Comment by macNchz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by macNchz | Hacker News Reader

I've always been a bit curious about the market for these services, if you consider:

- Price sensitive novices: likely realize fairly quickly that they can save quite a lot of money by shopping & chopping on their own.

- Price insensitive novices: likely find that the meals push the limits of their cooking skill, take longer and have more cleanup than they expect, and will either learn enough cooking skills to make the meal packages feel restrictive, or just go back to takeout.

- Price sensitive with cooking experience: likely realize how much cost is added for something that is not a big hassle if you have a little experience (i.e. basic knife skills and knowing where to find things quickly in the supermarket).

- Price insensitive with cooking experience: likely feel restricted by the ingredients and menus, and can get halfway there with grocery delivery.

A former roommate of mine (price insensitive novice) had a Blue Apron subscription for some time and I was always shocked at how incredibly much packaging there was, from individual foam wrappers around vegetables and tiny baggies with a glove of garlic to huge ice packs and layers of cardboard. It seemed like such a waste to me.

My wife and I use Blue Apron and I am a big fan. I have to admit the packaging is extensive but at least they are trying to reduce the net waste [0].

A few other positives:

- You get the experience of making the dinner (chopping, cooking, mixing, etc.). It's a good entry point for novices.

- Many of the ingredients are somewhat exotic, so you wouldn't usually buy them in the grocery store. Or if you did you end up with a lot left over that you won't use again.

- $59 for six meals actually seems like a bargain to me. Maybe we were doing it wrong but when we used to go to the store for all our meals, we spent a lot more and ended up wasting a lot of it.

The downside is that you don't save that much time (other than the shopping trip). So I could see how Gobble is great for more time-constrained people.

In the end, I think all of these services are trying to own the space, starting with their own niches. Once they get enough traction they can land and expand to take over the other services' niches. This comes at a cost to them (poor unit economics initially), but we the consumers benefit...for now at least.

[0] https://support.blueapron.com/hc/en-us/articles/202510818-Ho...

I'm #2. Price doesn't matter at all, in fact I was saving money using Blue Apron 3 times a week ($60) as opposed to paying $15-30 at restaurants. Zero cooking experience initially. After 3-4 months I got tired of getting home at 6, then spending 2 hours prepping, cooking and cleaning. By the time I was done I'd get a bit of book reading or Seinfeld in and go to bed. So I went back to a) making stupid simple meals (roasted vegetables, baked chicken etc) b) restaurants/takeout.

I'm a bachelor so it wasn't like I was doing some fun social thing when cooking. I'd listen to podcasts, which was nice, but I'd rather do that at the gym or getting some sort of exercise/relaxation done. Also, I'm absolutely fine with eating boring meals throughout the week. I'm practically on the fence about Soylent because I'd rather spend less time planning, shopping, cooking, etc.

The great thing that Blue Apron did was build up my kitchen confidence.

I feel like I was #2 when I had forage/din earlier this year. It's even worse being single so you have to eat leftovers half the time. For me the reason I cancelled was the meals were too "fancy", were a lot of work for something less good than at a restaurant (since it pushed the limits of my cooking skill), and around the same price or slightly more expensive at $15/meal than the restaurants I would be eating at, since I don't live in San Francisco or go to nice restaurants.

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