alt Hacker NewsCounterpoint (though I agree there is often a problem with them sharing often already insufficient pedestrian infrastructure): Many people can't walk to pick up their food.
Pervasive delivery service is a huge quality of life improvement for a variety of disabled folks and folks who are homebound for whatever reason.
And, the alternative to these robots is exactly this:
"We have already problems with stupid drivers parking their cars or even driving their cars on sidewalk"
The alternative is not, actually, that everyone will walk to go pick up their food. It's either a gig worker, almost certainly in a car, probably a gas-driven car, or a little electric robot. It's usually a choice between more cars on the road or more robots on the sidewalk. I used to get deliveries by bike, sometimes, and that's also cool, but pretty rare outside of particularly dense cities.
I don't actually have any objection to their use being limited/regulated in some areas if they're disruptive for pedestrians. But, consider what they replace, and whether they're worse or better. (You may come down on the side of "worse", and I won't argue with you. In some places, they probably are.)
that works only in theory, these robots deliver the food only on the street, so they might as well leave in restaurant since they make no difference for someone on 2nd or higher floor, most of the people in areas where they operate don't live in villas, but they either deliver to companies or to residential multi floor buildings
plus disabled people have already their carers to take care of the food and can't rely on unreliable robot which will get stuck even on simple pedestrian crossing
so yes, human delivery service to the door is improvement to disabled people's lives, robot delivery to the street sidewalk certainly isn't
counterpoint to the cars - they are much more efficient, they can delivery many orders at once, they are faster and they can deliver food to the door for disabled people, so these delivery robots are completely useless alternative besides companies saving money on human workers
btw I'd rather prefer police doing their actual work when car park on the sidewalk rather than robot alternative, I think the best compromise which is already used here would be ebike/motorbike delivery not taking any significant space
personally I don't order any food so I don't really have horse in this race, I think I've made two food orders over like 3-4 years, one for my birthday and other was wife's online team building paid by her company, both were for like 5-6km distance robot would take hours to deliver