That makes sense to me.
Feels like we’re going to have warehouse scale vending machines in cities, and delivery bots taking them from the warehouse-vending-machine to the customer.
Because tips are important to the income of delivery shoppers, I find that I generally get good produce selections. It might be difficult to transition that particular incentive to robots, but the point is that delivery items don't have to suck.
The only thing I really still pick out by hand every time are beef briskets. Pork shoulders tend to be uniform enough that randomly picking a cryovac works out, but there's a good bit of variation in brisket that makes a difference with the final product, at least when the brisket is prepared with a smoker. YMMV
In any event, delivery doesn't always mean the worst of the produce aisle, and while I noted that the incentive of tips might not transfer to robots, keeping repeat customers might be enough incentive for a way to be found to not make robots and grocery synonymous with only frozen food. That might mean human pickers; better automation on the food selection system; pre-inspected, washed and packaged fruits & veggies; etc.
Wait, you tip to get a good selection of produce to be delivered to you? This is very bizarre to me.
With Instacart & Costco memberships and also ordering from the local discount grocers, I can get food delivered for less than it costs to actually go to the mainstream grocery stores like Von's, and I don't get bruised eggplants or cilantro that's already going bad. The drivers/shoppers are generally quite good at picking out items that can lead to higher tips (that or they're just in it for the love of good produce, but either way you can often tell they're not randomly loading the bags).