This is an example of so many things wrong in American culture.
There are three broad categories for these types of services:
- High pricing targeted at wealthy people, paying sustainable wages to the laborers who provide the actual service.
- Low-mid pricing targeted at the mass market, paying sustainable wages to the laborers who provide the actual service. These companies end up dead.
- Low-mid pricing targeted at the mass market, paying unsustainably low wages (a small fraction of minimum wage) to the laborers who provide the actual service.
My problem is with companies in the third category, and there are many of them. Silicon Valley may not have invented the hollowing of the American middle class, but it seems to really enjoy building businesses that rely on an endless supply of desperate laborers to exist. Businesses in the third category simply cannot exist without extreme inequality, extreme desperation in the lower classes, and a seemingly inexhaustible low-skilled labor pool, and in this way they are IMO representative of the worst tendencies of American culture/society.
Coffee is to be enjoyed and savored, a moment to stop and sense, not to be quickly "crushed" for the caffeine hit, and cafes are for catching up with friends or colleagues, talking socially or business.
That we are all so busy (or just pretending to be busy) that coffee/tea breaks aren't a thing in the workplace here.
How people waste money so recklessly on useless things in this country, not only a daily coffee from a retail outlet but paying for a person to bring it to them, when they could just make a French Press in the office or get an espresso machine or what not, and then we wonder why even high earners live paycheck to paycheck, why median retirement savings are incredibly low and express surprise that Americans can't handle a surprise $500 bill.
I see this in two different contexts: 1. Urban area: Some people are genuinely busy, while some are busy doing "busy" work (useless meetings, facebook, twitter, <insert any app>, et al.). Heavily populated East and West Coast regions fall in this category. I can see this kind of niche service being popular.
2. Suburban area: People who work a fixed schedule (usually 9-5) which is most of the US. I just don't see why such a delivery service would be popular (and I'm probably wrong) other than small pockets (which would not make it economically viable).
On a larger note, I wonder if everyone wants on-demand service (food and drink, packages, groceries, drivers, etc.) what would a person need to earn to be able to afford these services? And what is job function of this person that he/she is unable to run these small errands? Also, if everyone is "ordering in" and hardly going out, what would it do to the social fabric of society?