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Comment by scrollaway | Hacker News Reader

Incredibly US-centric comment and responses.

If you think delivery is unsustainable because cars cost money, I got news for you: You live in a bubble, and it's the cars that are unsustainable.

Outside of the car-centric world of US suburbia, most of the western world is actually doing deliveries on scooters and ebikes, which are very quick to navigate medium-to-high-density cities and can do several deliveries per trip.

I've ordered a lot on Takeaway, at least once a week on average. The last time I saw somebody pull up in a car was during the COVID lockdowns, and I suspect it's because there was basically nobody on the streets.

The business model is broken, because car-centrism is broken. In the civilized world, things are ok.

Either way, fuck Uber. There's better alternatives.

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> Incredibly US-centric comment and responses.

Just because you might have a different experience doesn't mean this is US centric. The same happens across Canada and in several big cities in South America.

If you can demonstrate that the comment I was replying to was talking about South America, give me your address and I will snail mail you a cookie.

Are food deliveries in densely populated US cities really done using cars? Why? All e-bikes/scooters here (city of >5 mil in Aus).

> densely populated US cities

Many big US cities really aren't densely populated. e,g, including 2 of the 4 largest: LA & Houston.

Which is why I specified that. Outside of the inner 15km radius big cities in Australia aren't at all densely populated either, and cars probably are used for delivery there. But 90% of the deliveries I observe are in that radius!

In Seattle, all of my DoorDash deliveries were people using cars.

Having spent a few days in downtown seattle that surprises me, I can't think why a delivery driver would choose to use a car over something smaller.

Might be because I was specifically ordering from places that _weren't_ downtown. Like many others on the thread, I don't particularly care for the delivery services so I really only use them to grab things where it's infeasible for me to go get them myself. With public transit, getting food downtown was easy so I was ordering from places out to the east.

I'd guess rain. There's only a few dry summer months.

Seattle ain't the only place in the world it rains a fair bit! And I gather it's rarely particularly heavy rain.

They probably already have a car.

I'm sure plenty of food delivery drivers have cars here too, but the cost/ parking/traffic issues involved in using one for such deliveries in a higher density metropolis make them kind of impractical...

To your point about US suburbia, I'm not sure how it is in other big cities but I was blown away my first visit to Manhattan from suburbia when I realized that almost all the bikes parked on sidewalks were for delivery drivers. There were some amazing rigs. They'd tape over any identifying characteristic of the bike and fasten all sorts of hand warmers to the handle bars (everything from oven mitts to plastic bags). I got to travel to Manhattan for work for several years and it was neat watching the transition from bike, to retro-fitted e-bike, etc.

I ... think I'm calling NYC part of the "civilized world" and I'm not sure how to feel.

I agree with your comment, NYC is quite special (Manhattan at any rate).

I remember seeing a map of the US denoting whether the majority of commute was done by personal car vs public transport. The entirety of the US was by personal car… except for NYC. It had a bit of an Astérix feel to it.

Are the other companies better? Which ones have you used?

I used UberEats once (in Sydney) because I had one of those coupons. UberEats was garbage. Cost too much and I could have gone to the place myself and returned in half the time.

Takeaway is really nice in Europe IMO. I’ve also used Deliveroo and they are okay but less popular where I live.

I can’t advice beyond that but Uber is awful awful awful. Every time I give them a chance I regret it, be it on price, support, ethics, quality …

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