alt Hacker NewsI was really hoping one of the P2P apps would take off. There's no real reason why we need a middle man injecting themselves and taking fees. The apps just get better marketing.
We literally just need an app to connect restaurants to couriers.
Replies
Slice is a delivery platform that focuses on mom-and-pop pizza places. At least when I was involved years ago, they only charged a flat $1/order fee. They helped stores get their menus into the system, and then stores did their own deliveries. This model worked well because a lot of pizza places already had their own delivery drivers—probably more so than any other restaurant type.
I used to use Slice to order because the extra cost was nominal, and the drivers were local and worked directly for the pizza place. Issue with your order? Tell the driver, or tell the store, and it'd be addressed immediately, by real humans. Need to make last-minute changes to your order? Call the place directly and talk to a human. Get to know your driver because it's the same person most nights. Lots of upside.
Except everyone used DoorDash and GrubHub, even though Slice was both a better user experience and a far better experience for the restaurant owner. Slice cost restaurants less, cost consumers far less, and was a better solution in every way. But because the vast majority of the restaurant's deliver business came through DoorDash and other large delivery companies, most small restaurants have gotten rid of their own delivery drivers.
Slice still exists, but I expect it won't experience much growth. The big guys are dominant.
I have been posting about cutting out the middleman for all sorts of ecosystems. Drivers and Passengers for instance.
For that we need an open decentralized source platform with no profit motive.
That’s what I built: https://intercoin.org/applications
But it takes time to make actually compelling alternatives to platforms that have BILLIONS of dollars behind them, a huge network effect already, and if needed, monopoly lock-in where they can say “it’s either us or them” to market participants.
As a customer, I need a middleman/market maker to select participants and provide quality control.
There’s not a good reputation system so I would not use p2p cabs or food delivery because I don’t trust the drivers. At least with Uber, they will give me a refund, etc etc
In my area we have FB marketplace. People have been doing grocery shopping, delivery, etc for a long time. Heck there's a whole underground restaurant system as well.
[dead]
I see the reason for the middle man is to:
1. develop the platform
2. set standards for what “delivery” is
3. be liable for orders not delivered, or orders fraudulently placed
With a P2P app, wouldn’t you be engaging with a courier directly? That would mean that any problems would have to be taken up with the courier, I would think. It makes sense for restaurants to engage directly with couriers because they may have enough volume and repeat business that they can vet the couriers. But it does not make sense to me for individuals to engage with couriers directly, not for small-value items like meals.