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Comment by g105b | Hacker News Reader

I never understood business models like this in the first place.

Those who like to cook don't have a problem buying ingredients themselves.

Those who don't like cooking don't mind spending the same amount as a Blue Apron subscription to order takeaway.

The target audience consists of people who would theoretically like to cook, but don't know how to read a recipe book and/or don't want to go shopping or use online grocery shopping.

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I think this is an often understated point when discussing meal services. In my experience with Blue Apron and Hello Fresh there were some good and interesting meal choices (often ethnic dishes that I hadn't tried before), but probably 50% of the menu boiled down to simple dishes like "some variation of spaghetti with salad" or "chicken breast with a simple sauce and basic veggies." People who already know how to cook are going to realize how much they're overpaying for these simple dishes, and people who learn to cook thanks to the service will come to realize it unless they avoid the grocery store entirely.

Ultimately the complex/exotic dishes just aren't offered enough to offset paying $10/ small portion for the more simple dishes.

At least for me personally this is a gross oversimplification. While we do like cooking, we don't like planning or shopping for ingredients. We also don't like buying a head of red cabbage and using 1/8 of it and throwing out the rest. There are jars of god knows what in the fridge that are a year old or more that were bought for 1TB of something in a recipe.

Also the recipes BA does seem to me like eating in a good restaurant 3 times a week. Take out doesn't even play in the same ballpark.

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