Comment by jrockway
6 years ago
I am guessing that DoorDash will succeed in the very long term. Eventually they will not need independent restaurants, they can just start their own (and cut ingredient costs to whatever they need to make a profit). And eventually deliveries will be done by robots, so no workers to pay. I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow, but think 20 years out -- there is a lot of money to be made.
I am not sure that making something a commodity is necessarily bad. You can go to the grocery store and get store brand macaroni & cheese, kraft dinner, or some organic brand. Kraft and Amy's stay in business, so people must be buying those despite the higher cost. But the lower quality / lower cost version is available for people that want money more than better cheese powder. I don't think that's a bad thing, and is the direction that food delivery is going. (Starbucks didn't kill independent coffee shops, McDonalds didn't kill fine dining. DoorDash seems like that kind of thing to me.)
You’re describing a restaurant chain. Why isn’t Swiss Chalet valued at billions of dollars? They fit your description exactly.
McDonalds is valued at billions of dollars. And this one doesn't rely on being located somewhere convenient; they bring the food to you.
I think DoorDash will ultimately be profitable for its investors. I don't think it's good for society (gig economy, growth by getting people to eat more calories, etc.), but that doesn't mean they can't make a lot of money.