Why don't you go out and do the research, find out if Plated is, actually, doing so well, and then come back with some actual findings, rather than a flippant dismissal of this article?
Most Recent Funding
$15 Million Series A on August 9, 2014
In reality, both of them were way too much work. We were excited to try them but don't miss them at all. I think the blog describes it well: this is not a real pain point (at least for us - 2 adults, one baby).
They require you to be pretty adept with a chopping knife and good at prep work, while assuming that the only ingredient you own is cooking oil. So you get cocaine-like bags full of two tablespoons of flour.
It's like a sous chef simulator that fills your house with packaging. I buy as much as I can from them, since I figure they are running at a loss and I want venture capitalists subsidizing my dinner.
But it freaks me out to stab all those melted cold packs and bleed them out into the sink every night.
Yes, that was pretty much what we experienced as well. The prep time was often much longer than 20~30 minutes, and really took the fun out of it.
Admittedly, it was all very tasty but for us, it created more pain than it solved. We tried Plated to see if it was better but it pretty much was the same experience.
I am not responsible for the state of your liver if you follow the implied advice.