I think Manjoo's a bit off the mark here. We're not "witnessing the death of the on-demand dream". The dream was never alive in the first place. It was a zombie that was animated by cheap VC dollars.

Is the fact that most of these services are more expensive and less performant than they were two years ago a function of the challenges of maintaining quality while rapidly scaling (Luxe's excuse in the article)? Is it because the cost of expanding into new market segments has exceeded corresponding revenues in the short-term (Instacart's excuse)? Or is it because there are fewer venture capital dollars with which one can buy users?

When I hear the paper of record name "not losing money on the bulk of its orders" as an attribute of a startup that is doing well, I start wondering when the music is going to stop.