> I don't really understand how the personal economics for this work out for the majority of the population.

8.5% of American households have no car[1]. That isn't a strict majority, but if you can be charitably informal: paying for grocery deliveries is orders of magnitude cheaper than loan+insurance+maintenance for a car.

If you want to become car-less then the like of Instacart make that a realistic prospective (but Instacart specifically makes no sense because stores usually do it for free if you can tolerate next-day).

[1]: https://data.census.gov/table/ACSDT1Y2024.B08201