Alternately: some neighborhoods are less price sensitive and there’s not really a problem.
The positive flip side is that the “low” prices in a given region are probably lower than they would be if the stores had more efficient competition, and that’s to the benefit of people who are price sensitive.
Eggs in my neighborhood went from $2.50/dozen to $4/dozen. I didn't even notice because that is still insanely cheap for how much food is in a dozen eggs, and I don't actually use them very often.
Finding out that a different grocery story has them for a little less money would not change my shopping habits.
Perhaps not, but if you ordered your groceries online and all it took was a single click to get your eggs for $2.50 instead of $4.00, I wager you would.
Ideally you don't even have to click, there is just the option of a click, which in and of itself would create the competitive environment needed to equilibrate the prices
It's expensive, and it will only get worse as all these gig economy companies transition from growing their user base to making a profit.
It's already been happening with services like Grubhub. The delivery fees haven't changed much, but most restaurants by me charge 20-30% extra when you order through one of these apps instead of in store. This is to make up for the huge cut Grubhub takes. Consequently I order a lot less delivery than I did 2 years ago.
Yeah I'm thinking two or three steps ahead so you have to have a little vision here. There are other intermediate problems to solve as you point out. On your dislike of grocery delivery, think about what you might have said about touchscreens back in the 90s - and don't come at me with some predictable contrarian "but I hate touchscreens in cars" please :)
The problem with touchscreens in the '90s is that the technology wasn't good enough yet.
"Gig economy" technology is plenty mature at this point. The quality of the technical implementation is not my concern. It is the amount of cost it adds, and the fact that I think most current business models are not sustainable.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong. Right now I'm weary of growing overly attached to any deal that seems "too good to be true" without a good understanding of how it will become sustainable once they stop lighting VC money on fire. The long-term impact of these things can be bad even if they are cheaper or more convenient in the short term (i.e. Walmart running new stores at a loss to drive out local competitors)
The positive flip side is that the “low” prices in a given region are probably lower than they would be if the stores had more efficient competition, and that’s to the benefit of people who are price sensitive.