I feel the author could do more to separate “restaurants” from “takeout”. These are surely two very different market sectors. Johnny’s Pizza might have a couple of bar stools and chilli flake shakers but they’ve always been 90% focused on delivery. Chez Johnny on the other hand has always been about an in-house bistro dining experience. Ghost kitchens were always about the former.

The author touches on margins being eaten up by the delivery hegemony which feels like a much more important point. The handful of online ordering marketplaces are the app/play stores of this part of the economy and I can believe that they are far too greedy and powerful. Yet would the economy tolerate a much more diverse marketplace for connecting cooks, drivers, and customers? One of the only things holding the whole system together is shitty drivers and crappy kitchens being weeded out by the major marketplaces. If drivers could just hop between apps there would be no way to filter out the rogues?

They also bring up quality issues with packaging and delivery. To that extent, food delivery feels like healthcare where one cannot reasonably be expected to shop around for a surgeon to see your legs back on. When you order a meal you can’t just hope for the best knowing that if the food arrives cold and demolished then you’ll be able to get a refund and try somewhere else! Regulation here would help: your municipal certificate could not only rate food hygiene but also your ability to hit a reasonable p99 turnaround from order to order-up!.

> would the economy tolerate a much more diverse marketplace for connecting cooks, drivers, and customers?

I envision some kind of government-run or mandated exchange where drivers can certify/onboard at any number of uber/lyft clones, and customers can sign up for any number of uber/lyft clones. Any request placed will be sent to the exchange and the cheapest price from a service that the passenger is willing to use is selected.

This would primarily squeeze the margin of uber/lyft. That margin is what competitors can offer up to drivers for higher wages and passengers for lower prices. It's pretty wild to me that Uber/Lyft still manage to capture 25-60% of the "value" of each ride, when the overwhelmingly largest value they provide is derived from network-effect lock-in (essentially rent-seeking).

Maybe drivers could set their minimum wages per mile/estimated time, and passengers could avoid companies with business practices they don't like (inadequate background checks, paying wages too low, sponsors the wrong sports team).

This exchange would have to be enforced with anti-trust or just statute/regulation.