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Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, doesn't make sense. Removing kitchens is just an odd idea. Food preparation is so varied who would want to pass the duty off to others. For many it is as much artistic expression as need.

If anything what technology like this offers is growing food closer to the areas where it is currently transported which in turn would remove those costs from the process plus lots of related effects on traffic and pollution.

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In Singapore, everyone eats out in the hawker centers so most housing doesn't have a full blown kitchen. Of course Singapore has the population density to make this feasible and buying food is pretty cheap.

I don't see Singapore's public housing system coming to the Western world any time soon

This likely only works because Singapore is so dense that the food vendors are a very short walk from your home, on average. So you can just go walk around the corner and grab something, or grab something on your walk home from work. This isn't the case in many other places, and certainly not in America where everyone drives everyplace. (It is, however, frequently the case in Manhattan, which does have that density in places.)

If also lump the convince store meals that is super common in Japan with this. Same situation where density and cost makes this feasible.

Removing kitchens is already happening:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/24/homes-withou...

Plenty of people in major cities no longer cook.

> Food preparation is so varied who would want to pass the duty off to others.

Are you joking? You don't see why people would want to spend the time they use to prepare food to do other things just because it's varied?

There are over 700 restaurants on doordash delivering to my location right now, by dinner I've seen that number go as high as 1,500.

How many lifetimes would it take to be able to recreate even 10% of those menus?

I can cook, but to me it's like changing my oil or cleaning my apartment. Some people love to make a face and go "you don't cook?!?!?!"

Yeah... not everyone considers cooking "artistic expression", imagine not understanding that.

This is very much a cultural thing. I only know one person who doesn't cook, and that's an American. All of my European friends/family/acquaintances can't imagine not cooking. Even I had ask a few times if what my American friend was saying, was for real.

The trend is clearly moving in one direction, and that direction is not towards more time spent cooking at home.

For what it's worth, plenty of Americans (myself and wife both included) really enjoy cooking.

There's two other benefits - get out of tipping culture and being able source ingredients for moral/ethical/health reasons (lots prepackaged food have many questionable ingredients/packaging and prepackaged/restaurant food has more sugar/salt/grease)

>There's two other benefits - get out of tipping culture

This is only a real problem in America.

Culture influenced by local conditions. I work with people who moved to the US from India. They often miss back home where servants to cook for you were cheap enough that you only cooked if you wanted to. Now they can't afford servants, nor can they afford to eat out for every meal - despite making 2-3x as much money. (there aren't a lot of great Indian restaurants, but the cost is the largest factor in their choice to cook themselves)

Either this is non sequitur or you actually think only Americans are capable of seeing cooking as a utilitarian task.

I'm from Ghana, fast food is exploding there, look at India, look at Asia.

Look at Europe... https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/05/21/183326...

>I can cook, but to me it's like changing my oil or cleaning my apartment. Some people love to make a face and go "you don't cook?!?!?!"

It's a tradeoff of time and money in most cases.

For oil changes, for instance, if I live in a place with a garage and I have my own tools, it's faster for me to do it myself than to pay someone else to do it: for the latter, I have to schedule an appointment, take time off from work (using PTO, or coming in late/leaving early), drive to the place, sit and wait around while they do it, and then worry that they screwed it up (which is pretty common). Plus the prices are much, much cheaper if I buy the supplies myself instead of paying inflated prices at a shop. Of course, if I live in a place without a garage or other place to do it myself, then I might not have much choice.

Cleaning my apartment: I'm not sure how this is helpful to outsource. Perhaps if you hire a small crew, it'll be done quite a bit faster than you can do it yourself, but you still have to take time off from work (or your weekend), then sit there and oversee these people to make sure they're not stealing your stuff (very common), while they do the cleaning. And having strangers walking around your home is, to me at least, very uncomfortable.

With cooking, you have to consider the time needed for you to go to the restaurant and pick up the order (probably waiting when you're there, unless the food is sitting and getting cold) and drive home. Or, you can pay for delivery, but this costs extra. Now, if you live in a very dense city where the restaurant is right around the corner, or delivery is super-cheap (because it's right across the street), then this might not be much of a factor, but in much of America it is. It takes me about 15 minutes or so to cook dinner usually; it would take me much more time than that to go someplace else to get take-out, and by the time I get home it'll be cold, and it'll cost 5-10x as much as making it myself. Plus you have to worry about getting sick due to cooks not washing their hands or not storing or preparing food properly, which is very very common in America. If I lived in someplace like Singapore (as referenced in a sister comment here), I'd probably get food on the way home frequently, but not in America.

If you have a good relationship with the people who clean your house, you do not oversee them. It actually defeats the whole point (as you figured out using common sense) ... rich people aren’t being hilariously inefficient by hiring cleaning people.

Honestly it can be one on the smallest investments a person/household can make with such amazing returns.

Just never think about cleaning ever again? It’s (sorta) possible.

Ok, so where exactly do you find these super-trustworthy cleaning people who work for near-minimum wage but can be trusted not to steal your stuff? That's much easier said than done. And what do you do when these people you thought you had a "good relationship with" steal your stuff? It ends up being he-said-she-said because you just notice stuff missing one day, long after it's gone. I went through this when I was married and my wife insisted on hiring cleaning people; never again.

I change my own oil 9 times out of 10, my point is its not noteworthy whether I do it or a dealer does it.

It's just a task that has to be done.

Some dealers will do a better job than me and some will do a worse job, but for the most part at the end of the day the task is usually done.

Likewise with cooking.

Some experiences will be worse, it might cost more it might take a while, but at the end of the day on average I will have food that is enjoyable.

And if eating out is 2x eating in, it doesn't matter to most people if they can afford both.

>And if eating out is 2x eating in, it doesn't matter to most people if they can afford both.

Huh? Maybe in your country it's like that, but here in America it's more like 5x, unless you're eating fast-food garbage (and even that's probably 3x). It's expensive to eat out in this country, once you count the 20% for the stupid tip.

I live in New York City.

2x, 3x, 5x, it's all the same order of magnitude. If it's not prohibitively expensive people will do it.

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