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)
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.