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Comment by TheMakeA | Hacker News Reader

    The difference is most other food-delivery services tap into an already built-in delivery infrastructure.

Is this true? Seems like every modern food delivery company (DoorDash, et al) does this.

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Seamless and GrubHub operate like that, they just bring an online interface (and easy management) to the store's pre-existing delivery employees.

In some cases they connect 3rd-party delivery services with the store as well.

AFAIK, Postmates and Caviar are the only two companies going with the two-party model, but employing their own delivery drivers/couriers.

Hm, interesting. Hadn't heard of either of these. On the one hand, they're playing a huge uphill battle and would need to employ thousands of couriers if they want to serve just America's major cities. On the other hand, they could completely rewire the food delivery business. I'm not sure it can work. Restaurants can hire minimum wage or below family members or illegals to deliver as an essentially free service. They live off of tips. Caviar would have to charge a significant premium to stay in business.

> Restaurants can hire minimum wage or below family members or illegals to deliver as an essentially free service. They live off of tips.

Do you live in New York? The "free" delivery with tips model is how things work in New York, but i've never seen it elsewhere.

In SF takeout places only rarely offer delivery.

Doordash does too I believe.

There are a lot of others like fluc and non bay-area ones like orderup, favor, WunWun, kanga

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