In the case of food delivery, there's socially and economically useful work of getting food from where it can be efficiently created (restaurants) to where it can be efficiently consumed (hungry people's location). In the absence of that work, the hungry people would be making their own food (less efficient, generally, than restaurant cooking which can do larger batches) or going to get their own food (less efficient, at least plausibly, because a delivery worker can make multiple deliveries on one drive rather than a strict out and back trip that people would take).
The thing that makes fixing a broken window "fake" economic growth is that it is arguing that destruction is economically useful because of the work to fix it, but nothing's being broken in this case. People are naturally hungry on a pretty regular basis, and the production and transportation of food is economically and socially useful work, which in this case was being subsidized by capital.
Is it curing cancer? No, but it's not digging holes and filling them up again either.
If restaurants were more efficient, then why are restaurants (1) more expensive, (2) using worse ingredients, (3) taking longer, and (4) have questionable quality.
Granted, I'd understand if in the good-fast-cheap triangle, you lose one, but with restaurants, most are questionable quality, take longer, and have gotten expensive.
I can make better food faster with better ingredients for a cheaper price at my own house for my own family, as long as we did some thi king ahead and planning. On top of that, when I make a new recipe, I learn how to make something new with new ingredients that helps me do more exotic dishes in the future.
It's not entirely clear to me restaurants are the theoretical economic efficient location that is claimed. Even if you use fast food, their prices have gotten higher and quality even more questionable on the already garbage quality they had.
It seems to me there is more efficiency in people learning to make their own food, and cooking better at home - both in the results and the discipline on the person. Sometimes decentralization is more efficient than centralization, and I think this is an example.
I will say optimizing grocery delivery makes alot more sense ro me than restaurant delivery.
>I can make better food faster with better ingredients for a cheaper price at my own house for my own family, as long as we did some thi king ahead and planning. On top of that, when I make a new recipe, I learn how to make something new with new ingredients that helps me do more exotic dishes in the future.
Can you? Are you accounting for your labor cost?
I do a lot of cooking for my family too, but when I account for the time it takes to shop for groceries, prep, cook, and clean up, I doubt I'm making even half of what I make in my job. It would be more economically efficient for me to cook only very simple things, work more hours, and have more food delivered.
There are a lot of reasons I don't do that! I agree with all your points about self-sufficiency, and health, and personal development. But I disagree that those are "efficient". Efficient is labor specialization: I spend more time writing code and hire someone to do the cooking and cleaning and transporting.
How do you figure? I still order pizza, pay a small delivery fee and tip, and receive my order in around 30-45 minutes. I haven’t noticed a change other than I no longer call a store to order and I can get pizza delivery from places that didn’t deliver before.
I've never seen a DoorDasher show up with a proper insulated bag. The pizzas are cold. They've been on who knows what route delivering orders from who knows how many restaurants. They slide around, aren't kept level.
I had an order where only 1 out of 5 pizzas showed up. The driver didn't speak English, but it wouldn't matter if he'd been able to. Because the driver isn't empowered to help in any way. They don't represent the restaurant, and everything has to go through DoorDash customer service.
Getting my refund took 4 phone calls, multiple online chats, and 30 days.
In the case of food delivery, there's socially and economically useful work of getting food from where it can be efficiently created (restaurants) to where it can be efficiently consumed (hungry people's location). In the absence of that work, the hungry people would be making their own food (less efficient, generally, than restaurant cooking which can do larger batches) or going to get their own food (less efficient, at least plausibly, because a delivery worker can make multiple deliveries on one drive rather than a strict out and back trip that people would take).
The thing that makes fixing a broken window "fake" economic growth is that it is arguing that destruction is economically useful because of the work to fix it, but nothing's being broken in this case. People are naturally hungry on a pretty regular basis, and the production and transportation of food is economically and socially useful work, which in this case was being subsidized by capital.
Is it curing cancer? No, but it's not digging holes and filling them up again either.