Food delivery existed before platforms, but only where it made sense. You could order something like a pizza, where the marginal cost and effort required to make another meal was low, and the sales volume was high enough to justify using paid employees for delivery. Service area was also chosen by the restaurant itself to ensure that they would not spend too much time on a single delivery.
In the end, it's pretty simple. How many deliveries does a single person make in an hour, including idle time? Is someone paying enough for that? And does the kitchen have enough spare capacity for that?
> Food delivery existed before platforms, but only where it made sense.
This article is about NYC, where food delivery was ubiquitous long before DoorDash. In fact, Seamless in 2010 was a better experience than Doordash is in 2023, when you consider the absurd markup on Doordash.
Doordash struggled to enter the NYC market for a while because it was trying to compete with an established product, yet using a higher price point. It was only with massive amounts of VC funding that they were able to get a foothold.
In the end, it's pretty simple. How many deliveries does a single person make in an hour, including idle time? Is someone paying enough for that? And does the kitchen have enough spare capacity for that?