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Comment by steveBK123 | Hacker News Reader

Thinking more on this, I have a group of friends who partake in these types of deals. They are arguably a leading indicator of business models that are going to fail. Why? Because they will cycle through every single deal and never sign up.

Every single one of them cycled through all the meal kit trial discounts during the ZIRP era, without ever signing up for one (it's free food dude). If you think I am kidding, go google "Blue Apron competitors".. there's so many more than I even remember.

If the startups they were hustling were public companies, they'd be an incredible indicator of stocks to short.. alas.

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I frequently use 50% off discounts to buy square pie guys pizza.

Will I buy that pizza at full price? _probably_ not, but I will tell everyone that it’s amazing because is it. So it’s a $12 review, right?

Compared to a $1k-$5k /video influencer, isn’t that a deal?

I’ve even spammed their name in this comment.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about marketing economics

> So it’s a $12 review, right?

> Compared to a $1k-$5k /video influencer, isn’t that a deal?

I mean, that totally depends on the "influencer" right? How many people will you actually talk to where you've spent $12? How many people will hear about it from the influencer? If they have 1M subs and get $5k, that's half a cent per view.

Sometimes, simple arithmetic can disprove ridiculous viewpoints. Now, it's just a matter if you're one of the types of people that will hold on to ridiculousness in the face of evidence.

Well how many people do you calculate saw my comment?

A loyalty program is probably a better model for attracting regular customers than this though, right.

You want to attract people willing to pay more or less full price. A program that you get the 10th pie free, and always get a free 2L soda with every pie or something would accomplish that better.

An example - I live part of the year in an area that is more a "summer destination" so a lot of the local restaurants close November thru April.

One hotel restaurant stays open year round, and in their first year they mailed everyone locally an offer to get a 15% off "locals only" loyalty card. You had to apply, send some proof you were local, wait for them to mail the card, and then keep it in your wallet. 15% is a nice little incentive, but given tax/tipping/etc, doesn't materially change the price. Going there off season, even just monthly, all the hosts/waiters know us well now vs the more transient guests. So it sticks out in our mind as a reminder that they are always open, and a friendly place to go eat.

I did the same with the free money those gambling sites were all giving away. Stayed disciplined and made around $800

That coupled with the crazy cashback deals that were on offer from referral sites..

I cleared double that, but doubt it would work these days.

Ah with gambling the business model is very different. You just need to be fishing for whales. Somebody can't be a 1000x or even 100x customer on Uber compared to the median. Somebody can easily be a 1000x gambler

Doesn't Uber offer helicopter rides? I'd imagine those people are 100x customers.

I remember playing a lot of very boring optimal blackjack to break even on money and pick up the deposit bonus. Usually you had to do something like play the total amount of the bonus once before you could withdraw it

They still mostly were neither free nor a particularly good deal.

I tried Blue Apron once (probably with a discount). In addition to the dark pattern of we'll send you meals next week by default they pretty much all used, they all seemed to have a really narrow use case.

Basically, you had to be fine with cooking sometimes fairly time-consuming recipes for 2+ people three days a week, but didn't have a well-stocked pantry or interest in doing a grocery shopping.

Really depends on where you live.

In NYC/HCOL areas where the groceries are practically luxury priced, having a discounted meal kit delivered does add up savings-wise.

I think it's like some of the other HCOL urban business models that won't / didn't scale nationally during/after COVID. Favorite example is Peloton. $40/month virtual gym is a great option in NYC where a "nice gym" might cost 5-10x that. In the rest of the country where you can get a serviceable gym for $20-50/mo and NICE one for maybe $100/mo.. it's not a compelling offer! People think I'm joking but my hometown which is 75mi outside NYC has a $20/mo gym. Why would anyone there get a Peloton?

For me, it wasn't even so much the money as it was I had to plan and then do some (sometimes fairly time-consuming) meal prep. There are things I can buy either locally or keep in the freezer that are good and are far less time to prepare.

But I agree with your basic point. More than a meal at McDonald's is probably a lot to many people.

yeah surprisingly that was ideal for me when I was single. i enjoy the actual physical act of cooking but hate the constant planning/prep/shopping. guaranteeing a few healthy dinners a week that I don't have to plan was pretty nice. unfortunately the meal quality dropped a good bit and the recipes get redundant after a while

i'd still recommend it to anyone who's never cooked before at all and wants to start

We use HomeChef now and only get their oven ready or “quick” meals. It’s wonderful.

Previously, we tried a few services. It would often take an hour for me to cook a meal. These weren’t anything special either. I had four major complaints:

* it often felt like recipes would include unnecessary steps just to make you feel like a cook. Things like mixing siracha and mayo to make the dressing when they could have simply sent it combined.

* reading the instructions was a ridiculous slow down. After a full day of work, it wasn’t fun having to interpret the overly zealous recipes.

* the time estimates were clearly made by someone who preps food all day.

* they still expected you to have certain basics. Not really the end of the world, but part of the point was to not worry about any other shopping.

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