Or just go pick up your own take-out food. Like do these customers not have working cars or even bicycles? I understand that there are customers who are stuck at home due to disability or caregiver responsibilities but those are a tiny niche. I've seen able-bodied young people spending a fortune on delivery services, which is just stupid.
Yes. I live in NYC so I don't have a car because we have the subway, street parking is a nightmare, and paid parking is $500-$1000/month.
I don't have a bicycle because it would either waste _significant_ space in my apartment, or I'd have to leave it outside where it would be promptly stolen (regardless of locks). If I decided against having my bike stolen, I'd have to carry it up and down narrow interior stairs every time I wanted to use it since I live in a walk-up. I also am not a fan of needing to find a place to store the bicycle at my destination. Whereas if I just take the subway then I am completely liberated: I can go anywhere, stay as long as I want, change my plans on a whim, and never fret about whether or not my bike has been stolen or if there will be a place to store and/or lock my bicycle.
Assuming everyone has cars or bicycles is a very suburban mindset. None of the people that I know in this city have a car, and the people I know with bicycles are the kinds of people who take cycling very seriously. Most people have neither.
The downside is food: If I go pick up food then I am limited to a very small radius from my apartment, lest my food get cold on the walk back. There's only ~3 restaurants I order from within a 15 minute walk radius of my apartment, and for those restaurants I walk. Delivery people can cover much greater distances within reasonable food freshness times, significantly increasing the variety of restaurants available to me.
>"Assuming everyone has cars or bicycles is a very suburban mindset."
I live int Toronto which is hardly suburban. It is however choke full of bike-share. Go outside, walk a bit and grab a bicycle. NY obviously does not care.
I don't use the bike share (citibike) because the fee for a "lost" bicycle is $1,200. I saw enough stories online of people who thought they returned the bicycle but it didn't actually lock the bicycle to the stand, and then ended up with a $1,200 fee. I'm not taking on that kind of liability to grab some shawarma. Also NYC needs more bike lanes.
I recently moved out of new york to new jersey. don't have a car.
my options now are either buy a car, pay insurance, maintenance etc. north $1,500/mo for the convenience of going to the grocery store or, get a subscription for all these services ~ $200/mo. and save myself the time spent back and forth doing grocery shopping. I cook 90% of my food.
> my options now are either buy a car, pay insurance, maintenance etc. north $1,500/mo for the convenience
Huh? Decent car payment at $300-500/month, insurance at $200/month, and I'm wondering what $1,000/month of car "maintenance" looks like, considering $250/month will get you a full tank of a gas a week.
Delivery services are more efficient then having the same customer base all drive to the restaurant. Unless it's in walking distance, one driver can service many people using a lot less resources.
Lots of us got pizzas delivered now and then especially in college and, if you lived somewhere like NYC, maybe Chinese. But this idea that you'd starve without food delivery in general is simply odd.
Who is saying people would starve? Holy strawman batman!
But if people are going to get judgy about food delivery then they can rather put the effort in to explore why they feel that way.
But there's nothing efficient about hundreds of people making short distance car trips to restaurants, which is what was proposed as an alternative that is somehow "better".
And when you factor US style urban construction in, it's pretty likely a lot of people also don't have walkable access to local outlets anyway.
Lack of experience cooking so they don't feel like they can, people are tired after getting home from work and don't have much energy to spare, just plain laziness. Pick one or more of the above.
> Why do people need those delivery services? Why can't they just cook meals at home like most people do?
Because they don't want to and don't have to justify their wants and preferences. (Also, historically, most socieities had a communal element to food preparation. Every household cooking everything at home was for the rich.)
Just had some nice betasuppe[1], a vegetable soup with meat sausage if you like. Just chop some sausage and vegetables (or easier use a bag of frozen stew vegetables), cook in pot with some stock, done. Minimal cleanup, no mess. Great tasting meal for a few cold days.
Before that I had pan-fried salmon with broccoli, pasta and pesto. Just put the salmon in the pan with a dash of oil and season it, cook Fussili (rotini) pasta and toss in frozen broccoli once the pasta is nearly done. Serve with decent pesto. Done in ~15 minutes, no prep, just a pan and a pot to clean, no mess, lots of taste.
Before that I made some Ceasar-ish salad. Fried some bacon and a seasoned chicken breast, meanwhile rinsed and prepared the Romain lettuce, I cheat and use some cherry tomatoes cut in half for flavor, dry bacon on paper towel on the plate I'll eat from while I cut the chicken. Skipped the crutons this time, served with a good Ceasar salad dressing from the store and some fresh grated Parmesan. Just a pan and the cutting board to clean up, no mess, lots of flavor.
Just a few examples for illustration. I do make more elaborate meals, but mostly I'm lazy and don't like to clean up. But I find it easy to make great tasting meals at home, and doesn't have to be very involved.
Disabled people exist, even temporarily so (e.g. pregnant with a craving, broken ankle and can't drive, etc)!
Also, sometimes some meals are arguably not worth the labor of cooking. Making proper pho takes at least a whole day. Pad Thai really doesn't function without the kind of intense heat of specific equipment. Etc etc.
I certainly eat at restaurants. In general I find there are enough compromises associated with delivered food that it's not worth it. You're basically reheating lukewarm food whatever the packaging. (And I don't live in a city anyway.)
