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Comment by egwor | Hacker News Reader

The barrier to entry isn't the tech (which is why I don't think that this is really a tech firm). The barrier to entry is the relationships with the restaurants and the riders (and advertising to get people to use it)

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Which means there is no barrier to entry. The riders will go to any platform which takes a lower share of commission, since they are limited by the number of workable hours. And because restaurants host themselves on all platforms, there isn't any loyalty there. And customers go to platforms only looking for deals that cheapen the prices, since otherwise they have to pay 20ish% extra.

Also, network effects don't really compound outside of individual cities. Deliveroo being the best delivery service in Leeds doesn't make it more competitive in Manchester. A competitor can easily pop up, dominate a single city, and expand from there.

There is a small network effect with (business) travelers: wherever I go I can use the same app to get dinner to my hotel room or conference center.

But that is of course a minority of customers, especially amid a pandemic. (But then again, with restaurants closed, for the ones who travel ...)

But then you're competing with hotels nearly all of which provide complimentary food, especially since things started getting competitive for them.

Correction: I mean business hotels and upscale hotels

I don't have an insight what kind of selections they provide these days.

I assume they either cut kitchen staff and only have a very basic (boring) offering to cut costs or add some fantasy label to make use of their kitchen and offer delivery themselves as new revenue stream. Then the deliveroo rider could ride on the elevator instead of their bike ;)

That’s not enteirly true. In London all my favourite places are only on Deliveroo, and not on Uber Eats (at least in my area). Maybe the have some kind of exclusive contracts?

I find that the Deliveroo prices are heavily inflated for some of my favorite places. And that the info number listed in a restaurant's info page allows one to call the restaurant directly and order the same food for significantly less.

It used to be this way in Paris as well until it wasn't, now almost all these restaurants are on Uber as well. It seems Eats can just pulverize these deals anytime they decide so.

Well somebody else's favorite places are on Uber Eats and not on Deliveroo then ;)

The riders are not exclusive. the restaurants arent either. Like uber, this is a bad position to be in. Maybe it works in some countries where taxis or delivery drivers don't exist, but in plenty of places there are already networks

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