> Starbucks? McDonald's? There's no margin there to make money on delivery, unless you're charging outrageous fees
I’m not sure about that - if you purely count the money that actually makes it to the drivers, it’s reasonable.
The problem with these services is that besides paying for the actual driver, you’re paying about as much if not more to the company itself in the form of explicit fees as well as hidden ones (such as the markups on food items).
The latter pushes the prices to unsustainable levels. If you just had to pay drivers, it could work - see my other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32088565) about how delivered food used to work fine despite being done by employees of the restaurant itself and despite lacking the economies of scale that restaurant-agnostic delivery drivers provide.
I’m not sure about that - if you purely count the money that actually makes it to the drivers, it’s reasonable.
The problem with these services is that besides paying for the actual driver, you’re paying about as much if not more to the company itself in the form of explicit fees as well as hidden ones (such as the markups on food items).
The latter pushes the prices to unsustainable levels. If you just had to pay drivers, it could work - see my other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32088565) about how delivered food used to work fine despite being done by employees of the restaurant itself and despite lacking the economies of scale that restaurant-agnostic delivery drivers provide.