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Comment by mdoms | Hacker News Reader

Americans sure do love giant mega corporations. It doesn't have to be this way, guys.

As far as delivery goes I'm pretty sure it does. To compete with amazon/walmart you need billions of dollars of capital to invest in logistics. Small companies just aren't efficient enough.

Unlike Amazon, which uses its own logistics and/or a homegrown gig-style delivery system, Walmart uses Doordash to deliver groceries @7.95+/delivery.

Plenty of other grocers/retailers could go the Doordash route and be competitive.

Seems like that might be why walmart has the minimum and amazon doesn't. I've tried services like instacart and found the experience to be horrible and expensive. Amazon works much better because they've created strict guidelines so I always get what I expect. Doordash food is consistently cold. Instacart buys the wrong stuff half the time. I don't really trust people to make good decisions most of the time.

Why do you need absolutely everything delivered? Have you ever stopped to consider the environmental effects of having everything you purchase delivered in its own individual package?

Have you considered that he might have a disability? Or people that live with him are in a risk group for COVID?

Look, I agree with you in principal but at scale it's not really that big a deal. In my neighborhood the USPS and UPS make one run a day to our apt complex of a few hundred people. On average that's doing waaaay better than if we all went to the store one day a week. Throw the cardboard into the recycling bin and call it a day.

Well this is a thread about the delivery business. I actually almost never use delivery services.

Because it’s easy?

Yes, there was a discussion a few days or week ago about trade offs between efficiency and security.

Consumers will generally choose efficiency (manifested as lower prices) over security (local stores with local owners resulting in redundant supply chains).

I find that smaller sellers (or the manufacturer themselves) on eBay can be competitive with Amazon/Walmart on price. Shipping is usually a day slower, but for most things, I don't find it to be an inconvenience.

If you can come up with a way to give mom and pop shops the efficiency and capabilities of a large megacorp then you should get to work and make a few billion dollars.

Browbeating people into accepting a less-efficient alternative, regardless of how you think the morality stacks up, just won't work.

Agreed to a certain extent. I use local grocery delivery (CSA) for both meat and my produce which I recommend to everyone if its available. But for all else like household goods like toothpaste, it's pretty hard to find something as convenient and competitive as mega corps. I recently tried to buy a pair of headphones. It's pretty hard to find a reputable seller that's an authorized reseller and price competitive.

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