding, this is why I subscribe to emeals, there's so much "science" out there about what a meal should be composed of that I'd much rather not deal with it. It's easier to see 14 dinners and choose 7 rather than scout out recipes on my own (resulting in hours lost per week).

As far as instruction, I prefer having the small set of recipes from the service, because it gives me cooking breadth that I would otherwise have not bothered with. As I start encountering meals with similar preparation again and again, I can afford to see how much I can get away with playing with the recipe.

Even though we aren't getting a meal plan and instructions with our box of meat and produce, it still feels like part of the work is done. I see it as a good in-between option: not as expensive as the meal delivery services and not as much work as just planning and shopping for meals from scratch. I can see how it could be overwhelming for beginners, though, if they receive a bunch of ingredients they aren't familiar with.

I think that's where building the intuition and creative-thinking part of cooking becomes important. We're working on balancing this with CookAcademy -- trying to walk users through the cooking process in great detail, without letting them rely on that detail too much. We hope that teaching them the concepts behind what they're doing and encouraging experimentation will help them eventually rely on their senses and experience rather than relying on timers and measuring cups. To me, cooking feels like much less of a chore when you can get to that point.